Filipinos #CopingWithCovid — Elizabeth Ann Besa-Quirino

The fol­low­ing is part of Cecil­ia Brainard’s series, Fil­ipinos Cop­ing with Covid.

Respond­ing to my inter­view ques­tions, Fil­ipino Amer­i­can author Eliz­a­beth Ann Besa-Quiri­no describes life in New Jer­sey, USA, dur­ing the time of coro­n­avirus. This was writ­ten on May 24, 2020.

Update August 4, 2020 by Bet­ty Ann Quiri­no: New Jer­sey is still on par­tial lock­down, even if some places opened. Gyms and bars are still not allowed to open. And masks are man­dat­ed in every build­ing, park or pub­lic place.

We are still work­ing from home and prac­tic­ing social dis­tanc­ing as we did in March.

Inter­view of Eliz­a­beth Ann Besa-Quiri­no by Cecil­ia Brainard

Copy­right 2020 by Cecil­ia Brainard

1. Are you still on lockdown? 

Yes, we live in New Jer­sey, a hotspot. Most of the state is still on lock­down. Some places have been allowed to slow­ly re-open, though. But my hus­band and I per­son­al­ly feel it is too soon to go out and min­gle. We live in a sub­ur­ban town in North­west­ern NJ, about 60 miles west of NYC. We are actu­al­ly clos­er to the Penn­syl­va­nia bor­der. My hus­band and I are very strict about social dis­tanc­ing. We have lim­it­ed our trips to essen­tial places in town – like the food store or farmer’s stores every 2 weeks, occa­sion­al­ly the bank ATM, the gas sta­tion, and the post office.

2. Are you work­ing? IF yes, are you work­ing from your home or do you have to go to your place of work? 

Yes, I am a free­lance jour­nal­ist, writer and author. I work from home; I always have even pre-pan­dem­ic. I keep reg­u­lar office hours. So, I am used to the work-from-home sce­nario My hus­band has been work­ing from home since the lock­down began in mid-March. He works in his den and main­tains strict office hours. We try not to dis­turb each oth­er, espe­cial­ly if we have web meet­ings or online sem­i­nars going on. We are both for­tu­nate we have the lux­u­ry of work­ing from home, so we can be iso­lat­ed from the dan­gers of being con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by those who have Covid19.

3. Were you affect­ed finan­cial­ly by the pan­dem­ic? Did you lose your job? Did you get assistance?

No not yet, thank good­ness. For now, we both are work­ing hard and keep­ing our expens­es down, being eco­nom­i­cal and thrifty. We are prepar­ing our­selves for the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion to get worse than it already is.

4. Do you go out ? To take walks? To see relatives/friends? For exercise? 

If we go out we only go food shop­ping, and to essen­tial places like the bank, gas sta­tion, post office. We have not seen rel­a­tives or friends, not even neigh­bors, since the lock­down start­ed in March. We have not seen our sons (who each live in SF and in Philadel­phia) since pre-pan­dem­ic. It is sim­ply not safe to be out and about. For exer­cise, we have our indoor tread­mill. And I have my online exer­cise classes.

5. Do you wear a face mask? Do you prac­tice social distancing? 

Yes, my hus­band and I both wear masks. We’ve had these pro­tec­tive masks with replace­able fil­ters since last year, pre-pan­dem­ic. My son who lives in SF got them for us, for our vis­its dur­ing the time the Cal­i­for­nia air qual­i­ty was bad due to the wild fires last year. So, when the pan­dem­ic hap­pened, we were ready with our masks. We actu­al­ly start­ed wear­ing them here in NJ, way before it was state-man­dat­ed, for pro­tec­tion and as a cour­tesy to oth­er peo­ple. And recent­ly, I gave my hus­band a hat which has a plas­tic face shield. I got myself a sim­i­lar sun hat with a pro­tec­tive plas­tic shield. I used it over my face mask when we ven­tured to the whole­sale club last week. It made me feel safe. And yes, we prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing – at least 6 feet apart from oth­er peo­ple if we have to be outside.

In the past, all I need­ed to wor­ry about before leav­ing the house, was where my sun­glass­es were. These days, before leav­ing the house – we are in full bat­tle gear with masks, face shields, gloves, san­i­tiz­ers, and all. I am cer­tain even­tu­al­ly; we will get used to this as a way of life.

6. Please describe your dai­ly routine: 

 
On week­days, I keep reg­u­lar office hours, as a free­lance jour­nal­ist, writer and author. I main­tain reg­u­lar office hours – writ­ing, read­ing, researching.

My work days are filled with work-relat­ed phone calls, web sem­i­nars, zoom meetings.

I quit work­ing by 5 ‑6 pm. I log on to my online exer­cise class­es or else go on the tread­mill. I start cook­ing, get on social media, watch the news, and then we have din­ner. These days, the news has become unbear­able, so we keep it to a min­i­mum, lim­it­ing our feed to local New Jer­sey news from our Gov­er­nor, so we know what resources we have, as far as Covid19 is. After din­ner, I chat with our sons. Then, we binge on Net­flix, Prime, Hulu and Apple TV.

I end my day the same way I start­ed it – with prayers to restore my faith, hope and courage in these tough times.

7. Do you go buy your own groceries? 

Yes, I go to the stores of local farms, more often than the large super­mar­kets – the farm stores have curb­side ser­vice, so the clerk puts my orders in the car trunk and I don’t need to have any human con­tact with them.

8. Do you order food to go?

No, I have always done my own home cook­ing and bak­ing, even before the pan­dem­ic. That has been our norm. I bake our own Fil­ipino pan de sal and ensay­madas I haven’t been able to go to the Asian mar­ket, which is an hour away, since the lockdown.

9. Do you shop online? 

Yes, I shop for oth­er essen­tials online on Ama­zon, Tar­get, Wal­mart. The point is to avoid going out unnecessarily.

10. Do you wor­ry about the future? 

Yes, of course, like all human­i­ty prob­a­bly wor­ries these days. I try not to give in to my fears or to any form of depres­sion. I told my sons the same thing – you can­not give in to fears, to sad­ness, to anx­i­ety, because if you do, then the ene­my wins. In this case, the ene­my is the virus. But I know the world will over­come this, as we have in the past.

As Fil­ipinos, we are strong, resilient, and we bounce back every time from any calami­ty. And I noticed with most Fil­ipinos, we do not whine, rant or com­plain as much as oth­er nation­al­i­ties do. We know how to bear heavy bur­dens with­out com­plain­ing. I think we learned these lessons from our par­ents and grand­par­ents – they were the best gen­er­a­tion there was. We learned from their sto­ries and how they lived their lives.

11. What do you miss doing? 

I miss see­ing my sons and vis­it­ing them in the cities where they live. I miss trav­el­ing for vaca­tions – over­seas espe­cial­ly. We had to can­cel a trip to the Philip­pines ear­ly this year when the pan­dem­ic cri­sis was get­ting alarm­ing. I want to be opti­mistic that in time, we can see our fam­i­ly and close friends again and hug them in person.

12. Do you have tips about sur­viv­ing this pandemic? 

Lis­ten to sci­en­tists and doc­tors who went to med­ical school for the cor­rect infor­ma­tion, data and devel­op­ments on the Covid19. Do not be swayed by emo­tion of oth­ers who do not have fac­tu­al basis for sci­en­tif­ic information.

Know how to dis­cern what is real, infor­ma­tive news from what is fake or polit­i­cal propaganda.

Do not give in to fears, pan­ic or anx­i­ety. Talk to some­one you trust if you must.

Be in touch always with those you love.

Be grate­ful. Find a way to help oth­ers and give back to the community.

Keep the faith, have hope and be brave always.

Bio: Eliz­a­beth Ann Besa-Quiri­no, Fil­ipino Amer­i­can author, is a mul­ti-award­ed win­ner of the Plar­idel Writ­ing Awards for best in jour­nal­ism, giv­en by the Philip­pine-Amer­i­can Press Club in San Fran­cis­co, CA. Her food essay “A Hun­dred Man­goes in a Bot­tle” has won a Doreen Gam­boa Fer­nan­dez Food Writ­ing Award. She was an awardee of the FWN Fil­ip­ina Women’s Net­work 100 Most Influ­en­tial Women of the World in 2013.

Bet­ty Ann, as she is fond­ly called, was born and raised in Tar­lac, Philip­pines and now based in New Jer­sey, USA. She is a jour­nal­ist, author, and a cor­re­spon­dent for Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino online mag­a­zine. She blogs about Fil­ipino home cook­ing recipes on her pop­u­lar site Asian in America.

She recent­ly launched her cook­book: Instant Fil­ipino Recipes: My Mother’s Tra­di­tion­al Philip­pine Food in a Mul­ti­cook­er Pot, a fol­low up to My Mother’s Philip­pine Recipes, a col­lec­tion of her late mother’s favorite Fil­ipino tra­di­tion­al dish­es which Bet­ty Ann trans­formed to every­day cook­ing in her Amer­i­can kitchen. Oth­er books she has writ­ten are How to Cook Philip­pine Desserts, Cakes and Snacks; States­man and Sur­vivor Elpidio Quiri­no, 6th Pres­i­dent of the Philip­pines; and she illus­trat­ed Col­or and Cook Food Col­or­ing Book, an adult col­or­ing book of Fil­ipino food. All books are sold on Amazon.com.

Her writ­ing has been pub­lished on Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino; FOOD Mag­a­zine by ABS-CBN Pub­lish­ing Inc.; Rustan’s Sans Rival Mag­a­logue; and QuirkDIY, Quirk Books Com­mu­ni­ty Blog (Philadel­phia, PA). She has made a guest appear­ance on the TV net­work KACL-LA 18’s Halo-Halo with Kat Ini­ba, which aired in Cal­i­for­nia and Hawaii.

Bet­ty Ann is a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Culi­nary Pro­fes­sion­als (NYC); the New York Women’s Culi­nary Alliance, and is on the board of the Fil­ipino Food Move­ment. She is also on the Pres­i­dent Elpidio Quiri­no Foun­da­tion Board of Advisors.

Bet­ty Ann trav­els often to the Philip­pines and through­out Asia in search of tra­di­tion­al recipes, and sto­ries about cul­ture and per­son­al­i­ties. She is cur­rent­ly deep in the trench­es writ­ing her next book on Fil­ipino food and fam­i­ly relationships.

Find Bet­ty Ann Quiri­no on Face­book, Twit­ter, Insta­gram, Pin­ter­est, LinkedIn and her site AsianInAmericaMag.com

~

Read also:
Coro­n­avirus: The Begin­ning, by Cecil­ia Brainard
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid, Part One (Cecil­ia Brainard, Pos­i­tive­ly Filipino)
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid, Part Two (C. Brainard, PF) 
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid-19, Part Three (C.Brainard, PF)

Covid-19: An Encounter with a Bee Dur­ing Quarantine

Inter­views follow:
Lia Fer­aren, Germany
Tere­sa Con­cep­cion, Canada
 Ofe­lia Gelve­zon Tequi, France
Reine Marie Bon­nie Melvin, France
New Zealand: Jay Mon­til­la & Moni­ka Tawngdee
Lin­da Ty-Casper, Mass­a­chu­setts, USA
Bar­bara Ann Jacala, San Diego, CA, USA
Bri­an Ascalon Roley, Ohio, USA
Eliz­a­beth Ann Besa-Quiri­no, USA
Inter­view of Cecil­ia Brainard by 95.9 Star FM Bacolod (DJ Bil­lie), USA

Inter­views of Fil­ipino Amer­i­cans #Cop­ing­With­Covid

All of the above links are part of the Philip­pine Covid Archive of Fil­ip­inas Her­itage Library.

tags: #coro­n­avirus #covid19 #covid #Fil­ipinos #cop­ing­with­covid #Paris #France #Europe #Fil­ipinoFrench #French­Fil­ipino #Fil­ipinoAmer­i­can #Bacolod #Philip­pines