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Interview of Cecilia Brainard by 95.9 Star FM Bacolod

August 21, 2020 by admin 1 Comment

INTERVIEW OF CECILIA MANGUERRA BRAINARD by DJ Bil­lie of 95.0 Star FM Bacolod about Life in the US dur­ing Coro­n­avirus Here’s the interview:
Interview by Ve Ann Joy D. Lumangyao,.LPT (DJ Billie)
Disc Jockey
95.9 Star FM Bacolod
starfm_bacolod@bomboradyo.info
707‑2836 I 441‑1670; 09957924803

1. Greet­ings:  I am Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard, author and edi­tor of over twen­ty books, includ­ing the nov­els, When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept, Mag­dale­na, and The News­pa­per Wid­ow. — please see my site for bio:  ceciliabrainard.com

2.Kamusta ang buhay niyo dyan sa America?
As of August 21, 2020, here in Cal­i­for­nia, we no longer have a lock­down and the econ­o­my is open­ing up. Cal­i­for­nia is not doing well; as of today there are 227,346 con­firmed Covid19 cas­es in Los Ange­les Coun­ty alone, with 5,446 deaths. In my city, San­ta Mon­i­ca, it is manda­to­ry to wear masks once you are out­side your house. Only out­door restau­rant din­ing is allowed and so you see park­ing lots of restau­rants con­vert­ed for out­door eat­ing. The mar­kets, stores, and estab­lish­ments that are open require face­mask and social dis­tanc­ing of six feet.
I stay at home as much as pos­si­ble and go out only if nec­es­sary to the post office, mar­ket, etc.  I have post­poned non-essen­tial activ­i­ties such as den­tal check­ups and vet vis­its for my cats. We lim­it the peo­ple we see and when we are with them, we wear masks and prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing.  When we do see them, we sit out­side and we keep six feet between us. We are very very care­ful because some peo­ple are asymp­to­matic and not even know it. For a while my son was buy­ing our gro­ceries but now I go to the super­mar­ket with mask, gloves, shield, and san­i­tiz­er in hand. I san­i­tize every­thing I buy or I quar­an­tine them in the garage for a day or two. I spray the soles of my shoes before enter­ing the house. If I had spent a lot of time at the super­mar­ket, I will take a show­er and change cloth­ing.  Oth­er peo­ple don’t do this; I am very very cau­tious because I have a his­to­ry of asthma.
3. As we are still fac­ing the strug­gle we have today, ano ano ba ang pinagkakaa­bal­a­han natin?
I feel sad that my hus­band and I have not seen some of our grand­chil­dren for their and our pro­tec­tion. The ones we do see, we do not hug nor kiss but prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing with them. I am sad every time I check Coro­n­avirus updates and see the increas­ing num­ber of deaths glob­al­ly.  I feel as if I’m in a dream some­times, espe­cial­ly when I con­sid­er that Coro­n­avirus may nev­er be erad­i­cat­ed and that life will nev­er be as it was.
4. Kamus­ta naman ang sit­wasy­on dyan ngayon?
Because of Trump’s mixed mes­sages that are not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based, Amer­i­cans are con­fused. For instance wear­ing a mask has become a polit­i­cal issue, with pro-Trump sup­port­ers advo­cat­ing not wear­ing masks, when in fact mask-wear­ing is a sim­ple pub­lic-health mat­ter and every­one should wear masks. Dr. Fau­ci, the world’s lead­ing epi­demi­ol­o­gist is attacked by Trump and his fol­low­ers for instance when his advice is science-based.
The mat­ter of schools is anoth­er issue that is con­sum­ing peo­ple. Trump and some of his fol­low­ers want schools to open and not just have online class­es. Many teach­ers, par­ents and stu­dents are wary of open­ing up schools. My own grand­chil­dren have schools that do online class­es. Oth­er­s­wise, their par­ents would home school them rather than to send them to school and risk expo­sure to Covid19.
5. Meron ka bang mga cur­rent updates na pwede mong iba­ha­gi saamin?
Please read my Fil­ipinos #Cop­ing­With­Covid series — see links below. I inter­viewed Fil­ipino Amer­i­cans in New Jer­sey, Ohio, Boston, San Diego, Ten­nessee and oth­er places.
6. Dito sa Pinas, taga saan ka naman Ma’am? Before you go there at Amer­i­ca, may tra­ba­ho din ba kayo dito dati?
I was born and raised Cebu. I attend­ed STC San Marceli­no for high school and Mary­knoll Col­lege for col­lege. I came to the US as a grad­u­ate stu­dent, but right after grad­u­at­ing from Mary­knoll Col­lege I worked for around six months at the Nation­al Media Pro­duc­tion Cen­ter in the Doc­u­men­tary section.
7. May bal­ak ka pa bang umuwi sakaling mat­a­pos as soon as pos­si­ble ang Pandemic?
Yes, as soon as there is a vac­cine or treat­ment, I plan to vis­it the Philip­pines. I real­ize that even then we will have to be care­ful as this virus is expect­ed to be here for always.
8. May bali­ta din ba kayo sa ating mga kababayan dyan?
Please read my inter­views of Fil­ipino Amer­i­cans in the links below.
I know the sit­u­a­tion is bad in the Philip­pines as well. My advice is to fol­low the sci­en­tists and to beware of fake news. There are many “reme­dies” for instance that are not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-proven. Wear a face mask, prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing, wash your hands often, try not to touch your face  — these are basics. One should also boost one’s immu­ni­ty by eat­ing prop­er­ly, exer­cis­ing, and tak­ing care of one’s body.
To Fil­ipinos who have extend­ed fam­i­lies, be very cau­tious even with fam­i­ly mem­bers. My first cousin, Con­gress­man Tony Cuen­co in Cebu died from Covid 19 which he con­tract­ed at a small fam­i­ly gathering.
9. Ano ang maibaba­ha­gi mo sa ating mga ka Star Nation?
Thank you for your work. Con­tin­ue to inform peo­ple the TRUTH. You are edu­cat­ing peo­ple with your work, and this is important.
10. Ano naman ang men­sa­he mo sa iyong pam­ilya, mga kaibi­gan, kak­i­lala na nai­wan dito sa Pinas at sa lahat ng mga naapek­tuhan ng Pandemic?
These are dif­fi­cult times but it is impor­tant to remem­ber that this too will pass. Some­times we get depressed and sad, which is nat­ur­al, but try to think and do pos­i­tive things, like help­ing oth­ers. A bit of kind­ness, even a smile can lift up the spir­it, so be gen­er­ous with your kind­ness. Don’t spread fake news as these just con­fuse peo­ple. Check your media sources, espe­cial­ly news that seem very titillating.
Thank you so much Ma’am.  God bless and Keep safe!
Thank you DJ Bil­lie for the interview.

–

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)

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

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: #CopingwithCovid #covid, #pandemic #covid19 #coronavirus coronavirus, pandemic

Comments

  1. carmela hechanova says

    August 22, 2020 at 3:01 pm

    Well explained Baby our sit­u­a­tion here.
    This is going to be our new normal.
    I miss hug­ging my apos who vis­it me in the garage and whom I vis­it in their front porch. No way I can go back to Vegas to be with my youngest apo. My daugh­ter works in Covid hos­pi­tal. Thank God for Face­Time ❤️❤️
    Wow I got to talk­ing too much. Stay well 🙏🏼🙏🏼❤️❤️

    Reply

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Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

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