Interviews of Filipino Americans #CopingWithCovid

 

INTERVIEWS OF FILIPINOS IN AMERICA by Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard, 

The fol­low­ing inter­views are part of Cecil­ia Brainard’s Fil­ipinos #Cop­ing­With­Covid series. These were done last May 25, 2020. Since then, the Unit­ed States has had a surge of Covid cas­es with 3.48 mil­lion con­firmed cas­es, and 138,000 deaths (as of July 15,2020). 

Copy­right 2020 by Cecil­ia M. Brainard

MARIANO ABERASTURI

ER Nurse, New York 

Inter­view done on May 25, 2020

I am 24 years old.  I am a nurse, work­ing night shifts three times a week at Suny down­state Brook­lyn. I only deal with covid patients since my hos­pi­tal was one of the three hos­pi­tals in NY that became a covid-only patients hos­pi­tal. We have lost many patients to covid but  I haven’t lost any­one I know personally.

As of May 25, we are still on lock­down. I am not alone. I am with my sis­ter, Ina, her boyfriend and my girl­friend Sab­ri­na. Yes, we prac­tice social distancing. 

Finan­cial­ly we have to spend more for safety.

Mar­i­ano and his sis­ter Mar­ti­na Aberas­turi who works as a phys­i­cal ther­a­pist in NY

I go out only to go to work and buy gro­ceries. I don’t go out to see rel­a­tives nor friends. I exer­cise at home. I wear face mask every time I go out and prac­tice social distancing.

I have cof­fee, pre­pare for work, get back from work, cook din­ner, go to sleep or watch movies or use social media if I have spare time. I exer­cise on my day offs and watch movies and try cook­ing or bak­ing some new recipes.

Yes, we do buy our own gro­ceries. We take pre­cau­tions by prac­tic­ing social dis­tanc­ing and always wear­ing a face mask.  We wash our hands when we get home. Before we get into our liv­ing room, we spray the soles of our shoes with Lysol.

Yes, we order take out. We throw away the bag right away and wash our hands after.

We shop online.

Yes, I wor­ry that this will get worse or this will be the new nor­mal and we may take for grant­ed what was con­sid­ered nor­mal before, and we may nev­er expe­ri­ence that old nor­mal again. I feel anx­ious some­times but I try to think of pos­i­tive thoughts and focus on my future. I sleep well now. When the pan­dem­ic start­ed, I used to feel anx­ious going to work and wor­ried I would get the virus and die with­out even trav­el­ing the world and doing the things I always thought of doing espe­cial­ly since I’m just start­ing to earn mon­ey and live independently. 

I miss being able to go out with­out wear­ing a mask and not being afraid of con­tract­ing some­thing. I miss tak­ing a walk for fresh air and see­ing friends and hav­ing din­ners with them and going out and explor­ing the city. 

My advise is: Take your vit­a­mins, wear face mask always and dis­pose after, try to live pos­i­tive­ly, wash your hands, exer­cise, eat right, dis­tract your­self, and most­ly focus on your­self still and be nice to every­one. Prac­tice social dis­tance and avoid touch­ing your face with dirty hands. Yes, masks are help­ful. Social dis­tanc­ing makes a dif­fer­ence since the virus is most like­ly spread via droplets. 
We are all expe­ri­enc­ing this cri­sis, not just you as an indi­vid­ual. 

It’s scary but this will be a les­son for every­one to not take things for grant­ed. Always be health con­scious and work on your health and your body to make it stronger. Once this is all over, thank God for every­thing and start build­ing yourself. 

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CORALIS SALVADOR

Lay Mis­sion­ary, El Paso/Mexico Bor­der, USA

I’m cur­rent­ly a Mary­knoll Lay Mis­sion­ary in El Paso/Mexico Bor­der.  I live in a com­mu­ni­ty with three oth­er peo­ple.  The city has par­tial­ly opened, keep­ing strict adher­ence to wear­ing face mask and social dis­tanc­ing.  We were in lock­down from March to April.  In mid-May, El Paso par­tial­ly opened. 

My min­istry is a feed­ing pro­gram at a Parish run by five Jesuit priests and a shel­ter for migrants/refugees. I dri­ve to get to my two min­istry destinations.

I expe­ri­enced no finan­cial nor work lost.

Yes, went out for walks at near­by parks;  did zoom calls/events with friends and rel­a­tives i.e. wed­ding, birth­days, work­shops & meet­ings; vis­it­ed some friends/relatives (not affect­ed by CV19) — main­tain­ing social dis­tance and wash­ing or san­i­tiz­ing hands as often as possible.

YES I wear mask when out in pub­lic.  In my com­mu­ni­ty home, we main­tain social dis­tanc­ing only.

In the morn­ing, we do com­mu­ni­ty reflection/meditation; fol­lowed by break­fast.  If it’s day of work, I leave for work 10:30 am and return 7:30 pm (3x a week) and leave for work 7:30 am to noon or 4 pm for home.  Upon arrival, wash hands, change cloth­ing and rest;  prep for din­ner (if it’s my turn) or walk/exercise 30 min. fol­lowed by gar­den­ing.  Din­ner at 7pm, clean up, play games or watch news after din­ner, or movie on non-work­ing day; 9:30/10 pm prep for bed, do emails, etc. Final­ly, sleep after 11:30 pm

Yes, we take turns shop­ping for food once a week.  Wash hands or san­i­tize hands, wear face mask and social dis­tanc­ing. When we order food to go, we remove packed veg­eta­bles and put them in indi­vid­ual container/ziploc bags, wash fruits pri­or stor­ing them in the refrig­er­a­tor.  We do not san­i­tize mails or pack­ages but dis­pose them imme­di­ate­ly or file them away.  We do recy­cling and com­post­ing of vegetables/fruits.

We shop via Ama­zon and we also go direct­ly to the super­mar­ket for food, etc.

No, I do not wor­ry about the future, nor do I feel anx­ious. I sleep well – prac­tice of med­i­ta­tions (2x/day) and present to the moment is my norm.

I miss per­son­al con­tacts with friends, chil­dren, grand­chil­dren, and fam­i­lies, but most espe­cial­ly, receiv­ing the Holy Eucharist. 

My advise is: Trust in God. Be grate­ful for all things

The lock­down (mid March to April) was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op relationship/close ties with rel­a­tives, old/new friends, show care, kind­ness, empa­thy to them and to one’s com­mu­ni­ty; appre­ci­a­tion of moth­er earth and the impor­tance of doing our role in its preser­va­tion,  last­ly, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lis­ten to the Pope’s homi­ly many times a week and see the rel­e­vance and how to par­tic­i­pate in his encycli­cal Lauda­to Si.

*

ANGELICA MADRID 

Retired from Jack­son, TN:

My hus­band and I came to the US 26 yrs. Ago. We worked for some years then retired at the age 70. As a retired cou­ple here, we have adjust­ed well to our life in Jack­son, TN because of our Fil­ipino community.

As retirees my hus­band and I stay at home. When the pan­dem­ic broke out, our lives did not change much. We are okay. We do house­hold chores as usu­al. I clean the house and my hus­band does yard work. We go to the gro­ceries with masks and social dis­tanc­ing. We wash our hands often and avoid touch­ing door­knobs in pub­lic places.

I spend time read­ing biog­ra­phy books. We watch Philip­pine show biz arti­cles in the inter­net and watch Netflix.

 I do our laun­dry, iron clothes, and arrange cup­board and cab­i­nets. There is end­less work at home.

I don’t have social con­tact except with Face­book and Mes­sag­ing. I always talk with my chil­dren and sib­lings via phone or video calls.

We have Social Secu­ri­ty pen­sions and try our best to live with­in our means.

About wor­ries, there are some but I try my best to over­come them.

I miss shop­ping and occa­sion­al casi­no vis­its. We are now allowed to go to church with masks and social dis­tanc­ing, but I missed it when we couldn’t go to church.
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ANONYMOUS  14-year old Teenager

Long Beach, California

We’re still in mod­i­fied lock­down with my imme­di­ate fam­i­ly in Long Beach. My grand­par­ents some­times dri­ve by to see us. We prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing and wear masks, no usu­al hug­ging nor kiss­ing, no “mano po”, but we bump elbows or feet.

 School is still in ses­sion but online. 

 My par­ents are both work­ing so we are lucky to be finan­cial­ly unaffected. 

 We walked to Island Pacif­ic Mar­ket one time but oth­er than that I stay home. We all wore masks and kept a safe dis­tance from oth­ers while inside the market. 

 After wak­ing up I eat break­fast and then show­er.  I turn on my com­put­er to do school­work, attend Zoom meet­ings while lis­ten­ing to music or there’s a video in the back­ground.  I help dur­ing meal­times by either set­ting or clear­ing the table. I try to “talk” to my friends every­day through social media or video chats.

 Yes I wor­ry about the future because we don’t know how long the COVID-19 and the lock­down will last and what it’s going to be like in the fall for the next school year.

 I don’t have night­mares of bad dreams all the time but when I do, it usu­al­ly involves some­thing with the virus. I feel anx­ious every sin­gle day but I keep it in the back of my mind until I’m done with my work, but it’s always there.  I’ve been sleep­ing lat­er to the point that it’s ear­ly in the morn­ing when I do fall sleep.

 What I miss doing- I miss see­ing my friends. I miss being able to live normally.

 No tips in mind oth­er than “don’t be stu­pid” or don’t dis­obey lockdown/quarantine rules.

 I’ve nev­er strug­gled with my school work until now. For some rea­son, my Eng­lish teacher feels the need to assign home­work every sin­gle day and have it due the next day even though we nev­er did that dur­ing nor­mal school. My teach­ers could be deal­ing with this in a more effi­cient way. They’re ask­ing too much of their stu­dents! “We know we’re in a dif­fi­cult, try­ing time but here’s over 20 dif­fer­ent arti­cles for you to read and respond to.” (Extreme exam­ple, but basi­cal­ly what it feels like). Kids are try­ing to grap­ple with the fact that peo­ple are dying because of this pan­dem­ic and are expect­ed to stay focused on Math?

~~~

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