Community Within Covid19

Description: Ann is a 42-year-old woman. She is Chinese American and describes herself as middle class. She is a small business owner of a sushi restaurant in St. Louis. She is a striking woman who walks with purpose and isn’t afraid to stare you in the eyes for extended periods of time. The bolded text is my dialogue and everything else is the interviewee's. What does community mean to you? To me, community means those who support me and who I support in return. [Support in what way?]  Financially, at least partly. As a restaurant owner, I’m not expecting my friends and family to pay full price, but if they never come into my store I would take that to heart. [Why do you think that is?]  When you run a restaurant, unless you are in a very very well-off place, it is a full-time job. I am in my place of business for almost 14 hours a day almost every day of the week. It is more than just a job. It is an extension of where you live. And when the people closest to you don’t come ...

Description: August "Auggie" is my brother! He is a 26-year-old guy from Oakland, California. He identifies himself as Latino and white as well as middle class. He has long curly hair and a bushy beard that he has been cultivating for the lockdown. He was very nice and agreed to be interviewed on zoom to help out his little sister. The bolded text is my dialogue and everything else is the interviewee's. What does community mean to you? Great question! Hmmm. I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this on my own lately. I would say that community exists in spaces that you feel nurtured in. Whether that be family, fellow laborers, or the same identity marker. [Identity markers?] Yeah, like ethnicity, class, regional spaces. Just anywhere that feels restorative.  Where did you find community during quarantine?/Did you find it at all? Yeah! So I work for the San Francisco Transportation Department and we’ve been online for a full year with at least another half a year expect...

Description: Ms. Judy is a 67-year-old white woman from Kirksville, Missouri. She is of slight build with pretty brown and heathered gray hair. She considers herself to be middle class. I approached her at the Hyvee cafeteria and asked if she would like to be interviewed for a school project. The bolded text is my dialogue and everything else is the interviewee's.  What does community mean to you?  Where you live and the people you love.  Where did you find community during quarantine?/Did you find it at all? I don’t have any family in town and I never married, so my community has always been my girlfriends and some of their husbands. I don’t like all of their husbands though. [How did things change with them once all the precautions were put into place? Or did things not really change?] They did. We used to all come into the cafeteria and eat lunch most days a week. Now we can’t and the few times we have tried I can’t really enjoy myself with all the masks on and new rul...

Description: Ricky is a 10-year-old boy from St. Louis, Missouri. He lives with his mother in a single-parent household. They are Congolese American and his mother says they identify as lower-middle-class. Ricky has a bright smile and one visible dimple. He offered to run inside and get me a drink three times during our outside and social distanced interview. The bolded text is my dialogue and everything else is the interviewee's. What does community mean to you?  “What- like groups of people and stuff?” [Yeah! Also, like time with friends and family. What’s important about that in your opinion? Sorry for the tough question right of the bat.] “Hmmm. It’s not that hard! I think it’s important because you get lonely without it. Like how people are sad when they have no friends or family to play with.” Where did you find community during quarantine?/Did you find it at all? “Well, my mom and my teachers said that me and my friends couldn’t hang out anymore last year. And that really ma...

Throughout this whole semester, what has drawn me most is people. Humans are social creatures, and Covid19 has gotten in the way of that in an unprecedented way. Plague times are lonely times. But we have something now that our ancestors did not, the ability to connect virtually. What has connection looked like for people during this time? I want to conduct several interviews with people from a variety of demographics including age, race, social class, etc. I want to discuss community, and what that has looked like for them in this current situation. There will be some set questions I plan to ask but I am also open to wherever the speaker may wish to lead.  My set questions will be as follows: What does community mean to you? Where did you find community during quarantine?/Did you find it at all? What did these moments look like? Did you have different expectations on those moments than you would have pre-pandemic? Will community look different for you after the pandemic is over?

  Hello, my name is Gabriella Mense. I am currently a senior at Truman State University at Kirksville, MO. I grew up in St. Louis and so have gotten to experience a small-town environment for the first time in my life! I am creating this blog for a semester-long project for my English class, that is meant to analyze Covid19 from a community-focused standpoint.  I think this pandemic will change us all in a myriad of ways most especially in how we connect to those around us. Thank you for reading and I hope you subscribe to go on this journey along with me!