A Vaccine or My Family: Children of anti-vaxers caught in the Middle
When she went to get her first dose of the vaccine, Anya, 27, told her parents she was going to get her Friday fix of samosas and rasmalai from Bharat Bazaar, the local Indian store. Her parents (family friends of mine) whom she was staying with, in Yuba City—while working remotely —believe that Covid 19 vaccines are “manufactured by the deep state” and that “when 5G gets turned on, it will kill everyone.”
“When they found out I was even thinking about getting it, they cried and legitimately thought I’d be dead in three years,” said Anya. So Anya decided to get the shot in secret. “I almost got caught,” she recalls. Getting the shot took quite some time and adding on the time to get groceries made my trip “seem extremely long.”
Does No One Want To Work Anymore?
Baby Boo is making a face that means she might soon begin to cry. Priya’s neck is sweating. Her armpits are sweating.
Chef—Owner and Head Cook—of one of Los Angeles’ finest Indian restaurants, Bombay Grill, yells, “Pick up for Table number 6, ready!” as he swiftly ladles goat curry fragrant with peppercorns, ginger, and coconut milk atop a puddle of basmati rice. That’s the order for her customer in the corner booth, an olive-hued man in his 30s, lightly tanned, wearing a taupe-colored Stetson hat that covers most of his face.
Surviving and flourishing during the Pandemic
Sixty-three-year-old Julia walked to the edge of the campsite and yanked on the rope that held her food in a tarp off the ground. Outside her trailer, she placed folding chairs, a small camp table, and a Coleman stove, with an old-fashioned coffee pot heating on it. She measured the coffee, turned it on, and thought of what she would make for breakfast—maybe, an omelet with the sourdough bread she’d picked up from The Food Emporium at the nearby riverside market town.
COVID-Complicated Graduations: In-person or Virtual?
Her first reaction after receiving the email from the University announcing that commencement would be conducted online was to cry. Across Southern California, larger colleges were announcing plans for in-person graduations—so why not hers?
Then, twenty-two-year-old Anya dried her tears and turned to Instagram, asking: If Vanguard University hosted an in-person graduation, would they attend?
When eighty percent of the respondents said ‘Yes,’ she and two classmates created a GoFundMe account and started selling tickets.
One Year Later: How Two working Moms Are Doing
Priya Sethi walked outside the kitchen’s back door so that the strong salty sea smell blew onto the balcony. The air had a sharp tang that battled for supremacy over the scents of tandoori salmon and smoke (yesterday’s dinner) that blew out from the kitchen.
She couldn’t see the ocean—a row of bungalows identical to her own, some with redwood planter boxes blooming with trumpet-shaped pink petunias blocked her view. She could hear the water though . . . the steady dull thunder of the surf reminding her that it was close, at the edge of Manhattan Beach in Southern California where they’d relocated to.
How Young People Are Preparing to Party in 2021
After Noori Merchant, 23, got her first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, she reached out to he friends to make travel plans for this summer.
“I’m going crazy. Like, I’m going absolutely nuts,” she says. “I don’t want to get to the point in my life where I’m tied down from family, from work, from whatever, and I didn’t make the most of my youth. So I was the one who was like ‘we need to hang out, we need to hang out.”
Her friends told her they needed to get their shots before they could hang out again. So she’s waiting on that. In the meantime, she’s preparing by practicing her dance moves in a skin-flaunting sequinned top with a silver tulle skirt she hasn’t worn in forever in her Washington D.C. home.