5
Coping, Spring 2020
When New Yorkers confronted the pandemic, some bravely faced danger to serve the public. A few pretended there was no reason to change their daily routines. The rest of us endured, finding big and small ways to overcome the isolation of lockdown, connect with others, and maybe even reduce the suffering of friends, family, and neighbors.
The goal in the spring of 2020 was to “flatten the curve,”1 or slow the spread of the infection. Closing businesses, houses of worship, and schools, and urging everyone to stay home, gave the virus fewer opportunities to spread from one person to another; with a reduced spread, hospitals would receive fewer patients and could better care for those who came in their doors—an urgent imperative when hospitals were overflowing and hundreds were dying each day.
In their efforts to cope in an uncertain time, many found stability and strength in the daily television briefings of Governor Cuomo, who combined a tough yet humane demeanor with a commitment to relying on facts when making decisions.2
For many in the city and state of New York, and nationwide, Cuomo was a reliable source of information and a steadying leader, particularly in comparison to the erratic President Trump, and to Mayor de Blasio, who underplayed the danger of the virus, disagreed with his own health department, and acted slowly in response to COVID-19. But Cuomo had flaws as well. His ongoing quarrels with Mayor de Blasio delayed city and state action. And as early as March 2020, Cuomo’s administration directed nursing homes to accept elderly COVID-19 patients who were discharged from hospitals, then undercounted the surge in deaths that followed and worked to conceal their full extent.3
If Cuomo helped the general public cope, countless individuals found their own ways to deal with the pandemic, helping immediate friends and family, or working to build collective strength in a badly shaken city.
In a time when close contact carried the threat of infection, one coping strategy was to huddle up—as a couple, a family, or mixture of friends and family—to ride out the pandemic in a residential group, or “pod.” Exchanging the wider world for the support of a small circle of roommates, such New Yorkers learned to highlight their weeks with everything from dinners to dance sessions to workouts to binging on television.
When so much seemed unstable, enduring sources of belief became important. Firmly religious people could double down on their faith because it offered hope in desperate circumstances. Secular and religious New Yorkers alike looked beyond the present and envisioned a fairer and healthier future that would redeem the sufferings and inequalities of 2020.
As long days of isolation dulled the senses, beauty, too, became more important. As the spring advanced, people could be seen gazing with wonder at flowers that blossomed in the patches of earth surrounding street trees. Some photographed the blooms with cell phones and posted them online, sharing signs of life in the midst of death and spreading beautiful images in a visually parched city.
Social media helped people connect online. Zoom became a way of gathering for religious services, lectures, meetings, concerts, conversations, parties, and oral history interviews. New Yorkers who left the city for country houses (and discovered that the fears bred by the pandemic followed them) used social media to maintain contact with friends and relatives in the city. Teachers used various platforms (with mixed results) to teach classes.
Nightly cheers for essential workers provided an opportunity for connection, but the city was not as one. Some New Yorkers denied the dangers of COVID-19 or scorned masks and social distancing. Heavy-breathing joggers who passed near pedestrians drew scorn. In southern Brooklyn many Orthodox Jews rejected masking and social distancing because they wanted to continue religious and cultural traditions at all costs. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio criticized police for not adhering to masking requirements.4 Even more troubling, some New Yorkers blamed Asian Americans for the virus. The actions of President Trump—who had repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” despite warnings that this would set off racist reactions—echoed into New York City and shaped everyday life under COVID-19. Asian Americans suffered attacks ranging from slurs to physical assaults.5
In the spring of 2020, there were definitely heroes—people who knew the dangers of COVID-19 and risked their lives to help others in need. More of us got by on something less exalted, but still important: a dogged adherence to the demands of social distancing. Whether you stayed at home in the city to avoid getting infected or left town, the practical result was the same: fewer people getting sick, and fewer patients in hard-pressed hospitals. The Chinese American folklorist Mackenzie Kwok got at this when she wrote, “As New Yorkers are well aware, life goes on not because we are brave, but because we have no other choice.”6
By the end of May 2020, New York City’s tally of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths showed that the city’s collective efforts to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 had succeeded. On May 26, the number of deaths was down to sixty-one per day—a fraction of the almost eight hundred per day calculated on April 11. This was a collective victory that New Yorkers could be proud of.7
With the decline in infections and deaths, the rationale for keeping New York on PAUSE would be open to question. But in a city where people had coped with the pandemic in so many different ways—from sheltering at home to working on the frontlines, from vigilant masking to skepticism about masking—it was not clear what kind of city would appear when New York emerged from lockdown.
Figure 10 March 28, 2020: Bus configured to keep passengers away from the bus operator. Photograph by Megan Green.
Davidson Garrett
Davidson Garrett, a poet, writer, and actor who lives on East 28th Street in Manhattan, drove a taxi in New York City from 1978 to 2018. His poem first appeared in Coronavirus Haiku, edited by Mark Nowak for the Worker Writers School.8
no opera now
the virus darkened the Met
but birds sing to me
Embracing Solitude
Adele Dressner
Shortly before the pandemic began, Adele Dressner, who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, lost her partner and retired after serving for forty years as president of All-In-One Suppliers, a store fixture and display business founded by her uncle Herman Dressner in 1914.9
On March 11, 2020, I celebrated my birthday with my nephew, niece, and two great nieces. We met in a Korean restaurant, washed our hands (since we were somewhat aware that something troublesome was on the New York horizon), and shared food and laughter. We tentatively hugged goodbye, and I hopped on the Q train to ride four stops back to my home.
It was a great evening. The very next day, I received a call from my niece who told me that her brother (the nephew who dined with us the night before) was very sick with COVID and that I should not even think about leaving my apartment for the foreseeable future. I have been there ever since.
What I have learned is that I can be alone, something I always dreaded. I have lost two long-term loves in my life, and each time I was devastated, and only was able to resume some semblance of normalcy because of the support and love of friends and family who made sure that I was never alone if I didn’t want to be.
I have also learned that in solitude there can be growth. When you are more focused, and not busy with an over-scheduled life, it does allow for more introspection. I almost never cooked in these past years (with or without my special person by my side) but preferred to dine out with friends, enjoying the social aspects as well as sampling new cuisine. Now I prepare healthy and, to my surprise, very creative meals for myself. Full disclosure: I would rather be sharing something I made with someone I love, but since that is not prudent at this time, I have learned to adapt and even enjoy the experience.
I have personally known several Holocaust survivors, and have always been deeply interested, actually fascinated, by their stories. I found out that one thing they all had in common, was an ability to live one day, actually one minute at a time, and not think about the future. I am trying, albeit not always successfully, to follow that example, and to have some hope that life will resume in some way, and that we will all prevail.
Figure 11 April 10, 2020: Social distancing outside a supermarket in Astoria, Queens. Photograph by Megan Green. She wrote: “I’m a professional photographer and also work an overnight graphics gig (which I am grateful to be able to do from home), so I’m awake at odd hours. To avoid exposure I take early morning walks to twenty-four-hour stores to buy what I need when the rest of the world is asleep. I started taking pictures of all of the signs in the storefronts to document the little pockets of early morning activity on the otherwise empty streets. This is an ongoing project for me now—I stay in as much as possible—but when I go on a grocery run I’ll take the long way to take photos.”
I try not to dwell on the fact that so many people have succumbed to the coronavirus, but to look instead to a future that will be worthwhile for all. I have always cared about social justice and have volunteered in many arenas. This situation has only increased that interest and commitment in me. Being idle, and not having a purpose in life, is at best an empty existence. I always knew this but being forced into solitude has made me more focused on doing more for others.
I have seen that adversity brings out the best and worst in people. Friends and family who I did not hear from regularly are now checking in much more often, but conversely, I have observed that some people who you thought would be there, are not. I try not to judge, but I cannot help but observe. It seems that for some, friendship is more about what you do together, rather than what you feel for each other. For the most part, however, I am very happy to report that in my case, I have received a great deal of love and concern from all my family (some of whom were too busy to keep in touch very often in normal times) and neighbors as well as friends. I have also become more aware that everyone handles adversity in different ways. I always knew this, but now I feel it as well.
A Prayer for My Mother
Sumya Abida
Sumya Abida, from the Soundview section of the Bronx, grew up in a Bangladeshi family. Although religion was not a part of her own life, she found a route to prayer when COVID-19 threatened her mother, who worked as a nurse in a Bronx hospital. In March 2020, while she was a student at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, she wrote this journal entry as part of an assignment.10
Entry 1: A Dua For My Mother
I am not religious.
I don’t have the best relationship with my mother.
But in the darkness of our reality today, I need to find light. Through Allah, for my mother.
Today my mother comes home from work. My father is in the living room watching the daily news informing of another thousand lives lost to the coronavirus in New York. It is 4:30 p.m. and I am taking a nap in my room. My mother walks in and like any other day she reminds me to do my afternoon prayer. And as usual, I find a way to get out of it. Right now, I want to sleep some more so I quietly wait for her to leave the room. But after a quick peek from beneath my blanket, I see her still there. She is looking at herself in the mirror next to my bed. Ten minutes pass and my mother is still there, gazing at her reflection. I wonder, what could she have been thinking about in those ten minutes?
Little did I realize that while I was grumbling about wanting to sleep a few extra minutes, my mother was trembling in fear. Filled with relentless anxiety, she looks at herself in the mirror, not smiling, but holding back many, many tears. They were the kinds of tears she didn’t want anyone at home to wonder about because then she must face the difficult task: how do you tell your children “There is a chance I might not return home one day”?
My mother is a nurse at a hospital in the Bronx. She works a 7–4 shift five days a week. Some days she’ll work a double shift to make the extra money since my father no longer works, and she’s the only one supporting our family with a stable income. Recently, there has been a higher call for people working at her hospital to do extra hours but I wish she didn’t have to go to work at all. There is no certainty for her health and survival in the work she is constantly involving herself in. How safe even is the space for her? Is she wearing an N95 mask at all times? Does she have enough PPE on? Can she breathe?
The closest I can get to any of these answers are through our few and brief workday phone calls. But those have been the hardest conversations to hear when she is literally telling me, in Bengali:
“I want to quit so badly. It’s frightening working here. My life is always on the line when I interact with another patient who tests positive for the coronavirus. I am scared, Sumya, but I can’t just quit or else our family will suffer. Please do your namaz [a prayer] and make dua [a wish delivered in the context of a prayer] for me and our family …”
On her side of the telephone line, she hears “Ok. I will. Yes, ma. Ok.”
With every demoralizing, single-syllable word of guilt that rolls down my tongue, another tear rolls down my mother’s cheek. When I can’t speak fluent Bengali and she can’t speak fluent English, how do I communicate my sincerest feelings to her? How do I tell my mother, “Please quit, ma. Write a resignation letter before it’s too late. I need you. I need you here with me.”
The sound of her voice is growing weaker. Yet, she continues to walk through my bedroom door as I take another afternoon nap, in hopes of receiving my prayers. How selfish could I have been? She is shaking in terror and I am sleeping. She is fighting on the frontlines of a global pandemic and I am sleeping. She is begging me to pray for her goddamn survival and I am sleeping.
It’s true, we’ve never had a lovely, stable relationship. Our relationship is one filled with betrayal, unresolved misunderstandings, many silent treatments, and a lack of trust. But right now, we are no longer in a situation where I can be comfortable in the grudges I held against her. She is still my mother. And right now, my mother needs me and I need her more than ever. I don’t know how to say “I love you” to her but if there is one thing I can do for my mother, it is to call for Allah in her name.
Today I will pray with intention, for the sake of my mother who is fighting at risk every day for a world beyond herself.
Thus I offer a dua for my mother and a portion of my own prayers:
One who recites Ayatul Kursi seeks a blessing from Allah for protection. When one leaves home and recites Ayatul Kursi, Allah sends a group of angels to come and protect them from any harm.
Figure 12 Ayatul Kursi in Arabic. Photograph by Ridwan Taufik / Shutterstock.
Transliteration of Ayatul Kursi: Allahu laaa ilaaha illaa huwal haiyul qai-yoom; laa taakhuzuhoo sinatunw wa laa nawm; lahoo maa fissamaawaati wa maa fil ard; man zallazee yashfa’u indahooo illaa be iznih; ya’lamu maa baina aideehim wa maa khalfahum; wa laa yuheetoona beshai ‘immin ‘ilmihee illa be maa shaaaa; wasi’a kursiyyuhus samaa waati wal arda wa la ya’ooduho hifzuhumaa; wa huwal aliyyul ‘azeem.
And here is a portion of my own prayer.
Allah,
It’s Sumya. Can you hear me? It’s a new voice calling for you today. I know I’m not a devout Muslim and I also know this is my first time truly praying since … uh, I don’t even know. But I come to you today with the purest of intentions, seeking for you to hear my prayers and grant my sincerest wishes. It’s for my mother, Anowara Begum. You recognize that name, right? She’s one amongst many of your most faithful believers. She’s also a hero on Earth. But being the hero in a blue uniform and an N95 mask, her own life is also at risk. You know why, right? I don’t mean to request something so grand of you as to eradicate a whole pandemic overnight, I simply wish for you to look out for my mother. Keep her safe while she’s working in the hospital, please? Wherever my mother is, will you watch over her from above? I come to you today daring to ask for your help after all the wrong I’ve done to my mother over the years. But for her life, will you forgive me this once? Will you hear me just this once, Allah?
With sincere wishes,
Sumya
Sharing Stories
Matilda Virgilio Clark
Matilda Virgilio Clark found strength and pleasure in recounting her family’s history for younger generations. Born in Italy, she immigrated to the United States and lived in New York City and Long Island before settling in Dobbs Ferry, New York. She worked as a seamstress, babysitter, house cleaner, and administrative assistant, earned a BA in sociology and business at Molloy College, and served as a life coach.11
During this time of reflection in isolation, I had the chance to lower the volume of all the noise that normally accompanies my day to day and find a new center. I discovered the wonder of connecting with grandchildren and family on Zoom meetings and rediscovered my love of writing bits and pieces of the untold stories of our family’s years in Italy. Previously no one in my family was interested, but now that they are all homebound and far away, suddenly memories have value.
I write several times a week on our shared Facebook family page, and it has encouraged others in the family to also post. I told stories about my grandfather who went back and forth between Italy and the United States before World War I: he worked as a cowboy, a mason, and a railroad worker. He struck gold (and later lost it) in the Klondike Gold Rush before traveling to New York to work on the subway. I told them about my own steerage-class journey to American with my mother and brother in November 1954—two trunks, two suitcases, and $200 on a voyage that made us seasick. I was six years old, but I was sustained by my mother’s words when we left Italy: “Whatever happens, God is with us.”
When I tell these stories it feels like Sunday around the table over pasta again, a tradition that was lost after Mamma died and the children moved out of state.
Isolation rekindled my desire to share the stories and the new generation’s desire to hear them. We are an immigrant family with memories of hard work, learning a new language, and adapting to cold weather after growing up in the sunshine of southern Italy. Much has been sacrificed so that the young would benefit. To ignore that felt disrespectful to the memory of all who brought us to this day.
Even if there are daily struggles to stay healthy, get provisions, and manage our finances, the groundwork was set by those before us. Our family is prepared for the challenge to survive and is able to face adversity with energy, hope, and perseverance. These are the qualities that have been taught and continue to be passed on to the newborn.
I am glad to report back to the ancestors long gone that we have carried on their work with dignity and valor. Their efforts and sacrifices were not in vain.
I am the last of the elders with all the stories. I now have the luxury of time to document them as best I can to pass them on to the generations yet to be.
A Subway Story in the Time of COVID-19
Ron Kolm
Ron Kolm is a poet and long-time resident of Long Island City, Queens. He saw his fifty-year career in bookstores terminated by the pandemic and was on unemployment when a journey into Manhattan presented him with an opportunity to help save a life.12
I had to travel into Manhattan
to cash my unemployment check,
so I sat in the front car, wearing
a mask, doing my best
to avoid the other passengers.
After leaving the bank
I walked back to Union Square station
and found a place on the platform
where there weren’t too many people
standing around waiting.
Time goes by and no train appears.
There’s a sudden movement
as a woman, maybe late 50s,
tosses her bag and her mask onto the tracks,
then clumsily climbs down
and joins them.
“Hey, what’s up?” I shout through my mask.
She moans and says
that this is how she’s going to get home,
she’s tired of everything.
She edges over towards the third rail,
and unfortunately
because my back is so messed up
I can’t physically grab her
so I unleash my best zinger:
“Do you believe in any kind of God?
Because if you do, you gotta know
how pissed off he or she’s gonna be
if you touch that thing!”
A young guy
comes running over,
jumps onto the tracks
and lifts the lady up,
depositing her on the platform.
He holds her
waiting for the police,
who do show up pretty quickly.
My train finally arrives, and I go home,
amazed at how the Universe works.
Figure 13 Aboard the Queens-bound R train, April 2020: affection, exhaustion, and masking. Photograph by Josue Tepancal Jimenez.
Making Masks, Whatever It Takes
Lily M. Chin
Lily M. Chin of Greenwich Village, a knit and crochet designer and instructor, was jolted into mask making by the spring surge of 2020.13
I knew several friends, associates, who died of COVID. Others survived but still live with the medical consequences like needing a walker and still requiring an oxygen tank.
Ten blocks from me, a major health facility had the dreaded and necessary refrigerated trucks for the bodies. I’d pass by it on evening walks and veer away.
I have good friends and family who are doctors and nurses. My cousin and her husband are both health care providers and she quit so as not to leave their children orphaned should both of them fall to the disease.
It’s not hyperbole to say I felt scared and helpless. I felt a need to do SOMEthing, but didn’t know what. Masks were scarce. The N95s were discouraged for “civilians” as even the health pros didn’t have enough. But production for masks for everyone else had not ramped up yet. Thus, those with do-it-yourself skills were at an advantage.
I joined groups online about mask making as my seamstress skills are woefully lacking. I had a “real” sewing machine that saw very little action as well as a couple of “toys,” plastic jobbies that did rudimentary stuff. I printed out scads of models from the standard surgical to my favorite, the “duck bill.” However, as a person with a science background [Chem major in college, pre-med track] I knew that cloth, even doubled, has its limitations.
So off I went into the rabbit hole of do-it-yourself science groups doing everything from mechanizing manual ventilators to jerry rigging face shields with 3-D printing. I found that surgical wrapping material for sterilizing instruments in hospitals, when doubled, had extraordinary efficacy on par with N95’s (though it doesn’t have the tight fit that fit testing ensures). I got my wonderful dentist to use his dental license to order some up from a medical supply company!
I also found filters, Blue Shop towels, and other highly effective alternatives. In a nutshell, much better than the standard woven fabrics. Now for the making.
I sewed and sewed until my real machine broke down. I went to both my toy alternatives until they broke down. None of the repair shops here in New York were open as they were deemed nonessential. I resorted to sewing by hand.
I ran out of elastic and found elastic online was as scarce as flour and sour dough starters. I took some off old underwear. I cut up old T-shirts. I even used Cascade Yarns’ “Fixation” cotton with spandex. Whatever it took.
I made more than five hundred masks and gave them away for free to local hospitals and hospital workers, the essential workers, the homeless out in the street, friends, neighbors … I just wanted everyone around me to be safe. Selfishly, I wanted everyone around me to be less infectious.
We’re in a much better place now. New York’s positivity rate is less than half a percent and we’re close to a 70 percent vaccination rate.
I’ve yet to get my sewing machines fixed but intend to do so soon.
Working and Surviving
Kleber Vera (Flame)
Kleber Vera, a hairstylist and LGBT activist living in Jackson Heights, Queens, performed in drag as Flame, worked with the AIDS Center of Queens County, and read stories to children throughout New York City at libraries, schools, open street events, and cultural centers. Unemployed and isolated in the early months of the pandemic, they found new work designing wigs and making masks.14
I spent a lot of time at home just watching the news and trying to stay really attentive and find out what is going on here. And it was really tense after that. I actually put myself into self-quarantine for the first three months of it. So it was a really scary time because nobody really knew what was going on, except that there was something serious, dangerous, and potentially deadly going around. It was very scary.
The salons all closed down. I had a few clients reach out to me that wanted to get their hair done. But honestly I was so scared and nervous I refused to take on clients. I put myself in self-quarantine and I just didn’t feel comfortable or safe seeing anybody.
I wasn’t working, I wasn’t making any income and I was eating through my savings. And then the first three months of lockdown, I had to dip into my savings to pay the bills, mortgage maintenance, everything else.
I live in Jackson Heights, just a few blocks from Elmhurst Hospital. In the first three months of lockdown all I could hear out my window, literally 24/7, was the sirens of the ambulances coming off the BQE going into the hospital. So it’s been really, really intense for me.
As far as the streets, I remember I would only go outside to go food shopping, and you definitely noticed a vibe of just tension in the air. People were very scared. People were trying to avoid each other, but at the same time, like sometimes fighting over certain products that they wanted to buy. I saw an incident where this lady didn’t want to wear a mask and the manager was called and she’s coughing on people, and she was asked to leave and it was just crazy.
I spent a couple of thousand dollars panic buying like a lot of people were doing at the time, buying food, canned foods, toilet paper, all that stuff. I ate through my savings very, very quickly within that first three months of lockdown. And then after that, there was still no income being made. So it’s been a huge, huge struggle.
It’s been really stressful on my family. My mother and my stepfather are seniors. So I’ve been really careful about not seeing them. I used to see my family once a week. They live in Yonkers, and I would visit every weekend to spend time with my mom and my siblings and other immediate family. And that’s completely changed.
I’ve been up to Yonkers, maybe two or three times in the last year instead of every week.
I actually had a few family members pass away: two family members passed away from it in Ecuador, elderly family members. And that was obviously stressful. I’ve seen my friends on my Facebook feed posts. Some of them knew several people, nine, ten, eleven, twelve people that got COVID or that passed away.
My friends definitely have had it. I might have had it as well. I tested positive for the antibodies. Luckily my health wasn’t too affected by that, but it’s really hard for me to hear people that still deny it and think that it’s not real. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it, I’ve lived it.
In the beginning of the pandemic, the first three months or so of lockdown, I got really, really depressed, and I wasn’t doing much because my life went from being so, so busy to just sitting around wondering, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen next?’ To keep myself mentally occupied and stimulated, I started working on my craft.
Since I couldn’t do hair in the salon anymore, I started working on wigs, designing wigs and selling them online to try to make a little extra money. I started making my own masks, with a little special flair and design. I like to think I have a pretty unique style. I had fun making masks, selling those online to try to make a little money. I started doing weekly Facebook live events where I would just go on live and just try to talk to people about self-care and try to stay in touch with my friends that way, find out what people were doing.
Sustaining Community
Sheikh Musa Drammeh
When COVID-19 restrictions prevented Muslim worshippers from gathering in person, Sheikh Musa Drammeh worked to provide alternative ways of meeting. Born in the Gambia in 1962, he immigrated to New York City in 1986. A longtime educator and community activist in the Parkchester section of the Bronx, he is the founder of the Islamic Leadership School and the Muslim Media Corporation, the publisher of the Muslim Community Report, New York Parrot, and Parkchester Times newspapers, and CEO of Halalfinder.com.15
This Ramadan was the most challenging that we’ve ever experienced. Ramadan is the month of getting together, eating together, fellowship, hospitality, and neighborliness. And these all involve coming together physically. Unfortunately this year we couldn’t do any of those activities. Everything was canceled. Even the mosques were closed. It was a month that we pray will never ever be repeated.
People could not pray in congregational prayer. Everything was done individually, and it was very, very painful. And it was confusing to some people. But because of the adaptability of human beings, we were able to adopt the virtual platform to continue on with the spirit of fasting.
We adapted and we’re still learning how to get our messages effectively to these virtual platforms.
Years before COVID-19 struck, Sheikh Drammeh engaged in community projects with neighborhood Jews and loaned a Jewish congregation space in his mosque.
One of the benefits of living in a place like New York is the availability of so many useful tools and resources. The government quickly put together places where people can go and get their halal and kosher meals. So that even though they cannot attend mosque or synagogue to eat together, they can carry it home. That was very, very helpful. Even some of the families that could not leave their homes, they were able to get their meals. The city hired cab drivers to deliver these meals. So we are very, very grateful to the innovativeness of the city. Much as it was painful not coming together, the inventiveness of the city made it easier to manage. That’s number one.
People of all backgrounds came together.
Number two, New Yorkers of all backgrounds came together as neighbors. I have never experienced such neighborliness—calling neighbors, especially the seniors and the disabled and the widows, to find out if there’s a need for laundry assistance, to provide medical delivery, or if there’s a need to provide shopping assistance, due to the pandemic situation.
So, you know, it’s a tragedy. We lost a lot of people. But I firmly believe that the tragedy will leave us to be better human beings, stronger societies. Once in a while it takes a tragedy to understand that there’s a symbiotic relationship among residents, regardless of ethnicity, where they come from. We are in it together. And this pandemic has shown us that we have to be together.
One of the most painful realities of COVID-19 is having your uncle, or your father, or your spouse, lying by him- or herself and no loved one can come to the bedside, to talk and comfort and read whatever reading that is. That is something that is almost as painful as death because in your last moments there are customs within the Muslim community, where you sit right next to them and comfort them, you pray for them. And you remind them of the fact that this is the last moment, they have their place, and you reading Quran and the verses will remind them of that.
And unfortunately there were some Muslims that could not get a proper Islamic burial. That was absolutely atrocious, to have a family member that you couldn’t see in his or her final days, and you couldn’t bury properly.
We have lost so many people in the African community. One ethnic group alone, the Fulani community, lost over forty family members and now I’m sure that number, has either doubled or tripled. And that’s just one ethnic group in the African Muslim community.
The Bengali community is one of the hardest hit immigrant communities in New York City. They’ve lost so many people, including some of the most well-known Bengali Muslim leaders.
We did not manage it well. We just went through it. But anybody that tells you the management was properly done did not know what they’re talking about. It was just the best we can, but the pain and the suffering still lingers.
We are communal beings.
As a member of the Muslim community and the African community, regardless of what religion, we are communal beings. We are not individualistic people. We are part of a larger community, regardless of race or ethnicity. We are part of this strong community that will come together to fend for our loved ones. Those who are dying feel some type of comfort knowing that since they were part of a larger community, their loved ones will be taken care of after their departure.
In the Muslim community, the Prophet said God never sent a disease or sickness without sending the remedy for it. Even though we currently do not have a remedy for COVID-19, we firmly believe that the remedy is there someplace. And we believe that one day scientists will discover it. So COVID-19 has claimed so many lives worldwide, but the remedy is coming. That is our firm belief as a religious people.
So many traditional remedies, traditional methods of mitigating pain we use in Africa and other places are being used—warm water with lemon and ginger and honey blocks. Additionally, we’re still using prayers and we’re still following hand hygiene, and still wearing our mask, but other than that, nothing else. We’re still keeping hope alive, knowing that very soon, by the mercy of God, scientists will discover remedies. So that’s where we are with COVID-19.
This pandemic had some bright spotlight on the painful disparities, economic health disparities, wealth disparities, educational disparities, environmental disparities. When we look at the victims of COVID-19, most of the deaths are occurring within the Latino and African American communities and Native Americans. I call it a crime.
In October 2020, Sheikh Drammeh launched a campaign to push for equitable public health policies and encourage people to take more responsibility for their health by eating right and getting exercise.
The misleading messengers are always active, you know, politically, spiritually, socially, educationally. They hijack the narrative, mislead people and lead them to their destruction. During this pandemic, no difference. Unfortunately, what makes it even worse is that you know it was coming from the top of our government, from the president down, promoting this nonsense.
Muslim leaders neutralized misleading information.
But what we did early on, especially the Muslim community, is that Muslim leaders came together so very quickly, and then brought rules to be followed, including adhering to the social distancing rules. Including wearing mask, including disassociating the pandemic from religious practices, everything.
And there were hundreds of Muslim and African leaders teaching the same thing. And that has made a huge difference. The misleading noises were neutralized by individuals like me and hundreds of other imams and African leaders. So we are very grateful that we took this issue head on, so that whatever coming from the White House or anywhere else will be neutralized before they infest our community. So until today, people listen to us more than they listen to the misleading elements in our society. And we are grateful.
Building Bonds
Keerthan Thiyagarajah
Keerthan Thiyagarajah, a cook and a student, took strength from his neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens, the home of many immigrants.16
I think the biggest changes in my life personally are school. Being a culinary management student, you have to be there in person to learn.
I think relationships grew a lot closer. That was one of the ups, I guess, of this pandemic. I think I learned to love a lot more and care about the people around me.
Being Asian it’s hard enough, but with the pandemic on top of it, it’s like an added weight to our shoulders. And I think because of politics and the news and whatnot, we’re looked at as second-class people. And it’s been tough, but I think we’ve gotten through, and we’ve learned, and I especially learned to love and care about people more and the ones around me.
Everybody looks out for each other. My community is very tight, even though we’re not all the same color. We’re not all the same ethnicities. We all care for each other.
I grew up in this area, Jackson Heights. I was born at Elmhurst Hospital. This is my neighborhood. This is where I remember all my childhood memories coming from. This is the melting pot of Queens. When you think of Queens, you go to Jackson Heights, you have every single piece of food. You want every piece of culture, you get it there. And seeing it just disappear in a matter of days was nerve wracking, especially 74th and Roosevelt.
There’s traffic there all the time. These streets are flooded all the time. And just to see it completely disappear was crazy. To see it go away within like weeks and days, it was something new.
And then seeing my childhood hospital being overrun by the pandemic, watching this hospital that I grew up at being overrun to the point where they had to store bodies in the back of ice trucks. And in the back of the hospital, there are just lines of trucks of deceased people from COVID-19. And there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s no room for disposing of a body properly. And they would just throw them in the back of a truck and that was it.
People are not on the streets anymore, there’s no traffic, there’s no honking, there’s not anything. Stores are boarded up with wood because of a possibility of ransacking. That was a major thing. People were scared of their livelihood being taken away from them. It was something out of a movie, like The Walking Dead or something. It was scary to see all of this unfold.
No one in this community is rich. This community is middle-class people working hard. Most of them first generation, people coming in from all across the world, coming into Jackson Heights and hoping to make a livelihood whether it’s driving a taxi, or opening up a food stand.
The biggest need in the community was someone to look up to. And I don’t think we had that. That’s why there was a lot of people dying in this area.
I think a leader was someone that we needed most. That didn’t happen.
Jackson Heights is one of those places where there’s a bond between everybody and whether you’re Black, White, blue, gold, it doesn’t matter what you are. There’s always a bond in that neighborhood. And whether you need help, you can just ask for it and someone will with open arms, help you. In anything you need.
Organizing
Dave Crenshaw
Dave Crenshaw, a coach and community organizer, grew up in a family of African American activists in southern Washington Heights. In the 1980s, when violence surrounding the crack trade scarred his neighborhood, he worked to give young people alternatives to dangerous streets. He went on to found the Uptown Team Dreamers, a program based at PS 128 that was devoted to sports, community service, and education that welcomed beginner athletes and girls. His work earned him the nickname Coach Dave. During the COVID-19 pandemic he worked with longstanding allies to provide food, masks, testing, and eventually vaccinations in Washington Heights.17
When this thing hit I lost a lot of people. I lost my brother—not to COVID but to COVID circumstances. I lost my uncle, I lost my cousin. I lost a super and his wife. And one that hit me really hard was when I lost my best friend from high school, Reverend Craig Woods. And I never even got a chance to hear him preach.
And at that moment, I knew I could not hibernate. I knew I had to stay out there. My neighborhood was counting on me.
Crenshaw put on an N95 mask and went out to deliver food to people. Over the course of the pandemic, his partners included the Uptown Dreamers, the Community League of the Heights (CLOTH), Black Health, the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, the bookstore Word Up, the Dominican American public servant Maria Luna, and Dean Robert Fullilove and his students at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
The blue mask is not bad, but the 95 keeps you alive. That was my philosophy.
I teamed up with CLOTH to get food to the seniors. Instead of doing a food pantry twice a week, they went to four, five days, and longer hours. And the line used to go from 159th all the way down to 158th. That’s how long the line was every day.
But then you have seniors who couldn’t get food. So I was helping deliver food to the seniors—one of my best workouts, because I think they gave me every apartment building that had no elevator.
My idea was I had to put people at ease, let them know we’re going to stick together. Food became a very important tool to give out. Even when the food was given to us cold, we would heat it up, put the barbecue sauce on it, roll around the neighborhood and give it to the ones that didn’t go to soup kitchens and food pantries.
If walkup buildings were an obstacle for food deliveries, the use of masks was complicated by mixed messaging from authorities on the value of masking and residents’ reluctance to wear masks.
It took forever just to get people to wear masks. People really did not want to mask in the beginning. They just couldn’t understand the importance of it. And there was a lot of misinformation going out. Some people tried to do everything. Some people said, “I’m not doing nothing.” Some people were wiping down everything they could wipe down. And some said, “Don’t believe this. I’m not wiping down nothing.”
The information was coming from so many different places. So wild and crazy. Even the CDC was not dependable. You couldn’t count on them, they would send out multiple messages. I do know Dr. Fauci had the hardest job in the world, trying to deliver information.
By the time the testing was widespread, we had developed a good relationship with the community, because we’d been giving out masks, and we’d been helping people get food supplies, and we’d been giving out books. With Word Up bookstore, we started getting books. Parents were staying on line for an hour or two. What did the kids get out of it? We got them books. The sad thing is that some families didn’t want books, but the families that did were very happy.
And we just had to explain the importance of testing, helping people figure out how to get appointments. Everything we did, technology was a barrier.
You had to talk with people, you had to convince them, you had to treat them correctly so they don’t just walk away. That’s what the hardest part was. And at the testing sites we were also giving out masks and information. We were giving out hand sanitizer. We became like little walk-in, pop-up clinics, going to different areas at different times.
Sometimes people needed an incentive to get tested.
Same thing with HIV. Same thing with AIDS. We don’t want to deal with it. Avoidance. Nobody wants to get the bad news. The biggest thing we had to explain to people was you can get it and have no symptoms.
We were not forcing anyone to do anything. That was not my job. My role was: those of you who want to hear this, those who want access, this is where you can go. After a while, we became the masters at just telling people where everything was at.
Figure 14 New Yorkers established mutual aid projects not in a spirit of charity, but of people helping one another cope with the hardships of the pandemic. Among the most visible were community refrigerators, like this one in Washington Heights, where residents left food for neighbors. Photograph by James Melchiorre.
Clap Because You Care
Led Black
On April 17, 2020, in his blog Uptown Collective at www.uptowncollective.com, Led Black addressed a ritual that became a defining feature of the early months of the pandemic: the daily eruption of cheers, banging of pots, blasting of horns, and music at 7:00 p.m. in honor of the city’s essential workers.18
I think I speak for many in this neighborhood and throughout this great city when I say that the 7:00 p.m. clapping and noise-making sessions for our courageous health care heroes on the frontlines is the highlight of the day, every day. This simple act of stopping whatever you are doing and showing appreciation for those real-life superheroes provides a comfort and solace that is hard to describe. We owe them a debt that we can never repay. The same can be said of all the “essential” workers who keep this society running and who do not have the privilege of working from home.
The timing of the daily appreciation manifestations could not be any better, as they usually start after the daily Trump propaganda briefings are over. Tyrant Trump has turned what is supposed to be a medium for crucial information on the nation’s fight against the novel coronavirus into a political rally whose primary goal is the reelection of Donald Trump. Let me state this as plainly as I can, America will not survive a second term of Donald Trump.
Our lives have changed profoundly. We no longer venture outside except for necessities. The once lively Alto Manhattan is eerily and uncharacteristically quiet. When you do go out you can see the fear and despair in the eyes of your fellow New Yorkers. The gnawing uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring and the inability to meaningfully interact with one another is testing our collective sanity.
And then at 7:00 p.m., at least for a spell, we are not alone. We are united and the clouds over this city briefly part and we can see a brighter day on the horizon. The eruption of joy and togetherness provide the sustenance we all need to survive the pandemic. We are truly all in this together.
Great nations need exceptional leadership in times of crisis. We don’t have that at the federal level where it is so badly needed. The American Experiment is in trouble. This is an existential crisis that goes beyond health care. The novel coronavirus is brutally exposing what has become of a once-great country. God help us all!
Pa’lante Siempre Pa’lante!