Episode 023: Back to School, But Not Back to Normal

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Transcript

Pre-Roll

JAMES: Hey everybody, this is James. I’m the showrunner here at Self Evident, and before we start today’s episode, I just want to pop in and let you know that we kicked off a listener drive.

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JAMES: So let’s do this.

Cold Open

Yvonne So: Here in Arizona, the governor signed an anti mask mandate. 

MUSIC: A mid-tempo hip-hop beat with a slightly ominous tone begins

CATHY VO: That's Yvonne So. She's one of our longtime listeners, and a parent in Tucson, Arizona.

CATHY VO: She's talking about an Executive Order and a state law that were both passed in Arizona over the summer. Those laws made it illegal for public school districts to require students, teachers, and other school staff to wear masks .

YS: Then, as we were getting ready to send our children back to school, many school districts decided to not enact a mask mandate, as they had the year before .

YS: So you don't have to wear a mask on the bus. Because the school bus is part of the school district, and you don’t have to wear a mask at school. And teachers cannot ask you to mask.

CATHY VO: Like a lot of schools across the country , Yvonne's local elementary school was bringing students back into the classroom .

CATHY VO: And in Arizona, anti-vaccine and anti-mask activists were definitely a thing.

YS: It was quite contentious here. I mean, if you go to the local grocery store, you can see people had on their cars, like "Your mask looks stupid on you"...

Cathy: Wow!

YS: (Laughs)

YS: Yeah. I mean, the people were picketing outside of schools, about having to wear a mask...

YS: You might've heard on national news in a town called Vail, here in Arizona — there was two parents who were arrested because they brought in zip ties, to zip tie the principal...

Cathy: (gasps)

YS: ...because she was going to enforce masking .

Cathy: What?

YS: Mhmm.

Cathy: Oh my goodness. And what was your feeling when you saw these, these picketers in your community?

YS: School should be fun, and it should be, like, a nice environment, right?

YS: Like, I don't want, my kids seeing all this anger.

YS: And then, you know, when they walk into class, to come and say, oh, "Who is wearing a mask? Who's not wearing a mask? I don't want to sit next to you, or I don't want to play with you"...

YS: That just should not be part of their elementary school education or experience.

YS: And you know, the delta variant was going rampant... our county was at a high risk level ...

YS: ...And my district didn't offer a remote option for the year . 

MUSIC: Hip-hop beat ends

YS: So I was left with the option to basically pull my kids out of the district.

Cathy: Wow, was that a big decision?

YS: I mean, it's okay. It's...

YS: I feel like if the pandemic has taught us anything, it's just... 

THEME MUSIC begins

YS: ...you just kind of have to go with the flow.

YS: And then... 

Cathy: Make the best decision with what —

YS: Make the best with what you have, and just go with it.

CATHY VO: This is Self Evident, where we tell Asian America's stories to go beyond being seen.

CATHY VO: And today we're hearing what it's like to go back to school during this latest chapter of the Covid-19 pandemic.

CATHY VO: We started hearing from our listeners about their back-to-school experiences in July, and I'm recording this in mid-November.

CATHY VO: This is by no means an exhaustive report. But we wanted to check in with parents, students, and educators where we could... during a school year that’s definitely not normal.

THEME MUSIC ends

Segment 1: Yvonne So

CATHY VO: So back to Yvonne So, in Tucson.

CATHY VO: Navigating the masking laws of Arizona wasn't the first time Yvonne got involved in her local school district.

CATHY VO: She's the board chair of the Asian Pacific American Advocates chapter of Greater Phoenix . And she's spent time working with local Asian parents and local school districts, to incorporate more Asian American history and Asian American authors into their public school curricula.

CATHY VO: Especially as violence against Asian Americans has become more visible over these past two years .

YS: After the Atlanta spa shooting, I think people took a little bit more time to reflect on, “Why is this happening, and what can we do to make things better?”

YS: And I think that's when the thought of having more education kind of came up again, and people are more — more open to having that discussion. 

Cathy: Yeah.

YS: A lot of my friends who live on the east coast or on the west coast, like on, on either coast, their principals sent out letters to the parents, you know, denouncing what happened and denouncing anti-Asian hate .

YS: So I sent that to my principal and asked her for a similar statement, and... she didn't really see why we needed to do that .

MUSIC: A somber hip-hop beat begins

CATHY VO: Yvonne didn't want to single out one principal as the cause of the problem. For her, this was more about the school district acknowledging anti-Asian racism.

YS: She mentioned that there is a equity statement on on the school website, that the school district drafted after the George Floyd murder. Which basically is like watered down "all lives matters" language .

Cathy: Okay.

YS: It's... like, where do you start? Right?

YS: If, if, if the conversation is all lives all lives matter, right. Then you're not really going to get into the nitty gritty of why our community feels that something needs to be said about this.

Cathy: And here you have, like, a member of their community specifically requesting a statement like that.

Cathy: It's not like they, they didn't think of it. They refused.

YS: Yeah, I guess you can look at it that way, too.

YS: Yeah.

YS: Right? But there, I mean, but there were many grassroots organizations dedicated to Asian American — like we have a chamber of commerce here in Arizona. 

YS: There's one dedicated to business associations .

YS: Everyone wanted a statement from the governor. So we all got together and drafted something, send it to the governor, sent it to the governor, sent it to the mayors ....

MUSIC: Somber hip-hop beat fades out under Yvonne

YS: And here in our state, our treasurer is Chinese American , and she's running for governor, and she didn't even issue a statement .

YS: So if no one at the top is willing to say something and denounce this… does it really matter? 

YS: For everyone else, all us regular citizens... I think it sets an example that maybe this is not something that warrants a lot of attention.

Cathy: That must have been really discouraging.

YS: I mean, it is discouraging, because... you think you've moved so far and you look at your own life and you think, "Oh, wow. You know, I've achieved all this, and I live a very nice, comfortable life," but then, you know, the rest of society... 

YS: ...do they even really value my people in this community?

MUSIC: Guitar chords from somber hip-hop beat echo

CATHY VO: Before the pandemic started, Yvonne’s kids were in a public school with a Chinese immersion program .

CATHY VO: And as a parent, she’d been trying to help local schools go beyond the usual routine of appreciating Chinese culture.

YS: They celebrate the spring festival, Chinese New Year, and a lot of like Asian holidays. 

YS: So teachers are very aware of that and they're eager to teach that, and they'll pull me in. So for Chinese new year, “Oh, can you cook some Chinese food? Can you come speak to them, speak to us, about Chinese traditions?"

YS: But nobody really wants to hear about my Asian American experience...

YS: And then from March to May , you know, we could find more people who are more open to having this discussion, who saw that there was a teachable moment in the, you know, after the Atlanta spa shootings,  and who agreed that there needs to be more curriculum — or we need to showcase more Asian Americans in the classrooms.

YS: Just so just so you know, students can see themselves reflected in the material, and people who are not from the community can value you know, their peers who don't look like them and see them as from here, right?

YS: There was a little bit more openness to have this conversation. 

YS: But it's a matter of getting the material in teachers' hands and having them teach the material.

YS: That means going from district to district, like classroom to classroom, holding these teachers hands, and helping them integrate the material into their classrooms .

Cathy: It's a lot of work.

YS: Back in August, when there was this whole mask discussion and debate, at the height of all this, you know… there was a lot of fear among school administrators about what was going to happen legally and insurance wise, what their insurance covered.

YS: And I was actually supposed to speak to Arizona educators — teachers superintendents, school districts — about incorporating more AAPI education in K through 12.

YS: And I was replaced by an insurance agent, because that's basically what was at the top of the minds .  At that moment, everyone was basically trying to cover their asses about that.

Cathy: Oh, okay. I see.

YS: And so I did follow up with an email and asked if I could have, you know, when, when the time was right, if I could present again and and that question was, was dodged .

Cathy: H-how did they dodge that? Exactly.

YS: Well, just not giving a time to re-present.

Cathy: I see. I see.

Cathy: Well, are you going to keep trying?

YS: Oh, of course! (laughs)

Cathy (laughs)

YS: Unfortunately at the same time there's this whole anti CRT discussion that's going on...

Cathy: Critical race theory. Yeah.

YS: ...in the nation that makes it a little bit difficult.

YS: I mean, here in Arizona, there was a law passed — and I don't know when exactly, but sometime in the early summer — banning the teaching of critical race theory .

YS: it just seemed kind of absurd because you're preemptively striking something down.

YS: Critical race theory. It's not even something that's taught at the K through 12 level .

YS: I had to look it up when I first heard it, cause I didn't really understand...

YS: But to me, this has nothing to do with AAPI curriculum. 

Cathay: OK. Good.

YS: Like it, it's just, it to me, these are completely different issues.

YS: Before that lawmakers were trying to pass a law banning "controversial" issues from being taught , which is even broader, right?

YS: So, so it's like, so what, what would you consider controverisial —

Cathy: What, exactly?

YS: — is “controversial,” right? Like, history is controversial.

YS: Like, because power, privilege... It's all these terms that... you, that could potentially come up, like in a history class, if you talk about imperialism or colonialism, right?

YS: What you decide to teach And how you decide to teach it can be considered “controversial.”

YS: So initially — so that got shot down and then somewhere along the line, it was rewritten and the wording came out to be “No CRT."

YS: But when you go to the school board meetings, the number one thing is… They're very concerned that white children will feel bad about themselves

Cathy: And, it sounds like you went to some meetings, are, are they generally parents of, of school children who are coming to these? Or are they some people who are just like, so passionate about this cause that they're just there?

YS: It's funny because like many parents never really got involved until, you know, the issue of masking came up, so probably the school boards were very, very shocked to see all these parents come to these school board meetings, right?

YS: But I think, yeah, you see a lot of parents, but then there was one guy who said he, he came out and said he drives from district to district going to these meetings, speaking out...

Cathy: What?

YS: ...against CRT.

Cathy: What?!

YS: Yeah. So… So there is, I mean, it's, it's a whole mix, and it really depends on what the agenda is that day.

Cathy: Wow. So he's just making it sort of his... his mission to go around, and whether or not it's his community, hers or his children, it's just, he's really...

YS: Yeah, that, that's his cause.

Cathy: Wow. Okay.

YS: I mean, we all have causes, and if you think about it, these are public meetings right?

YS: So he just, he has a cause I don't really support or identify with, but so far that group has done very well in controlling the narrative.

Cathy: You know, this moment, this fervor that you're describing amongst these folks who are going around to these meetings…

Cathay: It really exemplifies something that's, like, bigger than, you know, local issues, it's bigger than any one issue... it's just this, like, anger.

YS: I mean, I think here In Arizona, it's this confluence — it's an anti masking, anti-CRT, and “the big steal,” which is, you know, that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

YS: Those, all those three, kind of have balled in together here in this state.

CATHY VO: In September, a County Judge ruled that a ban on mask mandates was unconstitutional .

CATHY VO: But by then, Yvonne had already signed up two of her kids, Jasper and Miles, for an online charter school called Leman Academy.

YS: The kids have one hour of live sessions with their teachers, so my kids go in from 10 to 11, and each day they teach a different subject.

YS: One day will be history. One day will be English. One day will be math. And that's their live class of the day, but then they have all the rest of the other curriculum that they have to get through on their own time.

YS: And so every day from Monday to Thursday, they're responsible for submitting all the work that's due. And then on Fridays, that is a test day to make sure that they cover the material correctly. And then you do it all over again.

CATHY VO: There was no extra tuition to pay for this charter school , and it wasn't difficult to get the kids enrolled, so the switch was pretty smooth.

CATHY VO: But one big difference is that Yvonne started taking on more of a home schooling role to make this work.

YS: My kids are nine and six, so if it's up to them, you know, like... They’d be in the pool all day or outside on the driveway. 

YS: Like, kids just have no sense of time management. So it's like, I'm basically a drill Sergeant saying, okay, get here, you have class, do this assignment and do that assignment, but they do the assignments themselves.

YS: And I'm in charge of submitting them and making sure they get everything in on time.

MUSIC: A light, sentimental guitar riff begins

CATHY VO: So far, everything's actually going pretty good for Yvonne's family.

CATHY VO: The kids like spending time with their parents, and they get a lot of support from them...

CATHY VO: They like being able to hang out with each other, and they haven't had any problems keeping up with the online learning.

CATHY VO: At the end of our call, I got to meet Yvonne's middle son. He's six years old and in the first grade .

Miles So: Hi, Ms. Cathy, my name is Miles. 

Cathy: Hi Miles!

Cathy: So how was your day at school today?

Miles So: Good. It went good. 

Cathy: What'd you learn?

Miles So: I learned math and history.

Miles So: Like Egypt. No, no, no. About the planets. 

Cathy: About the planets.

Miles So: I want to tell you a joke.

Cathy: Oh! Yeah, please.

Miles So: What did the star say to the other star? 

Cathy: Hmm, what?

Miles So: "We can have a sleep over. I have so much space!"

Cathy: (Laughs)

Miles So: You get it? Like "space," because stars are up in space. 

Cathy: (Laughs) That's good! I love it!

MUSIC: Sentimental guitar tune ends

MIDROLL: Promo for Where y’all Really From?

AD MUSIC begins

CATHY VO: On Self Evident, we do our best to tell stories from every corner of Asian America. So we're excited that some of our friends just launched a new podcast, called, “Where Y’all Really From,” in a place you might not expect: Kentucky.

CATHY VO: The bluegrass state is home to over seventy thousand Asian Americans… but as you might guess, their lives aren't exactly like what we're used to hearing about in places like New York or LA.

Dan Wu: I went to San Francisco, and I remember in the first week I was there, I saw an Asian mailman. And it blew my frickin’ mind. Like coming from... coming from Lexington, Kentucky. I was like, “Wait, what? That's a thing?”

Dan Wu: And then I, and then I saw an Asian American cop. And then I saw an Asian American garbage man. And it was just like, oh, we're literally everywhere in every profession. You know, versus being in a place like Kentucky…

Donna Lee Kwon: I mean, it's culture shock. I mean, you could have culture shock, I think, going from one place to another.

Dan Wu: Yeah, it really was.

CATHY VO: Check out “Where Y’all Really From” wherever you get podcasts. Or at whereyallreallyfrom.org.

AD MUSIC ends

Segment 2: New York City

CATHY VO: This is Self Evident. I’m Cathy Erway.

CATHY VO: And I was just chatting with Yvonne and Miles So, whose family in Arizona is doing OK with their new school year.

MUSIC: Spare, uncertain guitar tune begins

CATHY VO: We heard from some Asian American families who were really happy for in-person schooling to come back.

CATHY VO: But of course, the kind of experience anyone's having in this new school year depends on a lot of factors.

CATHY VO: Where I live in New York, we haven't seen the same amount of anti-mask or anti-vaccine conflicts as Yvonne's family has in Arizona.

CATHY VO: But... It's just flat-out hard to run the classroom and take care of everyone.

CATHY VO: We caught up with our friend Annie Tan, who's a 5th grade special education teacher at a public school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. That's a neighborhood of mostly working-class Latinx and Chinese immigrant families .

CATHY VO: By the way, this phone call with Annie happened before the CDC approved vaccinations for children.

Annie Tan: There's just a lot of unresolved trauma from the last year.

AT: You know, my students today were talking about how their grandparents and their uncles and other relatives, like, died from the Corona virus. And I didn't really know how to address it, I just said, “I'm so sorry”...

AT: I know we're going to have a lot of kids who need therapy and grief counseling, and we're going to see a lot of behaviors of students who aren't ready for school right now.

AT: Kids are like, really excited to talk to each other, to talk to their teachers.

AT: But...I feel like I'm policing bodies much more now than I ever have.

AT: And I keep having to remind them to distance, to mask, and if they have something like cold symptoms, I have to report it to the office and send them down to the nurse, and it doesn't feel good…

AT: I know it's for our kids' safety, but at the same time, like if some of those students, some of which I had last year, told me that they prefer remote learning, because they got to eat whenever they needed, because they were hungry... they got to use the bathroom whenever they needed... 

AT: And... as a teacher, I have never peed more than I have during the pandemic, because I got to take a break and pee whenever I wanted to, instead of watching my classroom...

AT: A student said today, you know, “I have to use all the bathroom all the time. How come you don't Miss Tan?” And I said to the student, that teachers, nurses, and truck drivers have the highest rates of infections down there .

AT: And then, "down there," I, like, did a motion to the bottom half of my body.

AT: And the student was like, "Ewww, you're oversharing, Ms Tan!"

AT: I was like, "Well, you asked why I don't pee! It's because I'm watching y'all."

AT: (Laughs) Um, it would be nice to be in a world where teachers could pee, let alone, like take care of ourselves. Instead of worrying all the time about taking care of other people... 

MUSIC: Sparse guitar tune ends

AT: And teaching has just exacerbated the idea that like I'm not to care for myself, and it is not a coincidence that my profession is mostly women .

MUSIC: Slightly tense, bluesy guitar and keyboard tune begins

CATHY VO: We heard from advocates that Asian American families were more likely to say yes to a remote learning option.

CATHY VO: I think we're used to hearing about parents like Yvonne, choosing to help educate their kids. Or parents trying to manage working from home while their kids were learning from home.

CATHY VO: But there's another reason why some Asian American parents found themselves at home with their kids over the past year and a half .

Diya Basu-Sen: Most of our community was unemployed because of the pandemic . And so they had people at home and they chose to keep their kids home.

CATHY VO: That's Diya Basu-Sen, Executive Director of Sapna NYC — an organization based in the East Bronx, New York, providing social services to lower-income South Asian immigrant women.

DBS: The rates of unemployment was almost 95%, almost everybody had at least one person out of work , If not everyone out of work, in their homes.

MUSIC: Hand claps join the other instruments to keep time

DBS: Many of them were struggling to pay rent. Haven't paid rent in months. Many of them were facing food insecurity. Almost everybody knows, at least somebody who passed away in the pandemic. Multiple of the families we work with were survivors of DV, so...

DBS: ...For the kids going back, it's not just the kind of difficulty of going back, but also just the difficulty of this whole kind of pandemic on them and how much they've been holding, and this just being like one more stress to add to that…

CATHY VO: ...and this stress has led to a rise in requests for help from Asian-centered community services like the one Diya's leading.

CATHY VO: We also called Yu-Kang Chen, who works as a clinical psychologist at the Hamilton-Madison House in Manhattan Chinatown .

CATHY VO: It's a community health clinic that serves all ages, most of them lower income and many of them speaking Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Cambodian languages .

CATHY VO: We asked Yu-Kang what the students coming to the clinic have been dealing with as the school year really got going.

Yu-Kang Chen: Well, some of the cases, the new cases we have noticed is been…

YKC: ...Staying at home most of the time. Starting from home online study and very isolated. So probably there's already some, some mood, depression issues, symptoms happening already.

YKC: So the reopening of the school, going back to school kind of intensify.

YKC: Because it is a stress.

MUSIC: Bluesy tune ends

YKC: And also this is in a context that some of the, the students, they returned to, uh, maybe still in the same school, but totally different classmates. Different teachers..

YKC: Right? So they did not get a chance to have like a proper farewell goodbye to the old friends or classmates, teachers...

YKC: ...so, that kind of add on to their, not just stress, right?

YKC: Maybe some, you know, loss. The feeling of loss.

MUSIC: More forward-moving, percussive, folky guitar tune begins

CATHY VO: These kind of sound like challenges that any student would be dealing with right now.

CATHY VO: But Diya and Yu-Kang see that the obstacles are bigger for immigrant families. Especially working poor immigrant parents.

CATHY VO: A lot of times, those parents would love to receive help from someone who really understands what they’re going through.

CATHY VO: They just don't have the time or the capacity or even the awareness to get that help.

YKC: Parents are first generation immigrant, don't speak English as a first language, and, and work long hours.... And so already, not enough time and energy to spend on the children.

DBS: And the community we work with, right, is low-income, low English proficiency, low digital proficiency and access .

DBS: So for parents to also kind of work to acclimate their children and to have all the information before they get to school is much more difficult than it might be for, like, an average, English speaking American family. 

DBS: The positive things we've seen is there have been individual, kind of, teachers or counselors who've reached out to us and been like, “I think this family might need some help, like, are you someone who could help her or this family?”

DBS: Because they know that we work with South Asians and have Bengali speakers .

DBS: Ultimately, right, the school system can't have competency in all the different languages and all the different cultures.

DBS: And so just trying to build some more of those bridges, I think is really important.

YKC: It's part of our work to provide concrete help, and also find a way to empower the, the, the parents that they can, they can become the people to advocate for, for their children's benefits.

YKC: So I do, you know, want to send out a message that we also talk about seeking help. Asking help.

MUSIC: Folky guitar tune ends

YKC: It's really not a weakness or shameful thing to, to ask for help.

YKC: It's never too late.

MUSIC: Soulful hip-hop beat begins

Segment 3: Khayaal Desai-Hunt and Jigna Desai

CATHY VO: The last folks we'll hear from today have navigated a lot of the challenges that come from being so isolated during the pandemic... then suddenly being jolted back into a weird version of normal life.

KDH: My name is Khayaal Desai-Hunt. I am a junior, and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I use any pronouns, so she, he and they are all fine.

CATHY VO: Khayaal went into remote learning at the end of their Freshman year, then spent all of sophomore year studying from home.

CATHY: So they never really got the chance to explore life as a new high schooler.

CATHY VO: We met at the end of October. By that time, they were vaccinated, and told us that most of the students were pretty good about wearing masks.

CATHY VO: But Khayaal still wasn't 100% comfortable with being back in the classroom, and is still kinda figuring out how to be a high school student.

Khayaal Desai-Hunt: For me, it's been weird. It's both very familiar and feels very different after being away for more than a year online.

KDH: So it's nice to see friends and have that like social interaction in person.

KDH: But at the same time, A little bit of a adjustment and getting back used to being, “Oh, this is how we do this.”

KDH: And you know, we're actually face-to-face again.

Cathy: There's a board here... Things are written on it… (laughs)

KDH: Exactly!

KDH: And yet it also — and in some ways it's so weird because to me it feels like the last year just didn't happen. Like it feels like it, it... just got erased, and it feels like we didn't even go online. So it's like a weird combination of things, yeah.

Cathy: Do you feel like this could happen again? Where you have to like, just leave and drop everything and, and kind of be away from people at any second?

KDH: Oh, yeah.

KDH: I think teachers are preparing for it. But no one knows when it's going to happen.

MUSIC: Soulful hip-hop beat fadeso ut

KDH: For me, at least I have not gotten any information on, like, the number of cases before they're going to shut down the school, or, you know, that sort of stuff.

KDH: So it's a little scary because it feels like we're the last people to know that kind of information...

Cathy: Oh, ok.

KDH: ...and it's not physically possible to social distance in our classes because classrooms are not that big.

Cathy: Mmhmm. Mhm.

KDH: And so it's not like, you know, the air that we breathe, even though we're all wearing masks, it's not like it stops within three feet of us.

Cathy: (laughs) No.

KDH: Yeah. (laughs)

CATHY VO: Khayaal's got one older brother, and their mom, Jigna, is a full-time professor at the University of Minnesota .

Jigna Desai: My name is Jigna Desai. I use she, they pronouns, and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I've lived here somehow over twenty-five years.

JD: My parents and I are from India, and I was born there, and I came here when I was two and a half. And in fact, my mom and I just celebrated our 50th anniversary of being in this country, like a couple weeks ago.

CATHY VO: Throughout the pandemic, Jigna felt like she was always looking out for her extended family, trying to keep everyone safe and healthy and in touch.

CATHY VO: Which was incredibly hard to do, because Jigna's partner is immunocompromised.

CATHY VO: That's actually why Khayaal is still thinking so much about covid at school. Their dad has been at high risk since the pandemic started, and that's really shaped the entire family's experience — during the lockdown, and even now, after vaccinations.

JD: So my partner is white and chronically disabled, has had stage four melanoma and had a rare response to the immunotherapy, and is the only surviving person right now with this condition, which basically attacked his own body and developed this capillary leak , so he was kind of drowning from the inside out.

JD: We live in Minnesota, so we went to the Mayo, and by all miracles, they saved him, and we were talking to his oncologist there just last week. And he said, you know, there was less than a 10% chance of his surviving .

JD: But he did. He, we spent six weeks in the hospital. I stayed there. I lived there the whole time. 

JD: We brought him home to recover a little bit and not knowing what his condition would be, except that he's disabled... And so... he's immunocompromised now.

JD: So when COVID started happening, we actually pulled our children from school before the schools closed.

JD: Until the kids could be vaccinated and until I could be vaccinated, you know, we didn't see anyone.

JD: People didn't come in our homes, we didn't go visit other people's homes. 

JD: I visited my parents outside.

JD: My sister, she was juggling a toddler and doing a job.

JD: And her partner’s a firefighter and was gone and was a frontline worker. So we couldn't see her, cause he could bring COVID home.

JD: And that was the kind of risk decisions that people were making.

JD: But my kids were home, entire year of 2019, 2020. 

JD: And.... my son barely left his room.

JD: He used Discord for his sense of community. And that was it.

JD: He was on Discord when he was in class, he was on Discord when he was not in class…

JD: ...and he was depressed.

JD: I think it was hard to get out of bed. It was hard to do anything. It was hard to convince him to leave his room, let alone the house.

JD: My daughter responded very differently.

JD: She baked, she did all the things, you know, she baked, she went for walks. She exercised... but she was depressed too.

JD: And I think that even as everybody else started going back and socializing, they couldn't, or they were worried about it, because of their dad.

JD: And that sense of risk that they had to manage, of…

JD: "We have to isolate ourselves, or we have to endanger our father"...

JD: Was a horrible decision that they felt they had to make as teenagers who were deprived of their entire social worlds.

JD: You know, our school stayed closed and opened up. I would say maybe February ...

Cathy: February 2021? So this year?

JD: Yes. And maybe a third of students went back. Not a lot of students of color went back, actually.

JD: What I was hearing is that people didn't trust schools to be able to keep their children safe.

JD: That there wasn't social distancing, or it wouldn't be adequate.

JD: And this is still in the spring. As vaccines are rolling out, but children aren't vaccinated...

JD: Honestly, I don't think people trusted a lot of white families or, you know, a lot of families who were very well off, who are going off to travel. Or going to Disneyland or going on vacation.

JD: Families where they’re extended families living together, multi-generational families… They didn't want to be the ones to bring home illness to their grandparents or to elders or to immunocompromised folks. So...

Cathy: Sure.

JD: ...Teachers did their best. And you know, they're putting their lives at risk! And they had children or elders, or themselves, obviously.

Cathy: Everybody was making these tough decisions.

JD: Yes... But it felt like a rush to open.

Cathy: Mmm.

Cathy: And I understand that your kids recently went back to in-person school in the last month or two.

JD: Yes.

How has that transition been?

JD: They're so much more anxious than they used to be. I think they feel so much more, to me, a sense of hopelessness about the world.

Cathy: Okay.

JD: And I think it's, you know, it's really complex because…

JD: There was our own personal, kind of, them having to face the near loss of their dad. Then we had the pandemic.

JD: In the middle of the pandemic, George Floyd was murdered, not more than three miles from our home .

JD: The precinct that was burned down, you know, is less than a mile from their school .

JD: These are our neighborhoods. 

JD: My daughter and I went to the first protest, and we went to many protests. 

JD: And then it's all part of this kind of convergence of things that feel really hopeless for them.

JD: And then on top of that is climate change.

JD: And so it's the immediate sense of lack of change, like with something like...

JD: Police violence, state violence...

Cathy: Right.

JD: You know, people don't vaccinate, people don't wear masks.

JD: And then it's the longer term where the climate justice, where things, you know, could change, and don't, and I think it's a triple whammy for this generation.

JD: And they were already feeling this sense of hopelessness and disposability within capitalism, that the things that just keep grinding and extracting and using and throwing away people, they see that all around them.

JD: Things can't continue the way they're continuing.

Cathy: I see, yeah. 

JD: And I see that in my kids, except I don't think they even have faith in a lot of humans a lot of time, as a collective.

JD: They don't have a faith in democracy in the same way.

Cathy: That's a lot for teenagers to juggle all at once.

JD: Yes. And then to be Asian Americans, South Asian Americans, who don't even get read that way…

JD: I think the teens really feel it.

JD: And so… I feel like I can arm them with as much as possible, and it's still not enough.

CATHY VO: That feeling Jigna brought up... that combination of things seeming so suddenly different, but also not changing at all… the loss of faith… it was heartbreaking to hear.

CATHY VO: Before hopping off the phone, I asked Khayaal if they ever feel like there isn't much hope.

KDH: That's a deep question.

KDH: I think for me, definitely, yes.

KDH: I often feel like, you know, In terms of, like, climate change or even like racial justice, we've already passed a lot of tipping points of certain things, and it's — it's almost too late to go back.

Cathy: Hm.

KDH: It's difficult because a lot of the news that we receive is this like, wave of like, “Here's all of the bad things that happened today.”

KDH: And at the same time... it kind of switches for me. There are times when I feel like this is doable, I feel optimistic.

KDH: And I think, you know, seeing people work against that and work for better change or, you know, progress within communities or things like that, I think that makes me hopeful...

Cathy: What's like a recent interaction that you had with another person that was kind of nice, or satisfying, or different? 

KDH: Honestly, like everything is, it's really nice. Like...

KDH: I would say sitting down and having lunch with my friends, which is, like, you know, a quintessential high school experience, just being able to sit down next to them physically in person and talk, you know, is super nice.

KDH: Because any other time we would do it, we would be like separated by a screen and we would be texting or something like that.

KDH: So just being able to, like, have a conversation is amazing, honestly.

Cathy: So given this crazy year and the ongoing pandemic, does it make you, like, think about your future any differently than you think you might've beforehand?

Cathy: Everything from deciding to go to college or like buying a house, maybe having children or something like that in the future. Has that shaken up any of your goals?

KDH: I think yes and no.

KDH: For me, some of those things... I had thought about before, not like super in depth. But I think it definitely makes me feel like I have to decide about them or plan ahead more, because there are things that we can't prepare for.

KDH: Housing pricing is going up .

KDH: And like in terms of college and like buying a house and children, they seem like almost impossible tasks in some ways...

KDH: ...I still am interested personally in going to college after high school. Like, that part of it hasn't changed.

KDH: I think the pressure of, you know, the future and what we want or have to accomplish has intensified to some degree.

KDH: The stakes are higher than they have been in the past...

KDH: ...And I feel like there's a higher pressure on us to do better and to fix all of this. Growing up with that makes it more difficult in some ways.

MUSIC: Empowered but dark electronic pop tune begins

KDH: That doesn't mean we're not going to try. I feel like people that I know in my generation, we're still going to fight for a better future, but I think... I wouldn't necessarily say I'm optimistic about how it will turn out.

Credits

CATHY VO: This episode was produced by Julia Shu and James Boo.

CATHY VO: We were edited by Julia Shu and fact checked by Harsha Nahata. Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly.

CATHY VO: Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Our theme music is by Dorian Love.

CATHY VO: You didn’t hear everyone who recorded a phone call with us in the final episode, so I just want to thank them here — that’s Arzu Bhakta, Joo Han, Kelly Ng and her kids Ruby and Marlo… and Yuna Youn. Thanks so much for sharing with us.

CATHY VO: Special thanks to our friends Katie Quan, Sylvia Peng, Jennifer Ho, and Julia Gay for helping us with our outreach for the episode.

CATHY VO: Self Evident is a Studiotobe production. Our Executive producer is Ken Ikeda.

CATHY VO: This episode was made with support from PRX and the Google Podcasts Creator Program — and of course, our listener community.

CATHY VO: More resources, and a transcript of this episode, are available at selfevidentshow.com.

CATHY VO: I'm Cathy Erway. Let's talk soon.

CATHY VO: Until then, keep sending me your kids’ best standup comedy material.

MUSIC ends

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