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The Stories

O.S., a teen in Murrieta, CA

” think I felt the virus’s presence sooner than most Americans because I have family in Taiwan. When my aunt, uncle, and little cousin came to visit for Chinese New Year in February, just a month before widespread US lockdowns, my aunt spent the entire time in self-imposed quarantine. She only smiled once during her visit: when we gave her a collection of cloth masks, gifts from Taiwanese relatives that we never needed to use in the clean California air.”

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M.L.J., 73, a poet in Itasca, IL

“There’s a virus in the air, but I can’t see it.
People are dying around me, but I can’t save them.
There are spikes pierced in my back,
spasms, but I can’t touch them.”

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M.S., 27, a dancer in Matawan, NJ

“This year stopped me from living my ultimate potential in my career. I’ve struggled to make it this year, I picked up warehouse jobs and driving jobs just to pass time. My life hasn’t been the same and I’m constantly changing my path of work because of the pandemic.”

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B.N., 76, a former teacher in Murrieta, CA

“I have always been a person who has plenty to do to keep busy and haven’t minded being alone. However, being 76 years old and married to a man with a chronic lung disease has caused me to be extra careful with whom I spend time.”

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G.E., 72, an Editor, English Instructor, and Poet in Orinda, CA

“We sat together in couples
patting each other’s shoulders as we passed,
leaned across the table listening, looking carefully,
taking each other in. Your absence is breaking me.
The descending darkness brings home the loss
of all your warm and present bodies, all your arms
that held me in the doorway and all the little ones
we carried to their beds. “

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S.S., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“This situation affects my mental health in extreme ways. My brain is longing for the social connections that school and the freedoms that turning 16 brings me. I cannot exercise the things that I have waited for so long in terms of life and friends because of the people in power and the people that cannot follow simple directions.”

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J.L., 19, a student in San Francisco, CA

“I think throughout the pandemic, I found my real strength in being proud and happy about my race during a tumultuous time in history when nobody else is and Asian American representation is at a negative.”

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S.P., 20, a student in Manassas, VA

“[Quarantine] wasn’t too bad, as my parents and I are used to spending a lot of time together and we have the same hobbies. It felt like my childhood again, simply spending all day with my parents. However, these happy times were abruptly cut short when George Floyd was brutally murdered by police. This sparked many discussions about racial justice between my parents and I…”

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A.Z., 22, a student in Kahului, Hawaii

“As an American university student, 2020 has been a year of unprecedented weirdness. It’s brought upon a good deal of comfort and stark realizations for me. To sum it all up, life in quarantine hasn’t been bad at all. It’s certainly been a transformative time and, as a young adult, it’s come to represent the transition to adulthood for me.”

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C.M., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“I was incredibly bored throughout the entire experience and it was hard finding things to do in my own home but I’ve managed find many things like drawing, watching movies, learning a new language, etc. I try to talk to my friends through different methods everyday and the rare occasion we see each other face-to-face we still adhere to rules as best we can.”

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Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.

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