His father was retired. His mother collected disability insurance. His older sister, with whom he shared a bedroom, was a veterinary technician. Luis worked at a law firm. The apartment was crowded, loud, and sometimes crazy. But in New York City, what isn't? Luis was usually out in the world, anyway, because when you're in your 20s, the world is yours.
When COVID-19 hit, Luis' universe suddenly narrowed. No school. No job. No parties. No friends. Soon, his whole family had the virus. It was scary, because by then Queens was one of the most dangerous places on the planet, with mobile morgues standing outside overflowing hospitals. A few weeks earlier, Luis was looking at graduate schools and thinking about a new life in a new city. Now his main goal was to survive.
Luis was one of the 33 college students and recent graduates whom Isabelle Caraluzzi (an NYU doctoral student) and I interviewed for a book about the year 2020. They were a diverse group, so it was striking to find so many commonalities in their pandemic experience: Stress, anxiety, and a generalized insecurity from which they have yet to be relieved. Deep uncertainty about the nature of the post-pandemic world. Feeling obligated to make enormous sacrifices for the good of others, with no one in power ever naming, recognizing, honoring, or compensating their losses. Losing faith - not only in the core institutions that anchor society, but in the idea of society itself.
By summer 2020, Luis had fully recovered his sense of smell and taste. "But I lost everything," he reported. His family, once stable, was impoverished, relying on food pantries. After George Floyd was murdered, he joined in protests that lasted through the summer. "It was connected to the pandemic," Luis said. "It was boiling over at that point, this kind of mistreatment."
Denne historien er fra March 11, 2024-utgaven av Time.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra March 11, 2024-utgaven av Time.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
CAVALCADE OF COMEDY
As Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th season, alumni look back on the people, moments, and humor that shaped their time at an American institution
The Summer of Scam that never ended
EARLY IN THE NEW NETFLIX SERIES APPLE CIDER VINEgar, its star, Kaitlyn Dever, breaks the fourth wall.
The Italian 'Trump whisperer'
ITALIAN PRIME MINister Giorgia Meloni's political fortunes are far brighter than any other G-7 leader's.
The (real) problem with fake plants
WHEN THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHER IMMANUEL KANT puzzled over why nature looks beautiful to us, he considered the case of replicas.
Insecurity is the new inequality
DONALD TRUMP'S SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM HAS already been accompanied by a cascade of unnerving political and natural events-from the U.S.'s leaving the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords, to the nighttime firings of inspectors general and pardons of the Jan. 6 rioters, to the raids targeting immigrants in a number of cities and the wildfires roaring through swaths of Los Angeles.
TIME the Closers
25 BLACK LEADERS WORKING TO END RACIAL INEQUALITY
THE PAW PATROL PRINCIPLE
How a toy company built a children's-television juggernaut
Mindy Kaling The writer, producer, and showrunner on the status of Legally Blonde 3, cooking with Meghan Markle, and her new Netflix comedy, Running Point
The family in Running Point has shades of Succession. Was that show on your mind?
A THOUSAND CUTS
THE STANDOFF AT 1300 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE was not much of a spectacle.
DeepSeek's hidden warning for AI safety
THE RELEASE OF DEEPSEEK R1 STUNNED WALL STREET and Silicon Valley in January, spooking investors and impressing tech leaders.
