Summer Ethos - COVID-19 Edition

Volume 11 Issue 4 | Summer 2020

COVID-19 EDITION

Staff List Editorial

Multimedia

Editor-in-Chief Renata S. Geraldo

Multimedia Director Jassy McKinley

Managing Editor Sophie Bange

Multimedia Producers Emily Cline Meg Matsuzaki Kevin Wang Fallon Dunham

Associate Editor Jade Yamazaki Stewart Fact-Checking Editor Kiki James

Creative Art Director Emma Nolan Illustrators Eleanor Klock Christina Staprans Garrett Dare Danielle Desme Cameron VandenBerg

Designers Emily Pascale

Business President and Publisher Bill Kunerth VP of Operations Kathy Carbone Director of Sales & Marketing Shelly Rondestvedt Creative Director Sam Rudkin

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Writing Copy Editor Abigail Winn

Fact Checkers Madeline Ryan Hailey O'Donnell Writers Anika Nykanen Molly Schwartz Hailey O’Donnell Allie Holt Sam Nguyen Jozie Donaghey Madeline Ryan

Letter from the

Editor This Letter from the Editor was co-written with Jade Yamazaki Stewart, the incoming Ethos Editor-in-Chief.

hese are not peaceful times. We are living in a health pandemic while engaging in the fight for racial justice after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

And as journalists, we are here to document history.

This edition is an especially historic one. For the first time ever, Ethos is focusing on a single issue, the issue of COVID-19.

And although the extensive news cycle surrounding COVID-19 has led to saturation, the following pages contain humancentered stories, following our trademark reporting.

These stories begin with our cover. The woman portrayed

by Ethos illustrator Christina Staprans is Treva Risher. Risher is an Oregon-registered nurse who volunteered in hospitals in New York City in the midst of the pandemic. Her story is a prime example of the stories you will see throughout this issue.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken an emotional toll on society and social distancing hindered our traditional reporting process, but we have adapted and, in turn, poured dedication into this issue. And for that, I truly commend Ethos’ journalists and editors.

I dedicate this issue to them, as well as for everyone who has been affected by the coronavirus. While I leave my position as Editor-in-Chief sad that I won’t work with such dedicated young journalists, I am proud of what we have achieved this year. And I look forward to seeing Ethos’ many future accomplishments.

It is impossible to call ourselves a multicultural magazine without using our platform to elevate the voices of Black, Indigenous and people of color communities. Our mission is to tell stories that reflect the diversity of lived experience at the University of Oregon and the surrounding community. A central story of UO and Eugene is one of historic and current systemic racism, police brutality against Black people and a racist criminal justice system.

Ethos Magazine endorses the Black Lives Matter movement and BLM protesters. We decry police brutality. We condemn crackdowns on peaceful protests by police departments in Eugene and across the country. We denounce the blanket curfews the City of Eugene imposed last week, the use of tear gas, pepper balls and other riot control weapons against peaceful protesters and the arrests of peaceful protesters by EPD. Ethos Magazine reaffirms our commitment to telling stories that spark discussions and empathy, challenge racism in our society and amplify the voices of marginalized populations. We commit to being actively anti-racist in our coverage.

We will maintain our anti-racist reporting and hold ourselves accountable for exposing systemic and institutional racism. We can, and will, contribute to change.

So stick around. We have much more to bring to the conversation.

We must also address the current racial protests happening worldwide. As a multicultural magazine, it is paramount that we speak up about our position in this issue.

Renata S. Geraldo Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 3

More than Health

Contents

UO international students are stuck in limbo as borders close Feature

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6 Homeless during a Pandemic How skeleton crews at shelters are coping with helping their vulnerable community Feature

9 Uber and Unemployment Gig workers lose their income overnight—struggle to get unemployment Feature

11

So, What Now? Unhoused students face an uncertain future post-graduation with COVID-19 Feature

16

Our Story Ethos is a nationally recognized, awardwinning student publication. Since our inception as Korean Ducks magazine in 2005, we’ve worked hard to share a multicultural spirit with our readership throughout the university and Eugene community. Ethos is, after all, defined as the fundamental characteristic of a spirit, people or culture.

Latinx Community

Throughout our pages and on our website you’ll find unique, multicultural stories ranging from Eugene restaurants to international human rights debates.

Our readers pick up Ethos to explore ethical, journalistic storytelling, beautiful photography and illustrations and innovative designs. We embrace diversity in our stories, in our student staff and in our readership.

Voices from the Latinx community, who are being hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19 Features

18

Ethos recieves support from the ASUO. All content is legal property of Ethos except when noted. Permission is required to copy, reprint or use any content in Ethos.

All views and opinions expressed are strictly those of the respective author or interviewee. Ethos is a publication of the Emerald Media Group.

6-Feet Apart How couples are adapting to social distancing.

100% Illustrated Issue to Maintain Social Distancing

Arts & Culture

21

Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 5

What We’re Afraid of Most Written by Sam Nguyen Illustrated by Garrett Dare

UO’s international students share stories about how the virus is much more than a health issue.

A

t the end of March, Chinese international student Rui Lin was saying goodbye to her friends every day in between taking her final exams. Most of them were Japanese exchange students who were preparing to return home. Their time studying at the University of Oregon got cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At first, Lin’s friends were given a choice by their home universities to leave or stay in the U.S. However, the emails the exchange students received about the COVID-19 situation changed every day. In late March, the exchange students received a definite email telling them they were required to go back to Japan.

“Every day I’m sending my friends away,” Lin says. “I was kind of overwhelmed by that.”

While her friends were required to go home, Lin decided to stay in Eugene. Thinking that classes would return to regular in-person meetings after the first three weeks of spring term, as was first announced by UO on March 11, Lin decided to stay in the U.S. instead of returning to China.

She was one of many international students who chose to stay in the U.S. while UO classes went online. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has grown more complicated than it was when they first made their decisions. In the U.S., the number of cases rose by the thousands and healthcare providers started to run low on personal protective equipment. Recovering countries, like China, worry about a second wave of infections from returning nationals. Travel restrictions and quarantining upon returning proves to be a burden to those who go back home.

While COVID-19 changes daily life globally, international students face a unique set of challenges during the pandemic.

“We think that between two-thirds and three-quarters of

6 | ETHOS | Winter 2020

international students are still in the U.S.,” Dennis Galvan, the dean and vice provost for the Division of Global Engagement at the University of Oregon, says about sample data taken by UO’s International Student and Scholar Services in March.

The students who remain in the U.S. during the pandemic must either stay enrolled in school or pursue an Optional Practical Training in order to stay in the country on a valid visa. OPT allows international students to work in their area of study for up to one year in the U.S. on their student visas. If an international student chooses to not pursue graduate school or an OPT after graduating, they have a limited amount of time to leave the U.S. before their student visa expires.

Ugandan international student Noelyne Alitema says that the legal restrictions on international students living in the U.S. became more complicated with COVID-19. And with many countries closing their borders and airlines cancelling their international flights, some students may not even be able to return home at all, while scientists work to find a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus.

Alitema’s home country has placed heavy restrictions on people entering. Uganda requires incoming travelers to quarantine as soon as they arrive in the country. This can be done in a home, hotel or government facility where the person won’t be exposed to other people. While quarantining is an important safety measure, Alitema says that the hotels the government has approved are expensive, making it unrealistic for her to return home.

“From Eugene to Uganda, the cheapest ticket I could get would be $1,500. And then if I am to quarantine myself in a hotel that’s by the airport, a day could probably be like $500, and that’s for 14 days,” Alitema says. “It’s very unrealistic.”

And for international students who returned home, travel restrictions still complicate their plans for coming back to the U.S. As countries try to contain COVID-19, travel entry restrictions have been implemented worldwide to prevent further spread or a second wave of infection.

For example, the U.S. currently does not allow entry to people who have traveled to countries significantly affected by COVID-19, like China and Iran, within the last 14 days. A student from one of these restricted countries would have to stay in another country for 14 days before reentering the U.S., but other countries are implementing similar, if not harsher travel restrictions, making returning to the U.S. difficult for international students.

“Those would have to change in order for students to be able to come back,” Galvan says about global travel restrictions.

“International students are in a tough spot, not knowing whether they can come back.”

While border closures and expenses of self-quarantine prove to be a major obstacle for some international students to return home, others believe that it is worth going through such measures because staying in the U.S. feels more dangerous.

Lin says that many international students fear the possibility of gun violence breaking out if supplies run low in grocery stores.

She says that even her relatives, who all live in China, call her with worries about the dangers of staying in the U.S. In China,

Lin would not have to worry about gun violence because of the country’s gun restriction laws.

“All my relatives are really worried because Americans carry guns,” Lin says. “This is what they’re afraid of most, not the virus.”

On top of worries of violence breaking out because of supply shortages, Asian international students worry about being racially targeted while staying in the U.S. When news first broke about the spread of COVID-19, Asian international students were some of the first to start wearing face masks, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) initial measures saying that face masks were not effective in protecting against the virus.

Some of UO’s Chinese international students were buying masks in bulk and selling them to other students on WeChat.

Other students received packages full of face masks from their parents.

Face masks are a part of normal life in East Asian countries.

Someone might wear a face mask to prevent spreading diseases, protect against pollution or simply for stylistic purposes.

However, face masks are not commonly worn in daily life in the U.S., which made them more noticable and alarming when people started wearing face masks to protect against COVID-19.

Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 7

In February, Chinese international student Jane Shang wore a face mask on a flight from Seattle to Eugene to keep herself safe. She says she noticed that the passengers on her flight were watching her because of her mask. The people sitting near her tried to distance themselves from her. Shang says that she wasn’t bothered by the other passengers, because like her, they were worried about the new virus.

“I don’t really understand it,” Shang says about the negative reactions to people wearing face masks. “But I will do it to protect myself and other people.”

The racial targeting became even more explicit when Donald Trump called COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” on Twitter on March 16. Lin first learned about the tweet through screenshots posted on WeChat by other Chinese students. Trump’s remarks combined with the stories of racial targeting made international students feel uneasy about staying in the U.S. “The international students, they were also afraid they would get discrimination when they wear masks,” Lin says. “I think they are more afraid of violence rather than the virus itself.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, there have been increased reports of racial targeting of Asian Americans. The Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council has received nearly 1,500 self-reported hate crimes since they first set up their online incident report page in March.

International students at UO worked with the university to take action against the racial targeting through a multilingual inclusion campaign that took over the front page of the Oregonian on March 31. The ad campaign got almost 1.2 million views on the Oregonian’s website. The Asian, Desi, & Pacific Islander Strategies Interest Group at UO has also been working to make sure that the racial targeting campaign continues into the fall term.

“When people are hateful the solution to that is education,” Galvan says. “And when people are victims to that kind of hate, the solution is solidarity.”

As governments learn to control the spread of the virus, international students staying in the U.S. are able to watch their home governments from afar with a different perspective, says Lin. On December 30, 2019, Dr. Wenliang Li warned his medical colleagues through WeChat of a possible SARS outbreak and the information quickly spread through Chinese social media.

The Chinese police accused him of spreading false information and made him sign a letter of admonition. Dr. Li later died on February 7, 2020 from the COVID-19 virus, which he contracted while working at Wuhan Central Hospital.

Lin remembers feeling upset when she learned about how the Chinese government had initially responded to COVID-19 and Dr. Li’s warnings. It was the same feeling that Lin felt when she came to the U.S. and learned about historical events and political issues that were censored in China.

However, Lin’s initial feelings about the Chinese government’s initial response to COVID-19 has softened after seeing the effects of its strict quarantine measures. In China, police patrol out in public to reinforce social distancing regulations. In Lin’s hometown of Wenzhou, which sits on the central eastern coast of China, only one member of a household is able to leave every two days to get necessities. If people get too close to each other while going out, the patrolling street guards quickly break it up.

Lin says that stricter quarantine measures in China have allowed her parents to gradually return to normal life, while she remains in quarantine in the U.S. “In China, when this coronavirus broke out, people were really willing to stay at home to work with the government,” Lin says.

Although many of Lin’s friends and family live in Asia, Lin says that she’s comforted by the fact that she can still keep in contact with them by calling. She says that she finds the time differences fun to navigate. When her mom is waking up in China, Lin calls her in the afternoon in Eugene to sing and play guitar for her.

“I think it's a time to test friendship,” Lin says. “If your friends are away, and if you can keep in touch, it shows real friendship.”

8 | ETHOS | Winter 2020

Written by Anika Nykanen Illustrated by Danielle Desme

HOMELESS DURING

A PANDEMIC What are advocates doing to keep people safe?

I

n mid-April, Sheryl Balthrop had been sleeping at the Eugene Mission for about a month, working seven days a week to keep the seven-acre campus open during the COVID-19 crisis.

“We are on a skeleton crew right now,” she says. Balthrop, executive director of the Eugene Mission, is serving 260 residents and running a mobile drop-off team at the Mission with a staff of 10 and a couple of “low-risk” volunteers.

Balthrop has not been able to visit her family since she began her stay at the shelter. Although she calls her mother every day, she hasn’t been within ten feet of her since the crisis began. “I don’t feel that I can create that risk for my family,” she says. “So yeah, I miss them.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has gutted many organizations’ capacities to provide shelter and meal programs, putting intense pressure on those providers still serving on the frontlines.

Costs have skyrocketed, revenue streams are down and many employees and volunteers have been sent home due to health concerns.

“The majority of our volunteers fit into a high-risk category,” Balthrop says. Older volunteers, people living with sick families and those with underlying conditions have all been asked to

go home. “We went from hundreds to a couple, literally” This reduction in people power has greatly impacted the Mission’s ability to provide care.

The volunteer program at St. Vincent de Paul has also been suspended. “We don’t want to take the risk of exposing them to COVID-19,” Terry says. “Many of them were older and we don’t know if they have health impairments.”

First Place Family Center, one of St. Vincent de Paul’s programs, volunteers are not the only support people who have been sent home. “We cannot take the risk of having staff that are symptomatic come to work even if it’s just allergies or the common cold,” says Mike Yoshioka, director of the facility. To keep symptomatic employees on the payroll, First Place Family Center has had to get creative with sick time and paid time off, as well as find duties for staff that can be done remotely. To cover these absences, the shelter has had to make temporary hires.

These changes have doubled personnel costs, a serious liability at a facility where revenue is already down due to the closure of St. Vincent de Paul’s thrift stores, the proceeds of which partially covered the costs of the shelter.

Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 9

"Her patients are left in dire situations when their insulin needles, antibiotics and epilepsy medication are stolen while they sleep."

A lack of volunteers and the additional costs associated with the crisis are compounded by limited access to personal protective equipment, or PPE. “One thing that is overlooked in the need for PPE is those folks who are sheltering homeless individuals that have a high likelihood of being COVID carriers,” Yoshioka says.

horrifyingly rapidly it will spread throughout their entire social group, their entire core camping group.” In the unhoused community, tight social circles are a means of safety. “Safety of property, safety of self, safety of closing your eyes and falling asleep and waking up with the same property. Because if you are alone, you can guarantee that it’s not there,” says Jackson.

Balthrop echoed this concern. “We are right in our guests breathing space and everything else and we have no PPE. But there is no other way around it, there is not enough PPE to go around,” she says, concluding, “You have to serve here with… a certain amount of bravery.”

Sierralupe says she understands the need for the unhoused to cluster as protection. Her patients are left in dire situations when their insulin needles, antibiotics and epilepsy medication are stolen while they sleep. Although clustering as a protective measure might make them vulnerable to COVID-19, Sierralupe says the unhoused community’s immediate concerns may outweigh the threat of the virus. She phrased the choice simply: “Live through the night, or risk getting COVID.”

The shortage of protective gear is not limited to shelters.

“We can’t buy masks, we can’t buy thermometers,” says Sue Sierralupe, clinical manager of Occupy Medical and program director for Wheeler Unhoused Medical Respite Pavillion (WUMR), a free medical center contracted by the county to expand recovery facilities for the unhoused during the pandemic.

“They’re gone, they’re just gone. If we can’t get it made or we can’t get it donated. We just don’t have it,” she says. .

Although Sierralupe is concerned about COVID-19 and the lack of medical supplies, she is also pleased with some of the changes she has seen in Eugene. “You’ve got to look for a rainbow,” she says.

For Sierralupe, that rainbow is not difficult to see. Tens of outhouses and handwashing stations, which activists have advocated for for decades, have suddenly been installed across the city. The creation of the Wheeler Pavillion Respite Center has enabled an unprecedented expansion of care across the board for the medically indigent and unhoused. “People are getting help while they are in our care for some of their other conditions, everything from addiction to infections to hepatitis,” says Sierralupe.

Eric Jackson, unhoused advocate for the decriminalization of homelessness, expanded on some of the silver-linings Sierralupe identified. Whereas before unhoused people were profiled for wearing masks to avoid surveillance, “Now we aren’t at all, now it’s totally common,” he says.

Nonetheless, when asked what his biggest fear was if someone in his community gets sick, he replied, “How 10 | ETHOS | Winter 2020

The importance of a strong sense of community as a means of survival is not limited to the unhoused. The care providers described cooperation among agencies as a critical resource of knowledge and strength in a rapidly changing health crisis. They noted how grateful they were for teamwork within their staff.

The Eugene Mission and WUMRWheeler Respite Pavilion are entirely reliant on donations from the community for protective gear. “Fortunately,” Sierralupe says, “we live in a very, very loving, giving, generous community.”

Balthrop’s greatest fear about the pandemic is that this sense of community will be fractured through mistrust, leading to an even greater stigmatization of the unhoused.

Her concerns are belied by conversations she has had with housed community members. Every few days she says she gets calls “asking basically whether or not my guests are vectors of COVID-19.” According to Balthrop, these housed residents are essentially asking “more or less what am I doing to keep the (housed) community safe from my guests.”

For her, this kind of thinking represents a gross misconception about the crisis. “That’s the terrible thing about pandemics,” she says. “When fear is involved, we want to look around and blame someone. And that’s the last thing we want to do. We want to pull together as a community and all of us do what we can.”

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ON HOLD Written by Madeline Ryan Illustrated by Garrett Dare

The uncertainty of unemployment in gig work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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A

lissa Skinner is stressed. She’s behind on bills, her hours working as a housekeeper at a hotel have been cut and she’s trying to get her husband to stop watching the news so much. The coronavirus pandemic is reaching into every aspect of her life.

“I’ve been trying to talk to him about it and calm him down a little bit,” she says. “It’s been stressing him out more and more every day, to the point where it’s getting depressing.”

It’s hard for either of them to stay calm, though, when Skinner is risking exposure daily and the consequences of her getting infected and being contagious have higher stakes than for most people.

Her husband has congestive heart failure. If he contracted COVID-19, he would die.

But Skinner has no choice but to keep going to work. She needs the money.

In the era of coronavirus, workers are surrounded by uncertainty in terms of job security, financial security and

personal safety. Unemployed workers in the United States are facing overwhelmed systems and long waits for unemployment benefits. According to a May 14 press release, The State of Oregon Employment Department had processed over 300,000 unemployment claims since COVID-19-related business closures started in mid-March. However, about 50,000 claims remained unprocessed and some individuals have been waiting for benefits for six to seven weeks. Workers in the gig industry, already some of the most vulnerable in the workforce, have to wait even longer and with more uncertainty ahead.

As part of the coronavirus relief bill enacted in late March, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program extends unemployment benefits to workers who wouldn’t have previously qualified for unemployment insurance. This includes selfemployed, contract and gig workers along with part-time employees. However, states began accepting these particular unemployment claims late into the pandemic.

The Oregon Employment Department began accepting Pandemic Unemployment Assistance applications on April 28, over a month after Gov. Kate Brown issued the stay-at-home executive order on March 23.

Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 11

" It took Mahoney 962 calls on

the app to get through to the unemployment office, and when he did they were closing for the day ."

The week of the executive order, the hotel where Skinner works temporarily fired all laundry staff and then reduced hours for housekeepers by 50%.

“I try to not let it get to me too much,” Skinner says. “I’m just doing my job, making sure I’m being careful. That’s kind of all you can really do.”

“I’m at the point of concern,” Skinner says. “I’m only working four hour days, if that. And four hour days, four days a week at minimum wage is not enough money.”

Dan Mahoney, a Eugene musician who drives Uber and Lyft on the side, decided that being careful meant he would stop his usual work.

Skinner asked for the name of the hotel to not be specified because she worries about keeping her job.

Skinner says the hotel advised its employees to file for unemployment even if they wouldn’t have qualified under previous requirements. She called the unemployment office, but like many workers across Oregon, her calls went unanswered.

According to the Oregon Employment Department, the average number of daily calls to their contact centers has hovered around 2,500 since the beginning of April. The number of average calls answered has remained at about 1,000.

Not sure when she’d get to file her unemployment claim, much less receive benefits, Skinner put out ads on Craigslist and Facebook looking for gig housekeeping jobs on the side. She’s turned to gig housekeeping in times of desperation before, but this time, no one called her back.

When working at the hotel, Skinner still felt unsafe. The hotel practiced sanitation procedures, like sanitizing every handle and door knob twice a day. But they didn’t provide her or any other staff with masks to wear at work for the first month of the stayat-home order.

The hotel only provided housekeepers with face masks in mid-April, several weeks after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommended wearing masks in public.

“It was a little bit late in the game,” Skinner says.

But she still had to go to work.

12 | ETHOS | Winter 2020

The first to go were his shifts driving for Uber and Lyft.

On the night of March 14, Mahoney set out to make his usual round picking up riders from the Eugene Airport until he noticed that the next incoming flight had departed from Seattle. At the time, Seattle was the nation’s epicenter of the pandemic. He suddenly got nervous.

“I was on Highway 99, and I turned my car around,” he says. “I decided I’m not going to take a risk like that.”

Instead, Mahoney spent the evening picking up riders in downtown Eugene. He says this didn’t feel very safe to him either. His car is small, and he says being in close contact with so many people who were occupying populated venues felt like too much of a risk.

“I could only do it for a day or two, of driving people around to packed places, before I called it quits,” Mahoney says. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.”

Uber and Lyft have come under fire recently for classifying their drivers as independent contractors and not employees. If they were classified as employees, the companies would have to provide drivers with benefits like unemployment insurance and a minimum wage.

Even though independent contractors now have access to unemployment benefits for the first time under the coronavirus relief bill, Business Insider reported that Uber has made it very difficult for drivers to get paid sick leave. This contrasts with Uber’s claims that it would be providing paid leave to drivers who met certain requirements.

These requirements can include possession of a doctor’s note mandating self-quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure or underlying chronic health conditions that put drivers at risk.

With such narrow requirements and little economic relief, gig drivers like Mahoney are forced to decide between earning money and preserving their own safety.

Mahoney decided to quit driving for Uber and Lyft for the time being, abandoning a job that had composed half of his income.

The other half of his income came from his work as a musician. The six gigs he lined up for April would’ve covered his rent, but in the week following his decision to stop driving for Uber and Lyft, all of them were cancelled.

It was around this time that Mahoney tried to file for unemployment. He began calling the unemployment office to try and file his claim, but received a busy signal every time. He made so many unanswered calls that he decided to download an autoredial app. It took Mahoney 962 calls on the app to get through to the unemployment office, and when he did they were closing for the day.

“It’s been a complete nightmare trying to get in touch with them,” he says.

On May 31, Gov. Kate Brown asked for and received the resignation of the Oregon Employment Department Director, Kay Erickson. The request was a response to the continued delays in delivering unemployment claims and the lack of clear communication by the department.

Before the pandemic, Mahoney taught private guitar and piano lessons at his home. To continue supporting himself, he transitioned his private lessons online by teaching students through Skype calls and providing lesson materials through a Patreon website.

He was excited about the opportunity to reach a wider audience of students online and hoped music could be a good outlet for current and potential students in need of stress relief.

At the same time, however, he acknowledged that his students were also experiencing the financial strain he was and not everyone could spare the money for music lessons.

“Some of them can’t afford it because they’ve been waiting to hear back from unemployment for a month or so,” Mahoney says.

Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 13

Ben Hansen, a University of Oregon economics professor, says that this is a difficult cycle to escape. Services like Mahoney’s are what economists call normal goods, which means that their demand is high when incomes are high, but demand falls when incomes drop. This pattern is happening now, but Hansen hopes it will be temporary.

Whether or not it really will be temporary depends on how long the pandemic restricts economic activity. Even once unemployment arrives for those that need it, the payments can’t go on forever.

“The government can only pump out so much money to everyone,” Hansen says. “Eventually, people start spending less and that filters down.”

Hansen says stress from job insecurity won’t necessarily end when quarantine is over and doesn’t all originate from complete job loss. He anticipates that fear and caution may take a long time to subside and it’ll be hard to return to normalcy. For some, there is no guarantee of what their work will look like when economies reopen.

The working populations that are extremely vulnerable to this uncertainty are those who offer in-person services that cannot be transitioned online. Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, anticipates that a service-sector recession is on the horizon. This would include the loss of over 10 million jobs that were already unstable because of low wages and low benefits.

Alexandra Levine, a part-time server at a restaurant and a local yoga teacher, is part of this working population. She was laid off from her restaurant job almost immediately after Kate Brown’s stay-at-home order.

However, she’s most concerned about how the yoga industry has been impacted. Because organization and payment systems differ from studio to studio, yoga teachers, who usually work as independent contractors, are vulnerable to large economic shifts.

“The industry is so inundated, so full of new yoga teachers who are eager to quit their jobs and start teaching for a living,” Levine says with a laugh, “that we honestly have no chance of getting a good-paying job or getting something consistent. And there’s no security blanket for when things like this happen.”

“There’s no national standard for how we’re paid,” Levine says.

“There’s no union.”

As classes shift online, she’s seeing yoga studios face competition with free online yoga classes that existed even before the pandemic. Levine fears that the pandemic has the potential to completely change the landscape of her industry.

“We’ll go back to normal eventually,” Levine says. “But then, what will it look like? By the time that happens, some studios may permanently close.”

“I’m sure it won’t just go back to how it was before,” she says.

“It can’t, right?”

14 | ETHOS | Winter 2020

“ I’m sure it won’t just go

back to how it was before,” she says. “It can’t, right? ”

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Through their collaboration with the U of O, Looptworks has created limited edition Duck gear made from your favorite team’s uniforms that are both unique and earth-friendly.

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Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 15

ed by Garrett Dare

Written by Allie Holt Illustrat

So, What's NExt? High cchool students face homelessness during a pandemic.

M

any high school seniors are grieving the loss of proms, senior sports seasons and commencements due to the coronavirus pandemic. But for other students, the closure of schools means more than missing out on these experiences — it means losing food security, routine and even shelter.

In March, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared that all schools in the state would be moved to remote online learning. Oregon’s Department of Education released Distance Learning for All, a program for Oregon’s school districts, to help parents and students navigate the rest of the school year remotely.

But for the many homeless students in Lane County, remote learning comes with challenging barriers. There were over 2,000 K-12 homeless students in Lane County in 2019, according to ODE. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act is a federal law that provides certain rights and protections to students experiencing homelessness. The McKinney-Vento Act’s 16 | ETHOS | Winter 2020

Education of Homeless Children and Youth Program ensures that homeless children and youth are provided a free, appropriate public education, despite the lack of a fixed place of residence or a supervising parent or guardian, according to the ODE. As part of this program, every school district in Oregon has at least one homeless school liaison that provides assistance to both homeless families and youth. But because of COVID-19, these liaisons have had to switch to working remotely.

Some homeless students can’t complete their schoolwork because schools have closed, says Jade Chamness, a homeless liaison for the South Lane School District. Students are supplied with Chromebooks or hardcopy packets to do their schoolwork, but their work can be difficult to access remotely at the high school level, especially if they don’t have internet access.

“They might have a Chromebook, but they still live in a trailer out in a forest and don’t have access to a vehicle or money for gas to drive to a parking lot where they can jump onto school WiFi,” Chamness says about some unhoused students’ situations.

Donna Butera, a homeless liaison from Bethel School District, agrees that working remotely has been a huge challenge for unhoused students. When students are at school they use their teachers, school counselors and liaisons for support, she says.

Some homeless students over the age of 16 are eligible to live on their own without a legal guardian. But COVID-19 has made future living, schooling and financial situations uncertain for homeless youth.

“Some of them have been used to things being up in the air in their personal life, but they knew where their school counselor was, and I would come to talk to them at school,” Butera says.

Students rely on in-person interactions for guidance on the next steps towards graduating.

“They used to have us available five days a week to talk to,” Butera says. Without in-person support it has become challenging to navigate the next steps after graduating. “They usually have a lot of hands-on support. But now it’s more difficult.”

“School provides structure, stability and access to people who can help you. And that’s just gone for them,” she says.

“We’re still here, but it’s hard.”

Financial concerns are impacting many students because of COVID-19. According to the State of Oregon Employment Department, the agency has received 396,000 unemployment claims since COVID-19 business closures began in mid-March. In Lane County alone, there have been 26,226 claims since March 15. In Oregon, there are tens of thousands of unemployment claims that remain unprocessed, and some people have been waiting for benefits for six or seven weeks.

Seniors who aren’t going to college or trade school after high school are focused on finding a job so they can financially support themselves upon graduation. But because of the pandemic, there are not a lot of jobs available. Butera says

finding a job is one of the biggest concerns of homeless students she’s spoken with. “If they’re still living with their families and experiencing homelessness then there are financial constraints and pressures to contribute,” Butera says. “ If they’re on their own then they really need a job.”

Liaisons can help with basic needs such as food, clothing and toiletries. But teenagers also want to earn their own money to spend on themselves. She has been encouraging youth to apply for jobs such as working at grocery stores, and keeping her eyes and ears open for any job openings for them.

“We all really miss seeing them in person,” Butera says. “It’s easier to be understanding and listen and comforting when you can be with them.”

Although it’s harder without in-person contact, liaisons are trying to support their students in any way they possibly can.

In Cottage Grove, Chamness is collaborating with Rural Organizing Project, a statewide organization. Rural Organizing Project, in partnership with South Lane School District’s McKinney-Vento Program, launched a donation drive for food and basic need items to help youth who have been impacted by COVID-19.

Chamness also launched a GoFundMe to help raise money for food for homeless youth in Cottage Grove. The goal is to provide $50 grocery gift cards to every one of the 251 students who are currently facing homelessness. So far 62 people donated more than $2,500 toward the campaign.

The Cottage Grove Community Foundation has also donated $5,000 to South Lane School District’s McKinney-Vento Program for its students.

“It’s been really cool to see how the community has stepped in to support our kids,” Chamness says.

“ They used to have us available five days a

week to talk to,” Butera says. Without in-person support it has become challenging to navigate the next steps after graduating. ”

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de Jesus Avila moved from Jalisco, Mexico, to California in 1983 before moving to Springfield in 2002. She is one of many immigrants living in Lane County that comprise Oregon’s Latinx population, which is 13.3% statewide. In Springfield, that number is 12%.

Yet statistics from Oregon’s COVID-19 weekly report show the Hispanic community accounts for over 29% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases statewide.

Oregon’s Latinx community has disproportionately been affected by the coronavirus because of systemic and institutionalized oppression, several experts say. The location of their communities, immigration and citizenship issues and a lack of bilingual information have all made the pandemic particularly difficult for Latinx people.

La ubicación John Arroyo, an assistant professor in engaging diverse communities at the University of Oregon, says rural Latinx populations are vulnerable to the coronavirus because they often live far from resources and close to toxins that cause preexisting conditions.

Written by Jozie Donaghey Illustrated by Eleanor Klock

EL FRENTE DE BATALLA Eugene’s Latinx community faces the brunt of COVID-19.

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“Physical illnesses like asthma are common among dense Latinx populations due to the history of where Latinx have grown up in America,” Arroyo says. “The prevalence of illnesses like diabetes and high cholesterol is also due to environmental injustice.”

Beyond Toxics, an environmental justice non-profit based in Oregon, and Centro Latino Americano, an organization in Eugene that provides resources for the Latinx community, partnered in 2012 to conduct a report on toxic emissions. They studied the correlation between Latinx communities that live in West Eugene’s industrial corridor, asthmatic children in nearby school districts and socioeconomic status.

t’s hard for Maria de Jesus Avila to believe that back in February, her in-home business D’Marias Hair Salon was full of clients. Now it sits empty in the back portion of her house in Springfield, Oregon. de Jesus Avila and her husband, Carlos Francisco Perez, are both facing unemployment in the heat of the pandemic.

The report shows that 99% of all of Eugene’s air toxins are emitted in West Eugene where nearly half of the Latinx community resides. These pollutants cause preexisting conditions such as asthma and lung disease that make people more vulnerable to COVID-19.

“There’s more stress because we don’t know when we can go back to work,” Maria de Jesus Avila says. “We’re prepared to stay home a little, but not long.”

In the Bethel School District, Fairfield Elementary had the highest enrollment of Latinx students (35%), as well as the highest number of students on free/reduced lunch and students with self-reported asthma.

Both de Jesus Avila and her husband are self-employed. But like many service industry workers, when the pandemic came to Oregon, they both became unemployed indefinitely. For de Jesus Avila, applying for unemployment is challenging, she says, because her internet access isn’t reliable and the Spanish translations of online forms are hard to understand.

Fairfield students were 107% more likely to have asthma than students at Irving Elementary, the school with the lowest number of students on free/reduced lunch. Beyond Toxics suspects this is because Fairfield is within 2 miles of 14 industrial air polluters, such as sawmills and wood treatment plants.

“I tried a few times to do them online, but you know, I don’t have good internet and so I wasn’t able to finish them,” she says.

“The forms are hard to understand even in Spanish, so I filled them out the best I could, and we’ll have to see.”

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But because housing prices in this area are lower than in others, many Latinx families don’t have much of a choice, Arroyo says, especially if they’ve just immigrated to the area and don’t have legal documentation.

“ They often can’t afford to

not work, and the jobs they do are in the service industry, like sanitation, so they’re already exposed. ”

La inmigración y la ciudadanía Aside from these issues stemming from housing inequalities, Oregon’s Latinx community is also more vulnerable to COVID-19 because of the challenges they face in receiving government aid.

The Public Charge rule plays a huge role in whether immigrants seek government aid, according to Arroyo. Public Charge states that the government can deny access to citizenship, a Green Card or visa to immigrants if they believe the person will be primarily dependent on government support.

“Public Charge makes it hard for any immigrant to become a citizen if they’re on government aid,” Arroyo says. “If they use services now, they may not be able to become citizens in the future.”

Along with fear of Public Charge, many patients are avoiding health care facilities for fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will be there waiting for them. A 2019 survey conducted by The Children’s Partnership in California found that over 40% of immigrant patients were skipping appointments and consultations to avoid ICE confrontation.

ICE has continued detaining immigrants despite there being 90 confirmed cases among detainees and 20 among employees in several facilities, according to ICE. Detainees at greater risk of contracting the virus are slowly being released with ankle monitors, but there are still over 32,000 immigrants that remain in detainment centers.

The agency has made public statements that immigrants should continue to seek care for the virus without fear or hesitation. But Acting Deputy Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli also said in a Twitter post that ICE would continue operations as it always has, adding to public confusion as to whether hospitals are a safe zone for immigrants.

Besides the fear of being detained by ICE, immigrants who don’t have citizenship or official wage and tax statements can’t apply for unemployment benefits, food stamps or stimulus checks.

This is an issue that Lorna Flormoe, a manager for the City of Eugene Office of Human Rights and Neighborhood Involvement, says she’s trying to address in the city's recovery plan.

“A lot of services open to most community members aren’t available to Latinos due to their immigration status,” Flormoe says. “We’re asking ourselves, ‘How can we get assistance to families who can’t get regular assistance?’”

El frente de la batalla With government aid off the table for many Latinx families, taking time off work to socially distance isn’t a viable option.

The Oregon Commission on Hispanic Affairs Chair Linda Irma Castillo says this is especially true for many Latinx employees who have to support large, multigenerational households.

“They often can’t afford to not work, and the jobs they do are in the service industry, like sanitation, so they’re already exposed,” Castillo says.

According to Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, an advocacy organization for Hispanic immigrants and farm workers, there are 74,000 undocumented agricultural, child care, food service, cleaning, maintenance and retail workers in the state of Oregon, which is about 13% of Oregon’s Latinx population.

“The vast majority of these workers are deemed essential, yet are not entitled to unemployment insurance or emergency aid,” Reyna Lopez, the organization’s executive director, said in a public statement on April 24.

Having to support multiple family members highlights

Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 19

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how social distancing is another form of privilege minorities don’t have, Arroyo says, especially without any government assistance.

“The Latinx populations are living paycheck to paycheck, supporting large families with a few wage earners,” he says. “If you have to be on hold from work, you have to be able to afford it.”

According to Castillo, this brings back the same question to Latinx households: How do you feed your family and protect yourself during a pandemic when you can’t afford not to work?

And for families whose first language isn’t English, there is another barrier: access to information.

La falta de información en español Most information on the pandemic from the news, healthcare facilities and the government hasn’t been made available in Spanish, with few resources for non-English speaking community members, Castillo says.

“A lot of COVID material early on wasn't translated or dispersed far and wide across the state,” Castillo says. “There needs to be reliable intercultural and interlanguage information out in the community.”

The majority of information on COVID-19, quarantine and social distancing restrictions have been dispersed solely online.

This form of information is often harder to understand for people whose first language isn’t English, and the Spanish translations aren’t always accurate, according to de Jesus Avila. With the IRS and unemployment offices no longer open to the public, receiving bilingual assistance requires a phone call that could take hours.

According to a Centro Latino Americano survey about the effects of COVID-19 in Lane County’s Latinx community, 44% of Latinx clients are concerned about getting COVID-19 information. Twenty-nine percent are worried about language barriers preventing them from getting information from schools, the news and healthcare services.

20 | ETHOS | Winter 2020

Flormoe says the city is prioritizing these concerns in its pandemic response and recovery plan. She also says the City of Eugene website has an “Español” button at the top of every page that translates information, lists various services and has updated and accurate COVID-19 information for anyone in the community. Castillo says the website for Eugene’s Commision on Hispanic Affairs has this information as well.

La incertidumbre With Lane County now moving into Phase 1 of re-opening after Gov. Kate Brown’s Stay Home, Save Lives executive order in March, businesses like restaurants, fitness centers and personal care services are starting to re-open — including de Jesus Avila’s hair salon.

“I’m excited because we open tomorrow,” she says. “I’ve been calling my clients to see if they need appointments.”

But lifting quarantine restrictions for Oregon businesses comes with a long list of preventive measures based on the Oregon Health Authority’s Reopening Guidance, which incurs extra costs. Pre-health screenings of clients, extensive cleaning between appointments and purchasing masks, gloves and capes are just some of the requirements de Jesus Avila must comply with to re-open.

“I’ve been looking for cleaning supplies, and I’ve ordered some ponchos, but they’re hard to find,” she says. “For now, I’m going to use black trash bags until my ponchos get here, and am asking clients to wear masks.” de Jesus Avila says she plans on disinfecting her entire shop between clients, limiting the amount of appointments she can have per day and taking a shower before re-entering her home.

Keeping her family safe from exposure is still her first priority.

“I know it’s going to be different when we go back to work,” she says. “I want to be prepared when we go back, but it’s going to change a lot.”

Unintentional Long Distance Written by Molly Schwartz Illustrated by Cameron VandenBerg

How young couples are coping during sudden seperation.

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n her way to the Eugene Airport, Isabella Ramos asked her boyfriend if he still wanted to date her. She told him she was going home to Denver, Colorado, for two or three weeks before coming back to Eugene.

He told her that he wanted to stay in the relationship and that he could wait a couple of weeks to see her again.

When Ramos got on the plane, she did not know that her visit was not going to be just three weeks. She later says that was, “wishful thinking.” She ended up being gone for six weeks and three days.

Ramos is a third-year student at the University of Oregon studying advertising. She met her boyfriend while working on a show for DuckTV, a student-run television program. They started officially dating in January, and they worked on a show together the previous year.

When Ramos found out that she was going to be in Denver for more than three weeks, she was upset. She had left her home and her boyfriend back in Eugene.

In order to stay in touch they give each other the occasional Skype call. Their virtual dates include talking about cinema and a little drinking. When she told him the news on one of their Skype calls, he told her he was surprised. Neither of them were expecting that they would be in a long distance relationship.

Ramos says their relationship has changed during the quarantine. Usually, Ramos says she is the more extroverted one in the relationship, but that has been different since quarantine.

She says she has not voiced all of her concerns and finds it hard to figure out where her partner stands on their relationship.

Normally, she has no problem bringing up any problems. But the distance has made it harder.

She says what she misses most is intimacy. Ramos considers herself to be a sexual person and has been struggling with the lack of physical affection. It becomes especially difficult during their Skype calls, she says.

Ramos says she saw something online that said if you keep the camera at eye level that makes you feel more connected to the person. She recalls one of their Skype calls when her partner sat in his bed and kept his camera at eye level.

“It just hurt me. He looks so comfortable and literally the day I left, he spent the night and he drove me to the airport that morning. And I remember that morning we were cuddling. It was just so great,” Ramos says. “It's just been hard. It's been hard for us.”

Despite her mother and stepfather’s wishes for her to stay home, Ramos decided to buy a ticket back to Eugene for April 29th.

“I feel kind of selfish about this decision,” Ramos says. “But that made us both feel better.”

When Ramos arrived at the airport, it wasn’t the reunion she had imagined with her partner. He revealed to her that because of his asthma, they would not be able to be in each other’s homes. She sat in the backseat of his car, only able to see his eyes because they were both wearing masks. She had gotten a haircut and he had looked different than she remembered. She said that they barely recognized each other.

A few days later, they went to Hendricks Park and took a walk.

They kept their distance but she still had a good time. However, Ramos says it felt more friendly than flirty. Ramos is unsure where they stand as she tries to navigate a relationship without physical intimacy.

Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 21

Now that she is no longer partaking in casual sex, it has helped her realize that she wants more emotional relationships.

Burns has expanded her romantic endeavors, using other dating apps besides Bumble. However, she says she finds herself less likely to put in the effort to text a guy first when they are not going to meet up. But she does feel this alleviates the pressure of meeting in person. This is because there is no chance of them meeting up because of the current situation. She hopes that this will make people more genuine about themselves and what they are looking for.

She says that Tinder has become more fun and less disappointing during this time, although no conversations have escalated past the app. This is because there is no pressure of meeting up with the person or having an awkward in-person interaction.

“It’s like people-watching from my couch,” Burns says.

Without having any roommates, Burns has spent her time at home alone. Although at times it can be hard to be alone, she is starting to work more on herself and approach dating from a place of self-awareness. This includes discovering what she wants out of her future relationships.

She says she misses physical touch but she has not thought about having sex. Now that she is no longer partaking in casual sex, it has helped her realize that she wants more emotional relationships.

“The thought of having sex with somebody doesn’t really excite me right now...I don’t know if it’s “quarantine goggles” or if it reveals something about my inner desires,” says Burns.

Saving the Date Quarantine Goggles

Jenna Burns has been single for the last two years and has explored the world of online dating. When quarantine started, she had been casually dating two different men she met on Bumble. But those relationships did not last through the pandemic. She says that this time has allowed her to take a step back and notice the patterns in the partners she chooses.

Burns is a third-year student at the University of Oregon.

She has been single during quarantine after “ghosting” the two men she was seeing. She says that the quarantine helped her end two situations that would have been dragged out for way too long. She says that they both equally ghosted each other at that point.

“Is he ghosting me or is he dead?” Burns says.

During this time she was also let go from her job at the UO Craft Center and picked up a job at a small grocery store. She says that the boredom might have changed the usual dynamic between co-workers. She finds herself flirting with her co-workers and questions how sincere these interactions are. Without the boredom or lack of social interaction, she contemplates whether or not they would be flirting in the first place.

She also recognizes that these are the people she feels most safe around since she interacts with them everyday.

“If I had a life right now, would I think you’re cute? I don’t know.” Burns says.

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Maybe a month. Realistically, three. Or who knows, maybe a year until she sees him again. Mariah Botkin, 20, is familiar with longing. Her partner of about a year and a half, Tom Pothalingam, 21, lives in London. The two met last year while he studied at the UO on exchange. Since then, they’ve fallen into a steady pattern of hellos and goodbyes. She’s used to the heaviness of parting and the scheduled FaceTime calls. She counts the weeks until the reward of reunion, and works hard to afford airfare and time off. They have a plan in place.

Botkin understands the typical yearning of going longdistance. Yet long-distance in a global pandemic demands a whole new approach—an unfamiliar one tangled in uncertainty.

“Normally I can kind of curb the missing by knowing that I’m going to see him in the future. I guess without that tangible end, it makes me feel a lot more isolated and lonely and kind of pessimistic,” Botkin says.

She already bought her plane ticket to London in July. But this time around, the countdown has been put on hold. While the couple does all they can to stay close with daily calls and sharing songs and TV shows, Botkin says that it can be draining in more ways than one.

“It takes a lot of energy to keep talking to a person every single day when you can barely ever see them,” she says. “I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think it was worth it.”

Botkin says it is difficult to envision the world in which their paths can converge again. Even when travel returns to “normal,”

what it may entail remains uncertain. She wonders what new challenges she could face when she visits next, whenever that may be.

“There are so many walls up right now,” Botkin says. She has no clue what’s waiting on the other side.

For now, virtual check-ins will have to do. Yet having a screen mediate communication offers its own obstacles.

“It doesn’t really feel like I have a boyfriend almost,” Botkin says. She feels as if she hardly knows him anymore, since he “just exists in a phone.”

With her job at a daycare suspended and her roommates moving back to Eugene, Botkin is coping with loneliness.

Pothalingam was meant to visit her in March, but he cancelled the trip due to the rising global concern. Since they began seeing each other, they’ve tried to reunite every three months.

While coping with their separation can challenge her, Botkin tries her best not to define their relationship by distance.

“I try to not make our relationship about longing for each other… but there’s definitely this undertone of, ‘Oh God, when are we going to see each other next?’” she says.

They try to talk every day, even if it’s only ten minutes or less.

These check-ins are a currency of care––a way for Botkin to show that she is still there, and that it’s still worth it. She says she is sure it’ll work out in the end. Until then, she’ll just have to picture the ending.

“I’m constantly looking forward to seeing him again,” she says. “Constantly.”

I think we’ve gotten very good at knowing when we need to spend time away from each other. In a lot of relationships, especially at this age, you can kind of burn out

Winding Down, Building Up Jordan Hogan and Ella Stuart met last September, became official in January and have been together ever since. While both Hogan, 19, and Stuart, 21, say they have come to understand each other quite well, social distancing in the age of COVID-19 has given new meaning to getting to know each other.

While Hogan and Stuart aren’t living together, they’ve limited their social interaction to each other and their roommates. Most of the time they’re at Hogan’s place, but they spend time at Stuart’s as well. Hogan says that her relationship with Stuart was one of the main reasons she decided not to move back in with her family in California.

In many ways, the evolving global situation has been a test of the couple’s structural support.

“In terms of relationships right now, I feel like it could go one of two ways. It can build your relationship, make it stronger, make you closer and make your communication better. Or it can point out glaring incompatibilities,” Hogan says.

So far, Hogan and Stuart have experienced the former of the two. For them, social distancing has been a powerful reminder that relationships thrive in balance, support and clear communication. Stuart says she’s learning to “shut up” when Hogan needs her attention. She says she knows that there are moments for connection and moments for space, and that each can be an act of love.

“Having something like this happen in the world around us has made us build a really solid foundational support system,” Stuart says.

Part of building this support is continuing to bond. Both artists, Hogan and Stuart frequently spend time creating together. They consider quality time to be a main love language in their relationship, and value engaging in activities like cooking meals or making coffee for one another. Yet they know personal time is just as important, and they honor each others’ wishes for space.

“I think we’ve gotten very good at knowing when we need to spend time away from each other. In a lot of relationships, especially at this age, you can kind of burn out because you’re spending a bunch of time together, and I think it's easy to do that if you’re quarantining with a partner. But I think at this point we’ve gotten very good at seeing those early signs,” Stuart says.

This commitment to balance guides their romantic philosophy as well. They believe in a romance that’s realistic, on-going and intentional. Stuart says that while society often equates a thriving romantic life to “fiery passion” and extravagance, she doesn’t necessarily believe that this is true.

“I think keeping the romance alive for me just entails small ways I can show my partner that I care about her,” she says.

It’s through these small things, she says, that they have created a space where both of them feel safe. A space where, in Stuart’s words, each partner “feels loved.” They don’t worry about a romantic “spark” dwindling. Instead, they sustain a warm glow.

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