Oral History with Carolina Smales, May 28, 2021 (Ms2021-023)

Jessica Taylor: Today is May 28, 2021. My name is Jessica Taylor. I'm

interviewing Carolina, part two, for the Latino Oral History Project slash Voces

of a Pandemic project as Special Collections and University Archives at Virginia

Tech. This project is in partnership with the Voces Oral History Center at the

University of Texas at Austin. Please know that this interview will be placed in

the Special Collections and University Archives at Virginia Tech, and shared

with the Voces Oral History Project Oral History Center at the University of

Texas at Austin. If there's anything you do not wish to answer or talk about, I

will honor your wishes. Also, if there's something you want to talk about,

please bring it up and we'll talk about it. Because we are not conducting this

interview in person, I need to record you consenting and I'll also send you a

deed object. So I'll ask you a series of six questions. Please say "yes, I

agree" or "no, I do not agree" after each one. There are several questions you

need to make sure you agree to before we go on. Special Collections and

University Archives wishes to archive your interview along with any other

photographs and other documentation at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech will retain

copyright of the interview and any other materials you donate to Virginia Tech.

Do you give Special Collections and University Archives consent to archive your

interview and your materials at Virginia Tech?

Carolina Smales: Yes, I do.

JT: Do you grant Virginia Tech right title and interest in copyright over the

interview in any materials you provide?

CS: Yes.

JT: Do you agree to allow Special Collections and University archives to post

this interview on the internet where it may be viewed by people around the world?

CS: Yes, I do.

JT: Do you grant Virginia Tech consent to share your interview and your

materials with the Voces Oral History Center at the University of Texas at

Austin for inclusion in the Voces of a Pandemic oral history mini project, which

will include posting the interview on the internet?

CS: Yes.

JT: We have many questions at a pre-interview form that we have already filled

out. We use that information from the pre-interview form to help and research.

The entire form is kept in a secure Voces server at the University of Texas at

Austin. Before Virginia Tech sends it to the Newman Libraries, we would have

stripped out any contact information for yourself or family members. So that

will not be part of your public file. Your public file will only be accessible

at the Newman Libraries. Do you wish for us to share the rest of your interview

in your public file available to researchers at the Newman Libraries?

CS: Yes, that's okay.

JT: On occasion Special Collections and University Archives and Voces receive

requests from journalists, who wish to contact our interview subjects. We only

deal with legitimate news outlets. Do you give consent for us to share your

phone numbers or email with journalists?

CS: Yes.

JT: Okay. So I'm going to move on to the questions over here. Tell me a little

bit about your experience with COVID-19.

CS: Wow, that is an open question. Once again, you stop me if I talk too much.

JT: Okay.

CS: My overall experience is being from very different perspectives. Working in

healthcare in a way, I analyze data from healthcare, population health, and I

work in neuroscience research. When COVID started, I remember back on that

moment, I was in a neuroimaging lab working and then all of a sudden we were

informed that this was happening. We had to start working remotely and moved all

my station home, and I was in the middle of doing some prototyping for a new

technology for brain imaging. I basically had to start making my prototyping

tool room 00:01:00in my own garage. I purchased a bunch of things and I put it in the

garage. In relation to the COVID and the feeling that I had, it felt to me kind

of like as if I was in a fictional story in a way because I remember being as at

that moment I was a little bit in shocked that we have to start doing things so

differently so drastically and then kept hearing this news of people getting

affected and unfortunately, hospitals being packed. I have many friends from

China particularly so concerned about my friends and their families from China

first and then knowing that you will quickly moving here to the United States.

Then also South America was getting very out of control. I am from South

America. It was kind of crazy. I felt like in a little bit of a shock state

where I was just trying to execute actions non-stop, focused on my job and what

I had to do. I started creating things, designing things, doing calculations,

just because I wanted to not to think about the pandemic and what was going on

because I felt like 00:02:00I was in a fictional story after a while.This was around

February, so right that when it first started. Following the CDC and the World

Health Organization, and the government that we had, following all the news, it

started to add a little bit more stress to my feeling of, wow, what truly is

happening here? I particularly started going to read a lot about the flu back on

today on the COVID-19. I tend to do that because I like to compare models of

back then and now. I say, well right now we have technology. Thank god so we can

at least be connected and be informed. In the middle of the chaos I think what

worried me the most 00:03:00was to see the people the anxiety level increasing all

around the globe. The families being separated and not being able to say goodbye

to their beloved ones. So many family members, in particular, my family members

and friends, who were already dealing with another crisis in my country,

Venezuela, a crisis that was economical, social. Then on top of that, my only

thought at that moment was, wow, and on top of that they're going to have to

deal with a pandemic when it's already difficult for them to find medications,

to have resources in the hospital, when the hospitals lose power and people die

in the middle of a surgery. On top of all that, oh my gosh, now they have to

deal with a pandemic. So was difficult; 00:04:00that was very difficult for me and for

my family. Thankfully, I'm here with my mother, my father, and my siblings. We

have part of our family still there in Venezuela and others that have flee the

country and have established themselves in other places in South America, here,

in Germany, all over the world. So in a way that was the first feeling for the

COVID-19. It was a big shock, and a big refocus of values in life. I have to say

after doing a lot of research and reading and following the news and listen to

people kind of like 00:05:00going desperate and calling each other. I started to do a

little bit more me time because I was at home. I started having some space just

to think, this is happening, there is a larger reason of why this is happening

in the world. It's certainly affecting a lot of people. But what can we do? What

can we find positive out of this? I know as an innovator that great innovations

have actually taken place after crisis. Sometimes it's a personal crisis that

someone has and then comes out with an amazing idea solving many things for the

world, after wars, after pandemics, after many things, the some of the greatest

innovations have come out of that. So as an innovator myself, I started

thinking, What can I do? What can I do after this pandemic? What can I do for

people 00:06:00during this pandemic? What can I do to provide calmness? What can I do

for my family who is far away and who's dealing with this situation far away and

who are losing family members? To me particularly it all came to communicating

with them. I said, if I'm not gonna hear from my cousin, in few days, if I'm

gonna be losing someone I love and I haven't talked to in years because I've

been in the United States, now half of my life and half of my life, I've been in

South America. So I said, if one more day is gonna go, and then all of a sudden,

I'm gonna find out that someone who I love died, and I never talked to that

person anymore, ever again, then I 00:07:00don't think I will feel very good about that.

I made it an agenda for myself. I did it also for other people to start calling

every single member of my family first and then my very good childhood friends.

By doing that it was incredible. I was able to reconnect so many feelings,

memories, and also, to do what I wanted to do, which was to provide a little bit

of peace and happiness for at least one moment in the middle of the chaos of

COVID-19. That was probably one of the things that I felt most valuable that I

learned from the pandemic. The response of a pandemic in my personal level was

to give more value, to not take for 00:08:00granted the people that you have met along

your life, and to try to reach out to them because sometimes you have them in

your mind, and you have them in your heart, and you worry about them, but you

don't take the time to connect with them. That was one of the greatest process

of growth that I have had during this pandemic, is that it made me click in my

mind. I said, what are you doing? I'm not gonna do anything if I analyze all

these numbers, and I say, these are my predictions, I'm not gonna do anything

crying all day, for the people who is affected. I'm not gonna do anything by

getting desperate. Then my mom gets desperate too because I'm desperate and my

kids too. We increase the anxiety at home. I'm not gonna do anything 00:09:00with that.

I'm not gonna do anything with anything else. But I can do something for people

if I reach out to them and tell them how much I love them.

JT: Yeah, absolutely.

CS: I want to know about their lives. Tell me what happened with your daughter.

What did you do? So that's what happened? So there was a transformation in me. I

kept working at the lab. I was working 00:10:00in the Fralin Biomedical Research Lab in

the neuroimaging lab. I was helping put some technologies together. In the

middle of me reaching out to people. Something very personal happened in the

middle of a pandemic. I lost a very, very, very dear to me, childhood friend.

And it was from a heart attack. It wasn't from COVID-19; it was from a heart

attack. I think that marked even more a change in my life because he was a

university professor of electric engineering in Venezuela. Had been a very good

support of me and my ideas of innovation and ideas of art. I do art. [inaudible]

and a good husband, good son. I didn't get to talk to him. In my list of people

I was calling, I [inaudible] before he had a heart attack. So wow, that was a

very ironic play of life that I didn't put him sooner on my list to people that

I wanted to call. So his name was Nelson. [inaudible] Professor Nelson by

University of the Andes, which is where I graduated. When we were in high

school, we did partially one science fair because his dad used to work in

biomedical fluids. We always had a very interesting play thanks to his dad, who

was also a professor in the university. He and I work very well together. He

started to do a PhD graduate studies in neuromarketing and emotional

intelligence. He did tell me that about a year ago. He said, I'm doing this. I

love this program. I feel that we need to work on emotional intelligence more. I

feel like people are very intelligent. They have a very high IQ, but I feel that

one of the things that are not working very well in this high tech world is the

is the emotional intelligence side. I think people are not aware of 00:11:00 how

important their emotions are and how managing emotions are important. What I

ended up doing after COVID-19 and reflecting on the death of my friend, was that

I actually decided to quit my job at the lab. I started a program where I would

honor Nelson Vias there. I would start the promotion of emotional intelligence.

I combined my neuroscience 00:12:00skills and I started also doing some programs of

wellness for children. I wanted to help out with the problem of anxiety in

children, starting from the elementary school level. I saw from my data analysis

numbers that anxiety, depression, the rate of suicide and substance abuse,

post-pandemic the prediction is to continue increasing. In combination with

inspired by the life of my good friend Nelson Vias there, and my initiative that

I took during the COVID-19 in response to the chaos, that's when I started kind

of like moving my life towards that towards the promotion of emotional

intelligence, with a lot of neuroscience based techniques and research, working

with psychologists, with teachers, with pediatricians with epidemiologist. We're

trying to put in a whole package that also involves entertainment because I am

an artist. I'm putting all that whole package to do post-COVID-19. I call it

like this in my program that can bring back the joy and the hope on planet

Earth. It's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing right now. COVID-19 was just

basically an accelerator of something that I wanted to do for a long time. But

because of COVID and because of the people I lost, I got the guts to quit what I 00:13:00was doing and what I was comfortable doing before and it started launching on

this adventure on my own.

JT: Great. Thank you so much for that. Can you talk a little bit about how COVID

has impacted your family, including your parents and your kids and your family inVenezuela?

CS: Yes. That's going to be a little tough. Hold on one second. Let me take a

deep breath here. We lost a lot of family in Venezuela because of COVID. My dad

lost two sisters, so two of 00:14:00my aunts died because of COVID. They were older;

they were very happy people, very energetic people. From one day to another, one

weekend to another. My dad actually was able to talk to my Aunt Marie the

weekend before she died, and it was just crazy. She went to the hospital, and

all of a sudden they thought she was better, and then the next weekend she

passed. That was the case. Also my cousins, my friends, my friends love parents

who in a way-- In Venezuela, our Latino culture is such that family is not just

your biological family. It's not just your close family. It's not just your

mother and father and your siblings. Family for us is the neighbors that you

have been growing with. I grew up in a neighborhood with my same neighbors for

twenty years. My childhood friends and their parents, for me, were like 00:15:00 my

parents too. My uncles, my aunt, actually I call them and cousin. Even though

we're not blood related, so I think one of the one... I'm not gonna say which

one affected me the most because they all affect me. I was definitely shocked to

lose one of my good friends, who I consider in a way full of energy, Uncle

Simone. He was a pediatrician, and he kept the social distancing. He was doing

everything right. On December, sadly-- For the Latino culture, I knew it was

gonna be kind of like impossible to get the Latino families, now gathering

especially after such a period of emptiness and not being able to see each

other. In a way, many people 00:16:00started to get happy when they thought, oh, the

vaccine is coming and all that. I think that started loosen up a little bit in

people's mind, the restrictions. If they only thought that the vaccine was being

developed, and that it would soon come. It just started loosen the restrictions.

Then on December, Señor Simone, my friends, who I consider like my uncle. They

gather together on the family, only the family, not with friends with just the

family. Unfortunately, one person was infected with COVID and affected five

members of the family, including him. They all luckily recover, but he didn't.

He spent on a respirator for over a month. To cover his 00:17:00respirator in Venezuela,

cost us about 2,500 dollars per day to keep him in the clinic with a respirator.

In Venezuela there is no resources. There was no such thing as respirators in

the hospital. We had to go through a private clinic. The family started

collecting desperately to provide the machine for him. Luckily we are a big

family, and we were able to do it. After a while I think the clinic thought that

his oxygen levels were better and that he was doing better. Right now it's a

little dilemma for me because we all think that maybe the clinic was so packed,

that they just basically try to move patients and that he wasn't ready. But we

will never know that. So it will 00:18:00be unfair for me to do that assumption. But

it's just kind of like, well, we all was like how can he leave the clinic and

then two days later die? We just couldn't fit in our minds, but that's exactly

what happened. We kept him on the respirator. On February 9, which is my

birthday, and his birthdays, it was very close to mine. I remember he asked me

if I could sing a song for him, a Venezuelan song that he always liked with the

Quadra, which is an instrument that represents our country and I play. So my

cousin called me and said, daddy is asking if you can sing this song for him. On

February 9, 00:19:00my birthday, I sang that song for him, sent a video, tell him, I

know very soon you're gonna be good. He sent me a message saying, thank you that

he heard the song that it really made him very, very happy. Then two days later,

he died. So that was a very that was probably one of the most impactful moments

for me. At least for him, I was able to sing the song. For my other friend

again, he was so all of a sudden that I couldn't connect with him. But before

Simone, I did. So oh my goodness that's in Venezuela. My family here, it's been

different. I've been working at home, mostly. They were used to mommy working in

the office or in the lab. Having me at home is not a bad thing, but it is a

different dynamic. When mom is a home is 00:20:00difficult to put a limit when mom is

available, or mom is not available My kids do not put that limit. If I'm here,

I'm here. So that means for them, I'm available. So it's very hard to work when

I was here. Then my husband and I decided that we wanted to keep the kids

remotely during the pandemic because we were afraid. Again, we kept listening to

these cases at the schools. We thought it was best to keep them remotely. That

was good. On the one side, I get peace of mind having them here, but bad on

another because I am not a teacher. I admire more than ever, the teachers, more

than I probably ever did before. My mom is a teacher, and I always appreciate

the field 00:21:00of teaching. I think it's devoted. I love teachers, and I admire their

work. I never admire them as much as I did until I had to have my fourth grader

and my sixth grader at home with me. That was crazy. Also one of them is their

personality is such that he was okay being online. But the other one wasn't and

his grades started to suffer. I felt, in a way, a little bit of a failure

because I wanted to keep up with him and math and all that. I realized that the

way I learned math is not a way that he's been taught math. So the methods that

they use right now to teach division or something are not the same that I could

do. So it was a whole re-learning process for me and for them. I said, look

guys, this is not easy for any of 00:22:00us, but the key here is try to be calm, and

try to see what can we learn when we are here, and the good thing is that we're

together. So I can always tell my kids that good thing is that we're together.

Now mommy is not a teacher. So you have to have patience with me. Okay. While I

am trying to teach you what I know, in the way I know, but then you have to

check with your teacher. We get doing the best effort we could. My husband, on

the other hand, he does work in a clinic. He couldn't work from home. So he

continuously was working at the clinic and he worked in the pulmonary clinic.

You could consider my husband was one of the front staff. He was helping doctors

with their 00:23:00N-95 mask and was helping with making sure that the mask wasn't

leaking, that it was working properly, that was adjusted properly. He works in

sleep medicine in a sleep clinic and respiration. I cannot deny and I was also

very worried because he was in that position. But he kept telling me, I'm the

one who protect myself on my staff the most because we're there with the

patients with pulmonary problems and in COVID. So, don't worry, we're gonna be

okay because I'm protecting myself. But always ranting my mind, it causes

anxiety. The fact that you have someone working there, but I'm proud of him as

well for everything that he did. The kids, when we had the opportunity to send

them to not full online but a mix schedule, we did it. So especially my older

kid, my fifth grader, 00:24:00who was starting middle school and oh my gosh in the

middle of a pandemic, middle school. The transition from elementary to middle

school is probably one of the hardest for the kids. Doing it in the middle of it

pandemic was even a little bit more because they don't get the socialization.

They don't know anybody. My poor son, he didn't feel that he had any friends.

Then they couldn't do play dates and all that. So that's the way that they got

affected. In many occasions, I did see also some behavior of changes in them

that commonly doesn't represent their character. My preteen, my middle schooler,

at some point had behaviors that were not characteristic of him. He's a very

happy, cheerful, analytic type of kid. 00:25:00At some point, I saw him getting very

violent and like, I cannot take this anymore! Using words that we don't use,

like this sucks! I hate this! I try to tell him, try not to use those words. I

always say, hey, this is a very extreme word. I try not to use hate. Let's try

to say, I really don't like this. I really dislike this, but I try not to use

the word hate. Because he knew that I say that, he was doing the opposite. He's

like, I hate, hate, hate this! I was like, oh my gosh. I could tell that the

kids were very just very frustrated for not being able to play with their

friends, to see their friends. My fourth grader didn't like to take test online.

He was much better at doing it at the 00:26:00school. I think for both of them in terms

of the schooling, during the COVID, keeping up with the homework-- the fact that

they had to in a way had an attitude of a college student, where they have to go

to the computer and check their assignments, and then on their own try to

complete things. That was a little bit insane because they didn't have a habit

formed. I don't know how other parents did it, but that was difficult for me. We

just are trying to focus in what is the positive of COVID-19 and what we learned

from COVID-19 and what we value from COVID-19. So I always tell kids, yes, it's

been difficult not being able to play with friends, but now you know how cool 00:27:00 it

is to play with friends. You know how important that is, and when you see your

friend next time, then you're going to take advantage of that time. You're not

going to be with your friend fighting or disagreeing or calling each other names

because what is the point? If after so long that you weren't able to be

together, when you are together, do it well. Do something that you really enjoy

and you're happy about. That's what we try to convey to them. It's kind of like

the value that you want to give them. So many lessons learned, I would say as an

overall statement. I think during the COVID-19, after losing people, after

observing behaviors, after me, I mean yourself being feeling vulnerable out of

control, someone knowledge that you think you have, 00:28:00and then we're all on the

same pocket of this out of control situation. Being on a pandemic and being this

generation dealing with that. I think it's a lot learning that we get from this.

I think so.

JT: Absolutely. How is your parents' perspective different from yours? You said

that they're with you, right?

CS: They are with me. My mom was a retired teacher. My mom was a chemistry

teacher and my dad is 00:29:00an engineer. My mom is been trying to keep herself calm.

But it's been difficult because my mom, the transition from her to move after

sixty years of her life, from South America to the United States, is a big, big,

tremendous cultural shock and change for her. My mom is very social like I am. I

am a reflection of her. She likes to talk, and the neighborhood here, there are

not many people who speak Spanish, at least not in our neighborhood here. So

she, in a way, have felt like trapped in a bubble. For everybody in my family, I

think for the person who was the hardest, the COVID-19. My mom had different

health records like where her blood pressure went down, and we had to take her

to the emergency. My mom has had some panic attacks and anxiety attacks, periods

of depression, where we altogether trying to be there for her. Me repeating her

over and over that I can't imagine what it's like to be on her shoes and

adapting to all this. I always been kind of repeating the perspective to her,

imagine if you were there. 00:30:00If you were there right now, and you weren't here. I

don't know what we would be like. Me and my brothers will be extremely worried.

I honestly don't know what could have happened if my parents weren't here. So

she comes back always to the positive side when she reflects on that. But she

has been greatly affected my mother. My mother suffers because she has a

WhatsApp group unit, WhatsApp, the application. We have multiple family WhatsApp

groups. I understand this very, very much because I've been here in this

country, again, half of my life, but yet I feel like a piece of me is still in

South America. For my mom is even more because she 00:31:00just recently moved she moved

four years ago. She is practically there. Her body is here, but her mind is

there and is every day there. She's always talking with her friends because it's

the people she can talk to, that are in Venezuela. They're all conveying the

problems and their feelings and what is happening and that's what she does. We

always say for her peace of mind, mom can do for one day not listen to the

problems of people. It took us a while to understand this, but then we realize

that what pleases my mother is to actually listen to people. It pleases her 00:32:00because she feels just like I felt that my way of doing something good for my

friends and family was to connect with them and talk to them and sing for them

or whatever. For my mother, the way she thought she felt most productive in

doing something was by listening and she's right. But at the same time, her

having to listen to all the stories, problems, complaints, pain, kept affecting

her and she kept absorbing that. So it's a very tough balance because that's

what makes my mom happy and that's what we, in the family, had to accept. So we

kept telling her, mom, don't do it, don't do it. This is affecting you. But at

the same time, that's it. It's her need. Her need is to be there for her people.

We do it in different ways. But she inserted that in me as well. We understand

her, but she has been greatly affected. My father has a 00:33:00different attitude and

personality. My father has been focused on working. He's working here. I

finished the residents paperwork, and they've been trying to incorporate-- My

father has been trying to learn English. He has attended multiple English

classes here in the region and also online. The other day he was actually proud

because he helped a friend at the DMV. My father was the one who helped my

friend talk for him. He felt so proud because he has learned something. So my

dad is on a more, let's say, on a different personality and a different way of

dealing with all this. He really values that we're all together here. My mom is

going to be a process in a little by little we're just trying 00:34:00to be together to

help her because it's been a roller coaster for her.

JT: You had mentioned that your mother had some health issues. How has COVID

revealed some problems in healthcare either in your husband's work, in your

work, and your mom's experience?

CS: I can resume that but it has been all about mental health. I'm not gonna put

people in a pocket, and I'm not gonna speak for other people. I can only see

from data from population data. The mental health has been increased, 00:35:00but I am

not going to detach myself from them because it has affected me mentally,

emotionally, and it has affected my parents, my children, and my husband. Even

though we work in the field, and my mom is an incredible-- She's filled with

estrange. She is a very strong woman, and so is my dad, but he has affected us

mentally in different levels and in different ways that have only been reflected

on behaviors, words, crying, sleeping. It has definitely affected our mental

health. I think that has been the greatest impact that COVID-19 has had.

Physically, when your mental and emotional health is affected, emotional being

part of mental, your physical health also pays for it. I think that's the way it

goes, but I am not a medical doctor. So I'm just telling you this from a

healthcare analyst perspective. There's always a loop of in healthcare, trying

to go over the loop of what the World 00:36:00Health Organization says health is: the

social well-being, the mental well-being, and the physical well-being.

Healthcare overall, has always been rather concentrated on the physical

well-being because it's more tangible. You can tell when someone has a pain, and

then you measure and you take blood pressure and all that, and then there you

go, this is how we're gonna treat that. But when it comes to the social

well-being, and when it comes to the mental well-being is a little bit less

tangible. But I always feel that the beginning point is the mental side, that's

me. When the mental side 00:37:00is affected, it affects your social well-being, and it

affects your physical well-being. But science hasn't never put one point, it's

always a loop. Science always says, no, this, this, this, this, this. Healthcare

overall always puts physical health on the front line because it's more

tangible, but I always put mental health on the front line. We yet haven't seen

the impact the true impact that COVID-19 really had on this whole generation

that dealt with it because when yet need to wait to see what are the behavioral

consequences in society in the way you work and the way you think and the way

you act, how you manage your emotions. We yet don't know yet how that's going to

be. Now going through the 00:38:00pandemic, and now hopefully, going through the first

period of post-pandemic has been a tremendous mental health change for all of us

in the family and in for people in general.

JT: In terms of just going to the doctor, in where you're at right now with your

family, what is your family's experience been like, going to the doctor or going

to see mental health professionals during COVID?

CS: Let's start with the doctors. We tried as much as possible not to go to the

doctor during the COVID-19. We didn't want to visit the hospital because we

didn't want it to basically leave home. If we had to 00:39:00do like a general check or

any preventive care visit, we didn't want to do it. We wanted to wait until

COVID was better. So we all kind of like try to be at home, but we did have some

emergency visits. My sister had a baby during the pandemic and so she had to

continuously go for her checkups. My nephew was born on October sixth. Then we

had a baby in the family and that brought kind of like balance that out with the

sadness we had from losing cousins and aunts and uncles because of the pandemic

to welcome a new member in the family. So that helped out a little bit, but we

tried to avoid at all costs to go see a doctor. Now, mental health

professionals, I considered many times actually going to mental health

professionals, but I did that because right now I consider myself truly

half-American and half-Venezuelan. I have adapted so much to the American

culture, 00:40:00like the North America, the USA culture, that I am actually okay and

open to go to a mental health psychologist and just talk to them and tell them

how I feel and get some important feedback. My family, from South America, and

this is typical from South America, they don't think that way. In our culture

it's very, very difficult. There is a big stigma of going to mental health

doctor. They don't want to see a psychologist. They don't want to see a

psychiatrist because they always have the biggest stigma that they're gonna be

called crazy or insane. They do not want to accept that. I wanted my mother to

see a psychologist because 00:41:00again, I am not a medical doctor. ButI have been

surrounded so much by healthcare and by doctors and psychologists that I know my

mother was having periods of depression and she had the symptoms. So as a mom,

let's go and I translate for you, or we find a translator, if you don't want me

to be your interpreter, and that's okay. But that wasn't possible because in her

mind she doesn't need it. So the truth is that I wish I could bring my mother to

a mental health provider, but she would refuse profoundly because of her

culture. There is no other way to put it because of her culture to just wouldn't

do it. On the other hand, I 00:42:00actually did it. I went to one of my friends and to

get advising how to handle not only me, but me, my children, and my mother, like

I went for her. She doesn't even know but I did because I was suffering seeing

her suffer. It always made me question, did I do good bringing my mother here?

Because I want to have her close or which would have been better just being at

home, and being happy around the people she knows and being together and support

each other? I always thought I was doing it for her to be happy. I guess deep

down it was also for me to be happy. It's always a dilemma in me. Did I do it

for me or do I do it for her? I don't want my mom to spend the last years of her

life being at a state where she isn't content and happy. I want her to be happy.

Her unhappiness and desperation and continuous crying in because of COVID. It 00:43:00just didn't help. It was already indeed very difficult to have her here with all

these mixed feelings and then on top of that when COVID-19 happened and she

started losing friends as well and family. Oh wow, it was getting a little bit

more out of control. So I wish I could tell you that I took her to a

psychologist but she wouldn't let me. As for the rest of the visits, my husband,

because of the nature of his job, he had at some point to help the emergency

department when the people affected but with COVID were entering the hospital

Carilion Clinic was preparing actually trying to prepare well, in case they had

to deal with an overflown emergency. My husband was contacted to do practices of

emergency and he was pretending to be the patient and they did a bunch of

practices to know how to deal with the situation as fast as possible. So that

was something that Carilion Clinic was doing. Just kind of like trying to

prepare for the overflown emergency and the equipment and the and the staff.

That's when my husband had to indeed go to the emergency multiple times. That

worried me a little bit more. I mean, he already was in the pulmonary clinic,

but now he had to do that. I was like, wow. Now, there was a hard period too.

But it wasn't because my husband or myself, or the children, thankfully had 00:44:00 an

emergency, the only one who did have an emergency was my mom with blood

pressure. She had very low levels of blood pressure and almost fainted by the

time that we made it to the emergency. Up to this point, we believe still that

it was an emotional situation. She basically didn't drink water for the whole

day, didn't eat much. I was sleeping next to her for like two days, and

monitoring her blood pressure, and it just wasn't coming up. So we decided to

go. The staff, the doctors, wow, they're the heroes. They were magnificent,

really truly.

JT: How did the vaccine change your 00:45:00family dynamics? Were there feelings about

how that would affect people's health? What's been your interaction with vaccines?

CS: We are a family pro-vaccine. Eric is my husband. We're hesitant. It's almost

like we want other people to get the vaccine first. I know this is very selfish,

silly of us. We wanted other people to get the vaccine first, and then we will

go for it. My husband didn't have a choice because he was one of the first

groups to get a vaccine. I was working mostly from home, so I was kind of like

trying to halt when it came to the vaccine. My parents, who were on the eldry

group, had the opportunity to get 00:46:00it and we went to get it as soon as possible.

I do have to mention, though, that we were incredibly blessed because having

worked with the Latino community for a while, I organized events for the Latino

community. I do a lot of cultural development. I do a lot of that. Vivian

Sanchez, who's one of the the city council's and then she represents the Latino.

She called me and say, Caro, are your parents vaccinated? And I said, no,

Vivian, I'm waiting to see when Carilion opens the opportunity for my parents

who were allowed to. She said, no, let me put them right away here because I'm

trying to make sure that the Latino community is vaccinated. I thought I was

great and I'm forever thankful with Vivian for doing that. I put my parents in

one of the first groups to get the vaccine and once they got vaccinated, 00:47:00 they

again they felt very lucky to be here because in Venezuela, I don't even know

when the vaccine is gonna come and if it does come people doesn't even trust the

government to get it. I have family in Chile. I have family in Ecuador. The

processes over there are not as agile as fast as in the United States. We're

very blessed that we were able to do it. My husband got it first because of his

line of work, then my parents, and then it came to us, my siblings and myself.

Because I was still working from home I didn't feel I had at the moment the need

to get it yet again. I was in my mind I was just giving more time more time more

time. There was a little bit of hesitation for me to get it, but I ended up

going not long ago to get 00:48:00my vaccine because I am ready to go back to the

libraries and work and work with children and the schools, so I decided okay, I

need to come out of my mind let's just go do it. For the kids, we still have the

hesitation to get it. My middle schooler and others call center communicate that

they can get it twelve years old and that and again, my husband and I are still

hesitant with the kids. At some point we'd read that there is effects on the

reproductive system. We don't know about all the effects that the vaccine may

have. So we still are a little bit on the thinking side for the boys, for kids,

whether or not we want them to get the vaccine. That's where we are right now.

We're still kind of like reading my friends' pediatricians. They recommend them

to do it before the supplies go away, but we're still very, very hesitant with

that. Because again, we don't know. I insist that we don't know yet the effects

of the vaccine or the COVID-19 until later, we want not. So sometimes it's a

leap of faith and a leap of sight and a leap of belief in science. I have a lot

of faith in science, but yet, at the same time, I'm trying to be very cautious.

We want to be more secure of everything before we do for the kids. That's us

personally now.

JT: Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else about COVID that you wanted to add 00:49:00as we come to the end of the hour?

CS: On my personal side, it is my hope that really people can stay the positive

side of COVID. Going through the pandemic, it's kind of like an opportunity for

a big remarkable world transformation if you ask me, transformation in the sense

of spirituality, emotion, diversity, inclusion. It's kind of like a reminder

that after all, we're all humans, and that we all are vulnerable, and have

similar vulnerabilities. Like how people tried to separate themselves from the

region, especially people from Mexico with the last government with some

government policies. Immigration policies were often separated. People from the

Middle East were often separated in terms of what we're allowed to do, what

we're not allowed to do, and all these things. I know that COVID-19 it's a

health pandemic, but at the same time, it is my hope for the world. After going

through this, people really entering their minds that we're all the same, that

we're all humans, and that we can all lose our lives just by that in a matter of

seconds, so try to do better in their lives, try to come up with something that

truly impact people's lives in a positive way and not so commercially driven. I

felt that we were living in a world that is incredibly commercially driven,

rather than being people driven, and human needs driven. 00:50:00So in my humble

perspective, as a healthcare analyst, it is my hope that the post-pandemic

generation can be transformed for a positive human growth in emotional

development, human development growth, rather than the contrary. Rather than

everything was bad, bad, bad. I really hope that people focus on the positive

things that can come out of this, rather than just the negative parts. But of

course, nothing is gonna replace the people we lost during a pandemic. I am all

about continuing the legacy of the people will love.

JT: Thank you.

JC: Thank you Jessica.