By Rosa Guevara

COVID Diaries: First Place Winner

Swipe, swipe, swipe, as I entered the pin to our food stamps card. Here we go again; the worker at Trader Joe’s looks at me and my mom in discomfort. Is it because we’re people of color shopping in the middle of a pandemic? Is it our food stamps card that triggers you? Or is it that you’re jealous of our card? Could it be both?

“Mija, como que nos vieron feo?” which translates to, “They kind of gave us an ugly look, right?” my mother shared with me as we stepped out. I wanted to give her a hug because we were eating off the state of New York to feed our stomachs. How could her privileged daughter let her mother go through this?

As we took a break in Union Square, my mother was already planning her breakfast for tomorrow’s workday.  She cleans houses for a living; she’s a domestic worker and she has continued to work to bring bread to the table. She’s been working for the same Orthodox Jewish families for the past 23 years. A pandemic was not going to stop her, despite the protocols she often heard from Telemundo.

My mother suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure. She’s working to at least afford her medications. That is more important to her than to wear a face mask. The least she can do for herself is not die anonymous as a Latina woman. She has been the only one working since my father, who has been in the construction field for the past 24 years, was laid off.

Tears streamed down from her eyes as she sat with me in the park. “I think your father is depressed.” This I knew. I had my own kind of pain, but my parents were more important than my own sanity. I often asked myself, “Why God, why God, do we have to suffer?”

We headed back home. As we watched the news, I saw my father’s anger. He pays his taxes yet receives no kind of assistance, no unemployment, no stimulus checks, no small compensation. Before, I had been planning to do the bare minimum for my parents, planned to help my father get a social security card.

The pandemic ruined it for us. The pandemic helped us starve, helped us lie, and helped us be ashamed of our food insecurities. The pandemic ruined us.

I think of the number of times Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio stated to the media, “New York is a sanctuary city, we will always protect our undocumented immigrants.” They failed millions of undocumented immigrants; they are the reason so many are currently on hunger strikes and why many have gone out into the streets of New York.

GetFood NYC became a staple in our household. The fresh vegetables we received from the food banks, the fruit we discovered like the golden kiwi, the snacks like the bear graham crackers; and the days my mother would yell at me, “No te olvides de pedir la comida!!”

I soon noticed other people in my building were also ordering the food packages, and then I felt less embarrassed about it. We all often talked about the good/bad days, based on the packages we received.

**

Today, my father’s mental health is better, my brother who is autistic understands the meaning of a pandemic, my mother lives in fear and we still receive no funding from New York.  We continue to swipe our food-stamp card at the cheapest supermarket, Trader Joe’s. I continue to have hope in the food banks even as it worries me when donors no longer donate, because I’ve seen some of those food banks close.

For now, my mother and father will continue living this life of maltreatment in secrecy. They would not dare let us, their kids, tell the truth. They want us to be better than the privileged people who have rude kids. And Mom wouldn’t dare tell us about the pain she feels, in her knees, her waist, her pockets, her wallet and in her heart.

To live the American dream is only a wish she wants to grant. For now, we will all bite down on our lips. Como nos duele en la casa de cupones.