My dad is a landlord - nothing fancy, just a small business he runs mostly himself. So my dad didn’t think all my concern made sense for them… My parents live in a suburb of Toledo, Ohio…which had far fewer cases of coronavirus than New York City. As long I take medicine and my sugar is always good, normal, healthy, running around everything is fine with me.īA: So…yeah.you see what I’m up against. That’s another risk factor.ĭad: See I take medicine, I don’t consider myself Diabetic. It make your body lazy.īA: But you have diabetes, I tell him. Mom: No, no that doesn’t make your body strong. ĭad: That's why I'm so young, you know, because I sleep a lot that, you know, make my body strong. I am young And I don’t like people tell I’m in an old age. My dad is high risk when it comes to the virus…but don’t tell him that.ĭad: Beenie, I don't like people telling me you are in the old age. School and work took us across the world.īut as much as I wanted to be with them.there was no way I could let my dad drive into the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. My parents always said they stayed in America for my three brothers and I - and then we all left them. My dad has lost both of his parents and two siblings since being here - and couldn’t make it to even one of those funerals. My mom doesn’t have a single relative in this country. My parents, they left behind everything they knew when they came to America. I hadn’t been home in a long time.and now that we were working from home, I kept thinking we should work from home, home. I spend the night and then you hop in the car and then I'll bring you from New York to here.īA: It’s not just that I wanted to flee the city. will come and pick you up, you know, I'll come and pick you up. My dad kept telling me the same thing:ĭad. We were safe, I told my parents in Ohio…but I guess they could hear the anxiety in my voice. We had everything we needed inside: 20 pound bags of lentils and rice face masks and vinyl gloves. We worked from home and barely left the apartment. The death toll from coronavirus in New York City, where I live, had risen from five thousand, to ten thousand, and then to fifteen thousand. Her journey began in May when she picked up the phone.īeenish Ahmed (BA): I tried to sound calm when I called home. These past few weeks, I have been asking myself: Why didn’t I drop everything at the start of the pandemic to be with them? I kept telling myself that there will be time that I will visit in the summer, but now, I look at the Covid numbers in California, I am scared.īeenish Ahmed, a reporter based in New York City, set out to visit her Pakistani immigrant parents in Ohio early on in the pandemic. My parents are Indian immigrants from Tanzania. I carry this guilt and maybe you do too, if you are the child of immigrants: Am I doing enough? Summers are about hanging out on their porch, hearing my mom tell her crazy stories, or listening to my dad insist that Rachel Maddow is the best commentator in America. They live in Sacramento, California my wife and I live in Portland, Maine and I just don’t know how we can visit them without putting them, or ourselves, or others, at risk. Zahir Janmohamed (ZJ): From Feet in 2 Worlds, this is a Better Life, a podcast about the impact of Covid-19 on immigrants.Ī few days ago, I broke the news to my parents: I am probably not going to see you this year, I told them. Contribute to make our work more sustainable. Kaplan Fund, The Listening Post Collective, an anonymous donor and listeners like you.įeet in 2 Worlds is a project of the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. Our supporters include The Ford Foundation, the David and Katherine Moore Family Foundation, the Ralph E. About Feet in 2 Worldsįor fifteen years, Feet in 2 Worlds has brought the work of immigrant journalists from communities across the U.S. “A Better Life” show logo by Daniel Robles. Music and theme song by Fareed Sajan and Epidemic Sound.
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