Interview 02: Amarilis Diaz Presilla
Dublin Core
Title
Interview 02: Amarilis Diaz Presilla
Subject
COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic, Hoboken, New Jersey
Description
An oral history with Amarilis Katya Diaz Presilla, of Jersey City Medical Center, regarding Hoboken's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as her personal experiences with it as a nurse.
Creator
Hoboken Public Library
Publisher
Hoboken Public Library
Date
Recorded May 5, 2022
Format
Uploaded recording: .mp3
Preservation recording: .wav
Preservation recording: .wav
Language
English
Type
Oral history
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Digital audio file
Duration
00:41:27
Transcription
Q: Hello. Please, could you share with us your name, age, race, ethnicity, any other information you want to share, background about yourself, for today’s interview? And the date.
AP: Okay. Today is May 5, 2022. My name is Amarilis Katya Diaz Presilla. I’m 52 years old. I’m Cuban. My ethnicity, I don’t know, maybe mixed. [Chuckles] Been living in Hoboken since 2005. And that’s about… I don’t know the math. A bunch of years. Like, 17 years or something like that. I came to Hoboken looking for a better future. I mean, I came to the United States looking for a better future. I’m a doctor from Cuba. I study internal medicine. That was my specialty. And since then, I’ve been trying to find my way to healthcare, which I, now I am. I’m a nurse in Barnabas in Jersey City Medical Center.
Q: Okay. Thank you. And where were you when the initial lockdown was announced in March of 2020, and what do you remember from that day and moment?
AP: Well, the lockdown was slowly. At the hospital, we already knew that something was going on. And we start taking preventions. And I was here in Hoboken and I was working as a nurse. And after that, I never stop. I was going to work every day. And also, sign in for overtime because it was a massive exodus of the nurses. Most of them, they left because they have kids, or they have any other, you know, any other disease that they were afraid to catch the virus and have a terrible outcome. So, it was a hard phase, those times.
Q: And so, the hospital kind of noticed even before the lockdown was announced that something was going on with respiratory—
AP: Yes.
Q: …diseases.
AP: Yes.
Q: You were—
AP: Everybody was having those kind of patients. So, we started using the mask most of the time which is, you know, it was weird for us, I remember. It was really weird for us because there is a policy through all the country and every country about the mask use. And the mask use is only for patients that have airborne droplets disease. And you only uses in the room and then when you get out, you take it off. So, for us, I was weird to be, you know, having to use the mask all over the hospital.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And so, you were saying, like, there was a big exodus in the early days of, like, a lot of the nurses and—
AP: Yeah.
Q: …stuff.
AP: Like, the disease was unknown. So… And everybody was saying that every patient that have preconditions disease that, you know, they were at risk of die. So, the people who got loved ones that they were in the house, or kids, children, they decide not to come in. Yeah.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And the kids, I imagine, too, being home from school in a field that is predominantly women, was that effected then too that they had to stay home because their kids couldn’t—
AP: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
Q: …go to school?
AP: Even though they abide that by those time, the hospital say, oh, we are paying for daycare.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: The kids. We’re going to locate the kids in the daycare. But even like that, parents decide stay home.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And how did the job change as the pandemic continued?
AP: Well, the job changed because everything overhaul. Like, nobody could visit the patients anymore. That was really hard. For the patients are working in a maternal unit where the mother expect the partners help through the labor, and the, or a doula. But they didn’t have it because it wasn’t allowed. So, the patient, at the beginning was if the patient was there with the partner, with the doula, they would stay the day but they couldn’t leave the hospital. If they leave the hospital, they couldn’t come back. So, it was hard for them and for us because, you know, we are, kind of, staff ratios that we have, like, you know, six couples. You have to take care of all them in 12 hours. So, you, you, you have to be more frequently in the rooms because that person didn’t have a partner to be, you know, a staff and to be able to take care of the baby and them. So, it was a little bit complicated.
Q: And did you feel then the patients were relying on you not only as a healthcare worker, but kind of as the emotional support—
AP: Yes.
Q: …that they would have gotten—
AP: Yes.
Q: …from the family?
AP: Everybody’s face, at those point, everybody’s face was really scared. All the patients was really scared. They didn’t know what to say. Even though that we, the hospital did a policy that every mom that comes in to have a baby, or to have taken care in the hospital, it would have a rapid test to see if they have the COVID or not. But even like that, everybody was scared because they thought that, you know, you’re in healthcare. So, you are exposed to healthcare. They could have the disease any time in the hospital.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And were you ever pulled to other departments? Or were you just—
AP: Oh, yeah.
Q: So, where else were you working?
AP: Because of the same reason, all the hospital was lacking. And everybody was getting the disease. So, at that point, they – you have to quarantine 10 days. So, if you got sick, you were left. Some of the workers that were also in the hospital admitted because they were really bad condition. At that point, we have to flow to the COVID, at the COVID floor because they didn’t have people to take care of. It was overflow. It was overflow in the emergency room. People were laying down in the hallways with it. They have to get more stretchers for the patients because we didn’t have enough. We have to get beds. We didn’t have enough. So, luckily, we have a unit that it was our unit. But they were trying to fix it and overhaul the unit to get it better for the mommies and babies. And it was empty at that point. So, they fill it up. So, they sent up upstairs. That was really hard because, you know, those patients, they were really sick. And they have in the room, a structure, a vacuum. They have all of the devices, to, you know, to help not propagate the virus. But even like that, you knew that it was a risk. So, we have the N95 masks, but that we continue using throughout. So, it’s still – the masks, they were masks. They were distribute by everybody. But those masks we didn’t have fit. Every N95 mask, it has to be fit to your face. And then you have to be tested to see that is nothing coming in. And we weren’t tested for those one. So, you didn’t know if it was a good fit or not. And you were exposed most of the time. I remember, this lady, she was in her sixties. 65. She was really sick. She was diabetic. She was hypertensive. She was having cardiac disease. And she was, she couldn’t breathe. She was with the oxygen all the time. And she was hesitating. Her oxygen was going down. And she was hesitating. And they wouldn’t intubated nobody ‘til they go down 80 percent of oxygen in their body. And she was getting there, but she was afraid to be intubated because she thought that after being intubated, she’s never going to come back. There is certain time in this disease that you have to be intubated because after that, you can go down and die right away. And you can see it in patients that they were stable, and all of a sudden, they die. We have a lot of cases of that because, the disease, it was slowly coming in. But when it was established, all of the sudden, it hit. So, the lady asked me for my opinion. And I say, well, your oxygen is really low. If you keep delaying this, it’s going to be a possibility that you don’t have any other chance to survive. So, she talked to the anesthesiologist. And I think she agrees to be intubated. Sadly, I don’t know what happened to her. I couldn’t follow up because it was, the hospital was really, you know, we didn’t know where everybody went. We only coming down, up and down the elevator, we saw the stretchers with the dead bodies. And the bodies, they were piling – our – in Jersey City Medical Center, the morgue is really small. Tiny, tiny. Maybe one or two stretchers, so. All the stretchers were outside waiting to be distribute. And it was a point when they have to get for the hospital a big truck container refrigerator for all of them. At the same time, our social worker, that she also take cares of the morgue, she was running around trying to find the families, trying to find what to do with the bodies.
Q: So, you know, you’ve mentioned a little bit about the mask. Were there difficulty obtaining supplies?
AP: No. It was definitely… The mask is supposed to be disposed. We have to use the same mask every day because we didn’t have masks. So, it was a point that they say, take the mask. Put it in a bag. And we’re going to [unintelligible 00:11:13] to sterilize. So, any time that we finish, you put back in a paper bag, brown. And we put it on the side. And that way they [unintelligible 00:11:26] them. And then, the next day, we have a fresh one. They, at some point, they start coming with some of the glasses, of the goggles. Also, the community was donated. There was a lot of people. And, you know, the libraries too, they were donating those—
Q: Face shields.
AP: The shields. And they were coming in. They were coming in. And I think we didn’t have that much trouble in our hospital because of the help of the community. It was really great. Also, sometime we have to stay over time because we didn’t have the stuff to go the night shift. And the community will send in tons of food. All the restaurants, they will send in. I really don’t know how I didn’t get the COVID with those trays. But really, all the restaurant, they were sending so much food. So much food that we were so grateful. And sometimes there were boxes and boxes. And say come down, get this. So, we didn’t have to think about that. Because, you know, food was taken care of. So, we didn’t have to take care of, you know. And go home and cook. So, going home was another tricky part because we were afraid to give the virus to your loved ones. And that was really hard.
Q: Yeah. How did this affect your family’s lives?
AP: Well, I couldn’t see my mom for… My mom is an elderly. She’s sick. And I couldn’t see her for, like, maybe six or eight months straight. And I just, I was just FaceTiming. I remember, sometimes, I used to go and she stay in the door. And I say hello. That was hard to go back to my house, to my wife. It was really difficult. She decide to pick me up every day at work. That way I don’t have to, I didn’t have to drive. So, we used to sterilize all the back of the car and put bags and stuff. And then she drive, she drove me there. Then, I went back home. I take in the hallway all my clothes and everything and went to the bathroom to wash, to, you know, to [unintelligible 00:13:57] everything. And then I was able to hope, you know. Luckily, I didn’t get the COVID at those times. I got it just way after when the Omicron hit. But at that time, I never had no problems.
Q: So, you were lucky for those [unintelligible 00:14:15].
AP: I was lucky. Some of my co-workers, they weren’t. Some of my co-workers, they have family members die. But luckily, I was okay.
Q: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. And my partner was okay too.
Q: That’s good. What are some of the things that occurred that you think those outside your work experience might not realize about, you know, what happened during the pandemic?
AP: I think that they couldn’t realize them. They couldn’t grasp because they were at home and they could address the magnitude of the issue. To go… I mean, we know that this is our work. And we go to expose every day. But do we expose to the deadly disease and an unknown disease that you don’t know what’s going to happen? It’s really, it’s over your head all the time. It’s all you think about the whole – it was the whole three months that were the worst ones. And I think from the 28th of March up, it was really hard. Unless you were, have something to do in the hospital, or have a family member there, you never knew what really was going on. And the only thing that you hear all over the hospital was, emergency, adult emergency in Floor 7. You knew somebody that was died. And that was constantly ringing. Constantly ringing the whole day. Maybe 20-25 times in a 12-hour period. And you knew that that person, most of the time, didn’t make it. And then they start, you know, every time that somebody recover, they started, you know, to putting music in the hospital to give the workers, you know, like… You know, it’s not all bad. People are recovering. Because in other units, we don’t know. In my unit, we didn’t have no issues. I think we have only two, two mommies that they were sick. I remember one mommy that she was my patient. She was really sick. She was getting the Plaquenil. The Plaquenil was really bad for her because it gave her heart issues. So, immediately, I call infection disease. And then they brought her up to the cardiac unit to the, they see the Plaquenil. And they monitor her. Luckily, she was gray. And in, I think, the fourth day, they were able to discharge her. And all of the time, we kept her baby. Her baby was, like, you know, the, the mascot of the unit because everybody was taking care of the baby. And that was a great story. She was able to go home with her baby. The second lady wasn’t that sick. She was just, you know, feverish. She was, like, a mild disease at that point.
Q: How did the view of yourself change during the pandemic? Did those of you work with the view – like, did you and the other nurses, kind of, see yourselves as heroes? Kept things going in order for the rest of the society to continue to function? Or did you, kind of, see yourselves in the same role that you always had? Like, did you, how you see yourselves and the other healthcare workers.
AP: I think that for us, that we are in the profession because we love it. It was, that is what is expected of me. This is what I like. I like to care for people. And I like to be able to… I call it an affixer. I’ll be able to fix people. And… I felt afraid like everybody else. I’m scared. Sure. I was scared. But, you know, for me to be able to care for them, for them not to be scared, it was a blessing that I really love. And my co-workers felt the same way. The job overhaul a little bit because we usually being constantly in those rooms taking care of mommies, taking care of the patient, taking care of all of them, that decrease a little bit, to decrease the contact with the patient, with any patient, because you didn’t know. We also did it to have, be fair and square, we did a book where we put the name of the nurses that take care of patient with COVID positive. Because at that point, you didn’t know if it was different, if the viral load that you have is close. So, we decide to, you know, if you have this patient today, tomorrow, somebody else has it. That way it’s not the same person exposed over and over. Because we didn’t know.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And, you know, you’ve talked a little bit about the masks and stuff. Were there any other precautions your workplace took to keep you safe? Was there anything that you, you know, and your family did special? You talked a little bit about when you got home. Anything else you wanted to mention?
AP: Everybody was really supportive. Everybody in the family, everybody in the building where I live. I know that happens that people were afraid. And they were mean to healthcare worker in some place in the world, or where. I never had that. I never had nobody walk away from me because they were afraid that I will give them the virus. I was respectful to stay away. But overall, it was amazing for the community, you know, to feel that they cared. They always say thank you for what you doing. So, people were really grateful around. Yeah. I never have no issues.
Q: That’s good to hear.
AP: Yeah.
Q: So, when you were talking about, like, keeping your distance, so, were you going out to stores at all? Or was your wife going out to the stores? Or, were you mostly having stuff delivered in? How were you handling like, groceries and stuff?
AP: Me, particularly, I didn’t have to do anything because my wife did all the shopping.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: But when I went to store, I always, you know, followed the guidelines. And I tried to people to stay away from me. But I didn’t went to the store that much. After five-six months that, you know, I knew that everything was going to be all right. Then I start going, you know, on the weekends. I remembered that I was really, really, really, you know, it was like a… Like something. Like, a cloud over you. So, on the weekends that I have off, I told my wife, I needed to see nature. I needed to see water. I needed to see waterfalls to help me going. So, she used to drive, I don’t know, two hours away to Pennsylvania. And then, because there is no business or nothing, we buy something, a sandwich or something. And we just ate it in the car, or outside looking at the river and looking at the birds. And that helped me a lot.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] Did you feel prepared for the pandemic based on either your training or any experiences you’ve had in your life? You know, did you feel like anything that you had gone through in the past, you know, helped you with being strong through this?
AP: I don’t think the healthcare system was prepared for that. I don’t know. Why? Because there’s not been since, since the flu pandemic, there’s not been pretty much that many pandemic in here. You know, the tuberculosis has been endemic in some parts of United State. Other disease, there’s been, like, you know, focus. I’m from Cuba. In Cuba, we all the time have an epidemic of the dengue which is transmitted by the mosquito bite. And we’ve been having 200 years, we’ve been having some – I remember the fever that it was transmitted from the animals to people, I don’t remember the name. I think was one of those H-1 something. I remember. And well, I remember, I was a child and we have to go into the bus or go into anywhere. We need to step in… I don’t remember it was ammonia or Clorox. Like, mats. I went in to step on those to go everywhere. And in Cuba, we are always taking precautions because it’s epidemic, but it’s endemic of the dengue. And it’s, you know, it’s constantly trying to overhaul those steps to not to be infected. Washing the hands is something that’s really, all the time. The TB has been forever since I’ve remember growing up. Here, they wouldn’t have that custom to be washing hands that much. I, myself, I prefer to wash my hands, otherwise, you know, I don’t like that much the hand sanitizer. Alcohol can be really bad for your hands when you have to do it so many times. Now, with the COVID, we have to do both. So, I remember, my hands, they have blisters, or they have blood coming out of my hands of so much that we have to wash our hands in between procedures, patients. If you’re not touch a doorknob, anything. During the pandemic. I still, my hands are still rough trying to recuperate because we’ve been doing the same for these two years straight. With no stopping, we, hand hygiene is one of the most important things in healthcare because the hands is the one that brings everywhere because you touch everything.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] Do you think things have mostly gone back to normal for you? Or do you still feel the effects of the pandemic regularly?
AP: Well, we’re still in the hospital see the effects because right now, like, corporate in our organization, Barnabas, corporate, they’re not using mask anymore. Like, yesterday, I went to do the CPR class and nobody was using mask because it’s not, you don’t have to. I went to do a backlog for a new program that is coming to the organization. And there was maybe 100 people. And nobody has masks. It was an enclosed mask. But in the hospital, it’s still, you still have to use your mask throughout the day. People are relaxing a little more. Sometimes, when we charting, we take it down to breathe a little bit better. But we still use it every day. And I think, even when they said don’t use it, there’s going to be problems when they start staying in the hospital that it’s not needed anymore. People is going to be still afraid. So, I’m just waiting for that because I know people, they’re not going to be with the contact with the patient. They’re not going to want to use it anymore. It’s the same, like the gloves. Like, the gloves, you’re supposed to use the gloves when you’re soil or you’re dealing with patients. But when you’re touching the patient, you don’t have to. But everybody use gloves. Even to move the patient from the bed to the stretcher, or to just, you know, pat the patient on the shoulder. They constantly use gloves throughout the day.
Q: Do you have friends or families in other states or countries? And how were their experiences different from yours here in Hoboken?
AP: I have friends in Europe. They particularly were really afraid. They have different quarantine or rules to go now [unintelligible 00:27:36]. They were just going out one day of the week to do groceries. And that’s it. They didn’t buy all the groceries. I got all friends in Panama. In Panama, they decide to do it by, I think, your ID number. And they were allowed to go one day of the week, or two days of the week. In Cuba, they used the students, the medical students, the school stop. So, all those medical students, they start doing surveys all over the houses. Who got fever? Who doesn’t have fever? Anybody that has any symptoms. And they brought them to a facility where they quarantine. And then, they have the disease. They send it to the hospital. If they didn’t, they send them back home. So, those places, they weren’t, you know. They didn’t have the supplies. So, people in the family, they decide to start lying because they didn’t want to be bring to a place that they would be uncomfortable to quarantine. So, that was a little bit hard too. I guess in Miami I got friends and they say nobody wants to use mask here. People were afraid because the community, some community, they didn’t believe in the mask. And they didn’t believe in the virus that was really, really hard for them. That’s it. I don’t know anybody else.
Q: Do you think there was anything about being in Hoboken that made your pandemic experiences unique compared to all the other people that you had, you know, talked to? Or, do you feel like you had similar experiences to a lot of them?
AP: I think it was amazing. People in the town, it was really amazing to hear the nob at 8:00 to be clapping at us for a long time. Everybody went out. And everybody was so supportive. And I got friends elderly that called me. And I say, I got mask. I bought a box for mask for you. And that was in the middle of April. And I say Barbara, how did you get that? Don’t worry. I got them. It’s for you. And people was really, really great. Really great.
Q: So, you felt like Hoboken really supported you?
AP: Yeah. Really great.
Q: Do you or any of your friends or family own local businesses? And how were they impacted by the pandemic?
AP: Well, my family used to own two restaurant in the town. And one of them closed before the pandemic because of, I don’t know. And the second one has to close due to the pandemic because they are in front of the hospital. And it’s a, you know, upscale restaurant. So, you only could be able to fit some people outside. And the outside for them would have been to be in front of the refrigerator morgue. So, they had to close and lose everything.
Q: Yeah. And do they think that they might re-open, or?
AP: No.
Q: No?
AP: No. They’re getting older.
Q: Yeah. Have you made any changes in your life or your job that you plan to keep even after the pandemic?
AP: Just, I guess, the use of the mask.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: Yeah. The use of the mask are… I don’t know. It’s always going to hang over us, I think. This pandemic. It’s not like anything trivial, but it’s something that it was major. So, it’s going to hang over our heads, all our, through our life. And it’s going to be things that we’re going to be telling our childrens. You know, because this was really, really hard.
Q: Do you think it’s changed the way you’ve looked at the world since, because of the pandemic, or?
AP: I think we are overdoing everything, even, like, you know, 10 years ago, I was talking with a medical colleague. And I told them, like, people, they are overusing antibiotics. They are overusing the sanitizing. They’re overusing everything. We going to have more than the virus and bacterias in our time life. [unintelligible 00:32:18] 10 year laters happen. And if we don’t check ourself, we think we might have more coming our way because everything is so modified. The food, the products, everything. People, they don’t crave the natural stuff anymore. People are just, you know, and eating garbage food, and everything that you get from the market is even washed with Clorox and stuff. So, you know, being exposed the good bacterias and the good virus, how can you fight the bad ones? You know? And you need to be able to be in contact with nature, and be able to get those good stuff into you. That way, you’re prepared to, when the big stuff come, when the big virus and the big bacterias. And it’s going to keep coming. It’s only natural.
Q: What changes do you think Hoboken has had since the pandemic? Have you seen anything, like, the wider community?
AP: The big changes is, I think throughout the pandemic, the big change was not able to be getting together. Hoboken is a really, like, you know. Really, people really like to go to the park and together. They like has magnificent activities that you can, you know, enjoy yourself with your kids and everybody. And that’s what is lacking. And we still lacking of them. We need more of those. We need more happiness, more people going out. And that’s what change.
Q: Do you have any predictions for the future of Hoboken?
AP: For the future? Hm. I think Hoboken is changing, is, when I first came here, it was a lot of families with a dog. Then it’s change. It start getting a lot of families with babies in carriage and dogs. Right now, the families, I’m seeing that the families are grown to stay here. They like, before, they used to leave when they have more kids because they didn’t have, where to have them because the three- or four-bedroom apartments, there are not that many in the city. Right now, I’m seeing a lot of middle school kids that we didn’t have before. Now we have a lot of them. That’s nice to see another generation growing in Hoboken. I think Hoboken has to grow to be more family-oriented. To have more of a, you know, parents, they like to have right now, two-three kids. It’s not like before, you know, it was a generation that they just have one and that’s it. Now, they getting more, like, two or three kids. And they need those – and they need to be able to be in the city and be comfortable. You know? So, it will be nice for the developers to be, you know, developing more apartments and houses with more capacity.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] Anything else you’d like to mention about Hoboken related to the pandemic or your personal experiences?
AP: Yeah. I want to mention Hoboken, people love to help. I remember during Sunday that it was people bringing so many supplies for people that they needed that at some point, they say, please don’t bring any more because the high school was full of supplies. And everywhere that they put those supplies, it was full. It happened the same. Right now, it was more organized. They decide to get two and three places in the city to deliver, to give them food to the people who needed, that people didn’t, who couldn’t go out to buy supplies. They still doing it. After two years, they still supplying those people that they needed with extra groceries. Also, all the establishment and the food markets, they decide to put some regulations that way people that they are not able to go shopping so frequently and to be in the lines, to be able to get those products. I remember, I think early morning was for the elderly people. They were able to get, you know, the toilet paper that it was lacking, and those basic products that they really had those times.
Q: Did you guys have that problem with the running out of the toilet paper?
AP: I remember that I think my wife bought a toilet paper that, like, four package cost her, like, I don’t know, 25.00. And I remember that she kept it on top. We never use it at that point. We kept it on top of the wash machine. And we kept it there for a long time because, one, it’s not the one that we liked. And it was just there, just in case. And it was there hanging for, like, a year and a half. Then, finally, I say, okay, let’s use it. Because, you know. It’s done.
Q: What would you tell those who in the future might have to live through something like this? Like, if there was another pandemic, like, in 100 years. What would you tell those people?
AP: Be prepared. Be humble. Be ready to help anybody around you. Learn how to survive the little things. Learn how to survive with, you know, little food. And I don’t say like that, but, you know, you don’t have to have a piece of meat or a piece of fish to survive. You can have just, you know, pasta or rice and just spread it out because you don’t know what’s going to happen. So, I don’t say to have an emergency kit, but more like, you know, know how to survive with what you have in the house. There is something that my wife always tell me is that she think that I’m a magician because when she say there’s nothing in the house, I go to the pantry, and I find something. And I do something. You know? I found a can of tomato. And we don’t have pasta. But we have, I don’t know, maybe rice. I do something. It’s always going to be something in the house. You know? If you have flour, you just need water to make bread or to make anything. You don’t need that, that many things. You don’t need all of those ingredients. Flour and water, you got bread. Even without the starter, what’s the name?
Q: Yeast.
AP: The yeast. Even without the yeast. You don’t need the yeast. You can do. Indians are doing it for years. You can do naan. Because only you need is water and flour. And you always can have a meal in your house. Learn how to do things different way. You know? Forget about the prepared stuff and the prepared meals [laughs] for a bit. That doesn’t mean that I don’t use them. I use them. And I stock it in my fridge because when I don’t have, I don’t want to cook, I just use them to bring it home. They need to work.
Q: So, flexibility is, you think is—
AP: Yeah. Flexibility.
Q: …you know, one of the keys.
AP: Yeah.
Q: Yeah. Anything else you’d want to share with us or you feel is important for people to know about?
AP: About the pandemic?
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: Be kind. That’s the most important thing. Be kind to one anothers. Be kind to everybody. It doesn’t matter the background. It doesn’t matter any issues that they have. Be kind to one anothers because we are all in the same boat which is called Earth. That we are destroying. But we are in the same boat. So, please be kind to one another. That’s the most important thing. That’s all. Be kind.
Q: Then, we’ll wrap up if you don’t have anything else to share.
AP: No. That’s good.
Q: All right. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
AP: My pleasure. My pleasure. Hope it was fun.
[End of audio]
AP: Okay. Today is May 5, 2022. My name is Amarilis Katya Diaz Presilla. I’m 52 years old. I’m Cuban. My ethnicity, I don’t know, maybe mixed. [Chuckles] Been living in Hoboken since 2005. And that’s about… I don’t know the math. A bunch of years. Like, 17 years or something like that. I came to Hoboken looking for a better future. I mean, I came to the United States looking for a better future. I’m a doctor from Cuba. I study internal medicine. That was my specialty. And since then, I’ve been trying to find my way to healthcare, which I, now I am. I’m a nurse in Barnabas in Jersey City Medical Center.
Q: Okay. Thank you. And where were you when the initial lockdown was announced in March of 2020, and what do you remember from that day and moment?
AP: Well, the lockdown was slowly. At the hospital, we already knew that something was going on. And we start taking preventions. And I was here in Hoboken and I was working as a nurse. And after that, I never stop. I was going to work every day. And also, sign in for overtime because it was a massive exodus of the nurses. Most of them, they left because they have kids, or they have any other, you know, any other disease that they were afraid to catch the virus and have a terrible outcome. So, it was a hard phase, those times.
Q: And so, the hospital kind of noticed even before the lockdown was announced that something was going on with respiratory—
AP: Yes.
Q: …diseases.
AP: Yes.
Q: You were—
AP: Everybody was having those kind of patients. So, we started using the mask most of the time which is, you know, it was weird for us, I remember. It was really weird for us because there is a policy through all the country and every country about the mask use. And the mask use is only for patients that have airborne droplets disease. And you only uses in the room and then when you get out, you take it off. So, for us, I was weird to be, you know, having to use the mask all over the hospital.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And so, you were saying, like, there was a big exodus in the early days of, like, a lot of the nurses and—
AP: Yeah.
Q: …stuff.
AP: Like, the disease was unknown. So… And everybody was saying that every patient that have preconditions disease that, you know, they were at risk of die. So, the people who got loved ones that they were in the house, or kids, children, they decide not to come in. Yeah.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And the kids, I imagine, too, being home from school in a field that is predominantly women, was that effected then too that they had to stay home because their kids couldn’t—
AP: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
Q: …go to school?
AP: Even though they abide that by those time, the hospital say, oh, we are paying for daycare.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: The kids. We’re going to locate the kids in the daycare. But even like that, parents decide stay home.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And how did the job change as the pandemic continued?
AP: Well, the job changed because everything overhaul. Like, nobody could visit the patients anymore. That was really hard. For the patients are working in a maternal unit where the mother expect the partners help through the labor, and the, or a doula. But they didn’t have it because it wasn’t allowed. So, the patient, at the beginning was if the patient was there with the partner, with the doula, they would stay the day but they couldn’t leave the hospital. If they leave the hospital, they couldn’t come back. So, it was hard for them and for us because, you know, we are, kind of, staff ratios that we have, like, you know, six couples. You have to take care of all them in 12 hours. So, you, you, you have to be more frequently in the rooms because that person didn’t have a partner to be, you know, a staff and to be able to take care of the baby and them. So, it was a little bit complicated.
Q: And did you feel then the patients were relying on you not only as a healthcare worker, but kind of as the emotional support—
AP: Yes.
Q: …that they would have gotten—
AP: Yes.
Q: …from the family?
AP: Everybody’s face, at those point, everybody’s face was really scared. All the patients was really scared. They didn’t know what to say. Even though that we, the hospital did a policy that every mom that comes in to have a baby, or to have taken care in the hospital, it would have a rapid test to see if they have the COVID or not. But even like that, everybody was scared because they thought that, you know, you’re in healthcare. So, you are exposed to healthcare. They could have the disease any time in the hospital.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And were you ever pulled to other departments? Or were you just—
AP: Oh, yeah.
Q: So, where else were you working?
AP: Because of the same reason, all the hospital was lacking. And everybody was getting the disease. So, at that point, they – you have to quarantine 10 days. So, if you got sick, you were left. Some of the workers that were also in the hospital admitted because they were really bad condition. At that point, we have to flow to the COVID, at the COVID floor because they didn’t have people to take care of. It was overflow. It was overflow in the emergency room. People were laying down in the hallways with it. They have to get more stretchers for the patients because we didn’t have enough. We have to get beds. We didn’t have enough. So, luckily, we have a unit that it was our unit. But they were trying to fix it and overhaul the unit to get it better for the mommies and babies. And it was empty at that point. So, they fill it up. So, they sent up upstairs. That was really hard because, you know, those patients, they were really sick. And they have in the room, a structure, a vacuum. They have all of the devices, to, you know, to help not propagate the virus. But even like that, you knew that it was a risk. So, we have the N95 masks, but that we continue using throughout. So, it’s still – the masks, they were masks. They were distribute by everybody. But those masks we didn’t have fit. Every N95 mask, it has to be fit to your face. And then you have to be tested to see that is nothing coming in. And we weren’t tested for those one. So, you didn’t know if it was a good fit or not. And you were exposed most of the time. I remember, this lady, she was in her sixties. 65. She was really sick. She was diabetic. She was hypertensive. She was having cardiac disease. And she was, she couldn’t breathe. She was with the oxygen all the time. And she was hesitating. Her oxygen was going down. And she was hesitating. And they wouldn’t intubated nobody ‘til they go down 80 percent of oxygen in their body. And she was getting there, but she was afraid to be intubated because she thought that after being intubated, she’s never going to come back. There is certain time in this disease that you have to be intubated because after that, you can go down and die right away. And you can see it in patients that they were stable, and all of a sudden, they die. We have a lot of cases of that because, the disease, it was slowly coming in. But when it was established, all of the sudden, it hit. So, the lady asked me for my opinion. And I say, well, your oxygen is really low. If you keep delaying this, it’s going to be a possibility that you don’t have any other chance to survive. So, she talked to the anesthesiologist. And I think she agrees to be intubated. Sadly, I don’t know what happened to her. I couldn’t follow up because it was, the hospital was really, you know, we didn’t know where everybody went. We only coming down, up and down the elevator, we saw the stretchers with the dead bodies. And the bodies, they were piling – our – in Jersey City Medical Center, the morgue is really small. Tiny, tiny. Maybe one or two stretchers, so. All the stretchers were outside waiting to be distribute. And it was a point when they have to get for the hospital a big truck container refrigerator for all of them. At the same time, our social worker, that she also take cares of the morgue, she was running around trying to find the families, trying to find what to do with the bodies.
Q: So, you know, you’ve mentioned a little bit about the mask. Were there difficulty obtaining supplies?
AP: No. It was definitely… The mask is supposed to be disposed. We have to use the same mask every day because we didn’t have masks. So, it was a point that they say, take the mask. Put it in a bag. And we’re going to [unintelligible 00:11:13] to sterilize. So, any time that we finish, you put back in a paper bag, brown. And we put it on the side. And that way they [unintelligible 00:11:26] them. And then, the next day, we have a fresh one. They, at some point, they start coming with some of the glasses, of the goggles. Also, the community was donated. There was a lot of people. And, you know, the libraries too, they were donating those—
Q: Face shields.
AP: The shields. And they were coming in. They were coming in. And I think we didn’t have that much trouble in our hospital because of the help of the community. It was really great. Also, sometime we have to stay over time because we didn’t have the stuff to go the night shift. And the community will send in tons of food. All the restaurants, they will send in. I really don’t know how I didn’t get the COVID with those trays. But really, all the restaurant, they were sending so much food. So much food that we were so grateful. And sometimes there were boxes and boxes. And say come down, get this. So, we didn’t have to think about that. Because, you know, food was taken care of. So, we didn’t have to take care of, you know. And go home and cook. So, going home was another tricky part because we were afraid to give the virus to your loved ones. And that was really hard.
Q: Yeah. How did this affect your family’s lives?
AP: Well, I couldn’t see my mom for… My mom is an elderly. She’s sick. And I couldn’t see her for, like, maybe six or eight months straight. And I just, I was just FaceTiming. I remember, sometimes, I used to go and she stay in the door. And I say hello. That was hard to go back to my house, to my wife. It was really difficult. She decide to pick me up every day at work. That way I don’t have to, I didn’t have to drive. So, we used to sterilize all the back of the car and put bags and stuff. And then she drive, she drove me there. Then, I went back home. I take in the hallway all my clothes and everything and went to the bathroom to wash, to, you know, to [unintelligible 00:13:57] everything. And then I was able to hope, you know. Luckily, I didn’t get the COVID at those times. I got it just way after when the Omicron hit. But at that time, I never had no problems.
Q: So, you were lucky for those [unintelligible 00:14:15].
AP: I was lucky. Some of my co-workers, they weren’t. Some of my co-workers, they have family members die. But luckily, I was okay.
Q: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. And my partner was okay too.
Q: That’s good. What are some of the things that occurred that you think those outside your work experience might not realize about, you know, what happened during the pandemic?
AP: I think that they couldn’t realize them. They couldn’t grasp because they were at home and they could address the magnitude of the issue. To go… I mean, we know that this is our work. And we go to expose every day. But do we expose to the deadly disease and an unknown disease that you don’t know what’s going to happen? It’s really, it’s over your head all the time. It’s all you think about the whole – it was the whole three months that were the worst ones. And I think from the 28th of March up, it was really hard. Unless you were, have something to do in the hospital, or have a family member there, you never knew what really was going on. And the only thing that you hear all over the hospital was, emergency, adult emergency in Floor 7. You knew somebody that was died. And that was constantly ringing. Constantly ringing the whole day. Maybe 20-25 times in a 12-hour period. And you knew that that person, most of the time, didn’t make it. And then they start, you know, every time that somebody recover, they started, you know, to putting music in the hospital to give the workers, you know, like… You know, it’s not all bad. People are recovering. Because in other units, we don’t know. In my unit, we didn’t have no issues. I think we have only two, two mommies that they were sick. I remember one mommy that she was my patient. She was really sick. She was getting the Plaquenil. The Plaquenil was really bad for her because it gave her heart issues. So, immediately, I call infection disease. And then they brought her up to the cardiac unit to the, they see the Plaquenil. And they monitor her. Luckily, she was gray. And in, I think, the fourth day, they were able to discharge her. And all of the time, we kept her baby. Her baby was, like, you know, the, the mascot of the unit because everybody was taking care of the baby. And that was a great story. She was able to go home with her baby. The second lady wasn’t that sick. She was just, you know, feverish. She was, like, a mild disease at that point.
Q: How did the view of yourself change during the pandemic? Did those of you work with the view – like, did you and the other nurses, kind of, see yourselves as heroes? Kept things going in order for the rest of the society to continue to function? Or did you, kind of, see yourselves in the same role that you always had? Like, did you, how you see yourselves and the other healthcare workers.
AP: I think that for us, that we are in the profession because we love it. It was, that is what is expected of me. This is what I like. I like to care for people. And I like to be able to… I call it an affixer. I’ll be able to fix people. And… I felt afraid like everybody else. I’m scared. Sure. I was scared. But, you know, for me to be able to care for them, for them not to be scared, it was a blessing that I really love. And my co-workers felt the same way. The job overhaul a little bit because we usually being constantly in those rooms taking care of mommies, taking care of the patient, taking care of all of them, that decrease a little bit, to decrease the contact with the patient, with any patient, because you didn’t know. We also did it to have, be fair and square, we did a book where we put the name of the nurses that take care of patient with COVID positive. Because at that point, you didn’t know if it was different, if the viral load that you have is close. So, we decide to, you know, if you have this patient today, tomorrow, somebody else has it. That way it’s not the same person exposed over and over. Because we didn’t know.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] And, you know, you’ve talked a little bit about the masks and stuff. Were there any other precautions your workplace took to keep you safe? Was there anything that you, you know, and your family did special? You talked a little bit about when you got home. Anything else you wanted to mention?
AP: Everybody was really supportive. Everybody in the family, everybody in the building where I live. I know that happens that people were afraid. And they were mean to healthcare worker in some place in the world, or where. I never had that. I never had nobody walk away from me because they were afraid that I will give them the virus. I was respectful to stay away. But overall, it was amazing for the community, you know, to feel that they cared. They always say thank you for what you doing. So, people were really grateful around. Yeah. I never have no issues.
Q: That’s good to hear.
AP: Yeah.
Q: So, when you were talking about, like, keeping your distance, so, were you going out to stores at all? Or was your wife going out to the stores? Or, were you mostly having stuff delivered in? How were you handling like, groceries and stuff?
AP: Me, particularly, I didn’t have to do anything because my wife did all the shopping.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: But when I went to store, I always, you know, followed the guidelines. And I tried to people to stay away from me. But I didn’t went to the store that much. After five-six months that, you know, I knew that everything was going to be all right. Then I start going, you know, on the weekends. I remembered that I was really, really, really, you know, it was like a… Like something. Like, a cloud over you. So, on the weekends that I have off, I told my wife, I needed to see nature. I needed to see water. I needed to see waterfalls to help me going. So, she used to drive, I don’t know, two hours away to Pennsylvania. And then, because there is no business or nothing, we buy something, a sandwich or something. And we just ate it in the car, or outside looking at the river and looking at the birds. And that helped me a lot.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] Did you feel prepared for the pandemic based on either your training or any experiences you’ve had in your life? You know, did you feel like anything that you had gone through in the past, you know, helped you with being strong through this?
AP: I don’t think the healthcare system was prepared for that. I don’t know. Why? Because there’s not been since, since the flu pandemic, there’s not been pretty much that many pandemic in here. You know, the tuberculosis has been endemic in some parts of United State. Other disease, there’s been, like, you know, focus. I’m from Cuba. In Cuba, we all the time have an epidemic of the dengue which is transmitted by the mosquito bite. And we’ve been having 200 years, we’ve been having some – I remember the fever that it was transmitted from the animals to people, I don’t remember the name. I think was one of those H-1 something. I remember. And well, I remember, I was a child and we have to go into the bus or go into anywhere. We need to step in… I don’t remember it was ammonia or Clorox. Like, mats. I went in to step on those to go everywhere. And in Cuba, we are always taking precautions because it’s epidemic, but it’s endemic of the dengue. And it’s, you know, it’s constantly trying to overhaul those steps to not to be infected. Washing the hands is something that’s really, all the time. The TB has been forever since I’ve remember growing up. Here, they wouldn’t have that custom to be washing hands that much. I, myself, I prefer to wash my hands, otherwise, you know, I don’t like that much the hand sanitizer. Alcohol can be really bad for your hands when you have to do it so many times. Now, with the COVID, we have to do both. So, I remember, my hands, they have blisters, or they have blood coming out of my hands of so much that we have to wash our hands in between procedures, patients. If you’re not touch a doorknob, anything. During the pandemic. I still, my hands are still rough trying to recuperate because we’ve been doing the same for these two years straight. With no stopping, we, hand hygiene is one of the most important things in healthcare because the hands is the one that brings everywhere because you touch everything.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] Do you think things have mostly gone back to normal for you? Or do you still feel the effects of the pandemic regularly?
AP: Well, we’re still in the hospital see the effects because right now, like, corporate in our organization, Barnabas, corporate, they’re not using mask anymore. Like, yesterday, I went to do the CPR class and nobody was using mask because it’s not, you don’t have to. I went to do a backlog for a new program that is coming to the organization. And there was maybe 100 people. And nobody has masks. It was an enclosed mask. But in the hospital, it’s still, you still have to use your mask throughout the day. People are relaxing a little more. Sometimes, when we charting, we take it down to breathe a little bit better. But we still use it every day. And I think, even when they said don’t use it, there’s going to be problems when they start staying in the hospital that it’s not needed anymore. People is going to be still afraid. So, I’m just waiting for that because I know people, they’re not going to be with the contact with the patient. They’re not going to want to use it anymore. It’s the same, like the gloves. Like, the gloves, you’re supposed to use the gloves when you’re soil or you’re dealing with patients. But when you’re touching the patient, you don’t have to. But everybody use gloves. Even to move the patient from the bed to the stretcher, or to just, you know, pat the patient on the shoulder. They constantly use gloves throughout the day.
Q: Do you have friends or families in other states or countries? And how were their experiences different from yours here in Hoboken?
AP: I have friends in Europe. They particularly were really afraid. They have different quarantine or rules to go now [unintelligible 00:27:36]. They were just going out one day of the week to do groceries. And that’s it. They didn’t buy all the groceries. I got all friends in Panama. In Panama, they decide to do it by, I think, your ID number. And they were allowed to go one day of the week, or two days of the week. In Cuba, they used the students, the medical students, the school stop. So, all those medical students, they start doing surveys all over the houses. Who got fever? Who doesn’t have fever? Anybody that has any symptoms. And they brought them to a facility where they quarantine. And then, they have the disease. They send it to the hospital. If they didn’t, they send them back home. So, those places, they weren’t, you know. They didn’t have the supplies. So, people in the family, they decide to start lying because they didn’t want to be bring to a place that they would be uncomfortable to quarantine. So, that was a little bit hard too. I guess in Miami I got friends and they say nobody wants to use mask here. People were afraid because the community, some community, they didn’t believe in the mask. And they didn’t believe in the virus that was really, really hard for them. That’s it. I don’t know anybody else.
Q: Do you think there was anything about being in Hoboken that made your pandemic experiences unique compared to all the other people that you had, you know, talked to? Or, do you feel like you had similar experiences to a lot of them?
AP: I think it was amazing. People in the town, it was really amazing to hear the nob at 8:00 to be clapping at us for a long time. Everybody went out. And everybody was so supportive. And I got friends elderly that called me. And I say, I got mask. I bought a box for mask for you. And that was in the middle of April. And I say Barbara, how did you get that? Don’t worry. I got them. It’s for you. And people was really, really great. Really great.
Q: So, you felt like Hoboken really supported you?
AP: Yeah. Really great.
Q: Do you or any of your friends or family own local businesses? And how were they impacted by the pandemic?
AP: Well, my family used to own two restaurant in the town. And one of them closed before the pandemic because of, I don’t know. And the second one has to close due to the pandemic because they are in front of the hospital. And it’s a, you know, upscale restaurant. So, you only could be able to fit some people outside. And the outside for them would have been to be in front of the refrigerator morgue. So, they had to close and lose everything.
Q: Yeah. And do they think that they might re-open, or?
AP: No.
Q: No?
AP: No. They’re getting older.
Q: Yeah. Have you made any changes in your life or your job that you plan to keep even after the pandemic?
AP: Just, I guess, the use of the mask.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: Yeah. The use of the mask are… I don’t know. It’s always going to hang over us, I think. This pandemic. It’s not like anything trivial, but it’s something that it was major. So, it’s going to hang over our heads, all our, through our life. And it’s going to be things that we’re going to be telling our childrens. You know, because this was really, really hard.
Q: Do you think it’s changed the way you’ve looked at the world since, because of the pandemic, or?
AP: I think we are overdoing everything, even, like, you know, 10 years ago, I was talking with a medical colleague. And I told them, like, people, they are overusing antibiotics. They are overusing the sanitizing. They’re overusing everything. We going to have more than the virus and bacterias in our time life. [unintelligible 00:32:18] 10 year laters happen. And if we don’t check ourself, we think we might have more coming our way because everything is so modified. The food, the products, everything. People, they don’t crave the natural stuff anymore. People are just, you know, and eating garbage food, and everything that you get from the market is even washed with Clorox and stuff. So, you know, being exposed the good bacterias and the good virus, how can you fight the bad ones? You know? And you need to be able to be in contact with nature, and be able to get those good stuff into you. That way, you’re prepared to, when the big stuff come, when the big virus and the big bacterias. And it’s going to keep coming. It’s only natural.
Q: What changes do you think Hoboken has had since the pandemic? Have you seen anything, like, the wider community?
AP: The big changes is, I think throughout the pandemic, the big change was not able to be getting together. Hoboken is a really, like, you know. Really, people really like to go to the park and together. They like has magnificent activities that you can, you know, enjoy yourself with your kids and everybody. And that’s what is lacking. And we still lacking of them. We need more of those. We need more happiness, more people going out. And that’s what change.
Q: Do you have any predictions for the future of Hoboken?
AP: For the future? Hm. I think Hoboken is changing, is, when I first came here, it was a lot of families with a dog. Then it’s change. It start getting a lot of families with babies in carriage and dogs. Right now, the families, I’m seeing that the families are grown to stay here. They like, before, they used to leave when they have more kids because they didn’t have, where to have them because the three- or four-bedroom apartments, there are not that many in the city. Right now, I’m seeing a lot of middle school kids that we didn’t have before. Now we have a lot of them. That’s nice to see another generation growing in Hoboken. I think Hoboken has to grow to be more family-oriented. To have more of a, you know, parents, they like to have right now, two-three kids. It’s not like before, you know, it was a generation that they just have one and that’s it. Now, they getting more, like, two or three kids. And they need those – and they need to be able to be in the city and be comfortable. You know? So, it will be nice for the developers to be, you know, developing more apartments and houses with more capacity.
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative] Anything else you’d like to mention about Hoboken related to the pandemic or your personal experiences?
AP: Yeah. I want to mention Hoboken, people love to help. I remember during Sunday that it was people bringing so many supplies for people that they needed that at some point, they say, please don’t bring any more because the high school was full of supplies. And everywhere that they put those supplies, it was full. It happened the same. Right now, it was more organized. They decide to get two and three places in the city to deliver, to give them food to the people who needed, that people didn’t, who couldn’t go out to buy supplies. They still doing it. After two years, they still supplying those people that they needed with extra groceries. Also, all the establishment and the food markets, they decide to put some regulations that way people that they are not able to go shopping so frequently and to be in the lines, to be able to get those products. I remember, I think early morning was for the elderly people. They were able to get, you know, the toilet paper that it was lacking, and those basic products that they really had those times.
Q: Did you guys have that problem with the running out of the toilet paper?
AP: I remember that I think my wife bought a toilet paper that, like, four package cost her, like, I don’t know, 25.00. And I remember that she kept it on top. We never use it at that point. We kept it on top of the wash machine. And we kept it there for a long time because, one, it’s not the one that we liked. And it was just there, just in case. And it was there hanging for, like, a year and a half. Then, finally, I say, okay, let’s use it. Because, you know. It’s done.
Q: What would you tell those who in the future might have to live through something like this? Like, if there was another pandemic, like, in 100 years. What would you tell those people?
AP: Be prepared. Be humble. Be ready to help anybody around you. Learn how to survive the little things. Learn how to survive with, you know, little food. And I don’t say like that, but, you know, you don’t have to have a piece of meat or a piece of fish to survive. You can have just, you know, pasta or rice and just spread it out because you don’t know what’s going to happen. So, I don’t say to have an emergency kit, but more like, you know, know how to survive with what you have in the house. There is something that my wife always tell me is that she think that I’m a magician because when she say there’s nothing in the house, I go to the pantry, and I find something. And I do something. You know? I found a can of tomato. And we don’t have pasta. But we have, I don’t know, maybe rice. I do something. It’s always going to be something in the house. You know? If you have flour, you just need water to make bread or to make anything. You don’t need that, that many things. You don’t need all of those ingredients. Flour and water, you got bread. Even without the starter, what’s the name?
Q: Yeast.
AP: The yeast. Even without the yeast. You don’t need the yeast. You can do. Indians are doing it for years. You can do naan. Because only you need is water and flour. And you always can have a meal in your house. Learn how to do things different way. You know? Forget about the prepared stuff and the prepared meals [laughs] for a bit. That doesn’t mean that I don’t use them. I use them. And I stock it in my fridge because when I don’t have, I don’t want to cook, I just use them to bring it home. They need to work.
Q: So, flexibility is, you think is—
AP: Yeah. Flexibility.
Q: …you know, one of the keys.
AP: Yeah.
Q: Yeah. Anything else you’d want to share with us or you feel is important for people to know about?
AP: About the pandemic?
Q: Hm-hmm. [affirmative]
AP: Be kind. That’s the most important thing. Be kind to one anothers. Be kind to everybody. It doesn’t matter the background. It doesn’t matter any issues that they have. Be kind to one anothers because we are all in the same boat which is called Earth. That we are destroying. But we are in the same boat. So, please be kind to one another. That’s the most important thing. That’s all. Be kind.
Q: Then, we’ll wrap up if you don’t have anything else to share.
AP: No. That’s good.
Q: All right. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
AP: My pleasure. My pleasure. Hope it was fun.
[End of audio]
Interviewer
Aimee Harris
Interviewee
Amarilis Katya Diaz Presilla
Location
Hoboken Public Library, Hoboken, New Jersey
Citation
Hoboken Public Library, “Interview 02: Amarilis Diaz Presilla,” Hoboken Public Library's 2022 COVID-19 Oral History Project, accessed May 14, 2024, https://hobokenoralhistory2022.omeka.net/items/show/2.