Photo provided by Tricia Ortiz

Covid, pandemic, masks, vaccination, are things that are on everyone’s mind lately. For this story, we revisited Tricia Ortiz an IT consultant living in the Washington DC area to find out how the dip then subsequent spike in COVID cases has affected her business and social life.

Ortiz takes the pandemic seriously. She got vaccinated as soon as she was able to, but she tells us that she still chooses to wear her mask to protect others from the spread of the virus. If asked, she describes her approach to the virus as a conservative one. “I have a social responsibility to stay healthy for myself and for the country,” says Ortiz.

Photo provided by Tricia Ortiz

Staying engaged during the pandemic, Ortiz started work on a Master’s Degree in Photography.  Even when working on her assignments she is cautious.  “I take pictures outdoors, all my pictures are outdoors, and if I do any indoors it’s because I’m doing a self-portrait,” says Ortiz.  The same philosophy applies to her pandemic work, where dog walking keeps her socially distanced outdoors.

A major part of being Puerto Rican is our emphasis on family. Pandemic restrictions currently affect Ortiz in a very personal way. Since the last time we met, Ortiz’s brother passed away. The family was unable to gather together for a memorial and vowed to do so in the near future. That was a few months ago and the resurgence of COVID in the form of its new variants have caused new restrictions that once again postponed a memorial service for Ortiz’s brother.

There may be a silver lining for the Ortiz family in the way of vaccination. Puerto Rico Department of Health statistics show that as of October 3rd, 2021, the population in that territory has 87.4% of people vaccinated with at least one dose, and 78.9% are fully vaccinated against the disease. With total US statistics being at 64.8% and 55.9% respectively, Puerto Rico is well ahead of many other jurisdictions in protection from COVID.

For now, her family is maintaining the hiatus on her brother’s memorial but Ortiz is hopeful that they will be able to carry it out in the near future. “Knowing that Puerto Rico is doing such a great job at getting everybody fully vaccinated with such a high number, I think by the end of the year or early next year things will be in a better shape.”

The District of Columbia’s vaccination numbers are also pretty encouraging with 70.6% of residents receiving at least one dose of the vaccine and 59.9% being fully vaccinated. However, even Washington D.C. has quite a few doses to administer before it starts reflecting the successful vaccination numbers Puerto Rico is reporting. 

Photo provided by Tricia Ortiz

Meanwhile, Ortiz will remain cautious at home until the numbers look a little better and she is feeling more comfortable that her traveling will not negatively affect her family and others.

CoViD-19 created hardship for millions of people throughout the United States. In less than 10% of CoViD cases, children and teens were not as impacted by contracting this infection as their parents. Young people, however, were impacted in other ways.  

Pandemic countermeasures forced students to change physical classroom attendance for online classes. Since March 2020 however, some minority students have not received any education. Future Ready Schools concluded that “as many as 16.9 million children lacked home internet access.” Before the pandemic, a study conducted by Michigan State University found that “students who do not have access to the Internet from home or are dependent on a cell phone alone for access perform lower on a range of metrics, including digital skills, homework completion, and grade point average.”

Roberto Clemente Charter School in Allentown, Pennsylvania is also adjusting to the challenges of a pandemic education. With about a 90% Hispanic student population, this school faces many of the challenges minorities face nationwide.

According to National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), about 67% of students nationally were moved to a distance learning format involving the use of online resources.  This is a tremendous disadvantage for 23% of Hispanic and Latino students who according to the U.S. Census Bureau do not always have computer and internet access.

Mitza Morales, principal of the middle and high school at the charter school is in charge of implementing measures to effectively keep her students engaged in the learning process. “All our students have laptops and access points provided by the school,” said Morales. She was quick to point out that while access is only part of the challenges faced by her and other educational institutions, it is a significant one.

Distance education comes with a set of challenges for both teachers and students, Morales pointed out. She believes it is not only enough for all students to have the tools they need to communicate virtually if parents, teachers, and students do not come together and do their part in the education process. “For some minorities, it is important that they have a sense of trust [with their teachers]” says Morales. She states that her students perform better with teachers that take the time to ask about their personal issues and not just follow a “straight to business” teaching model.  

Simple things such as learning to pronounce a student’s name correctly can go a long way. Morales explains that sometimes minority students feel teachers that don’t care enough to do little things like learning to pronounce their names correctly give an impression of not caring about their individual issues. Taking a vested interest in their lives goes a long way now just as it did before the pandemic.

Improving distance learning procedures is an interactive process for Roberto Clemente Charter School. Morales regularly meets with both students and teachers for invaluable feedback on how distance education is working. During one of these evaluations, a student explained that teachers were “trying to teach too many topics at once” during face-to-face meetings. Students found that overwhelming, so Morales spoke to her teachers about the issue and they adjusted to more focused lesson plans that turned out to be more effective.

In education, you get better results when you tailor methods to individuals as much as possible. “There are students that will need more interaction than others and these are the students that will be the first to come back into the classrooms,” said Morales. The school is also looking into measures for advanced students to enrich their learning by facilitating partnerships with institutions that will allow them to audit college classes.  

For those students that have fallen behind, the school has plans to help them catch up to where they need to be. Morales mentioned school plans to implement summer classes specially geared to help these students.  

According to Morales, the measures implemented at Roberto Clemente Charter School had the result of keeping most students at the academic level they should be. She will be the first to admit however, that it is inevitable for student learning overall not to be affected given the level of disruption the pandemic caused during these last two school years.  “Currently, about 35% of students school-wide are in danger of failing at least two classes… Pre-CoViD it was about 15%,” Morales reports.

The full extent of the disadvantage to students this period of education will cause is yet to be seen.  What is clear is that there have already been significant effects and that we must continue to adjust to them for the sake of our children’s educations. 

Ricardo M Hernandez Arocho

Puerto Ricans certainly go all out during Christmas. We proudly boast that we have the longest Christmas celebrations in the world. In fact, we start celebrating promptly after Thanksgiving. As Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) arrives your friends and family gorge themselves on pastesles, arroz con gandules, pernil, and coquito (all traditional Puerto Rican Christmas staple foods). If you’re religious you may also go to the Misa de Gallo (midnight mass) to sing aguinaldos (carolls).

You were tired afterward but no, your friends hyped you up to go do some parrandas before heading home. Parrandas? What are those? You soon find out. All night into the early dawn, you go from house to house, singing, playing instruments, dancing, eating, and drinking some more. Great, now I can rest you say, but no… now your kids are opening their Christmas presents so you give up and resign to rest later.

That evening, however, your friends are back to wake you up for another round of parrandas and you start to wonder what is holding these people together… It’s that Christmas spirit… or more likely the Christmas spirits you all keep drinking as you go from house to house. You somehow keep this partying going intermittently and you make it all the way to New Year’s Eve where you again celebrate with more of that delicious food you had all throughout the season so far. You count down the clock, as it strikes midnight eat twelve grapes for some reason, and you continue to celebrate like crazy as the new year arrives. You sigh with relief as you somehow make it home and settle in for some rest, figuring Christmas is finally over… that is until the next day when Rafael and your friends are back again and tell you that they are doing another parranda. What the heck is going on here, you ask yourself as you feel an anxiety attack coming on.

Before you start thinking you lost your mind and are living a moment similar to the one Bill Murray had in the movie Groundhog’s Day, there is something important you should know. For Puerto Ricans, there are still more traditional Christmas days left to celebrate in January. What are these celebrations you say? I got you!

Before becoming a U.S. Territory, Puerto Rico was part of the Kingdom of Spain. Under Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was Roman Catholic and observed many traditions derived from the church. At that time, Santa Claus did not bring presents to Puerto Rican children. Instead, we had the Tres Reyes Magos (Three Wise Men) bring us presents on the 6th of January. This of course has to do with the biblical story of the Epiphany where the Magi traveled from distant lands following a star to Bethlehem so they could find the son of God, worship him and gift him with gifts of myrrh, frankincense, and gold.

When I was a young boy I remember the traditional routine that all children follow to have the Reyes Magos leave us a present. Unlike Santa who greedily devours the cookies and milk left for him by families on Christmas Eve, the Reyes Magos only ask for hay for their camels. Children therefore get a shoebox and take it to their yards to fill it with grass to feed the Three Kings’ camels. After you fill it up as much as possible, you cover up the box with its lid and leave it underneath your bed. At that point, you go to sleep and when you wake up in the morning the shoebox is gone and replaced with presents.

I feel a little guilty that my sister and I killed this beautiful tradition. This happened because our parents (who were going through tough financial times) told us that we had to choose to have either Santa or the Tres Reyes leave us presents. Why would we choose Santa? Well, he did leave his presents a whole 13 days before the Reyes Magos did. We also usually had to go back to school the very next day after the Three Wise men left their presents and barely had any time to enjoy them. The adult in me is sad that we lost this tradition, but I understand how much of a struggle that would have been for younger me to wait that long for presents.

One good thing about 6 January is that even when your parents can’t afford presents, you can still get gifts. Traditionally the city and state governments buy gifts for children, all you have to do is line up to get them from your friendly local politician. Kids get their toys and the politicians get their photo-op with kids… a win-win situation for everyone.

So the Reyes Magos left their gifts, we ate and drank some more, and went to more church services… are we done yet? Oh no, not by a long shot. Now it’s time for the Octavitas. “For Pete’s sake what the heck is that,” I hear you saying. Well, quite simply it’s a bonus 8 days to keep on partying, eating, drinking, and doing more parrandas. Ok, what happens on the 8th day? Surely everyone chills out by then right? Come on, how could we close out Christmas with a whimper? At the end of the Octavitas we have one of the largest, loudest, and funnest festivals on the Island… Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastian (The Festival of the San Sebastian Street) in Old San Juan. Yep, you guessed it, more drinking, eating, dancing, and performances by famous artists and performers.

Ok what’s next after that? Wait you haven’t you had enough? Go get some rest. Christmas is over dude.