We Live Here | Season 6

In this episode, we hear from a refugee who is a college student about what it’s like to learn and live through COVID-19 and we ask a social worker and an immigration attorney about what social support and legal services are needed by refugees through the pandemic and beyond.

Advocates, public health officials, and public defenders are calling for decarceration-- reducing the number of people held in jails, prisons, and detention facilities-- as a strategy to flatten the curve and prevent massive outbreaks among people who are already vulnerable to the virus.

We’ve seen the growth of new research, movements, and programs that center the experiences of Black people. The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on African Americans across the nation and in St. Louis raises a crucial question about how to work toward racial equity during a pandemic.

More recently in St. Louis black-led efforts like STL Lunch and the Hands Up United Books and Breakfast program have recognized that food access is a racial equity issue and the need that arises especially when school is out of session for summer.

The city of St. Louis made national headlines when its first 12 recorded deaths from COVID-19 were black. The peak of the first wave of cases expected to hit around the same day this episode is being released, which is why we wanted to better understand how the outbreak is touching the lives of black St. Louisans.

In this episode, we wanted to take some time to share two interconnected and inspiring stories about healing and community in the face of xenophobia and COVID-19.

States across the country have announced shelter-in-place orders but for many, that is not an option. The challenge for St. Louis and elsewhere is how to curb the spread of the coronavirus among people who are unhoused.

We wanted to understand how anti-Asian xenophobia has impacted Asian Americans and Asian American-owned small businesses here in St. Louis.

The shift to online learning for many schools can also reveal the deep economic and racial inequities that characterize schools in our hometown and yours.

We’ll be putting a racial and economic equity lens on the outbreak of COVID-19… and recovery from it. We don’t know how this is going to play out, but what seems certain is that this crisis will hit those with the least in our society the hardest.