Hi, my name is Deziree, and I'm recording my oral history in my dining room. Today is Friday, April--I'm sorry--May 8th and it's 5 PM at the moment. And to begin, I just wanted to tell you what my life was about or what my life was like before COVID-19 affected the islands.

On a regular day, I would go to school and then go to work. I'd come home and just get ready for bed. And that was kind of on repeat. On my days off, I would hang out with my boyfriend or my friends, and we would like to go hiking, or the beach or really anything that involves my dog. I'm kind of obsessed with her.

Where I worked was at a vet clinic, so that was my first vet job. So I was really excited about that. They just opened the ending of 2019, so I was only working there for a few months. Where I grew up was actually not in town at all. It was in Waipahu or Kunia. I lived there from fourth grade up until my freshman year in high school, but before that I was actually kind of hopping around from place to place because my dad was in the military. From what I can remember when I was born, we moved. I was born in Hawaii and then we flew out to Italy as soon as my mom got the okay from the doctor. And I lived there for three years. And then I went to San Jose and then I came back to Hawaii and lived in town for about two years. And then I came to Waipahu, and that's where I just tell everyone that I'm from. So I grew up most my life there in Waipahu.

I currently live in town, though, so right by Ala Moana, near the shopping center, or Don Quixote, or we like to call it Koreatown, apparently. That's where all the Koreans live, I guess. I just heard that a few years ago.

So I also tell people that I graduated from Waipahu High School. But I didn't. In truth, I graduated from McKinley High School.

And from then I just went on to Chaminade, where I thought I was gonna be a pre-med student, but I changed my mind and I transferred over to UH Manoa to the pre-vet program, because I want to shift my interest to animals rather than humans.

So when I first learned about COVID-19, I remember I was sitting down in the ag science building with my friend Irene, and I think it was either her or I. She pulled up--I think it was her--she pulled up a article or a video. It was a video showing the COVID-19 outbreak in China. And when I first saw the video, I was kind of scared for them, thinking, oh, that's pretty serious. Things only going to get worse from there. But I never thought that it would make its way over to Hawaii. I didn't really think hard about it, but of course, it's possible. But at that time, I just didn't really think that anything of it. I just thought, you know, it was just going to stay in China. But since then, of course, I was very wrong. And I figured out that COVID-19, was a very serious matter and that it spread like really quickly. I think between the span of seeing that video to where we had to start shutting down businesses and stuff, it was probably like a month or two. So it wasn't that long before it affected my family and I, and the island that I live in.

The issues that I have most concerned about, yeah, was just I guess the financial burden that it would bring upon my family and those I care about. Especially, you know, those who are less fortunate than me, who are actually really affected by it because they, you know, won't have---for example, they wouldn't have an emergency fund or they can log on to unemployment or they really don't have any means of income at all. That concerns me because I just--I guess I'm not pitying them--but I just feel bad that they have to go through that. And it was just so fast and it became so tragic so fast, you know what I mean?

And so COVID-19, has affected my job drastically as well, because like I was saying, they just opened in 2019. So they were only open for I think about like six months before they had to change their ways because of COVID-19. So it was actually---it's called Aliʻi Animal Vet Hospital and Resort. So it had two sides; one side was a vet clinic and the other side was a resort. And so they actually laid off everybody on the resort side and only kept a few workers on the vet side, or vet clinic side. So they actually laid off more than half or even more than three fourths of their employees. And it also affected them because the traffic, or foot traffic, was drastically lower because everybody is now being quarantined and staying home with their dogs. So no one brought their dogs over for day care. And a lot of people, I guess, just didn't, you know, want to bring their dog in just because they had to stay home.

They also had to change the way that they run business. So you weren't allowed inside the business if you had a vet appointment, or if you had an appointment, you would have to sit outside in your car while the doctor takes the dog from you outside, and they'll bring them inside. And when they're done, they'll bring the dog back out to your car. So you weren't able to go in and speak to the doctor directly, you had to talk to them over the phone and share your concerns that way.

My employment status is now laid off. So they told me that they would call me back as soon as things get better. I don't know when that would be, but at the moment I am not employed. And yeah.

My concerns about COVID-19 on my employment is that I guess the main concern is I don't know when I'll be back to work. It could be, you know, a week from now, it could be months from now, especially with a small business. I don't know when they'll be able to have enough funds to rehire or call back those people that they laid off.

And I guess for the economy, not just me, but my mom, too, because she also has a small business. She's a hairstylist. So of course, she had to shut down completely. And she was not able to take any other clients. But fortunately, she did have other streams of income. So it wasn't, you know, 100 percent hard on her, or it wasn't necessarily as hard on her as other people who don't have multiple streams of income. But the economy in general, of course, other small businesses had to close down and, you know, no one's working and yadda, yadda, yadda. And I think that's why the governor was trying to reopen Hawaiʻi. Or even Trump, you know, he's trying to open up America. I think because they don't want the effects of this on the economy to worsen. But I think they might be rushing that a little bit too fast.

And of course, the pandemic affected almost everybody I know. A majority of the people that I know, they, of course, lost their jobs too. They were unemployed or laid off for a while. My boyfriend, he was laid off for a month and then he just got called back last week. But again, like some like me, some people might not even know when they'll be able to go back to work.

And COVID-19, it kind of affected my day-to-day activities in a way, but not too much because of school. So I'm still doing school work, and I still have to allot a certain amount of time into finishing assignments, so there's that. But I guess like in a way, I was able to spend more time at home with my animals and with my mom who I don't really get to see often. So in a way, it's a blessing in disguise. And I was able to actually begin a lot of things that I wanted to do, like since I didn't have school in the morning or classes anymore, I was able to volunteer at this horse stable, and I'm able to clean stalls there and get some experience on my resume for vet school. I also was able to, you know, clean up my room and clean up the house. I even opened--I wouldn't call it a business, but it's just something for fun--I submitted it under the, under your page as well as an art outlet. I don't know what it was called, but I made a Instagram and I started selling dog treats. But I kind of use that Instagram page as a, I guess, dog page. And I took some photos of my friend's dogs and I tried to edit them and post them up in an aesthetically pleasing way on the page. So in a way, that was a form of art for me. And I'm still doing that to this day. I'm trying to keep up with it. But it's kind of difficult cause I've been kind of busy with schoolwork and, you know, studying and stuff like that, too.

I don't really think that COVID-19 has affected the way I communicate with my friends and family, because we're not supposed to, but I still see my family. It was my aunty's birthday the other day. So, you know, our family's really small, it's only like fifteen of us maybe or less. We went over and we celebrated her birthday. But other than that, you know, my friends were already in the mainland for school, so I was already texting them. And when they came back, I'm still texting them. So doesn't really change the way that I communicated with them.

And then the biggest challenges I faced during COVID-19 was, I guess just not being able to hang out with my friends because we're all home and we're all bored, but we have to, you know, stay away from each other and try to avoid contact because we don't want to spread the virus. And even though we may not feel sick, we may not know that we have the virus. So which is why that we had to refrain from meeting up and stuff like that. But I guess another challenge is that I can't really find places to go with my dog because the parks were closed and stuff like that. So she's like in my room and she's all bored. And of course I can walk her, but like I did want to let her run and stuff like that. And if we go to the park, I was afraid of getting a ticket, so I didn't go. That was a pretty annoying challenge that I had to face.

I don't really exercise either. I mean, other than hiking, I don't really go out and lift weights or run or anything like that. Like I don't have time to run. Well, I do have time, but I don't want to run. So I would just walk my dog. I guess that's the only thing. But I know some my friends, they went out to the beach and stuff like that. I don't know how they didn't get caught. But yeah.

Hmm, let's see. . . .

My community, I would say, would be my, I guess. . . . I don't really talk to the community around me like my church or school. I don't really talk to them. So I can't really say. But I can tell you that the people around me, such as my friends and family and those I follow on social media and stuff like that. It's kind of like a 50-50. Some people are taking it seriously, like super seriously. And then some people just don't think it's that serious, and they're so going out or they're still meeting up to have a drink at night at someone's house or something like that.

And I guess like for me, at first I thought it was something that we had to follow really strictly, the self-isolation rules and stuff like that. But as I saw more people going out, I kind of thought that maybe it wasn't that serious because not everyone was getting sick. But of course, you know, I'm not going to go out and do that because I know better that, you know, you could be spreading it without having any symptoms and whatnot.

I can only speak for myself and my family. We have been following the self-isolation rules. I did ask my mom one time because my friends, they convinced me to have a wine night and asked my mom to see if she'll allow my friends over, but she felt really strongly about it. And she told me no. And I totally understood. So I told my friends, you know, that was a good excuse to tell them that, "hey, sorry, I can't hang out because my mom said no." So they couldn't really argue with that.

But our relationship hasn't changed because of the COVID-19 and, you know, quarantine rules. Like we're still friends. We just know that this is a temporary situation.

No one that I have known--no one I know got COVID-19. But there was a scare. My coworker, she had a random fever and was coughing. And that was about a day or two before we got laid off. So I was, you know, what's the word for it. . . .Exposed. I was exposed to her sickness. I didn't get sick, thankfully, but she got tested and it took seven days for her results and she did not. It was negative for COVID-19. So thank goodness. (Chuckles) That was not fun. It wasn't a fun waiting time.

And my primary sources of news during the pandemic would be KHON2 News. I follow them on Twitter, so I always saw when they posted new things, and also my mom likes to watch CNN and Fox News a lot, so that's where I got the information about around the world during the pandemic. And my news sources didn't change. I've always been watching those, too.

I think government officials in my community, I think they are, I guess, trying their best. I'm not really sure what they're thinking. They're kind of just making new rules and stuff like that. But they're not really explaining like what is the purpose behind their decision making. Like, for example, Governor--what is his name--Ige. He wanted to reopen malls but keep beaches closed. So when that announcement went up, it just stated that he was gonna open malls, but he never really explained why he is. You know, what's the reason and purpose for doing that? It makes me think that maybe it's just for the economy is trying to reopen. But yeah, I just feel like the government officials could be doing they could be doing better, of course, and they could be addressing our concerns more. Yeah. I guess, in general, I just feel like they should do better. (Chuckles)

Let's see. And I guess. . . . Sorry, I'm reading the questions.

So I guess the positive aspects of living on island during a pandemic is that you have the beach available if you wanted to go exercise or swim. I know swimming was legal. You can go relax in the water and you don't have to be near other people. And also, it's really nice whether. You can go outside. You're not stuck like, for example, if you're in an area, you know, during December that was quarantined, it might be snowing, et cetera, et cetera. So we have really nice weather. And I guess you can go hiking as long as you're practicing social distancing. That's a positive.

But a negative is that since the island is so small and you know, everyone knows everybody, if you go out to a store or something and you see your friend and you say hi to them and you didn't know you have COVID, and that person says hi to somebody else, you know, it can spread so quickly. So that's a really big negative about living on an island.

My island. . . .I don't know if they have had a way to come. . . . I guess like I've seen on social media. They have, you know, uplifting posts and videos and stuff like that being shared just to like, I guess, give entertainment to the people in quarantine. I think that was a cute way.

I haven't noticed anything about the land, ocean or animal life or the resources following the social distancing laws or orders, but I've seen on social media that other places their water has been clear, their skies have been purer. So I'm sure that's happened here. I just don't see it.

And so I know that COVID-19 has affected our lives drastically. And I don't think that anything is going to go back to normal soon. And I think we're going to have a new normal, quote, unquote, until the vaccine is created. Just because, you know, like you never know, anyone can start up the whole entire curve again. Yeah, I just, I just don't think everything, anything is going to go back to normal anytime soon. I think we're still gonna be wearing masks, still, you know, cleaning surfaces and, you know, like still trying to be wary about staying away from people. I know before when I would be sick, my bosses would even tell me to come into work like it's okay, you can still work. So I would come into work with, you know, like a cough or sneezing or a fever. And now I know that places or employers won't be forcing that out of employees. They'll make sure that they would stay home if they feel sick and stuff like that.

But yeah, I just think that nothing's going to go back to normal. And I think we all have to find a way to deal with it and still follow the orders that are placed upon us just because they are placed for a certain reason. But thank you so much for listening to my very all over the place oral history. (Chuckles) Have a good day.