Theses and Dissertations

As restrictions regarding the COVID pandemic began to be enforced in March 2020, the first celebrity announced they had tested positive. It was Tom Hanks. An American cultural icon and a household name in the United States since his role as Forrest Gump in the movie Forrest Gump (1994). My family loves all his movies, especially Big (1988), and I found myself concerned for his health like he was my family. Every time there was an update on social media or the news, I held my breath for the other foot to drop. When my parents told me that Hanks was getting better, I breathed a sigh of relief. I heard many other pandemic stories like those of President Donald Trump, American singer-songwriter Pink, and NBA player Rudy Gobert. However, I realized that I didn’t hear enough about how my community experienced this global pandemic. I wanted to know how the people I used to see all the time navigated the health issues, isolation, financial stress, and other issues that arose, and more specifically, I wanted to know how their beliefs had helped them navigate the crisis. The purpose of this project is to share the Covid-19 stories of ordinary people across ages and genders—from high school students to college students, parents to grandparents. While no one person experienced it the same way as another, there were common themes across the narratives of the 8 people that I interviewed, namely, their reliance on their Christian faith during these times of uncertainty and fear. My interviews with participants lasted roughly thirty minutes, and I always started with the initial question, “what was your initial reaction to COVID?” I would then follow up by asking the participant how Covid-19 impacted their life. How did it impact their education, career, family, and community? I asked what challenges arose and what opportunities or good came to them during this time. I also asked participants what they learned about God and how they grew over the past few years. Each participant shared with me a quote, verse, or lyric they held onto, used as a source of strength, or represents a theme of their life during that time (you will see these written as epigraphs for the stories). Rather than merely collecting and publishing their interviews, I wanted to transform their experiences into literary narratives, so I turned to a practice called art-based research (ABR), a practice that involves the translation of fieldwork (and interview) into creative art forms. ABR addresses research in more engaged ways, and it allows us to share information in more culturally appropriate ways. By using ABR, this collection of Covid stories will engage and appeal more to a general audience. The resultant collection of nine narratives revealed strong themes of faith and family. Each narrative gave light to how the pandemic was hard and/or fruitful for the participants’ relationships with God and relationships with their families. The five participants who were 25 and under rendered additional themes of community and isolation while the four who were 26 and up rendered additional themes of emotional and mental health. The six female participants rendered additional themes of education and community while the three male participants rendered additional themes of politics and self-improvement. It is important to note that four of the five participants who are 25 and under are female while the group of 26 and up were half female and half male. Also important to note is that four of the six female participants were 25 and under while two of the three male participants were 26 and up. Thus, the small number of participants does not allow the research to apply broadly to any group outside the study. I hope that this project unifies the American experience of COVID as well as highlights the differences that make each story special. The history books will hone in on the generic and standard research studies will focus on the numbers, but projects like this provide a layer of humanity to the history we will tell future generations. I also hope that in the more immediate future, this project will serve today’s generations well in processing the trauma and grief that occurred during these last few years as well as render empathy for one another.