Where I Go: Stress Baking

When It All Becomes Too Much, I Remind Myself to Be Patient and Wait for My Next Loaf to Rise

It’s July 2020, and San Diego is in a heat wave, but I don’t care; I’m baking bread. I can’t force fools on the street to wear masks, or stop the president from calling COVID-19 the “kung flu,” or protect Asian Americans from being assaulted for bringing in the “China virus,” but in my kitchen, I call the shots.

As I punch the risen dough, the phone rings. I turn my headset volume up, toss the dough on the counter, and answer.

In my nearly two decades as a telephonic Tagalog interpreter, I’ve learned to …

When COVID Came to Coalinga High, ‘School Just Ended in the Middle of the Sentence’ | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

When COVID Came to Coalinga High, ‘School Just Ended in the Middle of the Sentence’

Amid AP Classes and College Prep, the Senior Class President Added Caretaker and Teacher for Her Four Younger Siblings to Her Load

Before March 18, I was class president and a student in multiple Advanced Placement classes at my high school in a small town in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Since then, …