Caroline Wilkerson and Robby Espano

00:06 My name is Caroline Wilkerson. I'm 21 years old. Today is Tuesday, November 2nd 2021 on in a Vanderbilt campus and Alive. Break the name of my, I'm interviewing with Robby espano today and he is my boyfriend of two years. Today's date is November, 2nd. 2021, Caroline. Wilkerson and I are recording on Vanderbilt campus and that you brought some Ingram great room and Caroline and I have been dating for the past two years. So, Caroline, when did you first see me realize that the pandemic would radically change the way the world in my way of life.

00:54 So, I remember when we came back from spring break, they were starting to be a lot of cases, and I remember you came over to my room and you were really stressed out and you were just constantly refreshing. The New York Times case, count near Lake Caroline. This is getting really bad. Like they're going to send an email about like kicking us off of campus and I was like, oh, it's okay like just let's do this coloring sheet, not worry about it cuz it's out of our control anyways, and that was when I got really spooky. So when did you see me first realize it's a panda make, what's going to be thick stuff. So I think for us as been rough, since we kind of heard the news before other colleges since like all of our peers were in Spain and Brazil and what not? And they came back and tested positive. But whenever I've really first saw you realize that the pandemic was going to be a real deal.

01:54 What's whenever you had gone home back to Texas in your older sister was giving birth to Calvin your nephew who's now 11 and a half years old. And I remember you saying that on the first day going to the hospital, you were able to walk straight fail to see Rachel. See John and see all of her family. But then the second and third day when Calvin was actually born, there were more steps that you had to go through tax. They get onto the nursery and onto that floor. So I think that was the first time I saw how you realize that like the pandemic was a serious if it was and was going to change the way we lived. And I remember even during like our last moments together on campus. I was still extremely optimistic about the pandemic and I thought we were just going to come back on the campus in a few weeks that I think you were you had more realistic expectations.

02:54 Life would be what life would be like moving forward. I remember once they told us to leave campus there all those people going to parties at Saint Patrick's Day parties. I remember looking at them and being like that stuff like you should not be doing that. Like, I don't know what's going on in the world. Be like, I know that's a bad idea.

03:11 What do you?

03:13 What sticks out in your memory is Peak pandemic?

03:18 So I think two kind of talked about what this was for me. I think it's important for me to First talked about kind of like, my family structure and who my parents are. So, I am from a very rural town in southern Georgia. And my mom is one of the pediatricians in this town and my dad's, a stay-at-home dad and so early on, in the pan to make, we were extremely worried about my dad getting sick. That's because he has a few underlying health conditions, like high blood pressure. He have cancer running through his show me worried about his underlying health risks. So as a family, we really made the decision to kind of protect each other as much as we could. So that meant wearing masks all the time indoors, eating separately in our own rooms and really just distancing ourselves from one another as much as we could. And that being said something that my mom and I started doing

04:18 I was just opening the windows whenever she would come home from work and me putting like two masks on and just sitting next to her at the dining table. Like that. Trying to keep as much distance as I could between US, just hearing how her day was as if it was normal normal year without the pandemic yourself.

04:43 Well, when I think about it.

04:47 I think the first at there's, like, a couple of things that comes to my head, but I remember being on FaceTime a lot with you and keeping in touch that way and when we made lemon curd together has like a date because we could hang out, we would just cook over FaceTime and I remember that being really fun. Let's see.

05:11 What are their Peak pandemic things? I don't know. I think cooking for me became something that would help me get through the pandemic. Because before the pandemic started, my mom and I are gone to the Vanderbilt bookstore in purchased a Korean comic book published by monkey and then a Filipino cookbook on my forgot who published it. And those just really helped me get through just like providing ways to connect with my family, but I couldn't see a fraud. So that became really important for me. And yeah, I distinctly remember us making like a Filipino dessert that was with lemon curd and then like a meringue cream topping and whatnot and us spending two to three hours over the phone during a double boiler, trying to get the curb before it does patiently waiting. And I think I'm a much more patient. Cook the new. I have thought you had like turned up the temperature and potentially bird the lemon curd.

06:11 I'm good. I remembered but I remember you got really good at pie crust or the end of it and you got like your Technique really mastered, but it was cool. Seeing how we develop different coping mechanisms to deal with, like, everything that was going on. And I think that revealed a lot about like who we are as people and interesting looking back on. What would you say? You're feeling really helpless with everything that was going on. That I couldn't really help like in the hospital or

06:45 But I knew that I could help fall in tearing in my community because I knew that there were people who were struggling.

06:53 And I had trouble finding a sense of purpose and like everything. So I think volunteering which is something I've done like in the past, in my life was like a very like natural like thing to do, that helps me.

07:06 I don't know if I'm purpose in the day-to-day monotony of pandemic life. So can you tell me a bit more of what football entering looks like for you during the pandemic? Yeah, so I volunteered at the food bank making food boxes. Usually the food bank volunteers are really old. So a lot of them weren't coming because of you like infection risk. So I kind of stepped in and helped like sort through food that they had been donated and like putting boxes together. But what I think gave me a like a clear picture of what people were experiencing and day-to-day. Pandemic life was volunteering with Meals on Wheels and driving to people's houses who were like super socially isolated. Cuz I mean, I was super lonely being at home without my friends and

07:53 It was therapeutic in a way like being able to be company for somebody else and bringing them lunch, when they were able to go outside or do normal things in their life. Who can you tell me a little bit more about like what Meals on Wheels is and if you have like a specific memory. Oh, yeah. So you just you bring lunch like a premade lunch to people who are two older like sick to go, get lunch for themselves or cook for themselves. And yeah, you're bringing them food. But you're also there for like social engagement and like checking on their mental health and well-being, and sometimes you'd be like the only person that somebody would see you in a day. Or so is always nice to just like posi extra minute and like really here like how someone was doing or what was important to them at that moment? Yeah. I'll I feel like a lot of people are struggling with loneliness.

08:45 And then it says, how did to do you have a specific instance of like something that you were really remember that stood out to you about Meals on Wheels during the pandemic?

08:56 Food.

09:02 It's okay if you're going.

09:05 What's, what should we do next?

09:09 What are you most proud of during the from during the pandemic?

09:14 So during the pandemic, I thought I was applying to medical school. So I guess to practice I'm studying biology in English and for my entire life. I've always wanted to become a doctor. And so during the pandemic, I really said a lot of time aside to study for the MCAT which is like the Maine admissions test to get into medical school. So I'd purchased all the textbooks doll the test test prep material and what not and logged about 6:00 over the course of like three months, just really studying almost every day for 5 to 8 hours. So personally, I was proud of like showing myself that even though setting for the MCAT was such an arbitrary goal. I can motivate myself very tangible ways and just do a little bit every day to progress towards that goal.

10:07 But I think what made me most proud during the pandemic was really just seeing how you adapted to everything. I think that whenever we met a few years ago. You were a person who really took in your environment and viewed. Like your environment is something that really determines the option that you have in your life. But I think the pandemic made you sort of realize and realize in to see how they're so many different opportunities within the community that you were already in in ways that you could make your life a filling and share life with other people and ways that you had it before. So, I was really proud to see just the ways you adopted and you cope during the pandemic.

10:54 It was really cool to watch how you could kind of like create this whole intellectual World in Rome to keep yourself entertained and all the monotony and like have a lot of personal growth in like a without even having to leave your home, you know, and you have the motivation to do that, which was really cool to watch. So, how do you think? But how do you think the experiences that you had back home in Lubbock impact did the school year whenever we return to campus?

11:31 What do you mean? Yeah, I guess like cuz whenever you're home, you

11:36 You found ways to really embed yourself within a community of other people in Lubbock, by giving them meals, helping them provide helping provide food for people in a food desert, but then coming back on to campus or we had so many like different restrictions about things we could do. How are you able to find meeting here when you couldn't do those things?

11:57 I think it was in reaching out to people because I knew that everyone was going through something. I mean, that's kind of always true, but I think during covid-19 true and

12:07 I think just when everyone was dealing with loss and grief of some kind whether it was a death that it happened in their family or just like the loss of an experience. They might have had had it not been the pandemic or some other kind of grief that's different like

12:22 I felt like it was important to.

12:26 I don't know, just reach out to people and like, yeah, that was my answer when we were in a more like constrained environment where we couldn't go out in the community as much.

12:37 But it's the weather that look like nothing is like calling people. You know, I feel like phone calls have been like a good way to

12:45 Keep in touch with people. Cuz yeah, when it would get boring, I'd be like, oh, I wish someone would call me and whenever I felt that way, I would just call someone else because figured other people were feeling that way too.

12:57 I remember something that you did that made me smile. What was that? You had spent maybe, like, 30, or 40 hours, learning to cross-stitch a bird. And then during the semester, and you had envisioned giving that to one of your friends, a birthday present, but instead, he decided after like a call with your grandma, want to send it to her instead. So I think that was really sweet.

13:26 Cross stitching, really got me through there. That was like, my version of the MCAT just like doing a little bit of something everyday and seeing progress on it. Just like really can help you get through something, your class. It's the that really awesome 2025 in campaign. That was a good cross stitch.

13:56 What do you want to talk about now? You are? Okay. How about your biggest obstacle during the pandemic?

14:02 So I think my biggest something that my biggest obstacle during the pandemic was Finding ways to connect with other people that were outside of, like my immediate Social Circle After High School, my family moved away from the town, I'd grown up in. So, I was two or three hours away from all of my high school friends and because we live in the states, I am a 20 hour flight away from the rest of my family in the Philippines. So for me personally, it was really difficult to find ways to connect with other people and that's probably one of the reasons why I spent so much time studying for the MCAT just because it was something I could do by myself and I didn't really need anybody else. Others help.

14:52 So I think because of that, the pandemic really made me appreciate how important other people can be for my own satisfaction in my own life. So I had to struggle with not being able to return to the Philippines after my Grandpa died in the in the months leading up to the pandemic and not being able to see friends for like two to three years or so, since that every opportunity. I have to do those things have become ever more important for me because you would have normally seen your grandpa. And so it doesn't feel like quite that, he's gone until you can let go back in. I guess we would only fly over fly back to Manila once every four years. Just because flights are so expensive and it's hard to coordinate with school sketch school and work schedules and thought of you, the only see my grandpa every every four years coming up. But during like the last

15:52 Figures before the pandemic, when my grandpa's house was kind of waiting on my mom. And I became really intentional about going. Every single moment we could. So I remember the year, I graduated high school. We flew to Manila the summer. Before I started my senior year that winter during my senior year in the summer, after I graduated, and in those moments. I really treasure the time. I got to spend with my grandpa, even though most of the time he's spent with me. He was just asleep on his recliner with a sand pointed over, a glass of ice-cold water, as his pseudo, air conditioning. And I could tell my grandpa's Health in his memory was declining. Mainly because he would for every one minute. She's been talking to me. You'd spent 2 hours just asleep in his recliner. But even in those one minute, I really got to treasure the things. He told me in the memories you shared with me.

16:51 Don't we my mom and fortunately still hasn't gone to go back home since he passed away. I'm in, but we're hoping she'll be able to soon.

17:03 A video. What would you say? Your biggest obstacle was?

17:10 It was a lot of Justin coming back to campus after being like totally alone for so long. And I remember that got overwhelming just like constantly worrying about contamination or like you what, where we been and who has had a negative test and was I run this person at this time or like, am I is my Social Circle safe and just having to constantly ask myself questions like that. I had to learn how to manage that kind of anxiety. Like everybody did during the pandemic, but as far as like me personally when my grandpa got sick with covid and he was in the care home and I kind of immediately knew that he wasn't going to make it.

17:49 But it was really hard that I couldn't come back for the funeral. Cuz flying still like was really f e back at that point. And so when he was in the hospital, I sent a recording of me, singing the song on the ukulele that he had, always sang to me. And when people are really sick, like hearing is one of the last census that they have. And I remember asking the nurses, if they would play the song for him and then at the end of the video, I thank them for doing all that they were for like risking their own lives, to take care of him. And that was like a really emotional experience.

18:25 General what song that was? Yeah. Yeah, five foot two eyes of blue hits. Like a army old army song that he he played back in the day. So so do you have any memories memories of him? Seeing that song with you? Yeah. Yeah, he would always just go like five foot two eyes of blue.

18:50 That was that was really hard.

18:55 But also just getting used to socializing again as like tendonitis let up a bit. Like I think that was kind of another social obstacle for everybody. Feeling a little awkward around other people. And that's something I've really found. Life-giving is like understanding that everybody feels a little socially awkward and then like

19:16 Doing my part to kind of overcome that, you know, it's like it's okay. Nobody's like going to think anything badly. Like we're all just doing our best and yeah.

19:28 So I remember one thing that stuck out to me whenever I first met you is that two years ago, you had all four grandparents, which I thought was incredible because I lost my go to my paternal grandparents when I was really young. So what has it been like over the pandemic to lose a lot of your family. I'm into kind of Greece about the pandemic. I mean nothing sucks like a virtual funeral. Like the whole point of the funeral is to be connected with people and to be present with

20:05 And I mean, while it was hard losing, my grandparents, when my friend's brother died, really unexpectedly. I remembered like desperately wanting to go to be there and just with covid hours, like it's just not feasible. And that was really hard to accept because something like that. Where everybody's together in the same place, only happens at that at that point, you know, it's not something that can really be recreated. And, I mean, obviously, my grandparents funerals would have been really different. I did not think of it, cuz it had to be really limited. But in other ways I did get to go to one of their funerals during covid and

20:43 You know, having a small group, they're really just made what everyone had to say more valuable. And it was just like really close family, friends. That knew my grandparents, like, the whole time, and I got to hear the stories about them and their life, you knowing

20:58 You know.

21:00 Hard both ways. So can you talk more about that small funeral and what you were able to glean from it?

21:10 Or if you were able to learn anything about your grandparents that you haven't before and what specifically were those.

21:22 Maybe I didn't really learn anything like new things, but

21:28 Like it was just more special for the family to be together at that point because I hadn't seen them all in Saint in like a long time. Just to be together at like an important moment.

21:43 I'm curious what you would say to this. What would you like to forget about life during the pandemic? Cuz I remember when you learned about like children who are being hospitalized for covid you were just like really torn up about it. And you really Caroline. I just I can't accept that this is going on and people aren't getting vaccinated and kids are suffering. Like I remember seeing that really affect you, but that might not be your answer. So I want to know ya.

22:09 So if I'm being honest life, during the pandemic has become somewhat of a blur just because there are so many things that happened in such. A short amount of time. We went from being fully functioning college students, coming back from a spring break to being completely evicted from our college campuses within the span of a week.

22:32 I can buy before the pandemic started in my dad and I had decided to go skiing with family in Colorado. And because of my dad's underlying health conditions, we decided to make the 20-hour drive from Nashville to Springbrook. Spring Steamboat Springs on the way back. We had stopped by at a Korean restaurant, which was one of my dad's favorite restaurants in Nashville, this because it was extremely authentic, South Korean cuisine. It's grandmother was born in Korea, but because his mom, or his mom is waiting for you, but because she died relatively early on in her life to breast cancer, those recipes in those dishes, were things that he didn't really connect with as greatly as he did before. So, does eating things like fresh guy, be your first kimchi aspects of his life that were really Stripped Away. Once his mother died.

23:32 And then we came back to campus. I remember, I try to share some of the food with you, but my dad had texted me as he was like, leaving Nashville Back Down to Georgia and said, hey, be careful with this. We shared it. We went to Colorado and we have no idea if we had contracted the virus there. So you ended up feeling way, all that great food just to be careful, but I think the through this is a kind of a long-winded answer, but I think that thing I would most like to forget about the pandemic is sort of how many voices

24:15 It ignored. And how many lives that showed were so much more precious than we? Thought they were. I remember since I was gone since I've spent the majority of the pandemic in Brooklet Georgia, the bits and pieces that I saw where of the outside world. We're just from news reports. Until I was constantly reading about different Health disparities and seeing those disparities play out with in my community, even though I was just always stuck inside. So I heard of just because I grew up in a mostly African-American Community. I heard of people who had families that passed away, really, really unexpectedly from the pandemic and yeah, just a lot of different things I think.

25:07 So alongside that I also got a glimpse of what the pandemic was life in the Philippines. Just two stories shared through Facebook and zoom meetings with other family members. And in the Philippines, my family, I close family lives in one household. So there's just one two-story house that house has my grandmother, my aunt's and his wife, my two cousins, my grandpa before he passed away. And then are three kind of like maids in Manila.

25:43 And I remember for that one household. They were only given one card that enable them access outside of their home. And if someone was outside without that car, they were at risk of being taken to jail for breaking kind of like lockdown and social distancing rules. And So within that time, my grandmother's Health really deteriorated. She had just lost her husband and she went from being able to fly to Hong Kong to go see friends and just went from being able to go to the Buddhist temple to see her other friends, to completely being isolated with her out within their own home until her mental health, really declined. So if I think there's one thing that I could forget about their pain. Make it would be just kind of seeing her break down as she did. Luckily. She was one of the first people.

26:43 In the Philippines that I need to get the vaccine. And so, her life has picked up a little bit since then, but it's still not as her mental state is still not where we would help it to be, eating that be different if I hadn't been covid. I definitely think so. I think my grandmother got a lot of Joy from traveling. The all of my memories that I have with my grandmother rojava, just like, walking up and down the great wall with her. Whenever I was in the fifth grade are going to Tokyo and sitting next to her on a bullet, train in Japan after my senior year of high school. And so, for her traveling with an extremely large part of her life in a large part of how she found happiness, though. Just being taken away from her with a seemingly, a snap of a finger really impacted her. And so I really hope she will. She's she'll be able to travel a

27:43 Sound.

27:46 How about you? What would you like to forget, if anything?

27:52 I know there's so much.

27:55 I mean.

28:02 I I don't know if I did, I'd like to forget these things, but I remember being it was really painful seeing all the like big systemic inequality is at the tendon, it just like revealed that we're already there, but it's just like a huge Health disaster like a pandemic, just pulls back the layer on and you see all of these disparities and it just like breaks your heart and it's like that. I remember feeling a lot of pain reading about

28:29 Of course, like

28:32 There is where we going with this.

28:36 Yeah, but one thing I forgot to say is kind of like a

28:41 More lifelike Saints. Say I'd like to forget is our testing policy. So, because Vanderbilt decided to bring all of our students on the campus, you're not going to you don't. There's a hundred strangers and you're going to like a hawk, a loogie twice a week. And So, eventually we got to where we would race and would be like, who can get through faster in like you spent less time. So just to kind of paint the picture, Vanderbilt close down the gym or the recreation center for the entire year. Just because working out with someone with a very large Cove address. And so instead they converted the three basketball courts that are normally packed with people playing.

29:41 2 testing, testing center, so they set up maybe like 16 to 20 rows, 10 tables down all designed to get in as many people as possible and a single hour to spit into these, like small to my two tubes, that were then sent off to labs to test for covid samples. And at during the fall semester. We just had to take once a week test. During the spring semester. They bumped it up to twice a week. And so we had to set aside an hour of our day to walk over to the rec. Luckily. We both have bikes spit in the two men, walk back and it became such like a constant constant part of our lives, but also something that we almost like made a game out of. So to get in and out as fast as possible, Caroline and I would

30:41 Start storing or spit like a few minutes before we got into the track, just to see if we can take a test with only ones fit and I think and then we even did like the mass Sex Fiend thing to lose to lose a. No, know it like at the Music City Center in like where you normally go for a concert instead. We are getting boost their regular vaccine and I remember we were so happy getting in the car that day. I took a video of you cuz I was like, where we going Robbie? Like, we're going to get it was such a big relief and was a huge wave of relief. I remember there was a park ranger medic who was giving me my vaccine and who I was talking to him about all my favorite national parks, or whatever, but I was just so happy to see that national parks medicos. Like, wow, you saving me right now? Because I guess we went from having to be constantly worried about being contact raising, and being sent until like 10.

31:41 3 week. Quarantine, how am I going to be completely isolated from everybody where you couldn't leave your room when we were in meals, will be delivered to you on the daily. When you were going to be like, called that it was a super unsettling, like the looming threat of currency and everything. And then we got that like we went to a school that was prepared to handle, looking at my friends at some other like, public universities in like Alabama or I don't know if not Saturday of Dave's but yeah, I was growing up in the Deep South that we did and I still remember that like, really scary feeling when you get the email back with your test results and you have to click on it, and it would say, like, negative, and positive, and then, they'd like, call you all the head golf cart that they take away, the positive student crazy housing, and I remember, we were walking when time, you're like, oh, there they go, like a octa-core cheap housing and goes the golf cart.

32:37 African golf cart with plastic sheet on it was, but I will say, I was sent to quarantine helping once because I had gone to Student Health with like a sore throat, but it was after I'd already received negative test. Do they still wanted to take me to Corn top 10 housing, just to be safe and at the Student Health Center instead of doing the spit test. They do you like the smog test. I go all the way up to your brain and then I was told that I had to go pack a bag to pack maybe like enough clothes, that could last me, two weeks sheets. My favorite blanket, pillow toiletries, everything that I could think of that, I might need that kind of get through the next two weeks to call a certain number whenever I was ready and whenever I called, they would come up, pick me up in a golf cart and take me away.

33:36 Is almost like I was living in a science fiction movie, they really were. And it was extremely comforting to know that the university had taken so many measures to protect it. Yeah, I don't think I would have felt comfortable coming back to school in 2020 at all. Like if it wasn't Vanderbilt, even though it was kind of stressful when they had like the people police sitting around to make sure we were keeping our mascot, even if you would like drinking water or something, it was a little stressful, but I understand. And I think I hope that's something we can all take for it from the pendant. I could just being a little bit more gracious and understanding about, like, obstacles and limitations, cuz

34:16 In some ways. I'm very thankful that when I was like, at a young age. I had this like huge barrier, an obstacle couldn't find me, because a lot of life is like dealing with unexpected things and having your plans change. And so I feel confident, moving forward, that I'm coming from a place where I've learned how to deal with like a really unexpected thing with a lot of barriers cuz kind of how life goes sometimes.

34:42 So do you think that the pandemic is going to be the biggest obstacle that you ever experienced?

34:48 You know, I don't like with climate change coming out of it, just kind of all piled up together and I'm like the world is going to have to get it stuff together somehow or another but I mean, I hope that there's not another event. They like killed as many people as quickly but you never know. I don't know. What do you think?

35:09 I thought it was interesting how the pandemic Coast problem. I think as a Asian American minority. There are always these like underlying issues of racism that I've been extremely attuned to, but the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with on a daily basis, but it's pandemic was something that everybody had to deal with and it really highlighted the different ways that people approach problems. So it's really interesting to see that unfold. I remember I was so shocked. Whenever there is a group that need to kidnap a governor because they had placed stay-at-home orders. I was just completely bizarre. But even that said, like, even during the pandemic, we saw so many issues with African American and Asian American, racism, and hate. So, I hope that the pandemic just teaches us that these issues can be resolved. If

36:09 We are able to approach them together and do small things every day to protect the ones, we love and ourselves and to just share a little bit of kindness along the way.

36:21 So what do you think? What do you see your life being? How do you see your life being different going forward? As a result of a cup of covid-19?

36:31 Anna answered Justin like

36:34 Feeling more confident in my ability to adjust to things and also just be more compassionate towards other people. I think that's the goal that I have moving forward to listen to people more.

36:48 Yeah, what about for you?

36:51 For me it's about prioritizing people and passions. And so I really learned the value and just small momentary. Momentary ways of help spell momentary interactions where you could just help someone smile and make their day a tiny bit better. Even if you know that like the tiny bit better won't make a big difference in the long run. It makes a difference then that really kind of commune spot helped inspire me to Value the people in my life more than but I had to possibly before the pandemic and also like covid-19 really restricted. The things we were allowed to do, but in those restrictions, you were also able to kind of learn more about yourself and you packed us. A few things, learned a few checks and chicks a new pick up new skills. And for me that was cooking and I became a really big patch.

37:51 In my life right now. I always really admire how you can find a way to make a small interaction positive and you're really good at doing that. But,

38:05 Yeah, I just like taking opportunities. Now, that we have been like, we went, we went white-water, kayaking, because we could, we were like, this is so exciting. I just feel so much richer and like, more vibrant because of everything that we lost in that year. You know, I will say during the pandemic. Whenever someone would ask me. What are you most looking forward to after, like, after the pending against the thing I would always tell them is just going into a dining hall and seeing people studying and eating with their friends. And now that's something we get to see on a daily basis. Remember over the summer when we saw the chairs in the cafeteria again, and we were like so we decided not normal cafeteria. Like what is this? I think that's something else really taught us just to Value the things that we might otherwise just not think any differently of like being able to walk in and grab a coffee and a cookie and chat with your

39:05 Friends about

39:07 Classes. Every spring break plans with everything.

39:13 Okay. Well, thank you for having this conversation with me Carolina, the anytime.