Greetings:
We hope you and your loved ones are doing well.
We are gathering El Pasoans’ accounts of their COVID-19 pandemic experiences and we need your help. We are asking you to share your stories with us so that this information can be preserved for future generations. Your stories can be hand-written or typed and submitted by mail or email. They may also be recorded by using your cell phone or by webcam, or conducted over teleconferencing platforms or social media. Please use any method with which you are comfortable.
If you’re wondering what you could talk about, located below are suggestions that may help you. Please remember that these suggestions are only to help if you need them. Don’t feel you have to address any of them unless they help you to tell your story. We want to preserve your memories of this pandemic as you want to describe them.
To send your recollections by mail, please address your correspondence to: El Paso County Historical Society, 603 W. Yandell, El Paso, Texas 79902.
To respond by email, please send your recollections to epchs@elpasohistory.com. You may also email us if you have questions or need assistance.
Thank you for helping to preserve our city’s history of this trying time.
Sincerely,
Melissa Hutson
EPCHS President
Subjects to Consider
Don’t feel you have to address any of them unless they help you to tell your story
- Shortages & Rationing: Are you adhering to the “Stay at Home” order and, if so, how are you obtaining health care, groceries, and household supplies? Have you encountered shortages and rationing and, if so, how are you coping?
- Previous Experiences: Have you encountered any other situation like this in your lifetime? If you were alive during World War II and remember rationing, are there any similarities or differences when compared to the current situation?
- Employment: How has your work been affected? Are you still employed, or have you been terminated, furloughed, or left without employment by some other means? If you are still employed, are you working at your regular location or from home? Please describe your experiences working from home. For example: Are you more productive or less productive? Is it more difficult than working on site? Are you able to communicate with fellow workers as easily as you need? Is technology working for you?
- Education: Where are you enrolled (UTEP, EPCC, high school [which district], for-profit or trade school)? Are you attending class on-site or electronically? How well is your institution meeting your needs?
- Environment: What are your impressions of sights, smells, and sounds since the “Stay at Home” order was first announced? Are there new ones? Are some missing? Have old, familiar ones changed? Is the quality of life better or worse because of changes in sights, smells or sounds?
- Relationships: How are you managing your relationships with family and friends? Are you practicing social distancing? Are you able to “keep in touch” using technology?
- Home Life: How are you spending your time at home? For example: cooking new foods, reading, watching more TV, gardening, home repair projects, gaming, other.
- Government Response: How do you feel about government’s response to the pandemic: appropriate, inadequate, overkill, too slow? What do you think should be done differently? How does this compare to previous circumstances you have lived through, such as World War II, 9/11, or previous pandemics (like H1N1)?
- Citizen Response: How do feel about citizen response to the pandemic? Do you sense compliance, defiance, ignorance, frustration? Again, how does this compare to previous circumstances you have lived through, such as World War II, 9/11, etc.?
