Unheard Voices of the Pandemic: Narratives From the First Year of COVID-19

About the Book

When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in early 2020, it was clear that it would only exacerbate existing inequities. Marginalized communities were being disproportionately affected by the virus and accompanying crises of unemployment, housing and food insecurity, and inadequate health care. We worked with our narrators, editors, and grassroots partners to gather the stories of what was happening, to begin to uncover the many ways that the pandemic was acting as yet another vector for the spread of injustice.

Unheard Voices of the Pandemic reveals through personal narratives what happened the first year the pandemic swept across the United States. The narrators were already among those who have been failed by US policy and the fraying social safety net during the best of times—people impacted by migration, displacement, incarceration, and other intersecting injustices. The 17 first-person stories included in this booklet speak to the precarity, inequity, and uncertainty of that year, but also to bravery, solidarity, and generosity. Although the shadow cast by the COVID-19 pandemic is long, we hope the insights gleaned through listening will last longer.