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Speaker 3: April first, twenty twenty one. I graduate in one month,
Speaker 3: just one. It feels like, no matter how much I
Speaker 3: say it, it's just not going to feel real until
Speaker 3: it's time. I think I'm just at a point where
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to figure out how I feel about everything.
Speaker 3: I just need something now. I need it, I want it,
Speaker 3: but most importantly, I think I'm ready for it.
Speaker 1: From Putromedia and PRX, It's Latino USA by Marieo Horosa. Today,
Speaker 1: one student shares her story of lass and growth after
Speaker 1: the pandemic her senior year of college upside down. Sandy
Speaker 1: fleurimond A first generation Haitian American student at Temple University
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, was really looking forward to her senior year
Speaker 1: of college. She had dreams of studying abroad, and she
Speaker 1: had a vision of seeing herself graduating on a field
Speaker 1: full of friends and family. But being a college student
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty meant that a lot of these long
Speaker 1: awaited milestones didn't go according to plan. In collaboration with
Speaker 1: Philly Audiodiaries, an organization that trains young people in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: to tell their own stories, Sandy takes a look back
Speaker 1: on the things the pandemic took away from her in
Speaker 1: such a pivotal year, but also the things that she
Speaker 1: learned about herself, leading her to forge her own path
Speaker 1: in a moment of a lot of uncertainty. Here's Sandy Plurimond.
Speaker 3: I've always wanted to do something big for myself. Run
Speaker 3: a marathon, write a book, go bungee jumping. However, as
Speaker 3: a first generation kid to Haitian immigrants in New York City,
Speaker 3: for a long time, doing something big just meant graduating
Speaker 3: from college. It was everything my parents talked about. All
Speaker 3: the struggles of attempting to achieve the American dream were
Speaker 3: worth it. Once they got to see both of their
Speaker 3: kids with degrees in hand. In twenty seventeen, I moved
Speaker 3: to Philadelphia to study at Temple University. Definitely, the first
Speaker 3: night and my dorm was really eye opening. I remember
Speaker 3: just staying up for almost three hours, just crying and
Speaker 3: feeling really overwhelmed with just like the emotion that I
Speaker 3: was in a new place and I would never live
Speaker 3: at home with my parents again. But I was really
Speaker 3: excited too. Although I was by myself, my mom still
Speaker 3: called me every single morning for the four years of
Speaker 3: my undergrad him, Mamma, Hi, sorry I missed your call. Mama,
Speaker 3: I'm good, I'm good. They were never long conversations, usually
Speaker 3: no more than five minutes, and they were always about
Speaker 3: the same thing. Had I eaten yet? What did I
Speaker 3: eat last night? When's the next time I'm coming home?
Speaker 3: Every day those three questions in some sort of rotation.
Speaker 3: My mom's worked in the kitchen at an Italian restaurant
Speaker 3: for the past twenty nine years, so eating has always
Speaker 3: been one of the most important things for her. On
Speaker 3: the phone, we talk about a childhood memory or something
Speaker 3: funny that happened to either of us the day before,
Speaker 3: or maybe even some drama going on at her job,
Speaker 3: but nothing more than that. My love life, my anxieties,
Speaker 3: everything else outside of those things didn't exist in those
Speaker 3: conversations with my mom. Something that I didn't mention in
Speaker 3: these phone calls with my mom was that I had
Speaker 3: decided to switch my major from journalism to media studies
Speaker 3: in the spring of freshman year. I think, honestly, it
Speaker 3: wasn't ever a sit down conversation where my parents were like,
Speaker 3: you're going to college and this is what you're going
Speaker 3: to study. But it was a lot of conversations and
Speaker 3: passing that were like sharing with me that someone in
Speaker 3: their family, their kids that were around my age, decided
Speaker 3: to go to law school or decided to go to
Speaker 3: med school, and so it was just like very much
Speaker 3: understood that that is what they would have wanted me
Speaker 3: to do. So I was always under the impression and
Speaker 3: that like, if I wasn't going to do that, I
Speaker 3: had to do something that I really really enjoyed doing,
Speaker 3: and so that's definitely why I went with media studies.
Speaker 3: The first hands on media class I ever took was
Speaker 3: radio and podcast production. I interviewed my mom for one
Speaker 3: of the projects, talking to her about the stigmatization of
Speaker 3: menstruation that both she and I had grown up with.
Speaker 2: Mom, how did you learn about periods? Who told you
Speaker 2: about it?
Speaker 3: Nobody?
Speaker 2: Nobody told you about it? So how do you know?
Speaker 2: Baisad six the eye?
Speaker 3: My mom gave me the answer I expected her to
Speaker 3: give me. No one told her about periods because everything
Speaker 3: from sex to basic anatomy were kept absolutely hush hush
Speaker 3: and haiti. Talking with her made me realize that there
Speaker 3: was a large culture gap between the two of us.
Speaker 3: During the course, my professor, Ann Hoffman let me know
Speaker 3: that she believed I'd be a good addition to her program,
Speaker 3: Philly Audio Diaries. It was a program that taught young
Speaker 3: people from alternative high schools how to tell their stories
Speaker 3: for broadcast, and asking me to work for her help
Speaker 3: me realize that this was something much bigger than a class.
Speaker 3: Declaring a media studies major was one of the first
Speaker 3: big decisions I took for myself, and in the fall
Speaker 3: of twenty nineteen, when I was a junior in college,
Speaker 3: I was ready to take another big decision.
Speaker 2: I wanted to study abroad.
Speaker 3: It was definitely something I always wanted to do, but
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that made it seem
Speaker 3: so far.
Speaker 2: Out of reach. Was well with my whole college process.
Speaker 3: I did it pretty much all on my own, like
Speaker 3: applying to colleges and applying to financial aid and finding
Speaker 3: out programs and stuff to do. I couldn't really get
Speaker 3: help from my parents for that because they'd never done
Speaker 3: it themselves, so it was up to me to figure
Speaker 3: everything out and answer my own questions. Getting into college
Speaker 3: had already been such a triumph for me because I
Speaker 3: knew that I did it myself, that study abroad seemed
Speaker 3: like a leap into like a much bigger pool. Studying
Speaker 3: abroad had always just been a tiny dream in the
Speaker 3: back of my mind, something I couldn't imagine myself doing
Speaker 3: because it seemed like something reserved for people who had
Speaker 3: a lot more money than I can fathom. It was
Speaker 3: something that I often felt about a lot of other
Speaker 3: things too, like going on family vacations or going out
Speaker 3: for family dinners. It was something I was never surrounded
Speaker 3: by growing up, so I put it all in a
Speaker 3: box that I felt like I didn't have a place in.
Speaker 3: One day, I let myself have the thought, what if
Speaker 3: I did study abroad. I decided to read brochures about
Speaker 3: it and visit the Study Abroad office. Once I did
Speaker 3: my research, I discovered it was actually something that I
Speaker 3: could do, and so I submitted an application for a
Speaker 3: program in London. In London, it's kind of hard to describe,
Speaker 3: but I just always felt a connection to It also
Speaker 3: seemed like the perfect amount of different to New York,
Speaker 3: and I think my whole life, I've been trying to
Speaker 3: find something like that because New York is a really
Speaker 3: big piece of me. It's my favorite city ever, It's
Speaker 3: where I grew up. But I just wanted to find
Speaker 3: something that gave me the same feeling that New York did,
Speaker 3: but in a completely different way. And especially once I
Speaker 3: talked to the Study of Broad program and read the
Speaker 3: info packets, it just in my body felt like, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think this is the place that I really really
Speaker 3: need to go to. In January of twenty twenty, I
Speaker 3: was accepted into the Study of Broad program and I
Speaker 3: paid the deposit. I had also gotten an internship through
Speaker 3: the Study of Broad program that was going to involve
Speaker 3: me writing and posting about different restaurants in London. Even
Speaker 3: though my mom's a chef growing up, we never went
Speaker 3: out to restaurants, and I discovered in my adulthood. It's
Speaker 3: one of my greatest pleasures. I'd gone through the whole
Speaker 3: process of applying all by myself without telling anybody, not
Speaker 3: even my parents. When I got my passport in the
Speaker 3: mail is when I told my parents because I had
Speaker 3: never had a passport and I was so excited about it.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I like jumped for joy once I
Speaker 3: got my passport because it was this like physical embodiment
Speaker 3: of these dreams that I had and it felt like
Speaker 3: it was coming true. So the day I got my
Speaker 3: passport is the day that I called my mom and
Speaker 3: my dad to let them know that I was pretty
Speaker 3: certain that I was going to be going abroad. My
Speaker 3: mom was like why, and my dad was also just like,
Speaker 3: where is this coming from.
Speaker 2: So I think I just had a honest conversation with.
Speaker 3: Them and was honest with the fact that I was
Speaker 3: feeling also a bit stuck in Philly. I felt in
Speaker 3: myself that I hadn't been doing enough to challenge myself
Speaker 3: to seek out happiness for myself. That is when they
Speaker 3: really became understanding and supportive of that, because I knew
Speaker 3: that they wanted that for me. Too, but I had
Speaker 3: never expressed that to them. Then life as we knew
Speaker 3: it for everyone in the world changed COVID nineteen. It
Speaker 3: was March nineteen, twenty twenty, and my girlfriend Aliana, who
Speaker 3: had also planned on setting abroad in Italy that summer,
Speaker 3: got lunch with me on campus. Things weren't necessarily normal.
Speaker 3: The hallways were filled with people talking about different theories
Speaker 3: of what was to come, but it was the last
Speaker 3: normal day we would experience. One moment, we were laughing
Speaker 3: about stealing each other's food, and the next we both
Speaker 3: received emails getting the crushing news that our summer plans
Speaker 3: were no more. I went through probably the stages of
Speaker 3: grief all within like five minutes. For the first time,
Speaker 3: I had a bit of fear in my heart, like
Speaker 3: if they were canceling London, Like what was COVID? What
Speaker 3: did this really mean? I remember that night was just
Speaker 3: a sad, sad night. We took the long way to
Speaker 3: walk home and we just talked about it, and honestly,
Speaker 3: it was really nice to have each other, I would
Speaker 3: say in that moment, because we both were mourning these things.
Speaker 3: But we both felt really scared, I think, and really
Speaker 3: confused as COVID became worse, and it raged across the world.
Speaker 3: My girlfriend and I watched from our tiny apartment in
Speaker 3: North Philadelphia, disinfecting groceries and taking turns talking the other
Speaker 3: down from believing that a doorknob we grazed earlier that
Speaker 3: day may have given us the virus. As everything around
Speaker 3: me seemed to be drastically changing, I held onto the
Speaker 3: little bits of normalcy, like the daily calls with my mom.
Speaker 2: Hi, Ma, MOA, I and dummy.
Speaker 3: Honestly, you wouldn't tell that COVID was happening during those
Speaker 3: phone calls, which I think is interesting because my mom
Speaker 3: would call every day and ask this same exact thing
Speaker 3: that she always had. And so while I was worried
Speaker 3: about her because my mom is kind of older and
Speaker 3: she works a lot. So while I was worried about her,
Speaker 3: and she was worried about me because I am away
Speaker 3: from her and she doesn't really know what I'm doing
Speaker 3: every day, we sort of put those worries to the
Speaker 3: side and didn't confront each other about them to give
Speaker 3: each other that bit of peace because we were having
Speaker 3: these phone calls and being like, yeah, I'm doing good,
Speaker 3: and I made this really yummy thing last night, and
Speaker 3: I thought of you. In between the nagging fear of
Speaker 3: the pandemic and the anxiety of the uncertainty of the future,
Speaker 3: all I had were my journal and my voice.
Speaker 2: Memo app.
Speaker 3: April fourteenth, twenty twenty. It's the tenth day of quarantine
Speaker 3: and its raining today. I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 3: actually the tenth or the eleventh. Now that I think
Speaker 3: of it, the rain makes it seem like the days
Speaker 3: are even more blurrier than before. People online keep talking
Speaker 3: about how they're going stir crazy, and I can't say
Speaker 3: that I disagree with them, But more than anything, I'm
Speaker 3: really confused, and I'm really scared. How was it that
Speaker 3: eleven days ago we were all walking around and now
Speaker 3: the thought of leaving our houses seems so scary beyond belief.
Speaker 3: At that point, I was living in the smallest apartment
Speaker 3: I had ever lived in, and so I had really
Speaker 3: built a routine of not spending time in that apartment,
Speaker 3: just doing things outside and doing things that I liked
Speaker 3: to do, and just like really utilizing that as a
Speaker 3: place to eat and sleep. So the first couple days
Speaker 3: of lockdown quarantine were so difficult because I was spending
Speaker 3: so much time in this enclosed space that I hadn't
Speaker 3: even really considered home. It was only a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks before we packed up all our stuff and headed
Speaker 3: to my girlfriend's rural hometown, Williamsport, for ten weeks. May
Speaker 3: twenty six, twenty twenty. I'm writing this in the middle
Speaker 3: of the woods in suburban Pennsylvania. How ridiculous is it
Speaker 3: that that's actually the least ridiculous thing to have happened
Speaker 3: this summer. I've been in Williamsport for five weeks now.
Speaker 3: Cases are still rising everywhere, and it feels like this
Speaker 3: may be life forever. That thought feels too bleak, though,
Speaker 3: so I'm writing it down and letting it go so
Speaker 3: I don't think of it too much. I was supposed
Speaker 3: to be in London. Now I can't help but wonder
Speaker 3: what it would have been like. Would I be happy? Sad?
Speaker 3: I've regretted it. All I know is that I'm healthy
Speaker 3: and my family's healthy, and that's all that really matters
Speaker 3: in the end. I guess I was used to the
Speaker 3: chaos of the city, but more than ever, the sounds
Speaker 3: of nature provided a much needed escape. For the first
Speaker 3: time in my life, I was able to go on
Speaker 3: these long walks in nature and just breathe. Whenever I
Speaker 3: felt overwhelmed, angry, tired, sad, I could just have a
Speaker 3: little escape. When the time came to finally leave, I
Speaker 3: knew that coming back to Philadelphia in June of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty meant confronting the reality of COVID again. In August
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty, I was going into my last year
Speaker 3: of college and it didn't feel like it at all.
Speaker 3: I had just spent the last couple of months doing
Speaker 3: online classes, and the days seemed to blur together more
Speaker 3: often than not. For the first time, I wasn't working
Speaker 3: in the service industry. I was doing online classes every day,
Speaker 3: and the few times I was working was with Anne
Speaker 3: and the Philly Diaries team remotely. I had always been
Speaker 3: someone who worked better outside of the house, so when
Speaker 3: COVID came, I didn't even have a desk to sit
Speaker 3: at in my apartment. This led to me taking every
Speaker 3: Zoom class from my bed and having more accidental naps
Speaker 3: than ever before. It wasn't until COVID happened that I
Speaker 3: realized how much I valued being in the actual classroom.
Speaker 3: Life felt like it had become one big screen. I
Speaker 3: remember my last final ever. I just submitted it online
Speaker 3: on like a random Tuesday, and then it was just it.
Speaker 3: Then I was just done with undergrad I'm about to
Speaker 3: go pick up my down this morning. I can't believe it, right,
Speaker 3: I graduate in a week. That is so ridiculous, but
Speaker 3: I'm so excited. For months, everyone in my class waited
Speaker 3: to know whether or not graduation would be happening online
Speaker 3: or in person. When the news finally broke that I
Speaker 3: was going to be in person, I felt a mix
Speaker 3: of emotions. I was grateful and excited that I was
Speaker 3: getting to have this shot at normalcy, but I was
Speaker 3: quickly brought back to reality when I found out my
Speaker 3: parents had to work that day and my visitors wouldn't
Speaker 3: be allowed inside the ceremony. They would be able to
Speaker 3: watch me on a livestream from home instead. These were
Speaker 3: just moments that I had held in my heart for
Speaker 3: a long time. Getting to hug them right after I
Speaker 3: got my diploma, or getting to hear that they were
Speaker 3: proud of me in person, or getting to see them
Speaker 3: in the crowd. And so while I'm happy that they
Speaker 3: saw me in this like hybrid kind of way there is.
Speaker 3: It's just there's still a bit of sadness there that
Speaker 3: they didn't get to do it in the way that
Speaker 3: I had hoped for so long that they would.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the spring twenty twenty one graduation ceremonies for
Speaker 4: the LU Client College of Media and Communication held in per.
Speaker 3: We graduated in a field, and we were all still
Speaker 3: socially distanced, and I think seeing the empty chairs that
Speaker 3: graduation made me also think about the fact that I
Speaker 3: was here. I was experiencing this moment that I had
Speaker 3: been waiting for for so long, but I was seeing
Speaker 3: the actual physical effects that COVID was still having on
Speaker 3: these seemingly normal moments.
Speaker 4: Sandy Florimon, Congratulations graduates.
Speaker 3: Later that night, as I celebrated with my friends in
Speaker 3: my backyard, my parents called me to let me know
Speaker 3: they were able to watch and how proud they were
Speaker 3: of me.
Speaker 2: May twenty one.
Speaker 3: I'm officially a college graduate as of two days ago.
Speaker 3: It was the most special day because I couldn't have
Speaker 3: predicted any of it. To be so grateful for everything,
Speaker 3: Because if there's anything this time has taught me is
Speaker 3: that I can be all taken away in an instant.
Speaker 3: I got to see my friends and celebrate in my
Speaker 3: tiny backyard, and it felt perfect. I couldn't help but
Speaker 3: think about how different it.
Speaker 2: Felt last year.
Speaker 3: A year ago, Aliana and I were hiding away in
Speaker 3: willing Sport. A year later, I'm vaccinated, surrounded by people
Speaker 3: who love me to celebrate my graduation. But soon doubts
Speaker 3: started creeping in. At that point, everyone loves to ask
Speaker 3: what you're doing after, and I just really couldn't.
Speaker 2: I couldn't deal with that that question.
Speaker 3: And I was just in my own head really nervous
Speaker 3: because I think I just really wanted an answer to
Speaker 3: that question for myself, and I didn't really have one.
Speaker 3: I didn't have a huge job lined up or anything.
Speaker 3: But of course with that nervousness, I was just really
Speaker 3: excited to just start something knew. Two days after graduation,
Speaker 3: in my room, all by myself, I made the decision
Speaker 3: to take back one of the things that the pandemic
Speaker 3: took from me. It's eleven PM and I just.
Speaker 2: Bought some plane tickets to go to London.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm doing, but I think I'm
Speaker 3: going to go to London this summer. Like I was
Speaker 3: seven hundred dollars of my own money. But I think
Speaker 3: this is going to be good. I think this is
Speaker 3: going to be real good. I had graduated college in
Speaker 3: the middle of a global pandemic, and I was ready
Speaker 3: for something big. I had worked and saved up throughout
Speaker 3: lockdown and realized that I had this opportunity in front
Speaker 3: of me. I just had to take it. Just like
Speaker 3: a year ago, I waited until everything was already set.
Speaker 3: How my parents said I was going this time, I
Speaker 3: wasn't asking them. May fifteenth, twenty twenty one. I'm going
Speaker 3: to London. It's official. I bought the tickets and booked
Speaker 3: my airbnb. It's all set, and I leave in less
Speaker 3: than ten days. I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 3: I just decided that the only thing that's stopping myself
Speaker 3: was me. My dad is loading up a car right now,
Speaker 3: and I'm in my childhood bedroom about to leave for
Speaker 3: the airport. My flight is not for another five hours,
Speaker 3: but I've never been anywhere before, so better safe than sorry.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Yeah, okay, I gotta go.
Speaker 3: Before I left for the airport, my dad came into
Speaker 3: my room and gave me a hug. I knew in
Speaker 3: that moment he was saying more than he could ever
Speaker 3: allow himself to say. He let me know that he
Speaker 3: would miss me and that he would be thinking of
Speaker 3: me every day. The hug also felt like all the
Speaker 3: hugs we weren't able to have over the year we
Speaker 3: weren't able to see each other. He packed my stuff
Speaker 3: into the car and we drove to JFK in silence.
Speaker 3: We got to the airport, had one last hug, and
Speaker 3: he waved goodbye. As I walked to security. I felt
Speaker 3: a jolt of energy walking onto the plane and hearing
Speaker 3: that the flight crew was speaking in British accents. Video
Speaker 3: of seatbelt securely fastened until the packs of seat belt
Speaker 3: signed the beat place stop. I was like grinning in
Speaker 3: my seat way before takeoff even happened, because I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm sitting on a plane at JFK with a full
Speaker 3: British flight crew going to London, Like, who am I?
Speaker 3: I had a nine pm flight, so I knew I
Speaker 3: wasn't going to see much for like the first couple hours.
Speaker 3: This is so dramatic in the best way, but I
Speaker 3: really wanted to experience lifting up the window and seeing
Speaker 3: the ocean, and so I remember I woke up, and
Speaker 3: I had no idea what time it is, but I
Speaker 3: could see in different pockets of the plane that light
Speaker 3: was starting to shine in where people had their windows open.
Speaker 3: So I knew that it was light outside, and so
Speaker 3: I lifted.
Speaker 2: It up and I saw just like pure pure water.
Speaker 3: And I was so amazed. I think I probably really
Speaker 3: loudly gasped.
Speaker 4: One, ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome.
Speaker 2: Seminal five Hairite London.
Speaker 5: Egra, where we'll be riding on the stagates at the
Speaker 5: local time here in nine thirty am.
Speaker 3: Once I touched down in London, I felt like it
Speaker 3: hit me immediately. I had never been in a place
Speaker 3: so different by myself, but I knew I could handle it.
Speaker 3: It was going to be the space and time where
Speaker 3: I wasn't dtting expectations on myself or letting anyone else
Speaker 3: place expectations on me. It was time to let myself
Speaker 3: just be mean. It was time to just enjoy new
Speaker 3: things and experiences. It was just finally the right time.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Sandy Floorimonde and Ruia Rocha.
Speaker 1: It was edited by Marta Martinez and mixed by gabriel Lebias.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Anne Hoffman and Philly Audio Diaries. The
Speaker 1: Latino USA team includes Victoria Strada, Renaldo Leanos Junior, Andrea
Speaker 1: Lopez Grusado, Joori, mar Marquez, Mike sargent Ner Saudi and
Speaker 1: Nancy Trujillo. Penile Ramidez is our co executive producer. Our
Speaker 1: director of Engineering is Stephanie lebou. Our senior engineer is
Speaker 1: Julia Caruso. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme
Speaker 1: music was composed by Zen I'm your host and executive
Speaker 1: producer marieo Posa. Join us on our next episode. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, look for us on social media. I'll see
Speaker 1: you there, Remember yes by E.
Speaker 5: Latino USA is made possible in part by the chan
Speaker 5: Zuckerberg Initiative. The Annie Casey Foundation creates a brighter future
Speaker 5: for the nation's children by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity,
Speaker 5: and transforming communities, and the Heising Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge,
Speaker 5: opportunity and possibilities. More at hsfoundation dot org.
Speaker 3: Kind of sounded like Lizzie MacGuire a bit there,