Bugs in the System and Our Health

In this episode, we break down the public health perspective of COVID as it relates to universities and schools reopening this fall. Public health, as the study of disease prevention and quality of life, includes mental health. We talk about the quality of our mental health after checking-in with both ourselves and our guest, Professor Chan Thai from the Department of Communication at Santa Clara University.

Professor Thai's background focuses on human behaviors and public health. She shares with us how our health is connected to our environment at large, how she advocated for remote learning, and that even small forms of community engagement are a form of civic engagement. 

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Transcript

E5 Final Transcript

Sun, 8/23 1:27AM • 40:51

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, students, public health, asian americans, community, talk, neighborhood, campus, recognized, dorms, day, called, thinking, affect, life, health, grocery store, professor, podcast, faculty

SPEAKERS

Ava, Kaitlyn, Chan Thai

Chan Thai 00:00

You know, I think that's why it's really important to look at these kinds of issues more from a systematic level and from multiple angles and not just thinking about it as purely a housing issue or purely an access to food issue or purely an education issue, because all of these things are connected.

Ava and Kaitlyn 00:19

Hey, I'm Ava. Hey, I'm Kaitlyn. Thanks for listening to fresh off the vote. We’re a grassroots podcast with the mission to make politics exciting and accessible. Our team is 100% self-identified Asian American Pacific Islander us ready to make waves for the November 2020 election. We created the podcast as a home for conversations for API's by API's. 

Ava 00:43

Welcome back out of our rotating co-hosts, you're hearing from Kaitlyn and I today. So Kaitlyn, I'm really raging mad today. California's on fire. Virginia's flooding, mailboxes are being taken away. People are still not wearing masks. We've basically been on our own in response to COVID. Honestly, I'm so glad I'm graduated because I can't imagine being back in school this fall. All of this is overwhelming enough. And now students have to both go back to putting their heads down to study. And if you're in college, you're expected to be an informed voter on top of that, because voting is supposed to be the easiest thing to do civically, right.

Kaitlyn  01:21

I can't, I can't. Well, Kaitlyn literally can't either. Like, if I were in school right now, high school, college, whatever. I don't think I'd be faring well at all. So I commend all the students out there, you're doing what I cannot. And the teachers who are having to deal with these transitions to like, it's hard, like it's hard times. But I recently saw a post on Facebook from one of my professors at Santa Clara University in the Bay Area, and she was posting her concerns about SCU reopening.

Ava  01:51

Oh, wait, you're friends with your professor on Facebook? That's pretty great.

Kaitlyn  01:56

I agree. It is pretty great. Like I'm friends with like, four Professors, it's a riot. And so after seeing that post and you know, thinking about ideas we could do for episodes, I immediately thought of this professor Chan Thai. And so Chan is just one of those teachers who you have them for a class like, you know, you just you just love them forever. I describe Chan as a light within the Communication Department, just because she's so open and she's always willing to be a mentor to students and, and, you know, building these relationships. I'm like, I would see her around campus half year after I took her class, and she remembered my name, and I would be very shocked, and we would just talk about small or large topics whenever we ran into each other. And public health was my major. You know, I think with everything going on, it means a lot of different things to different people depending on who you ask.

Ava 02:49

Right yeah. When I heard you wanted to talk about public health for an episode, I was excited to hear what she had to say. A lot of public health information comes into Landscape Architecture and Planning and they are interrelated. So when I'm kind of in my bubble, I you get really bogged down in getting people to understand how can a structure be racist. 

Kaitlyn 03:07

So I wanted to talk to Chan about what public health is and how our COVID world has shined a light on structures in society that are affecting communities. And in all honesty, my mental health has been something that I've been really struggling with and trying to understand lately. And I wanted to talk to Chan about this because she has experience with students’ well being and emotional health and she's always been an advocate for her students well being in class. So thank you so much for joining us Chan. If you could introduce yourself and tell us about your research background.

Chan Thai 03:41

Sure. So I'm Dr. Chan Thai. I'm an assistant professor at Santa Clara University in the Department of Communication, even though I'm housed in a Department of Communication, my research and what I teach in my training is actually pretty broad. And if I had to boil it down, it would be I'm interested in human behaviors. Why do people behave the way that they do and based on my training from different disciplines, you know, I use psychology to try to understand people's motivations. And then I also have a public health background and public health is very much like systems thinking. And so I also try to incorporate systems thinking to understand how an individual might react or behave in a certain way. So it fascinates me, I spent a lot of time thinking about, well, why did that person do that? And I try to break it down based on you know, just internally What are they thinking but also in their environment, what might be triggering this behavior?

Kaitlyn  04:34

So having had you as Professor and a relationship outside of class, I think that definitely translates into how you interact with people in general. I remember you mentioning at some point at the beginning of the quarter saying, you know, if something's going on, just talk to you about it. Like you understand things happen in life and you want to work with students and understand where they're coming from in terms of like, you know, if you have class going on and stuff outside of school, a social life. And I wanted to point that out because I think it's very much of who you are as an individual and as a professor.

Ava  05:06

It's really sweet to hear this kind of mentor relationship because I went to a large university. Average size was like 25,000 people. I know I got lost. Was really difficult to connect with professors until junior-senior year. And it was in those last two years that I was introduced to what you were saying, Chan, about this idea of systems thinking, especially when speaking about the environment. Can you explain to the listeners what you mean by systems thinking in your field? And what part are we speaking to when talking about public health? 

Chan Thai 05:35

So I mean, obviously, I'm not an expert in race relations, I do not study, you know, this kind of stuff. But I think, you know, anyone in public health gets exposed, you know, to these concepts, which we call disparities in all of these different kinds of ways that people could pursue the best health for themselves. So just to take a step back in case any of the listeners don't understand, like what public health is. You know, so we have medicine. Which is if you get sick, you go to a doctor, the medical system is sort of a very much a case by case I'm going to diagnose you, I'm going to treat you I'm going to give you you know, a cure or medicine after you've gotten sick. The the perspective of public health is really more focused on prevention. And you know, the definition of health is inclusive of your pursuit of a quality life. So that's beyond just being free from disease, that means you have access to a good education, that means you, you know, live in a home and in an area that has good running water for you. So public health is exciting, because it really encompasses a lot, but it's also can be everything. And so in some ways, that's hard for people to kind of, well, if it's everything, then what is it? But you know, I think the field of public health is very broad and there are different people who kind of focus on different aspects of public health. So some people focus on access to health care, you know, do people have health insurance and or could they physically get to see a physician if they need needed. Some other people focus on things like urban planning. Are you planning spaces where people can access fresh food? Do they have a grocery store, zoning it so that there could be a grocery store in a certain neighborhood? And then other people do more direct community education, you know, in providing direct services to people in the community. And I would say I sort of fall more in the direct health education given my public health communication background.

Ava  07:26

Chan, I think it's interesting that you made this distinction because where supermarkets are located and where fresh fruit is available is intentional and planned. It's planned through and I think what you're getting at is redlining.

Chan Thai 07:38

I mean, just even think about the neighborhood you live in. You know, I don't want to make any assumptions about where people live. But you know, if you live in a pretty decent neighborhood, and you could go to school, in your own neighborhood, you could walk to your school, you could think of, you know, a nice grocery store where you could access fruits and vegetables, you know, where people live has historically sort of been guided by these policies that are racist in nature. 

Ava  08:02

And side note, what does Chan mean by quote-unquote racist policies? We don't have enough time to delve into redlining fully and there are a lot of other great resources that have spoken on its history more in-depth and do it really well. Reminder that building wealth for anybody in this country historically is through real estate and homeownership. For the purposes of this episode, though redlining is a series of practices that keeps people of color from a white neighborhood. And it's called redlining because historically, maps of these neighborhoods were colored red, red for high risk, and green for quote-unquote good and read safe, white and desirable. For more in-depth information. You can see Codeswitch’s episode called “location, location, location”, or you can check out this interactive map that University of Richmond Virginia has done called mapping inequality. And also you can check out the book Color of the Law which is really great for getting into the nitty-gritty details of redlining.

Chan Thai 09:00

And essentially what happened is, you know, they created policies so that, you know, people of color and black people basically couldn't buy homes in nicer neighborhoods, they got sort of redlined. Here's the district, you know, that they can get approved for loans for. And those were all the areas that were maybe more heavily polluted closer to the highways.

Ava  09:22

So we talked about supermarkets being planned and intentional. And there's this term supermarket redlining. And like redlining itself, it's an example of how structures in place have resulted in disparities and access to healthy food, rather than the term food deserts, which kind of imply that market forces, quote-unquote, naturally pushed grocery stores to places that addressed consumer wants. It attributes the disparities to forces outside of the economic markets themselves. For example, in Detroit, Michigan in the mid-2000s. They didn't have a single large grocery chain store. And that city is also historically disinvested in because it's predominantly black. It's dependent on independent small grocers. Fast forward to 2017. There's now three major supermarkets available in the city. Yay, I guess. But still, there's about 30,000 people still not close enough to access these stores. Comparing this to their neighboring counties, Washington, Macomb County, which are predominantly white, you see a more even distribution of these big chain stores. And so you kind of ask yourself why.

Chan Thai 10:22

You know, this gets into like property values and how they increase. But essentially, you know, property values increase when you have like more stores in the neighborhood and more, you know, basically like revenue-generating kinds of, you know, establishments, but if you sort of have been pushed to a neighborhood that it's just less desirable, then that means fewer businesses are going to come in and the properties in that neighborhood just the price will never rise. So even if a black family was able to get alone and buy a home. You know, in some cases, they might be stuck in a neighborhood where the property values don't rise and even if they want to stay there that's also not generating wealth. And so again, you know, public health is so connected. And so you might say, well, how's housing related to public health? So I did my MPH, my Master's in Public Health at UCLA, and we, we looked at the city of commerce a lot. It's a port city, you know, I think right off of the 60 freeway, like it's basically, you know, near the port of LA, and, you know, all the shipping containers that come in and out of that port every day, like create a lot of pollution. So, if you look at asthma rates, you know, rates of respiratory diseases, you know, comparing people who live in the city of commerce to other parts of LA, if you look at more affluent parts of LA, like Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. I mean, it's very different. You know, how many people have respiratory illnesses, and if you look there also along like, color lines, the city of commerce might be an area that got redlined and that's where, you know, poor people, people of color could buy homes. And so you know, again, it seems like it's disconnected at first. But if you start digging a little bit more, you'll see that all of these different aspects of how we live, our daily lives are connected.

Ava  12:13

So I think you bring up a really great point about air quality, your health, and that being related to what you live next to. It's traditionally believed African American infants are more predisposed to asthma. And it's often attributed to low birth weight, which is traditionally attributed to families with poor health, due to poverty, personal habits like maternal smoking, but even more so this 2017 study of children born between 2016 and 2010 in New Jersey, they found that when controlling for lower birth weight across different races and ethnicities, zip codes of predominantly black neighborhoods was a stronger indicator of a child's asthma risk than their race. Environmental data is difficult to pin down, but it does show broadly that even accounting for race in this situation, environmental factors heavily impact one's health and quality of life. And often industrial property and infrastructure, like highways is built where neighborhoods do not have the political will to push them aside.

Kaitlyn  13:12

And even though wealth and income does not always fall on color lines, when it comes to the matter of everyone's well being, we can't talk about that without talking about how that wealth was lost. And is this what you're saying when we're talking about parts of the system and how they're connected within public health?

Chan Thai 13:29

The way that people in public health talk about it is like racism is a public health issue. I would say racism in structures, but not racism in public health itself. And I think public health is really trying to come in and acknowledge that the structures can be racist and neat in what ways we could dismantle these kinds of things. And so, you know, it's a policy there are public health people who work on policy and try to change some of these things that are happening. It's like these structures are in place and since public health sort of sees health as how do I improve this entire person's just quality of life? You know, that's why we want to tackle zoning, we want to tackle why doesn't you know this community have any grocery stores?

Ava  14:12

So what does this mean with COVID? Certain medical risks predispose you to more severe symptoms called comorbidities. Could you explain that and how it's related to health disparities?

Chan Thai 14:22

So comorbidities basically means like you have multiple diseases that might interact with one another. So if I, if I have like diabetes, and there are certain racial and ethnic groups that tend to have more cases of certain kinds of diseases, and we can get into a whole conversation about why that's the case, but there are genetic predispositions in some populations that would lead them to have higher rates of a certain kind of illness versus others. But then also there's like lifestyle kinds of things as well. So like nutrition and food is my primary area and health. So this is sort of the example I tend to use But if you think about it, especially in the San Gabriel Valley, like where my family lives, you know if this is an immigrant family coming from elsewhere, and so my family comes from Vietnam, we’re Chinese, but came to the US as Vietnam, Vietnamese refugees. When you come here and you go into like a Vietnamese deli, it's like, all of the sweets are like 99 cents, or like, you know, the lowest cost, and it's the same thing. You know, in all other communities, like if you've watched the documentary food Inc, like, I can go to McDonald's and spend $3.99 on a whole meal, a value meal, but if my kid like in the scene in the movie, it's like, the kid wanted some pears, and when they weighed the pears, the bag of like four pears would have been like $8. Like, why is that the case? I mean, COVID is still new. So we're still trying to understand how it works. Why are some people you know, affected more severely than others. But I think when you're You have a pre-existing condition that creates an interaction effect with COVID. And that's why, you know, certain populations are more likely to get affected more severely than other populations that maybe, you know, tend not to have higher rates of diabetes or higher rates of heart disease or things like that. Obviously, because COVID, you know, attacks your lungs, and it's related to your respiratory system. Anybody with a pre-existing respiratory condition, you know, is at higher risk, you know, so asthma, or anything like that, and emphysema, it's probably going to affect your body differently than someone who doesn't have these conditions.

Ava  16:38

So I think Chan you bring up a really great point, as a group, Asian Americans don't seem to be affected as adversely by COVID. But if you look within certain subgroups, it tells another story. The LA Times illustrated this really well with an article last month, highlighting that Filipinos make up about 35% of COVID related mortalities of Asian Americans in California, but the article also highlighted this intersection of pre-existing conditions due to health disparities, Filipinos generally having higher rates of obesity, higher blood pressure and heart disease, but also and more importantly, a lot of them are essential workers in the healthcare industry.

Chan Thai 17:18

You cannot talk about public health without pointing at all aspects of the system and really, you know, trying to understand that it's not just like, you know, like Kaitlyn said, like you showed up in my class. So this is the only person this is the only identity you have is a student in my class. It's like, No, you have these other aspects of your life that are going to affect your performance in my class. And that is a great analogy. You know, this helps young people understand like, that's what public health is, you know, you might be a person sitting right here right now, but like that other class, you too, are like this morning when you were in some club meeting. Like that's all going to influence your outcome that day. And so, you know, I think that's why it's really important to look at, you know, these kinds of issues more from a systematic level and from multiple angles and not just thinking about it as purely a housing issue or purely an access to food issue or purely an education issue. Because all of these things are connected, and every single one of those institutions, there have been policies enacted that people of color are usually pushed to the bottom and not allowed to pursue the best quality of life that they can have.

Kaitlyn  18:34

Realizing how connected society is through health disparities is pretty overwhelming. And with everything else going on in the world, things are crazy and stressful and affecting people's mental health, which isn't something that Asian communities talk about. And I personally have been struggling with general anxiety since before COVID. And it's only been added on to with the overwhelming news, trying to stay educated and be an ally, and just not being able to work and live my life as I normally would be. So I know this is a little off-topic of civic engagement. But I just feel like this is a very important thing for us to talk about because mental health of Asian Americans is not something we discuss often. And you have always been someone who has been willing to have these conversations.

Chan Thai 19:19

I think I'm going to speak from my own experience just as a child of immigrants, but I think right now, I mean, I think everybody probably feels sort of a low-grade anxiety. Doesn't matter what race you are. COVID is just, at least in the United States, has sort of impacted our just day to day living so much that I think everybody just is experiencing a low grade of anxiety, whether they're realizing it or not, and whether it's manifesting or not. Not being able to kind of do the things you normally do to cope with this is probably adding, but I think for you know, and I'm just going to speak to maybe like a younger, you know, sort of Asian American demographic here. I think there's a couple things going on, you know, first would be this idea of productivity that Kaitlyn and I have been talking about. You know, I know for myself that I see a lot of my self-worth, and whether or not my day was a good one based on how productive I was, you know, that's not the right way to judge whether you had a good day or not. Like my worth, and my value should not be tied to my productivity. At least I look at my siblings and I like we were trained from when we were children that productivity means value. And efficiency means value. And so I think when I look at my siblings, I like, this is a hard time for us because you are struggling with the anxiety and like your normal way of doing things is shut down. It might take you a while to sort of figure out how to get things done and then that adds to the guilt you feel like you feel worthless, you feel because you haven't been productive. And so I could really see this being a huge source of anxiety and just a mental health challenge for a lot of young Asian Americans. Because our self worth I'm willing to bet most of us is very much tied to our productivity and how much we're doing and how much we're achieving each day.

Kaitlyn  21:22

And that's why I wanted to talk about this because everything you said is checking off the box for me in terms of anxiety, productivity and self-worth. Like I've talked about this with both of you before, acts of racism in my community have really shifted the way I look at where I grew up, and I've really been worrying about my family, my grandparents and then all the other ways people in my community are hurting that I just wasn't aware of. And I'm definitely someone who likes to get things done like checking something off a to-do list for me is so satisfying like you like you have no idea. And before this podcast, I was doing very little and it was making me feeling, I felt super guilty and kind of worthless.

Ava  22:02

I think there's a little piece where we need to recognize that it's possible that this podcast may not have existed if COVID hadn't happened. If COVID hadn't happened more broadly, would we have had time or the patience to sit down and reflect on the world and our identity as Asian Americans?

Kaitlyn  22:19

Ava, I'm with you, girl. 

Chan Thai 22:21

Right now, with all this sort of racial unrest going on. I was going to add that I think that poses an interesting, sort of just also mental health challenge for Asian Americans as well. Because I think when people look at me, they're like, have you been successful? Like, that's great, you know, and, and yeah, I will say like, I've worked really hard to get here. Like, I spent 10 years in grad school, they were not easy. I encourage, you know, young Asian Americans to really think about. I’m not discrediting the hard work you put into studying and being an overachiever and doing all the amazing things that you're doing, but from a systematic perspective, you have to recognize that your colleagues who are Latina, Latino, Latinx, African American, black, probably are working just as hard but didn't have these like structures set up in place for them for their journey to be as straightforward and as as smooth. And so, you know, the part that I think poses mental health challenges for myself is just really trying to process the guilt that I feel for having had this smoother sort of journey or my journey not be negatively impacted by the way that I look and like what can I do to take action to sort of use my privilege in some way that I can help somebody who maybe is a little bit more vulnerable than I am. And so that's been my own personal sort of challenge. Throughout this. Our system has set up a way of life, and our social structures are basically, you know, preventing black and brown people from achieving the highest quality of life that they can, but like being black and brown is beautiful, and it should be celebrated. But you know, the rhetoric in our society is is that Oh no, like how unfortunate that you're a black or brown person. And it's not unfortunate. It's not unfortunate for anybody to be who they are. It's unfortunate that our society has set up these norms and structures that make it challenging for someone who's not white to accomplish and achieve like the best quality of life that they can get.

Kaitlyn  24:47

And this is also what I've been talking about. During this time. I've been recognizing that I haven't had a lot of the struggles black and brown people have and really confronting my privilege. And it's a hard thing to do and I felt very guilty about it. All that being said, COVID has been a very difficult time and I just wanted to check in with you Chan and Ava like how are you guys coping? I personally, I've been really leaning into exercise and like creative outlets and reading and watching the entire filmography of Katie McGrath. It's been a lot. And I've recognized I've been very privileged and all this.

Ava  25:19

Yeah, I agree, I get the luxury of working from home. And so I actually cope by doing more work. Don't follow my example, though. I didn't have a good sleeping schedule before COVID in general. And so now I have to work backwards on building these good habits. Don't follow my example, get some sleep.

Chan Thai 25:38

At the beginning. I was definitely just like an anxious wreck, but I recognized it. I think if you would have met me like six years ago, I would not have recognized that I was basically like spiraling with anxiety. And I would have continued to push myself to do work and to be productive, but I know now that that's like, just a set of for disaster. So when I recognized that I was kind of an anxious mess, I just let myself feel however I needed to feel and each day just do whatever I needed to do to survive that day. So some days, I would sit around and just like watch the news, some days, I would sit around and just like hang out with my dogs and like, do nothing. But there was definitely a two to three week time where my coping was cooking, drinking a lot of wine, and like not doing anything productive at all. And just like reading and learning about COVID-19. Now, I would say that I've, you know, kind of accepted that this is, you know, like a new way of being, I feel like I've created some kind of routine that works for myself that sort of feels like I'm in an alternate universe in a weird way. And you know, I'm still like, I've managed to incorporate work back into my schedule, but I think the thing that helps me cope is whenever I find myself getting kind of stressed out or overwhelmed with all the things I have to do, I remind myself like “We're not trying to work and stay productive as if it's normal”. We're trying to survive a pandemic and major civil and like racial unrest, and also like the threat of democracy in the United States. I think what's been helping me cope is really like when I catch myself re-engaging with that productivity kind of mindset. I like stop and I pull back and I say, we're not in normal times. It is not realistic for me to hold myself to these normal standards that I had for myself before COVID. And I'm just much kinder to myself.

Kaitlyn  27:40

So I want to transition to your story on speaking up about SCU reopening the fall quarter. So for context to our listeners, SCU is located in the Bay Area and Santa Clara County had the bay’s first case of Coronavirus and the county led several other Bay Area health departments in a shelter in place order, which was the first lockdown issued in the US. SCU send students home in early March and transitioned to online instruction for the remainder of the quarter, and then spring quarter. In our pre-interview, you told us that the school has cut a lot of spending on things like research and hiring to try to protect full-time staff and faculty from being furloughed or laid off. But at the end of the day, SCU and a lot of other colleges are feeling the pressure of the bottom line right now without the revenue that comes with room and board fees and just having students on campus. So again, a lot of colleges are trying to find the balance between how can they not lay people off and open the campus. So SCU emails everyone saying we're planning on having hybrid classes and students come back onto campus in the fall and you have a very unique perspective and position within all of this. You're a Faculty Director of one of the dorms where you live in an apartment in the dorms and are part of the community. You are an assistant professor who is involved in committees and initiatives with faculty and students. So all these aspects of your professional identity are really intersecting in this situation. So could you tell us more about the university's plan to reopen and what led you to emailing some of these head honchos?

Chan Thai 29:10

They came up with this plan, and I'm not sure you know how the numbers were generated, but basically, they were anticipating on bringing back 70% capacity in our on-campus housing. So we are, you know, on in a normal year, our undergraduate population is about 5500 students, and we have about on top of that, maybe about 3000 graduate students, so 2100 students in the dorms, you know, is slightly less than half of what we would normally see, but that doesn't include kids who live off-campus. So if you add off-campus students, my guess was that we would be seeing about 4000 students coming back to campus in the fall, which is about 70% of our normal student body descending on this very small area in the city of Santa Clara.

Kaitlyn  29:57

So I'm going to describe SCU’s campus to you. Picture it. I can get from far point A to far point B on the campus in a 15 to 20 minute walk. And so the campus isn't big compared to a public university, but just think about a dorm situation regardless. Freshmen and sophomores live on campus in double or triple rooms. There aren't really singles for students unless you know you are a CF, which is the equivalent of an RA at Santa Clara. That's just a lot of students living in close proximity to each other. So CFs had already committed to what they thought was going to be a normal school year, but with COVID the job looked very different. Students were given these numbers and had two weeks to answer whether or not they still wanted to do the job.

Chan Thai 30:42

Basically, you know, in the email that all the students staff got there was like the job description basically just said, like needs to be revised like TBD. So it's like still just their normal job description and didn't say like well given COVID like what are the extra responsibilities that you're gonna have? You know a couple of the CFs that I'm close with basically, Hey, can I talk to you? Have you gotten any of this? What's your have you been involved in these conversations. And I was like, nope, you know, when you got the email was when I got the email. And then they were just like, I don't know how to assess my risk here. And this was my only housing option for next school year. And they're basically saying, If I don't commit in the fall, and we do reopen in the winter, they can't guarantee that I would still have a spot. Like, what how is it ethical? You're asking the students to make this commitment, when you have not outlined what their personal risks are, and not told them what the job description is. So then, you know, I talked to my resident director, who is the staff member who I mean, she's responsible for the entire building. And I just wanted to get a sense from her like, did did any of the staff have any input in this plan? She's like, no. So I drafted an email that I then sent to our president, our Provost, and our Vice Provost for student life, you know, I didn't frame it as like, what the heck are you doing? But I really just said like, Hey, you know, I see this plan. And I just have some questions because I think, you know, if you haven't thought through these questions, then like, I would really like to see you reconsider this opening at 70% capacity. Like I'm not saying don't open at all, but like 70% capacity if you don't have these things lined up is actually going to put a lot of people at risk. And so just asking them a bunch of his logistical questions like you have quarantine spaces set up so they identify one of the dorms, you know, is are there enough beds, your rooms in this dorm to actually quarantine you know, whatever the the infection rate is? So if we look at the infection rate, just in California in general, it hovers around 6%. If you're bringing 2100 students back, that's just the on-campus students do you have 6% set aside, you know, to quarantine people and the dorm that they identified only 50 rooms, so 2100 students about 6% of that is like more like 110. So, you know, it's like you have to have all these logistics otherwise, you know, you cannot control an outbreak if that happens. And this is basically like public health planning 101 you know, you have to play a choose your own adventure game and like walk down all the paths for all the different adventures and like have all of the like gear in place because you just have to be prepared like this is preparedness. By Wednesday, the following Wednesday, after I sent the email on Friday, they reversed their decision. They basically said we're going fully remote and we're only bringing back students into on-campus living who have some kind of like emergency situation.

Chan Thai 33:50

When you do public health planning, it's like you kind of have to think worst-case scenario, because that's what's going to drive you to have all of the planning in place to make sure that either you don't get to that worst-case scenario, or you know what to do if you get to that worst-case scenario. And so my mind just kept going in this worst-case scenario. And now everyone I talked to is like, I feel so much better. I didn't realize how anxious I was like about the university potentially reopening. Because if you want to talk about who would be at risk, it's our more elderly or older faculty members. And then it's going to be the janitors and the like staff who work in our student dining hall. Like it's those people who are going to be at risk. And I think in my email, I really said like, we really have to think about the staff like I mean, so much emphasis has been on the faculty like how did the faculty feel safe? And I'm glad that university like cared about the faculty safety, but I think we have to think about all of our community members and that definitely we include our students, staff, and you know, just our custodial staff, our operation staff, I mean, that That increases all of their risk, you know, if we bring this many students back onto campus. And so, you know, I think to kind of tie this back to what we were talking about the beginning, which is like public health and like communities, I mean, you can sort of conceptualize community in a way that is meaningful to you. You know, like, in Santa Clara, you know, on campus, I see the whole like campus community as my community. But those students who live in that dorm with near like, my neighborhood. It doesn't seem right for those people, even if it doesn't personally affect you, you know, how can you use your privilege and your voice to stick up for them? 

Ava 35:37

So Chan, your emails to administration kind of ties back to what we've talked about today with looking out for members of your community and recognizing your privilege and power to take actions that you believe in. And we want to finish off this interview with a question we ask all our guests which is what is your ask to our audience? What do you want to leave them with? 

Chan Thai 35:54

I would encourage people to really, really think more about like, Where's their own moral compass and how does that intersect with their own comfort level? Or the amount of work they're willing to put into something if it doesn't affect them? Because I think that's really what's important as we walk into, just kind of call it a storm of our society right now with you know, a president trying to shut down the Postal Service and it's becoming more fascist every day. And, you know, our, our black and brown friends and family members and colleagues who are are not being treated the way that they should be. We have a pandemic and a virus, you know, how can you sort of take a little bit more sort of ownership and responsibility for the part that you can play and, you know, I think civic engagement and just being engaged in community can be big or small. And so I really shifted my perspective on what I can do you know, with this life of mine and on a day to day basis to actually impact true change. Something small that I do is I met an 86 year old Chinese woman who came from Hong Kong but has lived in the US for probably like 35 years or so. All her kids are in Hong Kong to be married and she moved out here, but she lives alone now in like an apartment complex here next to the campus and I just met her while I was like walking the dogs, she had her speaking Cantonese and I was like, Okay, I speak Cantonese too. And she's 86 you know, living by herself during COVID. And so once you know, about three weeks or a month or so I'll like go pick her up and take her to the grocery store to doctor's appointments because it literally takes her four hours to take the bus to like the grocery store and then back and she can only carry like three things in her backpack. And I'm like, it takes me one hour to drive you to like these four places, and then you get everything done. And it just saves her so much time. And you know, like I'm not doing that for everybody. But I think if everybody just did it for one other person in their community, like imagine how much, how much better people's quality of life would be. I always like to leave students with something actionable, you know. So like, if this you know, demographic that listens to this podcast wants to do something actionable, but you've been feeling like, Oh, I just like who I don't know what to do or like everything that I think is going to make meaningful changes, like so big and I like don't have the capacity to do that right now. I would say you could probably start with something really small. And you know, it's like, just go out in your community. Look around, you know, there can be very, very small little things that you could do that I think could make a huge amount of difference in someone else's life.

Kaitlyn  38:46

We want to leave you with some concluding ideas and asks today. We looked at big picture ideas like redlining and how that affects what people have access to in their immediate area, and how often these differences in someone's health and outcome fall on color lines. We're seeing a similar situation play out with COVID, where essential workers are hit the hardest compared to those of us with a means to work from home. We talked about how in recognizing how intertwined things are, can be really eye-opening, but emotionally difficult. Reflecting and recognizing our position and power within our communities can allow us to help those in our community that may not be in a position to do so for themselves, even if it's through small actions. Students in university face a unique situation where we may not have power and means where they are required to go back in a situation they didn't ask to be in. So be kind to yourself and ask for boundaries you need especially from your professors. And believe me, I know it's easier said than done. Personally, I'm pretty hard on myself and I hold myself to high standards, but hearing someone else remind me that we're just trying to survive in this pandemic, and things are difficult and challenging, it shifts my perspective.

Ava  40:00

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Fresh Off the Vote talking about racism and privilege play out through health disparities. Regardless of what ethnicity you are, is an uncomfortable thing to do. It's not easy and it can be hard to be honest and vulnerable with yourself and with others. So thank you, Chan for joining us and sharing your experiences. If you want some wholesome quality Instagram content with two multiples and a dose of mental health reminders courtesy of Chan, check out her dog Instagram at prince_and_bowie.

Kaitlyn  40:28

Follow us on Instagram also at Fresh Off the Vote You can find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts and Stitcher. We upload every single Monday, so stay tuned. Donate to us on buy me a coffee. Any amount helps and will be greatly appreciated. Thanks again, everyone.