Hey, Latino USA listener, here's a show from our archibos.
I think when the reality reality of everything, hey, was when my dad came home early and he told me that he lost his job. It was kind of like a wake up call, but it was also fear for how long is he not going to have a job.
It was a typical weekday in March when Kate Bustamante was sitting in class chatting with her friends.
I remember I had my music class and me and my friend were joking about how if this actually got that bad, we'd be having skype calls for class.
News had been bubbling that COVID nineteen was beginning to shut down restaurants, stores, schools all across California. Kate wrapped up her music class and headed to her next one in the newsroom on campus.
And everyone's like outside and they're like, oh, we're not going today, And I was like, what do you mean We're not going today? And yeah, they told us that they were like going to close the school down because of COVID, And.
Just like that, overnight, Kate went from being a full time college student to her family's main breadwinner from Futromedia and prx it's Latino USA I Maria Ino Rosac. Today the pandemic has upended and jeopardized the education and future of so many college students. We hear from one of them. The summer of twenty twenty was filled with uncertainty in the US. COVID nineteen had left more than twenty million people without an income within the first few months of
the outbreak. The majority of those affected were immigrants and young workers, specifically those in Generation Z, the generation entering adulthood after millennials, with classes forced to go online. College enrollment also plunged. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, freshman enrollment is down by more than sixteen percent nationwide,
and it's even higher for community colleges. Survey data from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that many Gen Z students have withdrawn from classes and have delayed their graduation. While millennials came of age during the Great Recession in two thousand and nine, gen Zers were starting their adult years in a strong economy with record low unemployment. That is until COVID nineteen shook the nation's economy. Now Gen
Z is staring directly into an uncertain future. Today We're going to be hearing from Kate Bustamante, who's a twenty year old student at Santa Anna College and a reporter with El Dawn, the school's award winning student newspaper. While many gen Zers who made national headlines are recent grads without job prospects, Latino USA wanted to take a look at an other side of the diverse gen Z experience and look at another kind of essential worker. Kate is going to pick up this story now.
This summer, my workday has looked a lot different than they ever have been.
Oh my god, do you hear that?
Do you hear that?
Annoying?
It's a did just let's yeah.
I usually only have one alarm.
I'm not like the person that needs six to wake me up, which is weird because I consider myself a pretty heavy sleeper.
But once I hear the alarm, I know it's time to go.
Hey, I'm Kate Wista Monthe what you heard was me recording my thoughts.
I've been doing that all summer.
Sorry, I started cracking my fingers with them. Having like my clean room and bathroom have really made being at home a lot better because I used to not like being at home. Before this whole COVID thing, I've gotten to spend a lot more time in my little sister. We've gotten to do some planting.
So we can make like a little nice gardener, and.
Then she has a little succulent she's growing. The whole quarantine was kind of a nightmare for me because I prefer to be outside. This summer wasn't the easiest, not just for me, but for a lot of people my age, or at least for my friends and people I talked to Attendana College. I remember a conversation I had with
a close friend who class. It was at the beginning of the summer, and we were talking about our futures as students and what that might be if me and her worrying about it, like I'm sure other students are tripping about what they're going to even do, because we were talking about like in the long run, like what's safe to study right now, Like what's safe to rely on that you know that we can get something out of. I've always felt some pressure for my parents to study
something safe and practical. I'm actually a psychology major, but I think I want to do something in visual arts, maybe even graphic design. For magazines. My parents aren't documented, and providing for my parents and my little sister is important to me. I just didn't think i'd be doing it so soon. I've always worked and studied at the same time. I used to take the bus at four am to work a shift before my morning class, but
it was my choice. Now I need to work. But before we get into my summer, you need to know about the city. I grew up in, Santa Ana, California. If you look at Santa Ana on a math, you'll see that it's in Orange County. But I don't associate them together. When people think of Orange County, they think of beaches and rich white people. Santaana feels so separate. It's working class. It's its own place. You know how
they say like there's beauty in the struggle. I feel like that itself is a good way to describe Santa Ana.
It's always busy.
It's always people like going into work or going out of work.
I think it's a.
Lot of people just trying to make sure that their kids go to school. I think it's a lot of kids trying to leave their parents' houses. It's I don't know. I feel like growing up here. It makes you want to leave, not necessarily because it's such a bad place, but because it's hard to see your familys struggle.
And I feel like that's what a lot of the people here.
In sant Aana do, at least for me, like growing up in Santa Ana and seeing my parents struggle, it definitely puts it into perspective for me, like I have to work my way out of this.
I have to find solutions.
You know, to be more resourceful, to just be able to get to a place where I can support from my parents instead of like expecting everything to be handed to me from them. It's difficult to imagine leaving the city because it's all I've known, But I definitely don't want to have to work that hard physically for the rest of my life.
So my dad came first.
His first job was taco bellt like cooking job, and that was my first job, so that was cool. My mom crossed the border when she was eight months pregnant with me. She was still like working in Mexico, and she tells me that she would fall asleep at like her little store stand, and the customers would just call her sleeping beauty. It leaves you in awe, you know, because they really did sacrifice like everything just to come over here for our better futures. It's not something to
take lightly at all. Is there respect to Carrie for them for life? You know? Right now, I live with my mom, dad, and my little sister. My mom's brother used to live with us, but he moved out last year and I finally got my own room. My family we get along, but I wouldn't say we're close. We don't really talk about what we're feeling. My dad's shy and my mom's outgoing and cares about everyone. They're both
hard working people. I'm a little bit of both. I love that she taught me like to value people's work and like livelihoods no matter what position they're in.
My mom used to read.
Me like fairy tales and Spanish, so I feel like that was like a huge source of my imagination because I always used to doodle when I was younger.
My parents always.
Really pushed school on me, so I felt a lot of pressure to have good grades, but I also obviously had.
My own interests.
I definitely always saw drawing and art as an escape and escape from like that kind of pressure.
I like the freedom in it.
I literally has tree D's since I was in elementary, you know, so this is like I needed a kind of something that it was like up to my choice. Currently, I'm a junior at Santa Ana College. It's our local community college, which most of us just call it SACK. It's kind of like shameful to go to SACK. A lot of our counselors were kind of like against students going there subtly, but it was still like, you know, they pushed you to go to more of like the four years and other places that were outside.
Of Santa Anna.
I went to cap Pally Pomona for like a week because that was kind of like the expectation. Its full name is California State Polytechnic University Pomona, also known as cal Poly Pomona. It's a four year university about twenty five miles from Santa Ana, which is about half an hour without traffic in a car, but with public transportation it could take almost three hours. My parents are really proud, so I definitely felt like I had to go to
a bigger school. But dude, when I got there, it was just so it was very overwhelming in the sense that I was not used to that big of classroom sizes. I was not used to that like atmosphere of just being alone. And it was just so much that they threw on you, like all at once, and just those like first three days, and like financially it was so like draining because it was so far and I didn't get accepted into the dorms so I had to like commute and I don't have my own car, so it
was just so much. But I did go to like my first college party on my second day, just like a random thing that happened. The moment I realized it was too much was a few days in and I had a breakdown. I just remember feeling super overwhelmed after my children's philosophy class that I had enrolled for at Kalpolamna.
There was this program.
That you had to have bought to get the assignments, and I think it was like eighty dollars and I was thinking like, oh, yeah, like I can just save that for my paycheck and pay next week, but apparently we had to have it like that day. So the next day I went into class, I was missing like one assignment already, and I was like, oh, my god, I'm already missing in an assignment and it's so expensive just to be able to see what.
The assignment was.
And so like I just went into the bathroom because I felt real liverwhelmed, and they started crying.
And I was just kind of like, I don't think I should be here.
It was really like hard to like have that conversation with my parents of like, actually, like I can't be here. I think At first they were definitely skeptical, so that was like my fear, which is why like I definitely I was like dreading telling them. But after like I explained it, my mom was super understanding. She was just
glad that I wasn't gonna like leave school. You know, it's just hard because they tell they put a lot of pressure, like telling you they came from where they come from so you can have a good future, and it's not something that like I'm not that I like just or I'm not completely aware of, so I don't know, it was just hard. So yeah, I was like, what if I just went to sign at college, my first year would be free. I'd obviously be able to have a job because it's close to home. I could just
work around my schedule. I don't remember my first few classes, but I do remember the opportunities that came from my
first semester. I had a friend who told me about this journalism writing class and then there was this like LGBTQ mural that they had on that campus, and I was just telling her, like how it was really cool that we had that, and then she's like, Okay, you come to the newsroom with me real quick, and I just go with her, and then I was like having the conversation with her, and they all just kind of like, well, you should write about it, and I was like, I've
never written for anything, and they were like, no, you're good.
Just go out there. You can interview them. So I talked to the mural teacher.
He was super cool, easy, first interview, I got like my published and I had no idea that was gonna happen. I wasn't even part of the newspaper yet. After that, that's when I joined. The next semester, I was able to be in both the mural team and the newspaper, so I feel like that's when things kind of started making sense. I've been at Santana College for two years now and I'm still part of the student newspaper.
It's called El Dawn.
Psychology is still my major, but I've been leaning towards communications, specifically in the visual arts. It's made me the most happy. And before Sakshaw down in March, I was in my fourth semester.
That's when everything was really going to be good.
I was taking sign language, I was taking music, I was still doing the newspaper. I was planning on taking multicultural psychology. I think we only had maybe six or eight weeks left, but at the time I was just going through too much.
Like my dad lost his job.
I had just started a new part time job as a cashier at an organic grocery store, the kind with the juice bar, vitamins, and beauty department. It's not like any grocery store I ever went to as a kid. When the whole pandemic started, I feel that a lot of families were losing income, including mine. My dad's worked as a cook for the past sixteen years, and the diner he worked at shut down in March, so he lost his job and my mom lost work two She
mostly cleaned houses. So I dropped my classes and just kept one the newsroom. My parents didn't know I did that, and honestly, they still don't know. I didn't want them to feel like they were pressuring me. And like I said, we don't talk much about what we're feeling, but it was kind of a given. I've seen how much they give up for me, whether it's their rest or when they have to work multiple jobs. I've never gone hungry.
They've always made sure I was fed. So that's what I wanted to do for them.
I had to.
We had rent to pay, the phone, the life bill, the internet. My little sister needed it for school. We had groceries to buy. I needed to work full time, so I asked my manager. I just told him like, oh, yeah, you can get me forty hours. He's like, oh, you want to work forty hours? And I was like, yeah, I kind of need to.
Coming up on Latino USA.
I turned twenty this year, and I've been reflecting on the value my parents put on education and all the pressures I've been feeling.
My mom and dad are both.
From small towns, and they saw how people without an education were treated differently in Mexico with less respect. Even though I've learned throughout the years that someone's education shouldn't be a factor in how.
You treat them.
I definitely understand that they want the best for me, so no one can look down on me.
Stay with us, not to buy yes A, We're back. When we left off, Kate Ustamante had just dropped all of her classes except one because overnight she had to work full time to help support her family. Her decision not only set back her education, but also the future that she and especially her immigrant parents, had envisioned for her. And Katie's going to pick up the story from here.
Thank you. Wow, it's so hot, man, Let's go for my luncheon.
Every day my work hours fluctuate. I'll go in as early as eight for a morning shift and as late as by for a night shift. Before I even enter the door, I have to obviously think of putting on my mask. I have to know where my apron is. I try my best to avoid customers as I'm entoring, but most of the time I'll just put on my apron after so it's usually just me passing by co workers saying hello, good morning, when is the ass?
Hello? When the ass constan? Hello? What is the ass?
And then I go clock in or I wait until it's my time with clocking. Sometimes I'm there like a minute, really, so I just wait until it's right on the dot.
That was all the juicing equipment that you heard back there, and then.
I put on my apron. I go out to the floor and I ask which you're.
To come in. I am cocked in.
I'm walking to Register one. I usually have to switch out with the person that's on Register one, so I'd be the register that's closest to the door, which is always the busiest register no matter what. It's the register that's dreaded by everyone. But you know, like when you're going in, most of the time you go to Register one.
I sign in, I tell the customer, high.
Hi, Yeah, it just begins.
It's going to be thirty nine.
My second day of work was chaotic, like even now, customers will tell me like, how long have you been here? And I'm like, oh, since the first day of the panic shopping because like it was just a lot. Like I know grocery stores got busy because obviously I've been to them, but I never saw anything like that where I was ringing up like six hundred, three hundred, four hundred freaking totals I've never seen someone spend that much
on groceries, Like it was crazy to me. It was kind of like a frenzy where people were just kind of freaking out.
And they just kind of put me on a register.
And I felt really embarrassed by asking questions, but also like I had to because a lot of these people you could tell they would be pissed off if.
I got one little thing wrong.
And I think a lot of the customers were skeptical about the fact that I was new, so that was like an added pressure because I was just trying to do my best and it felt like they were just waiting for me to mess up. But all in all, I think I handled myself well, like compared to how irritated and annoyed the customers were. I only see you as like a means of getting their things, you know, Like it's clear they don't really see you as a person. They just see you as a worker. There's this one
lady who's like a regular. She's an older white lady. So she comes to my line this one time and I said hi, and then she didn't say hi back. But I really don't I don't take it too personal because sometimes you just don't hear you know, I get that. But then I ask her, Oh, do you need any bags? And she just ignored me again. So I asked it again and she ignored me. And I know it was loud at that time too, because like, I have a pretty loud voice when I want it to be. So
I just like scanned all her stuff. She was so rude the whole time. She could have acknowledged me at the very least. Whenever I'm in a situation where I feel kind of stressed out, I like to make physical changes to myself. I feel like I get bored of looking at the same person in the mirror. So I've done three sticking cook tattoos on myself over the course
of this quarantine. I've bleached my hair twice. So the sticking pook tattoo is like a needle going through your skin each dot that you make, and then those dots obviously formed the tattoo or the image you choose to do. Last year, my aunt, my mom's favorite sister, passed away in a car accident. Her name was Ugana, and I grew up with her around.
My aunt always had tattoos.
She always really liked butterflies too, so I knew that I wanted to do a butterfly like in her honor. I think she would have appreciated that.
I just felt like we had a lot in common in a way.
I feel like we were both kind of like the black sheep if our family, you know, we're like, we're kind of just.
Different in a way.
She wasn't as traditional as her siblings and my grandma and mom a, so it was.
Like refreshing to have that.
Like a different perspective than like the rest of my family members. This has been my first experience with the passing of anyone that was really close to me. My family's never been very vocal, but I think for the first time in years, we were all really close. That week that she passed away, we all got together. It's been a few months since the pandemic started. Today is
July fourth, and I actually had the day off. I just feel like I'm a lot more drained, obviously because I don't have Even though school was tiring in his own I did still see it as like an outlet because I had those classes that I was genuinely interested in learning. I do miss learning, and I miss like that sense of like people who I actually got along with instead of people that I'm forced to interact with every day. You know, I just think it's a sense
of tiredness and exhaustion. But I'm grateful that I can provide for my parents and sister and that I do, we do still have this place to live under. One of their fears is definitely like me dropping school. So I didn't want to like give them any reason to, you know, because they'll still tell me now, just because
they know I don't like online classes. And they've asked me about next semester and how that's going to go, and I've told them like, well, if it's only online, then I'd rather only take like one or two classes. But they're still like scared that I'll just leave it completely, which isn't like a plan of mine, obviously, but I think they're just worried by August. I've always worked, but I feel like I've never worked this hard or like just been this tired from a job, like mentally and physically.
I think it's mostly like mentally draining because of thing going on. Even everything's super hard.
I think that's something that I keep reminding myself this isn't even as hard as it could be.
I don't think they're really like aware of.
The fact that the semester is starting. To my mom, the goal is just kind of to finish graduating college in general, but I still have to get like a job after, you know, with even if I end up with whatever degree I choose to. She just wants a degree, but I have to do something with it for it to have been worthwhile. So I think that's a lot of pressure, but I don't I don't really know what to do so far yet. All Right, So it's one twelve in the morning of the first day of fall semester,
and I'm registering for my classes right now. I like mentioned it to my coworker today that tomorrow was the first day of class, and he was like, oh, how do you feel about it? And I just kind of told him, well, I haven't even said up yet, so I've been kind of avoiding it. I'm for sure only gonna take one class. I think just like how overwhelmed I was by even trying to search up classes really just ensured myself that I should really just take the
one class. My mom told me that she wants to quit her night job, which is like her biggest source of income. So that was something that I didn't expect. But I'm glad for her because they were expecting her to clean restrooms for the same amount of pay that she was already getting. And she herself was like, just because there's not a lot of work right now, it doesn't mean I'm gonna just let them take advantage of me.
So I like that she knows her worth. But yeah, I'm just a little bit worried about the money situation. So I know that if I took more classes, i'd be worried about my availability for work, as I know a lot of students right now probably are juggling their schedule for online classes with their you know, work schedules. Yeah, I just feel a little tired by a little, I mean a lot. Some days I'm drained from just talking
to people that go through my cashier line. But most days I think about how my parents have been working their whole lives and are always tired, and I don't want to be a part of that cycle just repeat like minimum wage forever. You know, I would hate to not be able to rest and to not be able to give my parents the rest that they deserve. I feel like that's the reality for a lot of people, even though they're scared to say.
I'm scared that it could happen to me. I would hate to stay at a grocery store forever. I turned twenty this year, and I've been reflecting on the value my parents put on education and all the pressures I've been feeling. My mom and dad are both from small towns, and they saw how people without an education were treated differently in Mexico, with less respect. Even though I've learned throughout the years that someone's education shouldn't be a factor
in how you treat them. I definitely understand that they want the best for me, so no one can look down on me. Their American dream for me is and I've heard them say this so many times that I don't struggle the way they did.
It took me all summer, but I finally registered for one class newspaper. It was at the end of August, the first day of the new semester. Seeing my el down family again was really nice. I was able to go on to Zoom and it was cool because there was a lot more people than I expected there to be, like a lot of returning.
People, which I was really happy about.
When I spoke to my advisor, Sarah, she was very willing and understanding of the situation that I'm going through right now. I've talked to her a lot about like my personal struggles when it comes to finances and just like being an eldest daughter, it's different, you know. I feel like there's a lot of pressure on me at
all times. As far as like my future goes, I still definitely have no idea what career I could choose that would be dependable and just reliable, because I think if there's one thing that this whole pandemic half year has taught me is that nothing is really ever for sure. You know, nothing is ever really guaranteed. My dad is back to working now. He's not full time, but he's working at least three days a week. My mom is
also back to work. I know, if it were up to my parents, I would quit my job and I'd be going to school full time. But they need me to work right now. It's like an unspoken agreement.
Our thanks to you, Kate, for sharing your story with us. This episode was produced by Janasiamoca and edited by Miel Macis. And Andrea Lopez Gruzzalo. It was mixed by Elishiba Itto. The Latino USA team includes Marta Martinez, Daisy Contreres, Mike sergent, Viktori Estrada, Renaldo Leanos, Junior Patrisa Subran, with help from Raul Berees. Our editorial director is Fernande Santos. Our director of Engineering is Stephanie Lebau. Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso.
Our associate engineers are jj Carubin and Gabriela Bias. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our New York Women's Foundation Fellow is Elizabeth Lenthal Torres. Our theme music was composed by Sane Ruinos. I'm your host and executive producer Maria jo Josa. Join us again on our next episode. In the meantime, look for us on all of your social media and remember lots by.
Funding for Latino USA is coverage of a culture of health is made possible in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Latino USA is made possible in part by the Annie E.
Casey Foundation.
Creates a brighter future for the nation's children by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity and transforming communities and California Endowment. Building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians.