Penn seniors cross the U.S. to collect young peoples' pandemic stories
November. 08, 2021
In that location is a theory in the field of developmental psychology, popularized by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, that there are five detached stages of emerging machismo.
Having taken approximately one human being development class more than than two decades ago, I only know about Arnett, and his (frequently-refuted) research, because I'm on a video call with Penn seniors Alan Jinich and Max Strickberger—and, mid-call, they receive an email from a Penn professor asking them to talk to a class nearly this very subject field.
It'southward an exciting, and plumbing fixtures, invitation, given that the two young men have become de facto experts on young adulthood in their own correct: Last spring, they took off from college to roadtrip beyond the land, interviewing and photographing people ages 18 to 25 almost their experiences during Covid-19.
Over the class of vi weeks, with a scrap of funding from Penn and their own money too, they drove 7,300 miles, stopping in 23 states to interview more than than 80 people, recording the interviews and capturing photos on Jinich'southward beloved Fuji XT1.
The upshot is "Generation Pandemic," a stunning online archive of oral histories and photographs that screams to exist turned into a National Geographic spread, a Discovery Aqueduct documentary, the foundation for an updated accept on Arnett's theories.
Jinich and Strickberger—childhood friends who grew up on the aforementioned block in Chevy Chase, MD—saturday down at their shared apartment in West Philly to talk most the experiences of young people during the pandemic, how rejection has made them stronger, and their go-to roadtrip snacks. What follows is a condensed and edited version of that interview.
Jessica Blatt Press: When you set out on this road trip, what was your goal—did you 2 have a hypothesis about what you'd find, or what were y'all seeking?
Max Strickberger: When we started the trip, we had been inside the aforementioned 4 walls with each other and we'd felt that there was so much going on in the world but we were just reading about it on our phones. I felt and then frustrated that I wasn't doing something that was engaging more seriously with what was happening around us. We didn't want to be home, we didn't run into as much value to what we'd always loved about school, and there was stuff that'due south so much bigger going on in the world. Nosotros asked ourselves: Why are nosotros non thinking more about what that means?
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Alan Jinich: We didn't actually know how the projection was going to take shape. We knew when nosotros started the road trip that we wanted to do these interviews and just talk to people our age. But we didn't know if nosotros were going to do a very broad oral history project, or if we were just going to interview a lot of people in i identify, or maybe only follow one person for a while. We concluded up going the more broad road. But going into information technology, it was all very open.
MS: After our beginning end in Tennessee, nothing else was lined upwardly. So our first day, when nosotros were in Greensboro, Alabama, we spent the whole day walking through Principal Street of this very minor town of 2,500 people and didn't get whatsoever interviews. Nosotros looked at each other like Ok, this project could be over before it even started. Nosotros didn't actually know what we were going to detect and what would come up out of it.
Just by doing interviews, getting better at interviews, getting rejected a bunch of times, could something more concrete come into focus. Although we did hope that nosotros would create some type of archive. We worked with a history professor from Penn, Kathy Peiss; just out of the kindness of her eye, she's very generous and met with u.s.a. outside of school. And we fabricated a loose syllabus with her and she kind got us thinking nearly an archive. So information technology was loose, but it only took shape once nosotros started doing information technology.
JBP: Do you recollect there are misconceptions virtually this age group you chose to focus on—your age grouping?
MS: At that place's always kind of this thought of older people thinking the younger generation is lazy, not as ambitious, or, in the case of our generation, stuck on screens or maybe too idealistic, right? Merely during the interviews, what really stood out to me was how a lot of young people recognized, in a really empathetic mode, how lucky they were to exist young during the pandemic. That was actually interesting because it wasn't something we brought up, but a number of people nosotros interviewed said Wow, I'm just then grateful. If I was older right now, if I had 5 kids, if I had a mortgage, I would be and so much more worried.
And I think people felt some caste of liberty in being young, and they recognized from an empathetic perspective that not anybody has this and we're actually lucky that we do. And that wasn't just like a class piece; information technology was very much an age-related commentary on what's going on now.
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JBP: Speaking of empathy, how did you win people over to be vulnerable and trusting with you two—what was that procedure like for you lot?
MS: We definitely didn't win everyone over. Nosotros had a lot of rejections. And I think being rejected was inherent to the project and got us much more comfy with it. At the same fourth dimension, I'll recognize that we could simply admission certain stories. Alan did some of the interviews in Spanish, for case, and if information technology had merely been me doing the trip, I would've had no admission to those. And some of those stories were some of the all-time ones that we got. So language was merely 1 bulwark that we faced from an inaccessibility standpoint.
AJ: When we were in Circleville, a pocket-sized town in Utah, we were driving around unlike farms trying to run across people. And nosotros ended up meeting these guys, Jade and Tyler and Scott Dalton, who are brothers and cousins. And they were super downward to chat, they were interested in why we were in Circleville and nosotros got to talking, but when nosotros told them Oh nosotros're interested in doing these interviews for this project, they were manner more than skeptical. We kept talking for 10, 20, 30 minutes, they showed us around their garage and stuff, and then eventually we told them What nosotros're doing now? This is the interview, all I'd need to do is plow on my recorder and information technology's the same thing, and they're similar Oh, I didn't realize it would be so coincidental, let's exercise information technology. And that'due south how we ended upwardly interviewing them, and then it ended upward going on for hours and hours and we toured the farm and recorded it all. They even invited us for dinner. We didn't come in with a list of questions. They were really simply very open-ended conversations. I recollect as before long every bit people realized that, they were oft more comfy.
MS: I recollect information technology also helped to just betoken out that information technology was a weird state of affairs. I'm sure if I was approached past ii strangers in the middle of the workday, I'd think it was pretty weird as well. So trying to innovate some sense of humor into the state of affairs helped. It was a trivial scrap of persistence, a fiddling bit of luck. And then just trial and error.
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JBP: What overarching insights accept yous each taken abroad from the experience, and how has this journey changed you?
AJ: Information technology's been really hard for us to come up up with big take-aways for this project because the stories were only so dissimilar. In that location's many commonalities, but mostly differences. Merely it also just feels like the start of a study on our generation. And I feel like the bigger take-aways might come with time. I can tell yous immediately how the pandemic afflicted people my age, but I think the more than interesting have-aways will come up when we take time to procedure it and likewise when nosotros see the changes that happened with the people we interviewed.
MS: One big theme that came out of it for us was about movement. We saw young people being in a identify where they could get up and motion entirely. Then we interviewed Shay, in New Orleans, and she had moved iv days earlier nosotros interviewed her, from Virginia. Her task went remote, she realized I tin take my entire life and move somewhere else. And Julius, who moved from Wisconsin to a town in Santa Fe.
And and then, at the same time, at that place was the contrary where, because you lot were a immature person, you weren't financially secure, and y'all still relied on your family in a lot of ways. For some people, the pandemic reinforced being in a place that wasn't really safe or secure for you and yous couldn't leave habitation. Nosotros saw that in Santa Fe in an interview with Sharon who, prior to the pandemic, spent her whole life trying to stay out of her house. Just during the pandemic, she had to be habitation, and home for her meant a really tight trailer. And at a very base of operations level she said information technology'due south just embarrassing trying to turn on my Zoom and people are screaming in the groundwork because of the tension between her mom and her brother. So for her, the pandemic meant the opposite of motility, and it meant she had to be home, and home didn't feel safety. The pandemic exacerbated that reality for her. And then that was kind of the reverse of movement, it was actually constrictive.
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AJ: I think a lot of the categories were kind of very extreme. Like when we recall about mental wellness stuff too; people got into really bad places with their mental health, or some people were only totally thriving and living their best life that they couldn't have if they were stuck in an office somewhere. And so they're definitely extremes in both ways.
MS: There were too themes of empathy and gratitude.
AJ: People were really grateful. I'thou thinking of Adrian. He'south the EMT who wants to go a firefighter. He experienced a lot of bad things this year related to custody of his kid and not being able to stay physically fit in the way that he would've liked to. But he still expressed so much gratitude for not being in the place that a lot of older folks were.
JBP: Max, you're an English major, and Alan, you're a neuroscience major. But how did this experience change what you want to do in the future?
AJ: It got me so excited to practice more of this stuff. It was my beginning time doing a really long-term artistic project. I'd never done a project that had this kind of depth and kind of length to information technology. If I could get the support, I'd totally just keep going.
MS: I've always loved stories. I grew upwards listening to my grandpa making up fictional stories and telling them to me. In high school, I started a culture and identity magazine that was predicated on personal storytelling. I remember the project just confirmed that I love asking questions and was in such a fortunate place where I could just go out and have an excuse to talk to people later on a yr of interacting with aught strangers. That was really meaningful. It also made me more than interested in concepts around solutions-based journalism and the limitations that storytelling has in some ways. Information technology made me call back What are other ways that tin can provide straight service to communities that storytelling bumps up against or needs another button beyond?
JBP: What was your sustenance on the road?
AJ: A lot of cheese sandwiches for Max. Nosotros'd go to the grocery store and nosotros had a libation in the dorsum: It was virtually all cheese and bread. Sriracha. A lot of granola bars. Carrots and hummus. I ate a lot of burgers, that's the ane affair yous'll find anywhere.
JBP: On road trips, one person invariably ends upwards dominating what everyone else listens to—what did you lot listen to on the road for all those hours?
MS: Likewise much music, and besides few Audible books.
AJ: I'm more than of a music guy and Max is more of a podcast/audio book guy. So we would kind of switch. Although I feel like maybe I was in control?
MS: Switch? It was definitely lopsided!
AJ: When I was driving, I needed something to keep me awake! And loud music would keep me awake. Audiobooks, less and then.
MS: For some reason, every fourth dimension we turned on the car, the same vocal [the hypnotic Tubesocks] on Alan'south phone would play automatically. And at present, anytime that song plays, I feel like I'm getting up early in the eye of Alabama, and we have to drive.
JBP: How has this experience afflicted your already-stiff friendship?
AJ: Nosotros saw dissimilar sides of each other. It's one matter to be friends or roommates, merely so to be work partners is dissimilar. And Max really pushed me because he was the one who actually had the guts in the beginning to become up to people and arroyo strangers. I was fashion more than broken-hearted about it. By the cease of the trip we were walking into 30 businesses getting rejected past all of them. Merely going to the next one, whatever.
MS: We went to Chinatown in Chicago, I'm similar I'k going up this side of the street, you're going up that side. By the end of the day, nosotros had gotten rejected from every single business in Chinatown. Except then Alan got the interview with Fernando, which is upward on the site. Alan is very, very steady. And he put the entire website together, which is so meaningful, to have what we did in one identify. All together.
Every bit much equally I believe in and honey the written grade, Alan has extraordinary photos that I can go through and think dorsum to the experience and that's then dainty, that's such an archive. I don't send Alan stories and quotes when I call back dorsum to our trip; I ship him pictures that pop up on my phone that he took. And I'm actually grateful to accept that archive.
JBP: So are we—and history will undoubtedly thank you anytime, likewise.
More on young people making a departure
Citizen of the Week: Cydney Brown
The (New) Audio of Philly
Citizen of the Week: Joanna Lin
Generation Pandemic creators Alan Jinich and Max Strickberger | Photo by Susan Korec#VoteThatJawn 2020
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/generation-pandemic/
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