The Borough We Became: Queens Residents On Life During COVID-19

On Thursday, April 9th, 2020 the Queens Memory Project launched a COVID-19 documentation project in Queens, New York. The project, found at https://queenslib.org/covid, has the active support of a broad coalition of cultural organizations and citizen historians organized to document this extraordinary moment in Queens history. These are the stories shared by Queens residents who are living, working, learning, and helping one another during this unprecedented time.

This episode of the Queens Memory Project Podcast was conceived and produced by the Queens Public Library Teen Advisory Board. The Queens Public Library Teen Advisory Board is a yearlong program were members take the lead in creating and implementing a project that helps their peers and community. This year’s TAB decided to work on a podcast to interview the voices they felt have been left out of the conversations around Covid-19. After much discussion, TAB members decided to highlight the voices of their peers and their experiences with quarantine and distance learning. After spending the first half of the school year learning the basics of podcasting, members worked together to write the interview questions and were responsible for interviewing, producing, and hosting the episode. Once they learned the basics of creating a podcast episode, the TAB members set out to interview people across generations and life experiences to ask the question “How are you doing?” Answers varied widely and touched upon the topics of virtual school, the disruption of daily routines, new skills learned during lockdown, and social media use. Interviewees often chose to highlight the positives of their experiences in quarantine.