Editor’s Letter

Documenting Covid-19

It’s been two years, two months and some days since we published Olivia Liendo’s powerful article “With Covid-19, We are All Immigrants.”

Relating how friends, family and strangers came together to help her mother in Venezuela during an operation, fighting scarcity and distance in the onset of the pandemic, the Miami-based journalist commented, “While I read about people losing their jobs, businesses struggling, doctors dying and shortages of masks and gloves, I recognize the terror and the toughness from our past as diaspora, as exiles, refugees, migrants, emigrés, green card holders, immigrants, half-generation, first-generation, second-generation. But I also sense the same impulses for solidarity, the same need to help others, to take care of one another, that is keeping my mom alive.”

We’ve gone through Alpha and Delta and Omicron and other variants in this seemingly endless scourge. We’ve struggled to get vaccines and incubators and hospital beds. We are all immigrants, learning to face this new life.

We’ve learned how to use Zoom and enjoy our pets and the solitude of our gardens. We’ve worried about our educational systems and our health care systems. We’ve elected new leaders throughout Latin America—even when going to the polls could be a superspreader event. We’ve protested for social justice and women’s rights. The world has not remained static, despite the virus sweeping it.

During these two years, two months and some days, we’ve published articles from Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Mexico, Peru and other corners of Latin America (and occasionally the United States). Our authors have been academics, doctors, writers, filmmakers, journalists, television producers, administrators and many others.

The Spotlight, as we call our sections in progress, was called “Eyes on Covid-19.”

The effects of the pandemic will continue for years, in the actual health effects of the disease, but also the social, educational and economic costs of this plague. We are not going to stop covering Covid-19 (see my endnote) but wanted to bring the article in this Spotlight together as tangible gathering of experiences. 

We are calling this new, Spring/Summer 2022 issue of ReVista, “Eyes on Covid-19: A Commemorative Issue.” 

It’s commemorating the shared experience of the past two-plus years. And it is commemorating the doctors, nurses, educators and all the others who have worked together to get us through this first phase of the pandemic. We salute you!