Fieldnotes

this is a guide me & my friend Tina wrote with ideas & hacks for how disabled/high risk people can safely hang out outside when it's cold. it's also about how as disabled people we need/are creating ways to be together safely as the pandemic forevers. https://t.co/UsGIyZ0zxa — Leah Lakshmi…...

This is a poster produced by the Coalition for the Homeless, the advocacy group that organized and financed the landmark Mixon v. Grinker lawsuit which expanded the rights of HIV+ unhoused people to medically appropriate shelter. The poster is currently on display at the New York Historical Society, located on…...

The People’s CDC was founded in 2022 in response to the CDC “creating the appearance that the pandemic is over.” According to the group’s website, which offers resources and weekly Covid transmission reports, “The People’s CDC is a coalition of public health practitioners, scientists, healthcare workers, educators, advocates and people…...

Disabled activists of Downstate New York ADAPT gathered and held a sit-in from March 14th to March 18, 2022, in front of the office of Assembly member Carl E. Heastie in the Bronx to oppose the restrictions imposed on Medicaid-funded home care eligibility in the final state budget of 2020.…...

In this article for Rooted in Rights, author and activist Sunshine Mugrabi writes about her experience as someone who is unable to wear a mask due to chronic regional pain syndrome. Mugrabi discusses personal experiences of trying to navigate doctor’s offices and other spaces with policies that do not account…...

Jay (second from left) is Co-Director of an upcoming documentary, Fire Through Dry Grass, that is centered on a group of people living at Coler Specialty Hospital on Roosevelt Island, a rehabilitation and nursing center in New York City. These men formed the Reality Poets, and are part of OPEN DOORS, a network of…...

On July 8, 2021 Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter discussed the Academic Recovery Plan on the NYC Department of Education (DOE) website. Acknowledging that disabled students had been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, the DOE plan included the following bullet points: We will launch afterschool and Saturday programs for students with IEPs to…...

Ninety-five percent of artists lost significant income during the pandemic, with performances and exhibitions cancelled and access to studio spaces restricted. A group of disabled and chronically ill artists organized Crip Fund in March 2020, pooling money and distributing food, medicine, and other aid to “immunocompromised and disabled people in need of in-home…...

Special Support Services, an advocacy group for disabled students and their families, conducted a survey of parents in 2020 about student educational experiences during the pandemic. Faced with a lack of data and information from the DOE, the advocacy group distributed a 42-question survey in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean and…...

From the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), an illness often triggered by a viral infection (such as Epstein Barr virus), were among the first to raise alarms about the possible implications of post-viral illness following acute infections. As the pandemic progressed,…...

A tweet published on August 24th of 2021 shows New York Lawyers for the Public interest and AAARRG! (Access-A-Ride Reform Group) protesting in front of the Metropolitain Transportation Authority (MTA) offices asking to end the shared paratransit rides, in the midst of the Delta wave. For the 16 months since…...

More images: In early April 2022, NYC’s administration engaged in a series of sweeps on unhoused encampments in the city in an effort to reduce homelessness in the city. The sweeps consist in dismantling the camps, dislodging people, and discarding their belongings and redirecting them in safe havens or stabilization…...

On March 7, 2020, as North American cities began to respond to the pandemic with remote school and work options, Canadian disability activist Kate McWilliams created the hashtag #AccessibilityForAbleds. The pandemic revealed how easy it was to provide certain accommodations that disabled and chronically ill people had been demanding, unsuccessfully, for…...

On September 19, 2022, the activist group #MEAction held a series of protests at and around the White House in Washington, DC, demanding that President Biden declare Long Covid and ME/CFS a national emergency with increased funding for medical education, research, and treatment. Despite knowing that participating in such an…...

Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled (BCID) staff Cara Liebowitz, Lisa Gesson, and Joe Rappaport (reading testimony from Lisa Smid) testified at today’s MTA board meeting urging the MTA to re-instate a mask mandate across MTA public transportation. —Yan Grenier

As fears of Monkeypox spread arose in the spring and summer of 2022—particularly in and around communities of men who have sex with men and their sexual partners—many were concerned about the possibility of yet another overlapping pandemic, especially one that might further stigmatize LGBTQ populations at a time when…...

The September 18, 2022 episode of 60 Minutes showed President Biden remarking “the pandemic is over” at an auto show in Detroit. “No one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.” Disability activists on Twitter immediately responded. The following day, Mia Mingus commented, “We are on our…...

Despite the pandemic still raging, the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to stop supplying free COVID treatments in 2023. Paxlovid, a Pfizer pill, was distributed for free among nearly 6 million Americans by the federal government during the first years of the pandemic. It prevents such complications…...

Photograph of a painted mural by artist Chella Man, located at 112 Christopher Street in Manhattan, depicting illustrated hands spelling out the message “Black Disabled Trans Lives Matter” in American Sign Language. As Chella Man notes on his website: Prior to painting, I realized the identities “Black”, “Disabled”, and “Trans”…...

Throughout the pandemic, many forms of Covid testing have been inaccessible to blind people, from drive-through testing sites to home tests that rely on visual instructions and displays. Some apps, such as Be My Eyes (founded by visually-impaired inventor Hans Jørgen Wiberg) have allowed blind people to video-call sighted people for…...

Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association organized a picket line in September 2021 to protest against MOCA, which is accused of not representing the Chinatown community and “selling out” the community. Local residents, small businesses, and workers in Chinatown are severely hit by the pandemic, while gentrification worsens the living conditions…...

On March 22 2020, with an exponential rate of new COVID cases in the New York State, Governor Cuomo signed two documents: The executive order “New York State on PAUSE” which contains a set of 10 rules for the general population, including closing all non-essential business and banning the gatherings…...

Chalkbeat, a nonprofit education reporting platform that covers 8 U.S. cities, added Covid reporting to its ongoing series about learning differences and special education in the New York City schools. A June 17, 2020 article offers an overview of the ways “remote learning upended instruction for NYC students with disabilities…...

A compilation of essays, interviews, and podcast episodes posted to the Disability Visibility Project site in 2020 and 2021. Compiling this material into a “syllabus” in January 2022, Wong writes, “Since March 2020 I have been collecting strands of disabled wisdom about the pandemic and trying to gather, weave, and…...

Established in 1972, Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) Open Door Senior Center has become a community space for elderly Chinese immigrants in NYC for 50 years. Reuniting with friends, various performances, and delicious food are our way of celebrating this milestone. — Shuting Li

Autistic activist Ethan Jones, age 26, photo by Maria Hodamarska (mother), taken June 2020. When the pandemic hit New York, the family moved to Deer Isle, Maine. While there, Ethan told us, that he had time to reflect and embrace what had been an emergent gay identity. On the last…...

August 17, 2023 Source: Instagram page of Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez, a Visually Impaired choreographer based in NYC. “8 weeks ago I tested positive for Covid for the seventh time in the last two years. Every time I get infected it takes me 5-6 weeks to recover. This last time it…...

In February 2022, Mike Mariana published an article in The Guardian about what he called “the great gaslighting.” Mariana, who lives with ME/CFS, describes the dismissal, “misdiagnosing and psychologizing” of Covid longhaulers as a form of “medical gaslighting” that can lead to “medical PTSD” as well as social stigma and…...

Since the beginning of February 2023, a grassroot collective of disabled artists, activists, and advocates for justice “Sick in Quarters” (SiQ) have launched a community mask redistribution initiative. Anyone interested could sign up if they can hold a quantity of masks to give freely in their area. By the beginning…...

During the pandemic, two documentaries were produced and launched by advocacy groups on the question of mobility of disabled people in New York City. NYC’s transit system is notorious for its inaccessibility as, out of over 400 subway stations, less than 30% are accessible—and many of which are only accessible…...

This is a picture of an ad-hoc memorial to Christina Yuna Lee, outside of the Chrystie Street apartment building where she died. Her murder has been reported as both part of a rising tide of anti-Asian violence in New York City and part of the uniquely gendered violence that Asian women, in…...

“Death Panel” (https://www.deathpanel.net/), a podcast about the political economy of health, presents an acute critical analysis of the dual news of the upcoming Medicaid Redetermination starting on April 1, 2023 and the end of COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11, 2023. The hosts examine the fact of disbandment of…...

Pareidolia (Vaccinate Now), one of the posters created by Brothers Sick (Ezra Benus and Noah Benus) during the pandemic, reminds that vaccination is urgent but not always straightforward. The Brothers Sick demand an end to medical rationing, the rationing of care, and vaccine hoarding on a global scale. Sussanne Pfeffer, director…...

The following text is taken from the Youtube description of the video and the press release: In June 2022, Disability advocates in New York represented by DRA signed a settlement agreement that will make the New York City subway accessible for more than half a million people with disabilities who…...

2 Lizards, the brilliant eight-part series of short animations, captures the overwhelming sense of anxiety and isolation — as well as the occasional sense of shared community — that so many NYC residents experienced during the first few months of the pandemic when the city was the epicenter of the…...

On January 9, 2022, artist Jen White-Johnson created a cut paper heart design to amplify the hashtag #MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy created by Imani Barbarin (discussed in another fieldnote). Johnson tweeted: “#MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy this hashtag needs to be plastered for all the world to see.” — Mara Mills