Year of the tiger, p.24
Year of the Tiger, page 24
A High-Risk Timeline of Alice Wong, Proto-Oracle
Location: Earth, North America, California
Era: Pre-Outage
Welcome to the Oracle Archive, younglings. My name is Master Meow, and I have been a curator and librarian at this institution for two millennia—or, for some of our out-of-galaxy guests, 5.6 boops. You are all in the fifth form of your cyber-organic development, and this is the appropriate stage to share this exhibit about a dark chapter in Earth history before the Outage, which precipitated the Great Liberation. Ancient history can teach us much about our flaws as well as our strengths. It may be inconceivable, but there was a time when phages—or, as they were then called, pandemics—were rampant across various species. Some of you might have heard about the horrors of the Scarcity Games, and this is one example. The Oracle Archive was able to piece together a record from a Proto-Oracle named Alice Wong during her forty-seventh year of existence in the Earth year 2021. Using our latest methods, we found bits and pieces of her story through artifacts such as tweets, articles, emails, texts, images, and audio about what it was like to live through these times. If these terms are unfamiliar to you, refer to the codex on twenty-first-century communications. Please explore this exhibit with care, and let’s gather afterward for a discussion on the connections between our ancestors and the way we live today. And don’t forget to visit the gift shop on your way out.
January 20, 2021
“Vaccinating Californians 65 and Older May Last till June, Pushing Back Timetable for Others”
—LOS ANGELES TIMES
January 23, 2021
From San Francisco’s vaccine notification system
January 25, 2021
“California Will Prioritize COVID-19 Vaccine by Age, Not Occupation in Next Rounds”
—LOS ANGELES TIMES
January 29, 2021
Remarks prepared for an online press conference organized by Disability Rights California and other disability rights organizations
Hi, my name is Alice Wong. I am a disabled activist from San Francisco residing in District 9. I have not left my home since March of last year except once for a flu shot. If I am infected with COVID-19 I will die. I am not alone in this situation. Like other disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised people under sixty-five, being in phase 1C meant we were prioritized in the next round of vaccinations. Everything changed with the governor’s announcement this week that would eliminate this phase and “scale up” with age-based eligibility. Age is not the only factor in determining risk. This decision by the Newsom administration is an act of violence and erasure toward groups disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. It is racist, classist, and ableist. And by the way, there are high-risk disabled people who are essential workers, immigrants, unhoused people, undocumented people, and in communities of color. I am filled with fear for myself and others. I also refuse to defend my humanity and prove my deservingness for the vaccine in comparison to other high-risk groups. High risk is high risk. For more stories by people in phase 1C, check out the hashtag #HighRiskCA on Twitter. You can also find me there at @SFdirewolf. Thanks.
February 4, 2021
Text notification from a vaccine standby app
February 7, 2021
Text notification from a vaccine standby app
February 11, 2021
From the Disability Visibility Project
On January 25, 2021, Governor Newsom announced the elimination of the phase 1C priority group for COVID-19 vaccination in favor of an age-based approach in California. I created the hashtag #HighRiskCA to create visibility and space for high-risk people under sixty-five who will be devastated by this change. This is not a singular case; states across the United States have differing vaccination plans and prioritization of high-risk groups.
Here are some valentines you can share with your friends, family, and the special elected representatives in your life. Please encourage people to take action and demand prioritization of all high-risk groups including disabled, chronically ill, higher-weight, and immunocompromised people, plus essential workers and undocumented, unhoused, and incarcerated people. High risk is high risk. We are not disposable.
February 12, 2021
“California to Open COVID-19 Vaccine to People with Cancer, Obesity, Other Conditions”
—LOS ANGELES TIMES
February 15, 2021
Message sent to my primary care physician
Hi, [redacted],
The Department of Public Health issued a provider bulletin on 2/12 that reprioritizes high-risk disabled people under sixty-five for the vaccine. Could you inquire with the [redacted] vaccine clinic what the process is for someone like me to make an appointment starting 3/15 (per the bulletin)? I’m sure it’ll take a while to get a response, but I wanted to see if you can help me get a head start. Thx!
February 16, 2021
Response from my primary care physician
Hi Alice,
I’m pretty deeply embedded in this process, and I think about you all the time as we, finally, get close to immunizing patients with medical risk factors who are under sixty-five. It’s been difficult to watch as the whole system—federal, state, local—defaulted to age, so I (and many physicians and patients) am happy about this coming shift.
When the appointments are open, you will be able to access them on [patient portal] or by calling [redacted]. These slots are not open yet. I’ll keep my eye out when they do open and try to send you a message. We also, as a system, will need to find a way to invite people who qualify. Thank you, Alice. Hope you’re well.
—Dr. [redacted]
February 22, 2021
Email forwarded to me by multiple people
Hello East Bay community partner,
Some updates for you regarding the mass vaccination site at the Oakland Coliseum, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland, C.A., 94621:
As a reminder, this site will be able to administer up to 6,000 vaccines a day. The mass vaccination site should be open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Staff will be at the site to direct traffic and assist with questions and translation. The focus of this vaccination site is to provide equitable access to safe, life-saving vaccines to California communities that have been heavily impacted by COVID-19.
The State is putting aside a block of appointments each day to ensure access and equity for BIPOC and people with developmental and other disabilities within 50 miles of the site. These appointments will be accessible by a specific access code. This code will change periodically based on demand. This code will be shared with [redacted], other disability leaders, and other equity advocates.
To ensure community members who are eligible to receive vaccines are best served at this site, the State wants [redacted] to be a key partner in reaching community-based organizations that can promote the availability of vaccines and help individuals sign up/register for vaccination appointments.
* * *
—
Eligible community members will be able to access vaccination appointment openings at the Oakland Coliseum by visiting the state’s MyTurn website or calling the state’s toll-free hotline at 1-833-422-4255. When confirming eligibility, it asks for an “Accessibility Code (optional).” This is where you enter the code: For appointments on 02/22/2021–02/25/2021 the Oakland Coliseum code is: [redacted]
(Eligible groups include phase 1A and 1B: Health care workers, paid caregivers, family caregivers, long-term care and skilled nursing home residents, individuals 65 and older, as well as education and childcare workers, emergency services workers, as well as food and agriculture workers. Any person in this category you identify can use the access code. People with developmental and other severe high-risk disabilities or underlying conditions will be eligible on March 15.)
Thank you for helping those in our community access the vaccine using this code where applicable. Thank you for your critical advocacy and commitment on setting the policies, and for carrying your hard work through to getting people vaccines.
February 23, 2021
February 24, 2021
Two messages from different people on the same day
February 26, 2021
February 27, 2021
Two separate conversations
February 28, 2021
“Vaccine Equity Memes” posted on the Disability Visibility Project blog
I faced some ups and downs lately with my search for a vaccine appointment as a high-risk person under sixty-five years old. There are many others in California and everywhere in the same situation. Time is not on our side. When I feel defeated and frustrated, it helps to create something that makes me giggle. Feel free to share these memes along with some resources.
March 5, 2021
A friend who is a leader in the California disability community sent me a new code from the state vaccine-appointment system. This time the codes were individual, one-use only, and meant for people with disabilities. I grabbed a slot for my shot like a bat out of hell.
March 13, 2021
Moscone Center, San Francisco, 4:45 p.m. Pacific
A nurse (left) administers a COVID-19 shot into the muscle near the top part of my left shoulder. What a glorious day. What a fucking odyssey. I am indebted to the many disabled leaders and activists who tried to make the vaccine rollout to our community in California as equitable and accessible as possible. Afterward, to celebrate, my parents and I picked up sushi for dinner.
Smiling with great relief and waiting during the observation period after receiving my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine with my access is love T-shirt on.
As I was exiting the Moscone Center, I had to get a photo with this cardboard cutout of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
* * *
…
Thanks for visiting the timeline of Alice Wong, Proto-Oracle. You can also explore the following exhibits about the twenty-first century from the Oracle Archive:
The Barbarity of Crowdfunding for Health Care
Who Gets to Breathe? Oxygen
Global Migration, Displacement, and Starvation: The Failure of Neoliberal Nation-States
In Praise of Peaches
When San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order started on March 17, 2020, I did not feel as cut off from the world as many did since I already worked at home and maintained social connections primarily online. There were things I missed: going to Sightglass Coffee, my neighborhood café down the block, and running errands at Safeway and the bank, both conveniently within walking distance from my home in the Mission District.
Being outdoors, in the sun and open air, was unsafe for multiple reasons, with my only outing after lockdown being in October for a drive-through flu vaccine. The need for pleasure and deliciousness, coupled with predatory scarcity and fear, prompted me to savor the simple things that were within my grasp and to dream about what I missed.
I don’t eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, preferring to focus on four main food groups: fat, sugar, caffeine, and carbs. But I make special exceptions for peak-of-the-season produce that is one of the dazzling gifts of living in California. That spring my friend Emily Nusbaum checked in with me after the death of my friend Stacey Park Milbern and asked if I would like a homemade peach cobbler or pie. A week later in June, Emily dropped off a golden-brown pie made with frozen peaches she saved from the season before. I stayed inside while Mom met Emily by the entrance of our building. The peach filling had the consistency of marmalade: gooey, warm, scented with cinnamon. It was such a sweet gesture of care, made with love in a time of sadness. I treasured this act of kindness, and it comforted me as many people collectively mourned for Stacey, a beloved friend, community organizer, and activist from the Bay Area.
Emily is a member of Peachful Easy Feeling, a team that adopted a tree at Masumoto Family Farm in Del Rey, three hours from San Francisco on land originally inhabited by the Yokut peoples. The team goes every summer and harvests a single tree that can produce up to four hundred pounds of organic heirloom Elberta peaches. “Elberta is one of those old fashioned, creamy, buttery smooth peaches with a bright yellow flesh and a golden skin when ripe,” says the farm’s website, adding that they evoke “memories of a family tree in the back yard or eating one a long time ago.” Emily invited me to become a member of this team, and she offered to pick and deliver some of the peaches to my home in August.
Eating a fresh Elberta peach is indeed a magical, spiritual experience. Its flesh is firm and brimming with juice, sweet yet neither overly ripe nor tart, and its skin delicate so that I can gobble or blend the whole fruit easily. Cool. Succulent. Luscious. When I bite into one, I am connected with the infinite cycles of life and death that produced this fruit, the hands that picked and packed it, and the family and farmworkers who nurtured it. I travel through space aboard U.S.S. Masumoto, destination: deliciousness. The pandemic contracted and expanded my unstable world, but tasting that peach took me through a wormhole of joy. It eased my heart and gave me peace.
Emily brought the best of the summer to my indoor, socially distanced world. Our friendship is one of many examples of interdependence and mutual aid in the disability community. Pandemic notwithstanding, I wouldn’t have the energy or ability to spend an entire day traveling to the farm and harvesting with Team Peachful Easy Feeling. This knowledge and the months of staying inside weighed on me as I devoured these peaches with my parents, who also have high standards for fruit. Ever since, we reminisce about these peaches as if they were long-lost friends whom we can’t wait to see again next summer.
Am I overhyping these Elberta peaches? Did my salivating, Gollum-like desire for these precious golden orbs in a time of isolation intensify and distort my memories of them? Does it even matter as long as I felt pleasure and nourishment?
Team Peachful Easy Feeling first started with Emily, her friend Kathy Wage, and the Takeuchi family. The Takeuchis know the Masumotos from the Japanese American community in the Central Valley. Emily met Kayla Takeuchi during her time as faculty at Fresno State University through Kathy, a speech-language pathologist. Kayla is a young autistic nonspeaking person who did not have the means to communicate until she was fifteen, when she worked with Janna Woods, who introduced her to supported typing, a form of alternative and augmentative communication (A.A.C.). The group was formed to honor the memory of Janna and Emily’s brother Jonathan, who both died from cancer several years ago, as a way to come together and do something beautiful each year.
Emily described eating a peach from the Masumoto Family Farm as “tasting the sun, the blossom that it started from, the bees that pollinated, the air, sky, and water.” The cycle of living and dying is a reminder that we do not exist as humans divorced from one another and nature. Little did I know the cycle would continue in unexpected ways.
David “Mas” Masumoto emailed me out of the blue in January 2021 without knowing my ardent passion for Elbertas: “Thanks for all the work you do and your spirit. I’m an organic peach and nectarine farmer (and a writer) and the stories you capture reflect the true ‘natural world’ we live in (and eat in an organic peach!).”
As we corresponded, I learned that David was working on a book, Secret Harvests, about the life of his aunt, Shizuko Sugimoto, who, because of her disability, was separated from her family during the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War Two. In 2012, David “found” her and, in doing so, discovered a family story steeped in secrecy and intergenerational trauma. I got to read an early draft of his manuscript and shared some feedback on disability history, language, and culture. What an exchange of abundance and generosity between Emily, David, and me, between our intertwined communities and histories, between living organisms on this planet!
Nurturing life requires care and connection. Like an orchard in full bloom, nurturing stories requires care and connection, too. The people we love who are no longer alive—Stacey, Janna, Jonathan, Shizuko—are still with us, and our stories about them are seeds planted with gentleness and hope for the future.
Sometimes a peach is just a peach. Sometimes a peach is a cosmic portal to relationships that sustain and tie us to one another.
Photos taken by my friend Emily Nusbaum at the Masumoto Family Farm during summer 2020
No to Normal
I was one of several keynote speakers for a 2021 online event, Night of Ideas, a celebration of culture, conversation, and community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The theme was “Closing the Distance,” and these were my recorded remarks.
How do we close the distance? Access. Building and supporting access will bring us together as individuals, communities, and nations.
I am a disabled person living in the Mission District of San Francisco who uses a wheelchair and ventilator full time. Every day I experience the very real distance between myself and the nondisabled world, which, by the way, is the default we all exist in. The distance I am talking about is the ableism and exclusion embedded in our political, physical, and social environments.
