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Today is June 19, 2020 and my name is Ann Shi and I'm with the Houston Asian American Archive. This is the special edition of the archive's COVID oral history collection, where we

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focus on life and impacts of the COVID-19 to our community in Houston. And today we have our past participant, Anthony Pabillano, to speak

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with us. And thank you very much, Anthony for coming back to spend your time with us again. Yeah, well, thank you for having me. Thank you. Can you start by letting us know how

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COVID has impacted your life in general? Okay. I think you said how COVID has impacted my life, right? Okay. So, I mean, first off, I'm thankful that you know, I'm pretty much unaffected by

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it overall. Thankfully, I still have a job that, that during this crisis, you know, I'm able to continue work without any sort of slow

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down or any cutbacks in terms of hours, etc. I'm a full-time employees still. So I'm thankful for that. And I'm thankful that you know, I did not get affected by the virus itself, you know,

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pretty much stayed indoors, trying to just lessen my risk of contracting that disease. Like even wearing a mask, just in case it's around my neck. So, but you know, it's being a citizen of the world.

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It's hard to not be affected by it in other ways. Emotionally, it's hard to not feel the pain that other people are feeling. Especially, you know, I have friends and acquaintances that I know of who lost their

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jobs or suffered, you know, like reduced hours if that's the case for them. And you know, it's hard to not see those things, even from a distance through social media, etc.

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So, even though I'm personally--I have a job that's financially keeping me afloat, mentally, spiritually, it's I'm kind of drained in terms of just absorbing so much from the surroundings.

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Sometimes I just have to, you know, turn off my phone once in a while and just not hear--have not read about or not hear about news for a bit to recharge. But overall, yeah, COVID has been for

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our society in general, it's been a– it's been a challenging obstacle for us because many have lost their jobs. Many have lost their lives. And the emotional

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and, you know, just the environment that those two things are causing to every one of us, it's– it's palpable. It's hard to see--we can feel it. Yeah, absolutely. You were talking about social media.

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What do you think social media has um, impacted us in or— kind of influenced us, in this pandemic? Oh, for sure. Social media is proving its work in terms of

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allowing us to, you know, still connect from a distance. That's one major positive thing about social media. Social media, of course has its drawbacks in terms of being

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used as a tool by some people, or groups of people in nefarious ways, in terms of spreading misinformation, using it to, you know, in inappropriate ways, like attacking other people for unnecessary

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unnecessarily or just overall. The main thing is misinformation. But of course, overall social media has allowed us to connect during this time

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where we have to distance and allows us to share information quite rapidly amongst each other. And hopefully, you know, fact checked correct information. Yeah, definitely something they're working on now, and we hope we'll see

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some upcoming results. Yeah, we also seen a lot of creativity expressed on social media and I felt like as an artist, you're probably a creature of

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solidarity; but also having to connect with people, what do you think as an artist, your perspectives, has some changed or be influenced during this period? Oh, for sure.

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Especially what has happened in the past three weeks since of end of May. Cul-a cultural shift is definitely happening. And I'm happy to see that most of the people in the

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world are responding in a way-or responding to the call to stand up. Specifically, talking about you know, what has happened you know, what happened end of May when, you know, George Floyd was killed, and the

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domino effect that– that caused in our society, in terms of conversations that more and more people are now having in terms of race, in terms of equality in general. And

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the, you know, people, you know, voicing themselves standing up. And the fact that we have social media is great to that effect in terms of, you know, if you have friends or

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family members or colleagues, etc. who are standing up, voicing their concerns voicing their support of equality for Black Lives Matter. It's--social media’s enabling people to see those

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perspective in— I don't know, you know— from a scientific, scientific perspective. I'm not sure but from what I'm, you know, just perceiving, it's causing a positive ripple effect in our society,

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you know, more and more people are getting aware, aware more and more people are, you know, having those tough conversations within themselves within their friends, within their circles. And I'm, I'm sure a lot of people are, you know, realizing their faults and

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realizing their privilege that they might have had and, you know, then you themselves are then contributing to the conversation of pushing for more widespread, I

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guess, equality. It's very idealistic in my mind, but from what I'm seeing, it's inspiring that more and more people are voicing out and standing

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up. Yeah, that's...media’s enabling that... sorry, social media. And sorry if I'm too... is my voice level okay?

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Yes, it's actually completely okay. Um, yeah. So as an— thank you for sharing that inspiring note, by the way— it's very empowering too, that our lives are actually changing as of now.

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And talking about your artistic creativity, can you share with us whether the current movements and the current events have helped you to, or inspired you to, create art in response?

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Unfortunately, I haven't been able to have time to create a lot of artworks, actually since a pandemic happened since late February. But once you know, I am trying to, I mean, even though I'm not able to create, I am, you know,

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downloading everything that I'm experiencing. And hopefully I could, you know, I mean, I know I will utilize those ideas that I'm, you know I'm receiving from the world right now in creating artworks will be a response to

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that. And in general, my body of work— I'm a portrait artist and my mission--artistic mission--the past three

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years since I picked up quite again back in 2016; so I guess the past four years— has always been creating portraits of Houstonians and celebrating our diversity in general. So, so even

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though my– my body of work is not that profound, that– that large in terms of number of pieces. You know, I try to celebrate everyone, especially people like me, people like us, people of color

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people, people who represent the minorities in this country. And those have been my, my focus in terms of the portraits that I've created in the past. And especially, you know, going forward,

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you're going to be continuing that. That's my life's mission, my life's mission as an artist, create portraits of people that I meet in Houston. And just add to even though, my voice is singular,

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I still want to contribute in terms of adding my voice to the conversation that we should have in this city, in this country, this world celebrating our differences celebrating our diversity.

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That's definitely most inspiring, and empowering too. And thank you for that! Yeah, go ahead. Oh, well, also actually, early March, there was this Vietnamese handwashing song that I

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don't know if you've heard of it. So that inspired me actually, to learn Vietnamese. So that since early March, I've been learning Vietnamese everyday. And actually, so I'm using this

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application, a mobile app, you know where you can learn a language and actually reach my hundred-day mark yesterday. And I'm keeping a book actually have a— I have a page for every single day of my Vietnamese studies.

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I don't think I can be fluent in it, but I figured it's good to have. Just have an awareness of the language and because I have, you know, growing up I've had several Vietnamese friends and I figured during COVID.

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It's a high time for me to learn that. Wow that's wonderful. You're picking up new language skills. Hopefully. I can say simple sentences. But yeah, I don't think I'll be fluent.

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I need to what do you call that? Full immersion, to really learn it. Great, and can you share with us how your community of artists are doing as of now?

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You know, I see it in social media, people are going at, you know, are trudging along in terms of creating artworks seeing the passives in what's happening, and I'm happy to see too that

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you know, a lot of artists are responding to what's happening to the world. Earlier on it was about you know, the pandemic. And then the past three weeks, it's been about, you know, racial

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injustice and history behind that and just creating artworks that are responsive to that. And so that's always inspiring.

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I mean, artists are usually the first ones to respond to anything that happens. Yes, I'm always interested in seeing what the world of artists are doing, whenever

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something significant is happening. In terms of practical things, you know, it's-a lot of artists have, you know, experienced substantial what you call financial difficulties, because of the

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pandemic. A lot of my artists that I know of that have art studios, they're not able to open they weren't able to open their studios to the public. So they lost that avenue of revenue, you know,

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face to face selling artwork. Well, actually earlier this last weekend, last Saturday, they opened Sawyer Yards again, so I saw some of my friends through social media that you know, started to open their studios again, so to welcome people but

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overall, you know, artists in general suffered substantially and it's it's tough to to see but you know, they're still creating artwork and they're seeing the positives in what's happening.

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And, and what are you know, what artists do they just keep going. But hopefully, you know, once everything settles down, hopefully there's more. I

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mean, people will flock again into--or will have more what to call that extra revenue or extra money income to set aside for enriching their lives through art, buying art. Through

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this pandemic, we see that creativity has helped us connect more in the humanity need it more to be together. Creativity is something that we need of now, but we

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also— yeah, are suffering tremendously. Have you and your community been able to benefit from any of the relief funds?

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Um, so given that, you know, I have a stable job right now. And, you know, I know for a fact that there's a lot there--more--there's other artists, there are other people in

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general who needed more than I do. So I've, I've, you know, subconscious I've, you know, consciously not applied for any grants or reliefs or any types of assistance, because, you know, those

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need to be provided to other people who needed more than I do. So I'm thankful that you know, I have a job that is keeping me afloat, keeping me going.

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And I recognize that that gift and and I'm happy with that. As an artist, I don't live I don't live beyond my means. So what I have is I'm happy

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with and I don't need more. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Um, how about your professional side of lives. We discuss you're working from home, you have been working from home since then,

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and how has that changed your lives? And can you share some of the interesting stories or some of the creative ways you discovered to, um in your life?

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Okay. So, at first, you know, when, you know, we, we got that, that mandate to start working from home. I was kind of apprehensive about that, with respect to the fact that I

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knew that there might be a potential for life and work to just easily blend and because I like I like the fact that you know, I would be going to the office, and then once I leave, work, you know, I– I shut down everything, physically and mentally not

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working anymore, then I would be transitioning to my personal life. The fact that I would be working from home, at the beginning, I was kind of trepidatious about that and thinking, oh gosh, I

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will just continue working past, you know, the typical hours that I would work if I were just going to the office, you know, 9 to 5, 9 to 6, and then and there have been

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times where, you know, work past what would I work past the hour that I would usually work to. The reason why is because there's just a lot of projects happening. So that's that.

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The work that I do is kind of sound— count, counter-cyclical in terms of things that you know, companies are experiencing tightness in their expenditures, etc.

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and we tend to get extra work in terms of more projects come up that our company--that my department that I'm in are winning.

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So there's a lot more work. So that's why I haven't, that's one of the reasons why I haven't been able to create art are during this past several months because work

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has, has worked has seen an uptick from my perspective. In terms of creativity in work, and just the overall impact of COVID on work, I guess people in generally people are realizing that they can perform their work from

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pretty much anywhere. So the concept of, you know, office space, physical office spaces is probably being, what do you call that, being a question overall, you know,

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abstract wave by society. Because, you know, remote working and I, I work with people from other offices from other cities and, you know, just doing it via, you know, via Skype

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via zoom, via telephone, it's efficient and we're able to get our work done. And yeah, people are, it's definitely something different. If we do lose that

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human connection in a bit in a way, because, you know, going to the office, we see that person we see our co-workers, we get to talk to them, we get to interact with them, we get to perceive

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and pick up on, on nonverbal things much easier than through phone or through Skype through message. And we lose that. But in terms of productivity, we're still able to,

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generally can do work, all of us. But we do lose that human connection. Well, how do you find that the, this increased kind of participation of technology in our

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lives influenced our mentally— mental health? And for example, have you experienced any depression or anxiety during this period due to the isolation? I mean, in addition to what the

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social movements and the unjust we're seeing now. Yeah, so outside of you know, the social movements. Yeah, I have, in terms of not not profound depression, but slight...

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moments where I've just, am very exhausted with life in general. You know, because it's hard even though I'm a very introverted person I do.

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And, you know, I had to personally step back, you know, constantly to recharge. There is that side of me that enjoys interacting with people. And, you know, you know, physically seeing them and, and,

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you know, talking to them and picking up on other nonverbal cues that they may be picking, that they may be conveying, and just, you know, having that human connection, it has been tough, but not so tough to the point that I'm debilitated.

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But you know I'm able to, you know, still connect to my friends via social media, via technology. And you know, once in a while we would socially distance and meet up. You know, go to a nice

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green place socially distance--distancing ourselves and still physically seeing each other. And conversing. But it’s definitely different. And hopefully, we’re secure in our near future.

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So we can go back to where we were, but in the meantime, generally, I'm able to survive and most of us are able to survive, you know, being distant. And I think it's also alright for us, generally,

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to have this moment where we have to, that we're being forced to separate. It's forcing us to— it’s forcing people to perform, you know, mental and spiritual resets that they would not otherwise

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do themselves. So. So I guess that's one slight benefit. But overall. Yeah it's great to hear and you're staying positive.

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I'm just wondering, have you had thoughts regarding earlier on that the Asian American community has been attacked and including the current administration calling this the "China Virus"

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or the "Kung-Flu" back in- back inMarch? Can you share some perspectives on that? Oh, yeah, for sure earlier on especially

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like even in like February, late February, early March, when we were--when more and more cases are being, you know, recognize in the US, in our country right now here.

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Not that I can see into the future, but I kind of had the feeling that people in our community, the Asian American community, will get affected back then, you know, I was thinking about the business, local businesses, in terms of Asian

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restaurants, etc. So I was frequenting a lot of restaurants during that time, and telling my, my circle, to, to be aware to pat-...

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you know, to, you know, patronize those businesses. And also, when things started to get worse in terms of more and more cases are, you know, are spreading in the country.

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And then, you know, we start hearing the rhetoric from the top levels of the government, and from the general populace population in general. It was kind of depressing to hear

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that we were, you know, our Asian community in general is being targeted for being, you know, in being blamed for this pandemic, this virus.

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So actually, that's one of the reasons why, that's one of my early form of resistance to that was learning an Asian language and that's how I picked up Vietnamese. And what--and I got started by that song.

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But yeah, and, you know, I wanted, I learned that I picked up learning and Asian language and other Asian language as a form of rebellion, as a form of support for our community.

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And, yeah, it's... and then you know, as the pandemic worsened, we see we hear news where Asian nurses etc., are being targeted, being inappropriately discriminated for just being who

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they are in the workplace, you know, by their patients, etc. So that was tough to hear and read about in the news. And, and personally, I can't do much about that in terms of just being,

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providing my voice and my, my connections and spreading. That's all I can do right now spread the word. That's all we can do if we were not in positions of power to

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affect any kind of change. But uh... Thank you for sharing us with us your voices. It's very helpful and very empowering indeed. Mmm, how about the social structure

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through this pandemic? How has it revealed the way that the system is? For example, we are seeing the population who are in poverty

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impacted more in this coronavirus pandemic? Can you share your perspectives on that? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, the fact that, you know, we're hearing and

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getting those reports and studies that indicate that the majority of the people are affected by the virus, people who are contracted people who eventually die from it, are people

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in the minorities you know, people of color, people in less affluent areas of the country. Or are you even the less you know, the more

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Yeah, the less economically funded areas of cities. It is kind of it's depressing to hear, because that just goes to show how systemic, how pervasive

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racial inequities has been and continues to be carried out in this country. And it is, it's tough to see.

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And it's sobering. And I guess what's going to I hope as an idealist, I hope that coupled with the conversations that we're having right now, especially the past three

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weeks, things might hopefully will happen to, you know, correct those types of inequities. I just, you know, hope that that more and more from the top levels of the government

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are recognizing and acknowledging that sort of disparity in people who are– who were affected by the virus itself physically.

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And hopefully, I hope that future governments and people, future people in authority can, you know, write those wrongs and, and, you know, reform them or enact reforms that

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will in prevent that sort of disparity from happening again. And, you know, practically speaking, I'm not sure if that will happen because it's just very

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systemic. And he's, you know, this happened in centuries and is hard to, you know, make those types of changes. I mean, it will be a slow progress, but hopefully progress will be made.

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But what's hopeful is, you know, more and more people of the upcoming generations are more vocal, and are more vocal specifically towards pointing out instances of inequities.

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So, you know, future generations will be more, well hope-- will hopefully have more momentum to actually make changes. That's wonderful sharing of positive, upbeat notes towards the end of the interview.

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I guess as my last question, what do you think we can come out of this pandemic stronger as a community? What do you think we can do? In terms of specifically the Asian community?

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Okay. So overall because of the wave that's happening in the world, in terms of social justice every--it seemed like you know, it's,

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you know, of course, centered around Black Lives Matter and it should be because, you know, they've experienced the most egregious forms of racial action—racially insensitive actions

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towards them in history. So it should be about them and but passive, you know, things that are being carried in its coattails

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are, people in general are just being more vocal and being more aware and being more uh, uh being more vocal in terms of you know, voicing out inequities

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in general. And, you know, I've also seen because I'm part of some Asian, local communities and people in general people are responding to the call,

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of, you know, speaking out and standing up. And so I think that's going to carry that's a positive thing that is coming out of the pandemic and the social movement together.

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People in our communication community are finding the courage to be more vocal. And I'm hoping and I believe that that will carry forward, you know, into the

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future. Now, people will be more aware of each other in Asian communities and so, and be being more open to supporting each other, even though you know, we're just one Asian community.

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There's different subsets of us. And those different subsets are recognizing each other and going forward. I'm, I hope, and I believe that there will be more, more support more

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within those subsets of the Asian community in general. You see, I'm from my community, the Philippine, Filipino group. You know, I'm, you know, I'm surrounded by other Filipinos who are, you know, very vocal

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about, you know, and standing out, standing up. And I'm seeing that from other subsets of the Asian community and this and it could only go up from you could only go from there going forward.

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And that's uh that's, I'm seeing that as a very hopeful thing for the future. I'm sorry, I'm such an idealist. But, but uh, I guess that's

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just how my mind is... my mind is wired. That's amazing. That's great to hear. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing your perspectives.

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Do you have anything else to share? Well, not. Thank you for you know, hearing me out or you know, inviting me to, to share my perspective of the past few months and always great to talk

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to you. And, and thank you for, for the HAAA for hearing my voice because you know I'm just one of many voices in our city and thank you for hearing me out.

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Thank you on behalf of Houston Asian American Archive. Thank you! Thank you, Ann.