Washington Monthly - September/October 2020 - 17

ten miles square
Now, she'd be legally able to come back to
the U.S., but her parents would rather she
not return to Texas, where COVID-19 cases spiked this summer. So until the ban on
commercial flights is lifted and she's able to
go back to Honduras, she'll continue to stay
with her uncle and take classes online. Rojas is relying on FaceTime to stay connected with others while she remains in almost
complete physical isolation. "Calls from
friends and family make it better," she said.
"But it's depressing." -EV

line. The decision had many difficult consequences for Schmitt, including taking what should have been lab classes via
Zoom. But most painfully, it meant missing time with his friends.
The Merchant Marine Academy has had
one of the most aggressive reopenings of
any college in the country, and Schmitt returned to the Kings Point campus on July
25. The academy tentatively plans to have
all students back on campus in the fall.
It is a bold move, and one that could easily backfire if the virus spreads through
dorms or infects staff and instructors.
But Schmitt is hopeful that the school's
reopening plan, which includes isolating
sick students in the campus clinic, will
work, and that he can continue to bond
with his classmates. He expects to be back
at sea starting in November. -NG

NATHANIEL SCHMITT
AGE: 20
SCHOOL: U.S. Merchant Marine
Academy (Kings Point, NY)
PROGRAM: Bachelor's,
marine engineering
STATUS: Junior

Courtesy of the students

ne of the main reasons Nathaniel
Schmitt enrolled in the Merchant
Marine Academy was for the camaraderie. His father graduated from the academy in 1990, and Schmitt admired the
lifelong friendships his dad developed
while attending. "That's part of the reason why I chose it," Schmitt told me. "For
the bonds that were formed there."
Until this past spring, he was getting exactly what he wanted from the experience.
Schmitt, who studies marine engineering,
made good friends during his freshman
year. From January to March, he went on
his first academic sailing expedition with
many of them, traveling from California
to Hawaii and back. But only two days after he disembarked, the academy notified
students, faculty, and staff that the rest
of the semester would be conducted on-

just with me," she said-in the house, all
the time. That forced her to quickly rearrange her schedule. With her kids at
home, she spent most of each day caring
for them, squeezing her course work and
work for her job as an assistant teacher
into the evenings.
She has mixed feelings about the upheaval. On one hand, Velazquez says, juggling her work with all the child care has
been stressful. On the other, she's glad to
have her daughters at home where she can
keep an eye on them and ensure that neither gets sick. "I didn't have to worry about
getting to campus while I had my children,"
she added.
Velazquez suspects that the fact that
she's a student-parent made her better prepared for this period of uncertainty than
some of her peers. "As nontraditional students we [parents] have the resiliency and
ability to balance" many competing demands, she said. Velazquez graduated this
summer, and is now on the hunt for a job.
She'd like to work in the nonprofit sector, ideally for an organization that provides performing arts education to disadvantaged students. She's not sure, though,
whether her daughters' daycare and school
will reopen anytime soon. "It won't be like
it was before," she said. "We are sort of entering a new normal." -GH

DEANA VELAZQUEZ
AGE: 30
SCHOOL: University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI)
PROGRAM: Bachelor's, community
engagement and education
STATUS: Recent graduate

or Deana Velazquez, the dominoes
fell quickly. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was getting a
bachelor's degree, extended spring break
to sort out its coronavirus response. A
few days into the vacation, on March 18,
the school announced that it would be
shutting down and transitioning to online classes. Two days later, the school
her seven-year-old daughter attends
closed, as did the daycare center her twoyear-old daughter goes to. "Now they're

SELVIN MARQUINA
AGE: 22
SCHOOL: Montgomery College
(Rockville, MD)
PROGRAM: Associate of Applied
Science, computer gaming and
simulation, and digital animation
STATUS: Second year
Washington Monthly 17

Washington Monthly - September/October 2020

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