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The Experiment

The Sisterhood

The Experiment

The Atlantic and WNYC Studios

President, Policy, Documentary, Joe, Law, Wnyc, American, Presidency, Supreme, Society & Culture, Congress, The, Racism, Court, State, History, Biden, Government, Race

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2021

⏱️ ? minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At the start of the pandemic, Jollene Levid and her mother, Nora, found themselves glued to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nightly press conferences. In a press conference late last March, Garcetti announced a new milestone: the first health-care worker in Los Angeles County to die of the disease. “When I heard him say that, I realized that he was talking about Auntie Rosary,” Jollene Levid says, speaking about Rosary Castro-Olega, a 63-year-old nurse who came out of retirement to work in hospitals strained by the pandemic. Castro-Olega’s death helped inspire an online memorial called Kanlungan, which honors the lives of health-care workers of Filipino descent. This week on The Experiment, the story of why so many people—many of them women, many of them nurses—have left the Philippines to work in the American health-care system, and why they have been so disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at [email protected]. Listen and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts This episode was reported and produced by Tracie Hunte and Gabrielle Berbey, with editing by Julia Longoria and Katherine Wells. Fact-check by William Brennan and Stephanie Hayes. Sound design by David Herman. Music by Keyboard (“Small Island,” “My Atelier,” “Mu,” and “Ojima”), water feature (“a paradise,” “richard iii (duke of gloucester)”), Laurie Bird (“Detail Wash”), naran ratan (“Forevertime Journeys”), r mccarthy (“Home/Home”), and Parish Council (“New Apt.”) provided by Tasty Morsels. Additional music by APM (“Macho Theme”). Additional audio from C-SPAN, the Associated Press, and ABS-CBN News.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Today we mark a truly grim heart-breaking milestone.

0:14.0

500,071 dead.

0:22.0

I'm Julia Lungoria and this is the experiment.

0:30.0

There are people we knew.

0:33.0

There are people we feel like we knew.

0:36.0

We've been living through a lot of death lately.

0:40.0

The son who called his mom every night just to check in,

0:43.0

the father's daughter who lit up his world.

0:48.0

And while we're in the middle of it,

0:51.0

it's hard to make any sense of any particular death.

0:56.0

Of why this is all happening.

0:59.0

The nurse, the nurse and nurses,

1:02.0

but the nurse, the major patients want to live.

1:08.0

But this week, we're going to try.

1:11.0

We're going to take a look at one death in one community

1:15.0

and try to understand what happened.

1:20.0

And for this one, reporters Tracy Hunt and Gabrielle Burbe

1:24.0

are going to take it from here.

1:26.0

So I'm Tracy and I'm Gabrielle.

1:29.0

And we kind of got into this story because of our family backgrounds.

1:33.0

I'm from Barbados. My mom is a healthcare worker.

1:36.0

My family is from the Philippines.

...

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