Teens on a Year That Changed Everything
In words, images and video, teens across the United States show us how they have met life's challenges in the midst of a pandemic.
March 7, 2021
What has it been like to be a teenager during the first year of a historic pandemic?
The New York Times, through its Learning Network, asked the question, and more than 5,500 responses poured in.
In words and images, audio and video, they reported that it was, in many ways, a generation-defining disaster. Being trapped inside — and missing the milestones that ordinarily mark coming of age in America — was lonely, disorienting, depressing and even suffocating.
But many also surprised themselves. They bonded with siblings, discovered nature, found small comforts in Zoom-school, played games, worked out, cooked, wrote, sang, danced, painted and made videos. And, perhaps most important at a time of life focused on figuring out who you are, they reinvented themselves.
But although so many coped admirably, this generation will be forever changed. As one 16-year-old put it, “Making history is way overrated.”
This week, a year after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, we share their stories. In this special project, we chose a handful of entries to show what teenagers have lost — and what they have found. Below each image, you can find edited and condensed excerpts from their artists’ statements that can tell you more about the work.
No matter how old you are, as you read you might ask yourself a question, too: How has this year challenged and changed your generation?
— Katherine Schulten, editor, The Learning Network
1. A Generation Trapped in Its Bedroom
“For some, it was a time of reflection. For many, it was a dark period of isolation. For a generation, it was a defining collective experience.” — Parrish André, 18
WHIPPANY, N.J.
Sunnina Chen, 16
If you’re reading this, take five deep breaths.
Wasn’t that nice?
“Just breathe” became a mantra I told myself to get through the simple things. Taking the time to reflect, I realized why the Saran Wrap was suffocating me — I was the one who pulled it tight. Yes, it was placed there by my responsibilities and the uncertainty of our world, but I had the ability to let go. I let go of everything that wasn’t serving me, and took a deep breath.
CHICAGO
Stevia Ndoe, 18
Ever since I was a child, I looked forward to my 18th birthday. I thought I would suddenly gain years of knowledge and have the power to change the world. Little did I know how difficult the year of my retirement from childhood would be.
When murmurs of quarantining were becoming a reality, my family and I were stuck. My mom, an essential worker and single parent, worked all day while my younger siblings and I attended school. On top of trying to graduate from high school, I had to be a mother for a preschooler and a grade-schooler. My 18th birthday came and went, and I was still the same Stevia.
I look at the last few months and realize this is what growing up in a global crisis looks like for low-income families. Being in quarantine made me realize how much I have been robbed of my childhood and that I’ve been an “adult” for the majority of my life. My photo represents waking up daily with the stress of not knowing what life is going to throw at you, but going through the motions anyway. I took this photo one morning as my siblings were still sleeping four feet away from me. The light was coming through the window so beautifully, and it was one of the few moments of silence I had experienced since March.
BALTIMORE
Parrish André, 18
I drew this series in mid-April while sitting silently on many Zoom calls. In quarantine, my interactions with other people were all fit neatly into little rectangles on my screen.
Being young is about stretching and growing. We pull away from our parents, our homes, our schools, but as Covid-19 struck our communities we were reined in to all the situations that youth is about diverging from. For some, it was a time of reflection. For many, it was a dark period of isolation. For a generation, it was a defining collective experience.
FRISCO, TEXAS
Camila Salinas, 16
I wake up, go to school and sit at my desk. I do some work, the bell rings, I go to the next class. I do some work, the bell rings, I go to the next class. I get home, sit down, do my homework and catch up on a show. I go to sleep and I repeat.
Although my algebra class can range from having five to 30 students in a class, it feels as though there is only you. And for students learning from home, the situation is worse. They are literally by themselves.
SAN DIEGO
Paloma Ezzet, 16
For Paloma Ezzet in San Diego, “Common high school things, such as spending time with your friends and going to football games and dances, are near impossible to do.” Paloma Ezzet
Common high school things, such as spending time with your friends and going to football games and dances, are near impossible to do this year. Being in high school in 2020 is an experience like no other. It is gloomy, lonely and frustrating.
DALLAS
Ryan Daniel, 18
This piece, a picture I sketched of my little sister inside a box I created, depicts the entrapment and isolation felt by so many people during quarantine. This is the new normal for my generation. But we have grown together and are now capable of deeply connecting through shared experience.
MEMPHIS
Jayda Murray, 17
From a young age, I looked at the world from the lens of a dreamer. Flame-colored sunlight would dance through windows, and water would trickle below trees. I created scenes in my head until I found that a pen and paintbrush could do the same. I wanted to have those pictures and worlds to have substance in reality. That same inspiration drives my creative process as a teenager.
Before Covid-19 hit our American shores, I felt an increasing sense of dread. Two weeks later, my county issued a lockdown, and all my friends either found themselves at home or were recklessly disobeying the order. I had so many feelings. Fear, anxiety, sadness, loneliness. It was like they just took turns and looped from one to the next.
ELIZABETH, N.J.
Aishah Musa, 16
These are messages of a conversation I had with my sister on March 24, 2020. It was the first time I went with my parents to our grocery store, and I forgot to wear the mask before wearing the hijab, so I texted my sister to ask her how and she explained it. Remembering to wear the mask first is something that I still struggle with to this day.
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
Suhaylah Sirajul-Islam, 15
okay
What’s it like, being a teenager in quarantine?
it’s the same i guess.
except time passes more slowly.
and you’re not allowed to go outside.
it’s feeling exhausted from all the schoolwork.
and touch-starved because your friends aren’t there.
suddenly, the two-bedroom apartment you share with five family
members,
finally begins to feel cramped.
it’s feeling terrified, because you share a room
with your covid-positive aunt, who refuses to see a doctor.
and you can hear your dad, coughing through the walls.
and your mom at 2 a.m., reciting qur’an and
rushing to make tea for the both of them.
she gets sick too.
and suddenly you’re failing classes because you can’t keep up with
helping your siblings, and classwork, and housework, and the sick adults at home.
things start to look up though.
the weather gets warmer.
and your family gets better.
being a teenager in quarantine
is radical acceptance.
things happened and things are happening
you’ll be okay.
Note: This is an excerpt from a longer poem. Read the full one here.
2. A Summer of Awakening
“The Black Lives Matter movement has encouraged me and an entire generation of young people to speak up.” — Christian Lee, 17
CHULA VISTA, CALIF.
Edelina Bagaporo, 17
This photo encompasses my own identity as an L.G.B.T.Q.+ Filipina-American woman. It highlights my role as an ally to the movements of social justice. No longer do I talk about boys or paint my nails, but start to recognize the part I can play in fighting for justice and how to tackle my implicit biases.
Although this was not the summer I was expecting, it truly has brought on tremendous personal growth, which I would not trade for anything.
LA HABRA, CALIF.
Christian Lee, 17
The Black Lives Matter movement has encouraged me and an entire generation of young people to speak up.
I photographed one of my best friends wearing the American flag because I thought it would be a simple but profound act of protest against racially motivated violence.
CARLSBAD, CALIF.
Madeline Mack, 16
When the news surfaced of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I was distraught and in need of support. My moms are always here for me, but there is something special and necessary about connecting with your peers. I needed a way forward and assumed others felt similarly, so I decided to create Mad’s Book Club. The club has gone beyond what I imagined. When uncertainty strikes, we need connection and community more than ever. Being a teenager is about finding the connection that powers you onward.
TENAFLY, N.J.
Rebecca Wong, 17
2020 didn’t ignite the waves of Asian racism. It was already there.
I’ve seen the Asian community strive to be “more American.” I saw my family disassociate themselves from the community. I purposefully never learned Cantonese in hopes of making myself “more American.” I thought was in my best interest. I erased my own culture willingly in hopes of fitting in — it’s always purposeful whitewashing, the strive to Americanize in hopes to be accepted.
But you’ll still see the person I tried to erase. I cannot wash my culture away; it will always stay. The racism will always stay. At least paint is washable.
HERMOSA BEACH, CALIF.
Maddox Chen, 15
This photograph was taken on Sunday, Nov. 8, on my iPhone propped up on my cramped white desk against the wall of my room/sanctuary in my house. Using my preferred medium of Lego bricks, I created a physical mock-up of my typical spot for the past eight months: glued to a screen, whether that is my phone, laptop or the TV.
Politics has dominated everything this year, from racial, social and economic inequities to the simple act of wearing a mask. One cannot refer to this time without mentioning the diametrical struggle between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
Joyce Weng, 14
Teenagers took this year to think about what’s happening in the world. We have to stand up for ourselves and make a change, and we all came together to create the Black Lives Matter movement.
Some teenagers who didn’t go out there and protest helped from home. We signed petitions, gave donations and educated ourselves on topics we should have known about a long time ago.
EUREKA, CALIF.
Matthew Coyle, 15
I took this picture with my phone in my home in Humboldt County while wildfires raged nearby early in September. The air was toxic so you had to wear a mask when you went outside.
3. Creative Progress
“I was forced to be alone with myself, which led me to create art and poetry with deeper meaning than I had ever been able to create before.” — Hannah Blue, 17
SAN ANTONIO
Evelyn Cox, 17
I’ve welcomed the alone time.
The number of things that I have learned or relearned about myself has made this a time of discovery. A time where I get to put my needs first. Where I can feel comfortable in my own skin for the entirety of a day, every day, a week, for months on end.
The state of being home and surrounded by the people and things I love most hasn’t stopped the stress of school and college applications, or the feeling of helplessness when it comes to politics, or the full gravity of this deadly virus that flung us into this position. Being home has allowed me the time to recover and pick myself back up without the pressure of fitting in with my peers. It allowed me the space I need to grow.
WEST WINDSOR, N.J.
Marybel Elfar, 16
Who knows what my family dynamic will be in the next few years, but I know that I’ll miss what I have right now.
My sister is a senior, and I have no idea how I will survive when she goes to college next year. During quarantine, we would drive around our neighborhood blasting Kesha and screaming the lyrics horribly off key. My dad is taking a new position in his job, and my mom is returning to teaching. Neither of these things were able to happen before we were put on lockdown.
This picture was taken on a rainy day, when I felt inspired to take serious portraits of my family members, to match the mood outside and in the world. Despite my best efforts, nobody took me seriously, and I ended up with a series featuring my mom and dad goofing around and tickling each other.
FAIRFAX, VA.
Kenneth DeCrosta, 18
The Virginia High School League delayed all sports until they are safe. But in preparation for the start of a potential season, basketball players have been permitted to engage in physical training.
All workouts must take place outside. There is a strict set of guidelines that must be followed including online sign-ins, mandatory temperature checks, being masked at all times, sanitizing each player’s personal ball and maintaining at least six feet of distance.
Despite the restrictions, the majority of athletes from the Robinson Basketball team have participated. They have shown up faithfully for a season that may still be canceled.
JUNEAU, ALASKA
Thomas Kaufman, 17; Lance Algabre, 18; Andrew Garcia, 17
This song is inspired by the brutal couple of months that followed the first spike of Covid-19 in the United States. We felt ourselves become anxious, and depressed, and we wrote this song to try and spread some positivity to teenagers all over the world. We recorded different parts at our houses. We videoed some of the instruments live and some not. All of the videoed vocals are lip-synced in order to increase the workflow, creativity and fun. Aside from recording stuff, I created a fake Zoom, called Boom, to be the canvas, if you will, of the video.
LAYTON, UTAH
Haven Hutchison, 17
Teenagers wanted to have the best summer ever, and it was canceled in March.
A few days before this picture was taken, my friend texted me wanting to hang out but also be six feet apart.
My friends and I all decided on a day to drive to a parking lot. We just sat in a circle and talked for about four hours. It was one of the best nights of my quarantine.
All summer, my Instagram feed was filled with people throwing their own proms and finding fun ways to make this summer the best despite the pandemic. Finding a way to be happy in hard times is essential to making it through.
NEW YORK
Arianna Hellman, 16
How can anyone make a statement on beauty standards that has not been said a thousand times before? We all know that it should not matter what everyone else thinks. We all know that we should love ourselves. We also know that no matter how true these statements are, we don’t listen to them. This is especially true for teenagers who spend every night scrolling through our social media feeds until we fall asleep.
When New York gave the orders to stay at home, I was in the midst of multiple eating disorders that had started the previous year. The idea of quarantine terrified me. I would have to try even harder to hide my worsening health from my family. I didn’t want to get better.
As the days in quarantine blurred into weeks, all I was left with were my thoughts. I finally realized: “This is not what I want. I do not want this to become me.” I began to confront my feelings, put effort into counseling and find ways to express myself. The artwork that I created helped me to fully recover.
Each collage highlights a particular part of my body that made me feel insecure. I previously looked at myself as though in a clown mirror. My artwork transformed my self-doubt into beauty.
DALLAS
Hannah Blue, 17
I was angry at the world and I wanted to channel my feelings into something meaningful. I chose to design my own mini deck of tarot cards. The Hermit is the only one that is actually a real tarot card; I made the other three up. I am slightly grateful to the pandemic. I was forced to be alone with myself, with my thoughts and feelings, which led me to create art and poetry with deeper meaning than I had ever been able to create before.
REDMOND, WASH.
Chloe Kim, 14
When we first went into lockdown, it felt like an extension of spring break. We laughed about the toilet paper shortage of 2020. We believed Covid-19 would disappear soon.
I remember the first couple of weeks thinking this was my chance to become stronger during quarantine and get a glow-up. I did YouTube workouts and workouts our coaches posted; I did much self-care and focused on myself. But as time went on, online school started and the climbing season got canceled. I lost motivation and started falling into an unhealthy hole. My sleep schedule was nonexistent, and I rarely got off my bed, even for classes. I completely lost any desire to continue working out or do any self-care. I also stopped contacting my friends, which left me feeling so alone and weak. I felt like I was in this by myself, and no one could help me.
This signifies me finding my rhythm and becoming happier and finding a way to climb out of the hole and overcome my downward spiral.
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