The pandemic may have affected everyone, but it has not done so equally. It is impossible to measure the magnitude of Covid’s impact without attending to how the experiences of the pandemic varied along a range of social axes. To truly understand the pandemic, it is important to delineate the particular within the universal. In other words, while engagement with Covid was universal, there were particular experiences of the pandemic that correlated with respondents’ racial and ethnic identification. So, while it is important to attend to the shared experiences that unite the nation, mapping out divergent experiences of Covid is critical to understanding the impact of the pandemic. To illuminate and explore these particularities, we examine how race and ethnicity shape differences in perceptions of Covid’s impact.

AVP evidence shows that the pandemic was experienced—and discussed—very differently. Among white respondents, the discussions took the form of a “language of inconvenience,” a language that stressed how everyday routines were undermined. For Black and Hispanic respondents, more profound health and economic disruptions loomed large, and conversations took the form of a “language of disruption.”

The “Monitoring the Crisis” series uses AVP interviews to report on the impact of the pandemic throughout the country. This report is sponsored by the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. To protect respondents’ anonymity, quotations have been altered slightly by changing inconsequential details. To learn more about the American Voices Project and its methodology, please visit inequality.stanford.edu/avp/methodology.