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Famo Musa remembers the beginning of the pandemic as chaos. It wasn’t just adapting to the online versions of her UC San Diego classes, where she had recently transferred from community college, or figuring out how to support her two children, ages 10 and 7, in their virtual classrooms. It wasn’t just juggling one job with school and then eventually two as she took on extra work to support family members who became unemployed because of the lockdown. And it wasn’t just fighting for a decent internet connection for work meetings and for class while her children, her aunt’s three children and her sister’s nine children used the Wi-Fi for school. ....
Refugee mothers who share an intergenerational commitment to education find support within their homes and communities Musa talks to her father before her classes. In 2004 when the family immigrated to the U.S., her father was one of the only members of the family to speak English. (Aryana Noroozi / For The San Diego Union-Tribune) The Somali community leaned on Musa, 31, as older members struggled through language barriers to access accurate information, communicate with the unemployment office and apply for rental relief grants and other aid. “I still can’t believe we survived it,” Musa said, recalling the first months of the pandemic. “It was really hard.” ....