Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images.
No matter where you are during this coronavirus pandemic, expert advice is pretty much the same: stay at home, practice social distancing, and help prevent the spread. In recent weeks, many people have had to adjust to living and working remotely. It’s a necessary precaution to keep yourself and your community safe—but it’s not always easy to do.
John Paul Brammer —author of the advice column “Hola Papi“— can relate.
“You’re trying to work, you’re trying to be productive, and your brain is sort of telling you, I don’t have that in me right now. It’s not working. And that’s where I was for a while,” Brammer says.
He’s not alone. As the writer behind “Hola Papi,” Brammer has been getting a lot of questions about how to make it through this time in self-isolation.
His column has garnered a cult following since it began in 2017. In that time, Brammer has touched on a range of topics, including race, politics, sexuality, and dating. More recently, however, his readers’ questions are also about life in the time of quarantine, from creating your own space to combating misinformation to navigating romantic relationships.
“One thing that’s been going through my mind is that a lot of people are going through the same thing at once,” he says. “That’s not a common experience at all.”
In this episode, Maria Hinojosa sits down with Brammer to talk about giving advice in the midst of a historic pandemic, and later he answers questions from you, our listeners, about these strange, uncertain times.
This Latino USA podcast was produced by Alejandra Salazar.
***
NPR’s Latino USA with Maria Hinojosa, produced by Futuro Media, is the longest-running Latino-focused program on U.S. public media.
