Saving the Life of an Afflicted Scholar

9/4/2019

Karla Bueso holds daughter, Maria Isabel Bueso, age 24. Photo by my New York Times colleague, Jim Wilson

She is a latter-day version of the Pietà – a stricken child, held by her mother.
Yet the expression on her face seemed too mature for an infant.
This was the riddle of Maria Isabel Bueso, when her pictures first appeared.

The babe in arms is actually 24, ravaged by a rare condition that will kill her if she is taken off treatment. She is also a summa cum laude college graduate who teaches dancing to other afflicted students, and actively participates in research into her condition, to help others.

When the public encountered this cherubic-looking activist, she became the prime example of undocumented people whose lives are being prolonged by American medicine and compassion -- a throwback to when Americans felt they were the good guys, when we cared for The Other.

However, the so-called “Administration,” with its dead eyes and presumably similar souls, had decreed that these foreigners, these free-loaders, all surely rapists and robbers, had to go.

Pull out the plugs, cut all the tubes. Never mind that Maria Isabel Bueso had been invited from Guatemala at the age of 7 to participate in this program in the California Bay Area, and was here, dare we say it, legally.

The heartless ones had not counted on a young survivor, with unique credentials, catching the attention of this divided nation.

Somebody explained to the President, the bloated old man with the permanent look of a spoiled child, with his millions of followers, that condemning this young scholar and medical volunteer to death would be bad publicity that could get in the way of all the other plots he has in mind.

After a few days, the “Administration” decreed that medical patients like Maria Isabel Bueso could stay – at least until the government thinks of something else.
Or, nobody is looking.
* * *
Original story:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/us/immigrant-medical-treatment-deferred-action.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fmiriam-jordan&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=inline&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection

When compassion and common sense intervened:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/us/trump-immigration-deferred-action.html

Another perspective:

https://www.wonkette.com/maybe-donald-trump-can-explain-how-killing-this-woman-will-make-america-great-because-we-sure-cant

Randolph

9/4/2019 10:10:07 pm

George,
Thank you for this kind and compassionate piece on the craziness that is going on in our country.

Immigrants ......

My grandfather was an Italian stonemason who immigrated through Ellis Island in 1910. My grandmother and my uncles and aunt, Abraham, Sixtus and Mary came to Ellis Island some 10 years later. World war I had caused them a few problems.

My family’s home was turned into a German officers compound and my Uncle Sixtus was placed in a work/prison camp.

When my grandmother and the children came to Ellis island they were told that my Uncle Sixtus, age 16 was a cripple and could not be allowed to enter America. My family waited for weeks and were prepared to return to Italy. By accident, they allowed my uncle and my family to enter America.

As a 16-year-old, my Uncle Sixtus was placed in a first grade classroom in southern West Virginia. With six-year-olds he learned English. No one predicted he would go on to receive his medical degree at Loyola university in Chicago, pay for my mothers college education and become involved in the early radiation treatment for cancer patients at John Hopkins University.

Yes those stupid evil immigrants .......we should never let them in.

Peace and love to you my brother.

Thank you for taking the time to care and write about the evil that is being done.
Your hillbilly brother,
Randolph

George Vecsey

9/5/2019 10:20:56 am

Randy, remember the scene in John Sayles' movie, "Matewan," where the locals are worried because the "Eye-talians" are being brought in to work the mines? Now we've got Ken Cuccinelli vying with Stephen Miller for most vile Trumpite (beside Trump, that is.)
Thanks for bestowing that fine title on me. GV

Randolph

9/5/2019 01:43:38 pm

George,

We have some interesting synchronicity going on.
Yes I know that movie: Matewan.

Better yet, my grandfather the “Eye-talian” stonemason was working in Matewan during those years and my mother was born there in 1921. Matewan is in Mingo County and was called “Bloody Mingo” during the coal wars when the United Mine Workers were trying to form.
Randolph

PS Williamson, West Virginia is the county seat of Mingo County. That is where Stan the Man started his professional baseball career.

bruce

9/5/2019 10:42:10 am

george,

i read this story when it came out.

there doesn't appear to be a bottom to this administration's cruelty, ignorance--in every sense of that word--and stupidity.

there is nothing trump will not lie about.

nothing.

my god, they sharpied in alabama for a hurricane target after trump erroneously claimed it was going to be hit.

that's 'dear leader' stuff you'd expect to see in north korea.

trump's soiled the country so much, i don't know how long it'll take for the rest of the planet to trust or believe the usa anymore.

and if he's re-elected it might beyond repair.

the usa is most ostentatiously christian dominated democracy in the world.

and the most unchristian in its behaviour.

the born agains are going to have to do an awful lot of good work from here on in to even be considered entry into their heaven.

bruce

george

9/5/2019 12:25:15 pm

Bruce: quite right. Lot of “Good” Christians went scurrying our to vote for that guy because their pomaded pastors told them he is a man of God who is against abortion. Evangelicals have a Chernobyl life of blemish from this. GV

bruce

9/5/2019 01:09:02 pm

george,

they love their mega churches.

the big guy (not trump) always preached that the more you made the more he loved you.

and exclusion is ok as long as you become potus or support him.

it's in the american version of the 'good book'.

at least that's what they say.

bruce

Ed Martin

9/7/2019 09:30:21 pm

George and all, thank you for being part of a process of compassionate truth telling and for having human decency.
I will never forget trumpery mimicking a reporter with a physical disability, but that was just a beginning.

What is so sad, are the people who join in his distorted values for some sense of personal gain.

This week I read a summary of more than 60 actions to weaken environmental protections. Betsy DeVos wants to cut $7 billion in education funds and at the same time channels public funds to private, profit making schools. Border officials are hardened to cruelty and show the same vices as corrupt prison guards. Generals feel the Commander in Chief is not competent.

I believe this, too, shall pass, but how long will the damage and divisions last. Perhaps our children or grandchildren will live in a better time.

Alan Rubin link

9/6/2019 01:58:35 pm

George, Randolph and Bruce—Thanks for the sane and insightful comments.

Boston lawyer Joseph Welch accurately summed up this current administration in his 1954 comment at the Army-McCarthy hearings-“Until this moment, Senator, I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness” and “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

It seems as if members of Trump’s administration continually compete to outdo each other in developing and implementing the most mean-spirited policies.

Stephen Miller is the master mind behind Trump’s tone-deaf actions, but Ken Cuccinelli is a rapidly rising echo. It seems that everyone in the administration is obsessed with using any means to suck up to Trump.

As reported in the September 5, 2019 edition of the NYT article, "New School at Fort Campbell: The Money Went to Trump’s Border Wall.”

They are taking money away from much needed (and Promised) improvement to education on base.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/us/trump-border-wall-military-families.html

All of the people living near the border who were questioned about their priorities, requested more personnel rather than a wall.

Unless someone is a native-American, we are all descendants of proud immigrants.

My father arrived from Berdichev, a town in the Ukraine about an hour from Kief in 1922 at age 12. He had come from a prominent family who used their savings to escape the pogroms after my grandfather was shot in the back by a Cossack while standing on the front steps of his home.

He also learned English by teaching math. He started with third graders and eventually worked up to his own grade.

After three years studying engineering at Cooper Union, he dropped out to get married and after several years of various jobs, started his own radio repair business in the Bronx. Later, he partnered with his competitor next door to open a business at 98th and Broadway in Manhattan in 1934.

My mother was native born as well as her younger brother, but her parents and older sister were born in Belarus in an area that alternated between Russia and Poland.

Both my grandparents spoke Yiddish and my grandfather never mastered English. Actually, he butchered it in an engaging way.

However, in addition to family, nothing was more important to them than American citizenship. Grandma did not understood the issues, but she never missed voting in an election saying, “I could never do that in Russia”.

Grandpa did not vote, but he was the air raid warden for his block and was very diligent about any light visible at the bottom of a window shade.

Today’s immigrants may not speak with European or Eastern European accents, but they have the same hopes and dreams, and enrich our national fabric.

I joined my dad in his business at age thirty one and retired after forty years. I had hired “illegals” for many years when it was not a stigma to do so. Many were recommended either by customers or a relative who worked for me.

They came from many Spanish speaking countries and had the desire to improve themselves and succeed. Some learned English on the job and many started productive careers after attending CCNY at night. Others moved on to better jobs, but we always remained in touch.

When I was at Lehigh University in the 1950’s, I enjoyed visiting nearby towns that had diverse ethnic populations.

One was Hazelton, which later gained notoriety when its mayor passed laws that put limitations on Hispanic residents. Many moved and one third of its businesses closed. The effect was so devastating that the mayor quickly repealed the laws.

Today, Hazelton is a model of cooperation.

https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/02/news/economy/hazleton-pa-latino-immigrant/index.html

Instead of enlarging a hurricane map, our dummy in chief should enlarge his horizons.

Randolph

9/6/2019 08:42:54 pm

Alan,
Thank you for the beautiful story about your family.

I was fortunate enough to hear the Dalai Lama give a talk a few years back. He was clear that religion was secondary. He said that our obligation was to be compassionate, kind and to take care of all of our fellow humans. We must take care of all humans! Once we think in terms of religion, race, nationality etc. we are in essence discriminating. We must protect all humans.

Alan, I thank you once again for your family story.
Randolph

Alan Rubin link

9/7/2019 12:12:41 pm

Randolph-thanks for your kind words.

You are correct that religion should be secondary. Too may wars and people were killed throughout the ages in the name of religion.

Our founding fathers emphasized the separation of church and state, which seems to be lost on half of our current government.

It is always best to keep things simple and to give back to your community. As I was growing up, I always appreciated learning from my elders. Now that I’m an elder, I’m mentoring high school and college students, small businesses as well as young soccer goalkeepers.

As much as they gain, I’m the one who benefits the most.

Altenir Silva

9/7/2019 05:29:35 pm

Dear George,
Thanks for sharing this piece with us.
Best/Altenir

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Saving the Life of an Afflicted Scholar

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