This isn’t the Anchorage I know. Let’s stop the fighting and move forward together.

I am an Alaskan, born and raised: I was born at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage and grew up in Chugiak, surrounded by the area’s beauty and many kind, hospitable neighbors. I attended area public schools all my life and became among the latest in a long line of Mustangs to graduate from Chugiak High School in 2019. Though I left Alaska for college, my family — who have lived in this state for the better part of 50 years — and countless others whom I care deeply about remain.

In my two decades as an Alaskan, I experienced my fair share of local calamities. By far the most impactful was the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that shook Anchorage on Nov. 30, 2018. In an instant, Chugiak High became front-page news across the country as we welcomed students and teachers displaced from Gruening Middle School after it was shuttered following the quake. Despite the community’s disagreements on how to organize our schools after the earthquake, we recognized that we were stronger as a community than as dysfunctional factions.

As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the country last spring, I was encouraged to see that same spirit of community support prevail in Anchorage. Alaskans embraced each other — from a respectable distance, with face coverings and hand sanitizer in spades — and together kept cases low in the early months of the pandemic. After the number of COVID diagnoses in Anchorage and the state started to climb in the summer, residents acted together to wear their masks more and limit their contacts to curb spread of the virus. Alaska’s hallmark community spirit continued to be on full display last winter when — despite astronomical numbers of cases — the state rolled out the COVID-19 vaccine with such efficiency that we led the nation in the share of vaccinated residents for several weeks.

However, it pains me to see that we have lost that sense of community in my hometown. While Chugiak and Eagle River held firm to their beliefs about how schools should recover from the earthquake, there is a level of vitriol present in discussions surrounding school mask mandates more disturbing than I have ever seen. Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that backs up masks and vaccines as effective countermeasures to the virus, recent protests have urged the Anchorage School District to ignore that evidence at the risk of the entire community. Anchorage Assemblymember Jamie Allard — who represents the Chugiak/Eagle River area where I grew up — even called the mask mandate “criminal child abuse,” a dangerous allegation that neglects the fact that children under the age of 12 cannot yet get vaccinated.

It’s hard to imagine that the Anchorage I know and love has become so fiercely divided. I can only hope that this behavior is merely a short-term symptom of the pain this pandemic has inflicted on the community and not a permanent sign of discontent, as Julia O’Malley feared in a recent column. Yes, to curb the pandemic, we must continue wearing our masks and continue to get vaccinated, but more than that, we must also remember that our neighbors are people. The enemy is not some person in leadership or some person walking down the street. The enemy is, and always has been, the virus. Let’s remember that and fight together to end its spread.

Spencer Allen was born and raised in the Anchorage area and graduated from Chugiak High School in 2019; he is currently a student at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

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