Karen Hansen

The Cascading Lives Project is about a diverse group of people and how they manage their ups and downs and face times of economic crisis. In the summer of 2020, we began gathering life histories with a wide range of workers in hospitality — an industry that suffered great losses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked them to talk about the entire course of their lives, from childhood to the present, and tell us about the important people, places, and groups that made a difference along the way.