The private memorial service for George Floyd had ended and Martin Rogers stepped out into the hazy afternoon light. He walked across the street and sat down on an empty park bench, and from that vantage point, he looked back and ahead, to the struggle then and now for racial justice in America.

He recalled a recent trip to Selma, Alabama, with his wife, who grew up there. They visited the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where in 1965 state troopers and sheriff’s deputies armed with tear gas and billy clubs attacked peaceful demonstrators marching in support of voting rights for African Americans. “Bloody Sunday,” as the confrontation became known, marked a seminal moment in the civil rights movement and prodded Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that year.

“Walking onto that bridge – that was powerful,” says Mr. Rogers, a former grade-school teacher. “You could feel the history of what those marchers achieved.”

A Connecticut native who moved to Minneapolis in the early 1980s, he attended the memorial here for Mr. Floyd last week on behalf of the Christian church where he serves as an elder. He heard the Rev. Al Sharpton deliver a stirring eulogy for Mr. Floyd, the Black security guard who died on Memorial Day under the knee of a white police officer as other officers held him down.

“What happened to Floyd happens every day in this country – in education, in health services, and in every area of American life,” Mr. Sharpton told mourners, his voice rising. “It’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say, ‘Get your knee off our necks!’”

The viral video of Mr. Floyd’s death ignited outrage and massive protests in Minneapolis that spread across the country, creating a groundswell that could represent the start of the nation’s largest grassroots movement since civil rights and the Vietnam War. The prospect inspires cautious hope among residents that their city might emerge from an uprising born of tragedy as the Selma of the North.

“What we’re seeing is a step forward,” Mr. Rogers says. “Change takes time, and I’m not sure everybody is ready to change. Black people – we’re ready. What we need is for everyone to stay involved and stay passionate.”

A different kind of movement

Civil rights luminaries, religious leaders, and politicians joined Mr. Floyd’s family for the memorial to commemorate his life and call for racial equality. Outside the sanctuary, a sound system carried the words of Mr. Sharpton and other speakers to hundreds of people gathered on the streets and in a nearby park. The demonstrators bore messages of solidarity – “Rest in Power George,” “Black Lives Matter,” “I Can’t Breathe” – on T-shirts, face masks, and cardboard signs.

Bebeto Matthews/AP

George Floyd's brother Philonise Floyd (right) and cousin Shareeduh Tate share memories of George during his funeral at North Central University, June 4, 2020, in Minneapolis.

The deep tensions between people of color and the city’s predominantly white police force exploded after a bystander’s video surfaced of Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. Shonda Henderson, who has raised her six children in Minneapolis, warns her two teenage sons to avoid cops whenever possible, a concern rooted in the department’s reputation for abusive behavior.

“I want to see the police violence against us stop and law enforcement start working for us,” says Ms. Henderson, a housekeeper at a downtown hotel. The demographics of the protesters – as much as the number and size of recent rallies – give her reason to think the emotion of the moment could evolve into a sustained movement.

“What’s different this time is I’m seeing everybody out here – Caucasians, Asians, Latinos. It’s not just African Americans,” she says. “We’re all sticking up for each other and realizing that these issues of equality affect every one of us.”

Millennials and Generation Z have supplied much of the energy and momentum behind the demand for racial justice in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Mariana Noyola, who will enter ninth grade this fall, convinced her parents to attend the gathering outside the memorial service.

“It’s scary to be African American in America. We’re looked at differently, we’re seen as dangerous, we feel more threatened,” she says. “Other people feel like our Blackness is some kind of weapon.”

The teenager sounded weary beyond her years as she recited the names of Black men killed by police in Minneapolis and other cities the past few years: Jamar Clark, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Michael Brown.

“We don’t want this to keep happening,” she says. “So we’re making sure that we’re heard and we’re seen so that our future doesn’t look like the past.”

The looting and destruction of hundreds of businesses hindered the first days of protests. Along Lake Street in South Minneapolis, one of the most racially diverse and hardest-hit stretches in the city, many of the small-business owners are people of color and include immigrants from Somalia, Laos, and an array of other countries.

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Members of the community volunteer to clean up the debris left after a building burned and collapsed during demonstrations in reaction to the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, May 30, 2020.

Marvin Applewhite launched a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $53,000 to provide cleanup services for businesses in the area. He considers his multicultural, multiethnic team of volunteers reflective of the communal will to remedy racial friction.

“George Floyd’s death has brought people together who I’ve never seen coming together here,” he says. “And now they’re coming together across the country.”

Near the end of his eulogy for Mr. Floyd last week, Mr. Sharpton declaimed, “You changed the world, George. We going to keep marching, George. We going to keep fighting, George.”

Shae Noyola, Mariana’s mother, added a coda intended for the city and country alike. “Don’t want change,” she says. “Make change.”

Grief and catharsis

A shrine has bloomed at the intersection where George Floyd gasped his final breaths outside a corner grocery store. A mural of him adorns one of the shop’s exterior walls, his head encircled by a halo of names of people killed by police. Beneath the painting lies a welter of flower bouquets, handmade placards, photos, and other offerings of anguish, anger, and unity.

Around the corner, marking the spot of his death, a chalk drawing on the pavement shows a human figure with angel’s wings.

Visitors by the hundreds eddied through the site on the day of Mr. Floyd’s memorial as the mood drifted between block party and open-air wake. Smoke from barbecue grills swirled in the air while volunteers served free food and distributed donated goods. A series of speakers and musicians took to a stage erected in the middle of the street. Almost every one of them yelled out to the crowd, “What’s his name?” Each time the reply arrived like cracks of thunder: “George! Floyd!”

Carlos Barria/Reuters

A resident stands in front of a makeshift memorial honoring George Floyd, at the spot where he was taken into custody, in Minneapolis, June 1, 2020.

Here, at the junction of grief and catharsis, Lorraine Gurley felt at once downcast and uplifted. Thirty years ago, responding to a report of a neighborhood party turned unruly, a white Minneapolis cop fatally shot her unarmed brother in the back.

The case provoked racial animus and local protests. But unlike the four officers involved in Mr. Floyd’s death, the patrolman who killed Tycel Nelson neither faced criminal charges nor lost his job, ascending to the rank of lieutenant over the ensuing two decades.

Ms. Gurley, a pastor at a church on the city’s north side, wonders whether Mr. Floyd would be alive if the city had imposed reforms on the department after her brother’s shooting. She wants the next three decades of policing in Minneapolis and across the country to bear little semblance to the past three.

“There has been so much frustration, so much sorrow, so much loss and death in the Black community. We have to change the system,” she says. A message written in chalk on the pavement behind her read, “Together We Will Change The World.”

“All the things we wish could’ve happened when my baby brother died – that’s what we hope will happen now.”

“Good intentions aren’t enough”

The pressure exerted by the protests has begun to alter city policy. A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council vowed this week to replace the police department with a new public safety system, and the police chief announced the department’s withdrawal from contract negotiations with the officers union.

At the same time, the demands for reform in Minneapolis and other cities extend beyond revamping law enforcement. The surging movement encompasses a broader desire to redress racial inequality in employment and education, in housing and health care, in the culture of everyday American life.

A reputation for liberal politics and policies contrasts with wide economic disparities in Minneapolis between people of color and white residents, who make up about 60% of the population. The enduring inequities – magnified by the coronavirus pandemic – raise questions among some Black activists about the city’s potential to equal Selma’s legacy.

Shanene Herbert runs the healing justice program for the Minneapolis office of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that promotes social equality. Reacting to large corporations in Minnesota offering statements of support and pledges of funding for the cause of social justice, she says, “Why now? Do you need your name attached to it? Will you leave when the cameras go?”

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

People raise their fists after a memorial service for George Floyd following his death in Minneapolis police custody, in Minneapolis, June 4, 2020.

Yet if experience informs her skepticism, the huge wave of young adults powering the protests here and nationwide gives her a sense of optimism. “Our younger generation doesn’t have the patience of the older generations,” Ms. Herbert says. “They’ve seen enough. They’ve been traumatized and they’re not willing to wait for change.”

The urgency cuts across racial lines. Ella Masters grew up attending Trinity Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis, where last week organizers set up a distribution site for donated goods in the parking lot. The area’s two grocery stores and largest department store were among several businesses damaged or destroyed by rioters.

Ms. Masters and her partner, Cameron Kinghorn, drove to the church from their home a few miles away to donate laundry detergent, diapers, and other essential items requested by organizers. Without ignoring the toll on businesses, they credit the scale and duration of the protests for forcing the city to reexamine its relationship with race.

“A human life is more important than property,” says Ms. Masters, who is white. “We need people to get out of their comfort zone and start acting to save lives. Good intentions aren’t enough.”

Mr. Kinghorn, who is biracial, related that the recent upheaval has nudged some of his friends and acquaintances to reevaluate their passive advocacy for equality. “They’re looking for ways they can actively help,” he says. He hopes more of his cohort will step forward to push Minneapolis in the direction of Selma as a historical symbol of racial justice.

“I don’t know if we can ever reach that level,” he says. “But I think there’s a chance, and I would not have said that a couple of weeks ago.”

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong march during a protest to mark the first anniversary of a mass rally against the now-withdrawn extradition bill, June 9, 2020.

A new jolt to world politics – the wave of protests since the killing of George Floyd – has added to the already seismic effects of COVID-19. And one important consequence, thousands of miles away, is an increasing likelihood China will soon crack down on political freedoms in Hong Kong.

There’s no direct tie between either upheaval and China’s threat to impose tough new security legislation in Hong Kong. That was made last month, and it prompted a strong public response from Western governments.

But the timing of the initial announcement was affected by the altered politics of the coronavirus, which began its spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan. It was part of an increasingly self-confident political fightback by China’s leadership, which had largely contained the virus while major Western countries were still struggling to deal with large numbers of cases.   

Now, China’s response to the Floyd killing has suggested it will feel even more confident about going ahead with the crackdown and shrugging off overseas objections, especially from the United States.

A major outlier

In much of the world, the response to the protests in American cities has been to sympathize with their declared aim of rooting out racism. Solidarity marches have been held in dozens of overseas cities: Thousands of protesters took to the streets of London last Sunday, for instance, despite Britain’s continuing struggle with COVID-19.

China’s response to Mr. Floyd’s death, however, was a major outlier, and not just because there were no public demonstrations of solidarity there. That was unsurprising given the tight controls on independent expression under leader Xi Jinping. More striking, and directly relevant to Hong Kong, were China’s pointedly critical comments about the Floyd killing, and about the Trump administration’s support for strong police and military action to contain unrest.

China’s clear message to Washington was this: You are in no position to accuse us of human rights violations, given the killing of Mr. Floyd in police custody and the administration’s tough reply to the protests.

This link was made explicit in China’s response to a U.S. State Department spokeswoman’s tweet a few days after the Floyd killing. She urged “freedom-loving people” everywhere to stand up for the rule of law and oppose Beijing’s plan for Hong Kong. She accused China of breaking its promises – a reference to the 1997 agreement in which Britain handed back Hong Kong to China, guaranteeing its autonomy and distinct legal protections at least until 2047.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman tweeted a brief phrase in reply to the statement, “I can’t breathe,” the three words caught on video in the final minutes of Mr. Floyd’s life.

China’s official Xinhua news agency was similarly biting in commenting on incidents of violence in some of the early protests in Washington, D.C. Recalling a remark last year by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong were “a beautiful sight,” Xinhua described the Washington unrest as “Pelosi’s beautiful landscape.”

The editor of Global Times, the tabloid published by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, taunted President Donald Trump personally while also drawing a parallel with Hong Kong. Rather than “hide behind the Secret Service,” the editor, Hu Xijin, urged the president to “negotiate” with the demonstrators, “just like you urged Beijing to talk to Hong Kong rioters.”

A dramatic intervention

Even at present, Hong Kong’s freedoms are constrained. During the enormous street protests that began there a year ago this week over a proposed new law that would have allowed extraditions to the mainland, one increasingly urgent demand was for directly elected local government.

Yet Hong Kong does have an independent judiciary. Hong Kongers have far greater economic freedom and civil liberties than do Chinese on the mainland, including freedom of expression. Even last week, thousands ignored a police ban to mark the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – a commemoration unthinkable in mainland China.

For months, until COVID-19 precautions largely ended public protests in Hong Kong, China was getting increasingly impatient with the local authorities’ inability to halt them. Yet with China also in negotiations with the U.S. to wind down their tariff war, there was no sign that Beijing was ready to intervene directly.

The new security law would represent a dramatic intervention. It would supersede Hong Kong’s post-1997 legal dispensation and criminalize a wide range of political expression, in effect bringing the city into line with the rest of China.

And any chance that Beijing might have reconsidered as a result of international pushback against the prospect of a Hong Kong security crackdown now seems to have vanished, given its bullishly defiant political response to the George Floyd protests.

Internal security has become an overriding priority under Mr. Xi. And while Hong Kong in 1997 was a major contributor to China’s gross domestic product, China's economy has since grown to become the world’s second-largest, with Hong Kong’s contribution far more negligible. Even the fact the initial U.S. response has involved not just words but action – a move to end the special economic and trade disposition extended to Hong Kong due to its special status inside China – seems unlikely to matter. 

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Jim Burke, a transportation and LGBTQ activist in New York City, has spent his recovery delivering groceries and meals with a local mutual aid group. He volunteers with Covid Care Neighbor Network in the borough of Queens, May 4, 2020.

On a drizzly May day in New York City, Jim Burke lugs a cart of groceries through his Jackson Heights neighborhood. He isn’t headed home. The goods are for neighbors.

He pauses on the sidewalk in his mask and gloves. “It’s almost kind of selfish,” he says, to get joy out of giving. 

Earlier this spring, Mr. Burke spent 10 days struggling alone in his apartment with COVID-19. He’d muster all his might to get up and shave, then collapse back into bed for the rest of the day, feeling worse than ever before in his life. 

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Since mid-April, he’s found the strength to drop off bags of donated groceries for Covid Care Neighbor Network, a mutual aid group based in Queens. Used to busy days volunteering as a transportation and LGBTQ activist, he’d been itching to rejoin community service once he recovered.  

“It made me feel good for the first time in a long time,” he says.

Globally, more than 3 million people have recovered from known cases of COVID-19, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University. In New York, more than 68,000 have recovered – more than double the lives lost. Home to the previous epicenter of the virus, the state reported its lowest daily count of hospitalizations and deaths last Friday, down to 35 deaths from a high of 800 reached one day in April. The Big Apple began Phase 1 of reopening on Monday. 

Yet as medical uncertainty about the virus persists, survivors are defining recovery on their own terms. Pain, frustration, and fear of the unknown are common, but so is transformation. Several New Yorkers have begun to pour their renewed energies into giving, recognizing that their city’s road to recovery persists. As healing continues, they say serving others also fortifies themselves.

“When you help, you feel much better,” says Nima Sherpa, a recovered nurse. “I felt like we got a new life, and we should try our best to participate.”

Ms. Sherpa found herself in two places at once. Her mind often traipsed home to Nepal as she healed from symptoms of COVID-19. Eyes closed on her bed in Queens, she also stood on a Himalayan peak, lungs filled with azure air. 

Courtesy of Nima Sherpa

Nima Sherpa and her family enjoy a trip to Boulder County, Colorado, in January 2020. After recovering from COVID-19 symptoms earlier this spring, Ms. Sherpa, a registered nurse, has served as a helpline for her New York City Nepalese community as they navigate concerns about the virus.

Unable to get tested as her health declined in early March, the nurse scrambled to find one for her husband, who fared much worse. It took three tries before he was diagnosed – a frustration shared by many New Yorkers who faced a testing shortage early on. Her sons, ages 10 and 16, also became sick. 

“I would cry and then I would wipe my tears” in the bathroom, she says, before returning to her family’s side with medicine and soup. 

Though not usually religious, she turned to Buddhist mantras she learned as a child. She coaxed her bedridden husband to recite them, too. “I felt like it was helping us to breathe,” she says.  

Ms. Sherpa took particular comfort in a mantra that evokes Green Tara, goddess of compassionate action. She recalled the image of the goddess’ unique posture – one foot slightly forward, as if poised to rise. 

“My grandmother used to say she’s like that because she’s ready for anyone who needs help,” says Ms. Sherpa.

Fittingly, the Mount Sinai nurse has become a helpline for her own Nepalese community in Queens. As she awaits a return to work, she has waded through a daily flood of texts, Facebook messages, and phone calls from people worried about exposure to the virus, often in her native Nepali and Sherpa languages. She tries her best to soothe the fear and anxiety on the other end of the line. 

“That’s the most important part,” she says. 

Though her outreach tapered off mid-May as her family escaped to Colorado, Ms. Sherpa says she remains in touch with several strangers in New York who have received her support. Some call back with news of their own recovery. 

Others have found renewed purpose in returning to work. Jasoda Latchman, a recovered NYC Health + Hospitals nurse from Ozone Park, Queens, tested positive for COVID-19 in March. Now she’s back at her hospital in the Bronx, reaching patients via telehealth to respect social distancing.

“I love what I do, so I love to be back,” says Ms. Latchman on a lunch break call. “I would not [let] the COVID virus push me away.” 

Mounting evidence suggests humans may be hard-wired for generosity. Giving to others benefits health, mood, and even overcoming adversity, research shows.  

“There is a strong relationship between resilience and altruism,” says Steven Southwick, professor emeritus of psychiatry, post-traumatic stress disorder, and resilience at Yale University School of Medicine. “It’s very well known that giving support increases one’s social and emotional well-being, and decreases our stress responses.”

Courtesy of Diana Berrent and the Survivor Corps

Diana Berrent becomes the first participant at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center’s convalescent plasma program in New York City, March 2020. Ms. Berrent, a COVID-19 survivor, is the founder of Survivor Corps.

In the wake of World War II aerial bombardments, people who felt satisfied caring for the immediate needs of others developed fewer trauma-related symptoms than expected. This research introduced the phenomenon called “required helpfulness,” he notes in his book, “Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges.”

Research by behavioral scientist Carolyn Schwartz has found that helping others may benefit mental health even more than receiving help. For both medical patients and nonpatients alike, helping others can lead people to find meaning in their own life challenges, says Dr. Schwartz, president and chief scientist at DeltaQuest Foundation, a medical research nonprofit in Massachusetts. 

“By being able to help other people, it can transform the experience of something that makes all of us a victim to something that gives us agency,” says Dr. Schwartz, who is seeking participants for a study on psychological resilience during the pandemic.

Yet some recovered volunteers say they are still grappling with what they outlived. Surviving the virus in a community that is still grieving “takes a toll,” says Covid Care volunteer coordinator Dawn Falcone.

“I feel like it’s a good day if I don’t know anybody who passed away,” she told the Monitor in April.

Mr. Burke is also mourning the loss of several friends and acquaintances. “I’m going to be processing this for a while. ... Part of me feels like I cheated death,” he says.  

Much about the new coronavirus still eludes scientists. There are no definitive answers yet on immunity and long-term effects of COVID-19. “So far, no studies have answered these important questions,” according to a World Health Organization statement sent to the Monitor. 

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers two definitions of recovery for symptomatic health care workers looking to return to work: one based on symptoms, the other on testing. Some doctors are pursuing experimental treatments that involve the blood plasma of those who have recovered – a century-old approach used to treat past viral outbreaks, including coronaviruses SARS and MERS.

Diana Berrent sums up recovery as a “bizarre, sort of liminal state.” She’s made the most of it by donating plasma six times and founding a grassroots movement, Survivor Corps. 

She calls the virtual community the “epicenter of hope” that aims to hasten the pandemic’s end and help develop a cure. Survivor Corps’ website gathers research and how-to resources for mobilizing plasma donors, while its 54,000-member Facebook group offers a space for solidarity. 

After testing positive for COVID-19 on Long Island in March, Ms. Berrent first envisioned organizing a global group akin to a COVID-19 Peace Corps, even offering hands for the dying to hold without adding risk to hospitals. But given the unsolved mystery of reinfection, she’s focused her efforts on donating her own antibody-rich plasma to science and calling on others to participate in the evolving research.

“To think that I’m actively contributing to the research that can bring about a cure to this is such an incredibly empowering idea and motivation,” she says. “What we’re seeing on the Survivor Corps group is people who are in the thick of the illness literally counting down the days until they can be part of that solution.”

Dean E. Williams Jr. joined Survivor Corps on Facebook and recently donated plasma. Having overcome the virus in isolation, he yearns to reunite with others. 

Mr. Williams says he didn’t fear death. As he struggled to breathe alone in his Harlem apartment, his greatest fear was disappointing his 5-year-old daughter. He says he spent more than two months without seeing her as he quarantines in New York and she stays with family in another state. Online chess games and her reading of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” over Skype has helped. 

In her absence, the recovered Harlem Rotary Club president keeps busy with community outreach and organizing meal donations. He says his daughter joined him in community service as early as age 2, and hopes to bring her along volunteering when they’re reunited. In the meantime, a virtual sandwich-making party to benefit local food banks might soon be in order. 

While they continue to live apart, a highlight came in mid-May as he was able to visit her for the first time in weeks – showering promptly after his arrival before they could embrace.

“It was the biggest hug she’s ever received from me,” he says. “She had the biggest smile on her face.”

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Marta Biino from Turin, Italy, was excited when she first got the news that she had been accepted to Columbia University’s master’s degree program in journalism. Living in New York City was a goal of hers and her acceptance into her dream school was an important accomplishment. But then the reality – that she might not be able to attend classes in the fall – settled in.

Now she is planning to defer her enrollment until January 2021, as uncertainty around campuses reopening continues in response to the pandemic. Although Columbia has given students the option to attend in-person in the fall, Ms. Biino is postponing to gain the time she needs to get settled financially and to secure a visa. She plans on working in Turin to help pay for her tuition. 

“Since the virus has started, my parents have been working a lot less. ... If I get a loan, I’m not sure when and how we’ll be able to repay it,” she says. “I don’t know about paying $75,000 in tuition fees for a teaching quality which will obviously, despite best efforts, not be the same.”

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International students who study in the United States are navigating an unprecedented situation. Not only has the pandemic exacerbated existing challenges, such as securing visas, but it also has created a new set of concerns. Besides weighing whether online classes justify expensive tuition, international students also don’t want to miss out on an integral part of the American university experience.

“It was always my goal to go abroad for higher education,” says Rufaida Zareer Shams, who lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and plans to enroll as a freshman at the University of San Francisco, even if the fall semester is online. “But if a whole year is online, and it is the cost of a full year’s tuition, then no, I don’t think it’s worth it. But I guess students’ hands are kind of tied right now.”

Anticipating a further decline 

While international students are a sliver of the higher education population – 5.5%, or about 1 million – they spend more than $40 billion a year, according to advocacy group the Institute of International Education (IIE), citing Department of Commerce data. 

In the past few years the number of international students has basically flatlined, after more than a decade of growth, as the Trump administration tightens visa and immigration requirements, says Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, an association of higher ed institutions and groups. While the U.S. continues to attract the most students from other countries, more and more of them have begun to pick universities in Britain and Canada as hostilities mount and visas become increasingly harder to obtain.

“International students are an important part of American higher education,” says Mr. Hartle, noting that they bring funds and diversity to U.S. schools. “Based on conversations with college and university officials, we’re projecting a 20% to 25% decline in the number of international students who will come here this fall.”

The U.S. is typically a popular choice for students from China, accounting for 33.7% of the international student body, based on IIE figures. On May 29, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending some Chinese graduate students from entering the country. Officials are planning to revoke the visas of students and researchers affiliated with educational institutions linked to the People’s Liberation Army over concerns about intellectual property theft. The move comes in response to rising tensions between Washington and Beijing on matters concerning the pandemic, trade, and the status of Hong Kong. 

Plans upended by the pandemic

Students already attending school in the U.S. are still regrouping after the disruption caused by the pandemic-related lockdowns. According to the responses from 441 institutions to an IIE survey administered during April and early May, 92% of international students remained on campus or in the U.S. Universities worked to provide housing, health care support, and online tutoring to them.

Sultan Aldabal, a rising senior studying political science and economics at Northeastern University in Boston, was at first unable to fly home to Saudi Arabia in early March due to cancelled flights. He has recently returned after months of being stuck in his Boston apartment. Although happy to be home, he is concerned that he may not be able to secure a visa to return to campus for his final semester. Still, the situation has given him time to reflect.

“The crisis has made me appreciate my family and my loved ones. … It really makes you look at things in a different perspective,” he says. “I’ve learned how to adjust, how to adapt through the [fear], and it has given me a lot of time to think about my life.”

Takato Watabe was finishing his junior year at the University of California, Los Angeles when the school ended in-person classes. The economics major initially welcomed the news about transitioning to an online format, and he and his friends celebrated by playing Nintendo video games. But then reality hit. Mr. Watabe, who returned home to Yokohama, Japan, on March 30, says he quickly missed the flurry of activity on his sprawling campus.

“The coronavirus has taught me a lot of things, like the importance of spending time, physically, with my friends and how important my time studying abroad was,” he says. 

Unmoored, but resilient

Some students say they felt the same sense of unmooring that American students did, missing their routines and social circles in the U.S.

“Being independent, that was the motivation behind going to college for me,” says Ushna Arshad Khan, a rising junior from Lahore, Pakistan, studying mathematical economics at the University of Richmond in Virginia. “As a girl in Pakistan, you can’t do whatever you want or go wherever you want. In the U.S., it’s a lot better because you can basically carve out your day and not have anyone influence that. Also, when you’re in college, you’re surrounded by people doing the same things as you, so it’s easier to keep on track.”

Those students who couldn’t return home found ways to build communities and support systems on their abandoned campuses – many of which helped them cope with the stress of the pandemic. 

Atri Hassan, a rising senior from Bangladesh studying psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, found comfort in the small cohort of students who stayed behind, and from professors and international student organizations.

“I think having friends and roommates who are international really helped because we could at least talk to one another and update each other on what was going on,” says Ms. Hassan. 

For Grea Lee, who just finished her first year at Amherst College, also in Massachusetts, the pandemic was manageable because of the college’s decision to move all remaining students into three central dorms. Although in-person interactions were discouraged, the move helped build solidarity and a sense of normalcy.  

“I think just the fact that we were living in these dorms just sort of made people feel some kind of unity,” says Ms. Lee, who recently returned home to Suwon, South Korea. “Even if we didn’t really see each other that often, just the fact that we were sharing a living space together still made us feel like we were part of a community.”

Mr. Watabe, who usually is busy with coursework and internships in the U.S., now is spending valuable time with his family in Japan and on activities that make him happy, such as reading books and hiking. He plans to return in the fall if he can get a visa; otherwise he will take classes online from Japan. The crisis has given him a new appreciation for his American experience.

“I was in the States for almost three years, and that life in America became kind of normal. But it wasn’t. It was very, very rare and a valuable experience and the coronavirus taught me this. … It taught me how important my life in America was.”

Staff writers Nusmila Lohani and Cassandre Coyer and correspondent Ryan Yu contributed to this report.

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AP

Camden County Metro Police Chief Joe Wysocki raises a fist while marching with residents in Camden, N.J., to protest the death of George Floyd.

In his testimony to Congress Wednesday, the brother of George Floyd made a plea about reforming police departments in the United States. “Teach them what it means to treat people with empathy and respect,” said Philonise Floyd. For communities of color, he added, “make law enforcement the solution – and not the problem.”

Indeed, after the May 25 killing of George Floyd, cities across the U.S. are searching for fresh ideas in policing. In Minneapolis, the City Council took a radical step and voted to “defund” the Police Department. Other cities have been more modest, merely looking for successful examples to follow. In Dallas, for instance, when a police officer responds to a mental health call, a paramedic and a social worker go along in the car.

The end result of such reforms, however, must fulfill that plea for police empathy and respect toward a community. Examples can be found relatively easily. But if any city has shown how hard it is to achieve that goal, it is Camden, New Jersey.

In 2012, when Camden had a murder rate 17 times the national average, the entire Police Department was let go. The state built a new force under the wing of Camden County and appointed Scott Thomson as police chief. His No. 1 goal: Build a collaborative relationship with residents who at the time feared the police more than respected them.

If police learn to have greater empathy for the people they serve, said Chief Thomson, they will gain the trust of the community in preventing crime and catching criminals.

New recruits to the force were required to go door to door to meet the people on their beat. Police often held neighborhood cookouts or warmed up to teenagers by giving away ice cream from a truck. They were constantly trained on how to de-escalate a tense situation and to use deadly force only as a last option.

In the past seven years, violent crime in Camden has dropped 42%. In 2015, President Barack Obama visited the South Jersey city to praise its reforms. Much more work still needs to be done. Just over half of Camden’s police, for example, are people of color in a city of some 74,000 that is majority-minority. The state’s civil service exam remains a barrier to recruiting minorities.

Police reform can only go so far in a city that is one of the poorest in the U.S. Yet police in Camden are being taught to see dignity in the city’s residents, and in return, they are earning respect.

That was made clear May 30 when the current police chief, Joe Wysocki, was allowed to join a street march protesting the George Floyd killing. Images went around the world of the chief chanting “Black lives matter” with his fist in the air.

The protest organizers said they gained greater trust of Camden police that day. The city is not yet a perfect model for how to teach police to treat people with respect and empathy. But the city knows what lies at the heart of any reforms.