34 minute read
OPINION
from Issue 26
Standing Against AAPI Erasure
Karen Lee ’25 and Eleanor Lee ’25
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Contributing Writers
“Christina Yuna Lee. Michelle Alyssa Go. Si-Hui Fang. Mary Ye. Need I go on? … It shouldn’t have to take these Asian women being killed for us to learn that we are real, that we are intrinsically deserving to learn about our histories and our cultures. Why do we still not have an Asian Pacific American Studies major here?” – Karen Lee ’25
In February 2022, I stood in front of President Biddy Martin and demanded the establishment of an Asian/Pacific/American studies (A/P/A) major and department in my speech at the annual persuasive speaking competition.
This is not the first time that a student has advocated for the A/P/A studies major. What if we told you that our advocacy has lasted for longer than the college has been coed? Since 1972, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students at Amherst have championed the necessity to incorporate Asian American studies in their collegiate education — that makes 50 years and generations of students who have called for an A/P/A studies major.
Yet we still see relatively little change on campus. This doesn’t only apply to our demand for the establishment of an A/P/A studies major; our calls for action are often left on the backburner or erased entirely.
The Asian and Pacific American Action Committee (APAAC) and the Amherst Asian Alumni Network (AAAN) are the main organizations that lead AAPI activism at Amherst; however, not many know about the magnitude of their efforts. We want recognition and solidarity; we are asking you to stand with us in our fight for A/P/A studies.
The truth is, not many people care enough about the work of AAPI activists on campus, and the effects of that ignorance are violent. Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article quoting a current Amherst student about the discrimination against Asian American students in the college application process. The student, a history major, claimed that the difficulties faced by Asian applicants to elite colleges would be solved if they instead chose professions such as “trade and vocational schools … as well as the U.S. military.” Many students expressed their anger at this student’s argument. The article demonstrates that even history majors at this college are unaware of the implications of such a statement; it is as though we are predisposed to giving up on a college degree or even joining the military, without regard for our cultural values and the colonial trauma that the U.S. military has inflicted on our motherlands.
This is not the first time we have been disappointed in our peers. In the Spring 2022 Association of Amherst Students (AAS) Senate elections, we noticed that two candidates running for reelection claimed they would “work towards establishing an AAPI major.” When these two running senators were asked about how they planned to implement the major, they talked about “working with administration” and collaborating with the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP). Neither of these students mentioned APAAC, AAAN, or the Asian Students Association (ASA) in their answers.
We can also see the effects of AAPI erasure reproduced by the President’s Office and the administration. Following the Atlanta spa shooting in March 2021, President Biddy Martin sent an email addressing the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes across the nation. Although President Martin highlighted the college’s stance against racism and white supremacy in this message, she used the hiring of new Asian American studies professor, Christine Noelle Peralta, as an example of how the college can work toward enhancing “curricular offerings and community-wide intellectual strengths.” For the students who had worked hard to ensure Professor Peralta’s place at the college as Amherst’s first professor specializing in A/P/A studies, it was as though Professor Peralta’s hiring served as an ornament to a tragedy rather than a celebration of our progress. Additionally, President Martin did not include the recent cluster hire approval in her recent “Anti-Racism Plan Update” email, dismissing an incredible milestone that many students, alumni, and faculty have been working toward.
When ASA and APAAC organized the Stop Asian Hate rally last April, the Amherst College Instagram only credited the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) and ASA for the success of the rally in their original caption. It was only after APAAC members Tim Song ’22 and Mica Nimkarn ’24 commented that it was “primarily the effort” of APAAC that “allowed for students to take part in the rally,” that Amherst College edited and included APAAC in their caption. We take issue with the lack of care for APAAC and AAS’ compliance in being credited as one of the organizers for the protest while students of APAAC had to fight for visibility.
Our labor is not something to be taken for granted or used to fuel performative activism. We are not an afterthought. Our hard work and dedication should be named at the very least. Recognize APAAC, AAAN, ASA, and the students that actively help our cause and stand in solidarity with our demands. We deserve to be seen and heard — give credit where it is due.
You can help us. For one, you can read and sign the letter written by the AAAN demanding the establishment of an A/P/A studies major at Amherst College. This can be your first step in demonstrating your support for us; at the very least, read the five demands that are listed.
Here are some other steps that we suggest you take: participate in APAAC-run events, take A/P/A studies-related courses to educate yourself about the history of Asians and Asian Americans, and make space for your Asian peers to speak about their experiences.
Once we secure your support, we can ensure that our activism continues to thrive on and off campus, that our students, alumni, and faculty don’t get burned out for their labor, and that we can finally work together toward instituting an A/P/A studies major here.
Photos courtesy of Haoran Tong '23
Two students during the Stop Asian Hate Rally in March 2021. Pictured left, Tim Song '22 holding a protest sign. Pictured right, Ainsley MacKenzie '22 walking toward the town common.
The Amherst Student • May 4, 2022 Seeing Double: Tradition, Tradition!
Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22
Columnist
This, I’m sad to say, is the last solo Seeing Double that I will write. It’s the nature of college that everything here comes to an end eventually. Saying goodbye to college and everything associated with it — my friends, my classes, my column, never needing to cook — is already painful (though reading my co-columnist’s final solo column last week was freeing). It also provides some perspective on my time here at Amherst. While it’s a little premature to do much reflection, I have been able to identify one thing that I feel is lacking here: strong student traditions.
I’m sure that smaller groups have particular secret traditions, like the Green Room’s … well, I shouldn’t say that. And there are certainly some salient traditions among broader segments of the student body. Bar Night is one example for seniors. Another is the traditional superstition against walking on the war memorial, which I’ve heard has negative implications for one’s ability to graduate.
Amherst has no shortage of peculiarities, the little idiosyncrasies that make this place Amherst and not (I shudder to imagine) Williams or some other lowly hilltown middle-of-nowhere backwater run-down pit. But curiously, very few of those peculiarities are true student traditions.
Other colleges often have strong traditions that help bring the student body together, especially when taking part in them requires no special aptitude or interest. For example, many campuses have “scream nights.” At Michigan State University, where a friend of mine recently graduated, everyone screams out their stress on the midnight before finals.
That same university also has other, more particular traditions. MSU has a fight song that every student knows, and a particular way of singing it when football games are going a particular way. And I’ve been told that if you see someone wearing MSU swag anywhere in the world, the traditional greeting is “Go Green!” to which they’ll respond: “Go White!”
Why don’t we have traditions like this? Some Amherst traditions faded during the pandemic, like ResLife’s annual lip-sync competition. Winners would get first pick in the room draw, which was a pretty big deal. Others were billed as traditions but didn’t seem to happen again, like Mammoth Day. These are institutional traditions, supported by college policy, and even they couldn’t persist through the pandemic. Student traditions, which depend on transmission through osmosis between students living in close quarters and doing activities together, didn’t stand a chance. As younger students spent more time on campus without the influence of higher years, traditions weakened.
Other traditions ended even before the pandemic, like the old tradition of stealing the Sabrina statue. I’m sure other traditions died out even earlier, but I can’t provide many more examples, since it’s the nature of old, lapsed traditions to be unknown by those who don’t practice them. I’m sure alums know of some traditions from their days, though, that no student currently on campus has heard of.
The lack of traditions at Amherst might be a side-effect of a small campus community. It’s possible that, at big schools, traditions are more needed to feel connected to other students. At Amherst, we already see everyone all the time. Our daily lives tend to be focused on avoiding people in Val rather than coming together as a community.
Yet I think that some traditions to bring our community together would be good for us. Amherst has a relatively fractured student community. It can be clique-y here, and there’s a reason people always make jokes that the skill
The moose, resplendent in its corner of Frost Library. Offerings welcome.
best honed at Amherst is how to walk past a three-year acquaintance without acknowledging them.
For years, I’ve been dreaming of somehow teaching all students one of our easier and more fun college songs. Then, anyone could start singing that song at big gatherings and everyone else could join in.
And the traditions I’ve missed at Amherst need not be as formal as everyone learning a song. In fact, inane, weird, superstitious traditions are probably even better. Imagine if we all left a small offering for the moose in Frost each finals season! How fun would it be to make a little pilgrimage to the moose, leave your offering, and see all the trinkets that everyone else left. What a strong proof that you aren’t alone — that everyone else is stressed too, and that we can get through finals together.
It’s a little silly to call for forming organic student traditions in a column, since that isn’t really how any of this works. In fact, I have very little idea how traditions get started.
But I do know at least one way they disappear: when they’re forgotten. And so I make a plea to the graduating senior class. On the night of the last day of spring classes in our first year here, all of the then-seniors returned to the first year quad to seek out their old rooms (that is, our rooms at the time) and spend a few last moments in those memory-soaked halls. We must do the same. If not for the sake of nostalgia, do it for the tradition.
As we graduate, the last class to remember a full academic year before the pandemic also leaves. Nobody else knows about this tradition. It is up to us to maintain it. Let this be our legacy: restarting the endless loop linking first to last through the small tradition of haunting our first-year dorms one final time.
Photo courtesy of Amherst College
Why You Should Go Plant-based
Tim Carroll ’25
Contributing Writer
Content warning: This article contains descriptions of violence.
There’s a contradiction stewing within much of Amherst’s population. During Wellness Wednesdays, when the college brings out the animals, people gather to pet the goats, pick up the bunnies and piglets (although the pigs really do not like being picked up) and feel some of their stress fade away. Then, without skipping a beat, they go to Val and ask, “can I get the pork?” You’d be ostracized if you picked up the little piglet, slit its throat, and started eating it at the wellness event, but the reality is that you’re engaging in the same kind of behavior (in fact, much worse) at dinner.
Why are people so endeared by certain animals — such as dogs, cats, or rabbits — but still willing to eat animals of equal or greater intelligence — like cows, pigs, or chickens? How are these views compatible? I’m going to make the argument for why we should all consider going vegetarian (abstaining from eating meat) or vegan (abstaining from all animal products), though I want to preface the rest of this article by saying that I do not think less of anyone who eats meat or animal products (my reasoning for this position will become clearer later in the article). Considering the meteoric rise of veganism and vegetarianism right now (in 2022, 500 percent more people are vegan now than in 2014) there is clearly something significant to consider.
I used to think I could never stop eating meat, or that I wasn’t the type of person to go vegan, but you don’t have to be a certain type of person to go plant-based. You might hold stereotypes about who is vegetarian or vegan, but you don’t need birkenstocks, tie-dyed socks, and a spot on the Outing Club mailing list to make a choice to stop eating meat. People are often surprised when they meet me as a gym-bro first and a vegan later. All it takes is a pretty simple decision to alter your dietary habits for the sake of yourself, the planet, and the animals. I hope you’ll approach this article with an open mind and a willingness to examine our often unquestioned behaviors.
The first reason to go plantbased is personal health, as it will likely reduce your chances of various health complications. Cardiovascular disease is one of the biggest health problems facing the U.S., accounting for a daily death toll of 2,300 a day. Meat, dairy, and eggs “contain large amounts of cholesterol and saturated fat,” and higher levels of cholesterol are linked to heart attacks. The high levels of fiber in a plant-based diet can help “wash away” excess cholesterol. Research has shown that vegans have a significantly lower risk of dying from heart attack (and a lower risk of dying in general).
Other people who have gone plant-based like to emphasize weight loss, lower blood pressure, general feelings of increased well being, higher energy levels, and improved athletic performance. According to one Business Insider article, many “top athletes — including world champions ... don't seem even slightly worried about getting enough protein from their vegan diets.” Just a handful of these athletes are tennis star Venus Williams, former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, basketball player Kyrie Irving, and professional bodybuilder and Mr. Universe in 2014, Barny du Plessis, who is definitely more jacked than all of us.
Some worry about nutritional deficiencies when switching off meat. But going vegan or vegetarian mostly just makes us more mindful of what we’re putting into our bodies — certainly not a bad thing. It’s not a bad idea to include some supplements if you go plantbased — especially if you go completely vegan — in order to make sure you get enough of certain vitamins or minerals such as Vitamin B12 (which, interestingly enough, modern factory farmed animals don’t “naturally” have due to their unnatural diet; instead, they are fed cobalt in order to synthesize it. So, taking a vitamin B12 supplement is more like cutting out the middleman). So contrary to popular belief, you probably make nutritional gains by going plant-based.
The second reason to go plantbased is for the environment. Climate change is a devastating force that is currently displacing countless people and upending many lives. It’s easy to be discouraged dwelling upon how futile our day to day actions can be — what can one person recycling or using a reusable bag do for the planet? But we shouldn’t feel hopeless, and thankfully, saying no to meat can add to the list of things you can do on a daily basis to curb climate change.
Raising animals to kill them for their meat is incredibly resource-intensive. Forests have to be bulldozed in order to make more farmland for animals as the world’s craving for meat climbs ever higher. Of all agricultural land in the U.S., “80 percent is used to raise animals for food and grow grain to feed them.” Imagine how much food we could have if we instead used that land to grow crops to feed humans. To get a pig to gain 140 pounds in the final stages before its slaughter, it is forced to consume “more than 500 pounds of grain, corn, and soybeans.” Considering that people don’t even eat all 140 pounds of the pig (ie., the hooves, intestines, bones, eyes, intestines, etc.), this is just an inefficient way to create food. Just by virtue of that, more resources have to be dedicated to meat production — more trucks to drive grain to feed animals, more packaging and processing (killing animals, draining their blood, chopping up their bodies and packaging them), and more trucks to drive the dead animals to stores in refrigerated cars. To drive home the inefficiency, meat and dairy provide 18 percent of calories and 37 percent of protein, but use 83 percent of farmland and make up 60 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
Factory farms, beyond directly shrinking our forests by clearing land for raising animals, are also among the most significant industrial polluters. Managing animal waste gets messy, and it ends up polluting the water and air. When manure runs off into rivers, it can boost algae populations to levels so dangerous that other life forms are killed off.
The take-home message is this: if you’re worried about climate change, reduce the amount of meat you eat. Ideally, eat none at all. Authors of a study analyzing more than 40,000 farms across the world concluded that going vegan is “probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.”
Finally, I’d like to turn to the ethical side of eating meat. Simply put, slaughterhouses are hell on earth; every year, billions of animals are killed for the U.S. food supply alone and are largely kept in horrific conditions because of the profit-seeking motivations of companies. How many animals? In the U.S., 55.4 billion animals are killed every year, including both land
Photo courtesy of Tim Carroll '25
The small animals in their pen on Wellness Wednesday: a veritable buffet!
The Amherst Student • May 4, 2022
Reasons To Abstain From Eating Meat
Continued from page 16 much flesh they can churn out at the cheapest cost. and aquatic animals. Experts But how bad are factory farms, reestimate that around 117 billion ally? Below are some quotes from a people have ever lived on Earth, video interview of a chicken farmer so in two years we kill almost as to illustrate: many animals as there are peo“This isn't farming, this is mass ple who have ever lived, just in production like an assembly line in the U.S. alone! a factory.”
Animals are torn from their “When they grow from a chick families, crammed into over- and in seven weeks you have a five crowded and filthy cages with -nd-a-half pound chicken, their wire floors, where they often bones and their internal organs can't don’t have space to even turn keep up with the rapid growth. A lot around. They’re deprived of of these chickens here, they can take sunlight, overstuffed with corn a few steps and they plop down since feed, and killed at a ridiculous- they can't keep up with all the weight ly young age, all in order to they're carrying.” maximize the output of animal What is this “rapid growth?” A flesh and minimize the cost of normal chicken’s average lifespan is production. Pigs can have their seven years, while a conservative estails cut off and chickens can timate of a broiler chicken’s lifespan have their beaks clipped, both is seven weeks. In these seven weeks, as cruel band-aid fixes to struc- chickens are fed nonstop to fatten turally horrific factory farming them up as much as possible before conditions. (Having a beak they’re killed. Taking the average huclipped involves a searing hot man lifespan to be 72.6 years, if we iron blade slicing the tip of it factory-farmed people like we do off. This is analogous to slicing chickens, we would be killing people off our fingers right in the mid- at 1.4 years old. dle of our nail beds, but more Why and how do we let this pracpainful.) In a capitalist system tice happen on a daily basis? Most where companies’ profits are people discount the suffering of antheir bottom line, most neglect imals, consciously or not, just beany concern for animal welfare cause they are from a different spe— they only care about how cies, which some philosophers have described as the prejudice of speciesism. Humans are animals too, and there is no reason to privilege our fellow species members over those from another species, just because they look different than us; they can still feel pain and suffer.
Many factory-farmed animals are probably smarter than your dog or cat. Pigs play games in exchange for treats, get bored if they don’t get enough stimulation, and can recognize and understand themselves in mirrors — something human children can’t even do until about two years old. Cows recognize and remember faces, form friendships, and create social hierarchies. Chicken mothers love their chicks, who have shown object permanence (again, something human children don’t have until around six months). Beyond all of that, every single one of these animals can feel pain, and that is undeniable. They suffer when they are kept in a dark room, filled with their own excrement, unable to stretch their limbs and play, socialize, and form connections. Is it really worth it to condone this daily, ongoing atrocity, just to satisfy our palette? People often justify their beliefs by saying that animals are just less intelligent than humans, but this line of thought is morally bankrupt.
A thought experiment: imagine there is a person born with some severe complications, and they will never cognitively develop past the intellectual ability of something even less than a pig. Let’s say they would be able to feel pain (they would grimace or scream when hurt), want to be in comfortable conditions (they would dislike being out in the cold without a jacket), but they wouldn’t be able to communicate using language — just to give a broad sketch. Would you be fine killing them to eat their flesh? Probably not, as you should be. So why do we feel fine killing and eating even more intelligent beings from different species? It’s unjustified.
Beyond suffering, other philosophers have reasoned that if an animal has the capabilities to grow familial bonds, explore, and lead a “good life,” it should be able to do so, and should not be relegated to a short, miserable existence where it is slaughtered for its own flesh. This seems to align with certain moral intuitions we hold, in that we generally approve of people self-actualizing. If someone wants to be a brain surgeon and master the art of a delicate medicinal practice, or if another wants to master the piano, we’re inclined to encourage them to do so. Why can’t we afford the same consideration to other beings with thoughts and feelings? I’m not saying we need to give cows piano lessons, but there is something obviously wrong about separating mother from calf at a brutally young age in the name of meat-producing efficiency.
Even beyond that, if you imagine a world in which factory farming was not so grossly cruel (which it is), I’d argue there is still something wrong with killing for no reason other than for our taste. For example, imagine if an alien species that is vastly more intelligent than we are comes to Earth. They then start picking us out and killing us, just because they think we are tasty. They could go on without having to eat us — and in fact, it would be much more efficient and better for the environment if they did so — but they choose to end our lives, thinking, “these humans aren’t as smart as us. Who cares? I like eating humans!” That would be outrageous.
Why are we all eating meat in the first place? The simple answer is tradition. Since we were hunter-gatherers, eating some forms of meat has been a distinct part of most cultures. At first, you could argue that hunter-gatherers were in a position where they had to eat meat to survive, to get proper nutrition, etc. That is not the case anymore for most of us in these privileged positions; we have overwhelming access to plentiful food and no need to eat meat. What has remained for us, though, is the tradition of eating animal flesh for its own sake.
For one, we are socialized from a young age to see eating animal flesh as normal and animal farming as fun. We internalize children’s stories of farm animals living happily on vast, green acres with a red barn in the background. That’s not what modern factory farming is like. Traditions usually involve eating animals, like turkey on Thanksgiving. In this sense, we’re indoctrinated into thinking eating dead animals is normal, and it takes a large reckoning many years later to switch off.
Secondly, the process of meat-production and slaughter is far removed from us and sanitized as much as possible. Consider what we call various kinds of meat: “bacon” instead of “pig,” “tenders” or “nuggets” instead of chicken, or “beef” and “sirloin” instead of “cow.” We’ve come up with euphemisms to distance ourselves from the reality of our actions: eating animal flesh. I’ve used terms like “animal flesh” intermittently instead of just “meat” throughout this article to more accurately represent what’s actually happening. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it’s time to reexamine your beliefs.
Besides language, factory farms are usually located far away from where we would
The Amherst Student • May 4, 2022
The Benefits of a Plant-based Diet
Continued from page 17
see them, and the operations are often very secretive. We’re kept from seeing the horrors inside because we know we wouldn’t like it. Paul McCartney, former member of the Beatles, famously said, "if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian." But slaughterhouses don’t have glass walls. Hence, I can’t really blame most people for continuing to eat meat when we’ve been basically indoctrinated into doing so our whole lives. But after being exposed to something like this article, you have less of an excuse to continue eating meat.
Third, “big meat” companies have a grip on congressional lobbying because of their immense wealth. In fact, meat and dairy companies seemingly “act collectively in ways similar to the fossil -fuel industry.” Almost none of them commit to net zero emissions, and they spend millions lobbying against climate change legislation that would require limits on the amount of meat they can produce. And meat-based interests are actively trying to deceive people about all sorts of facts about eating meat and going vegan. A lot of money from people up top is being spent on trying to get you to buy and eat animal flesh.
So by now I hope the argument for going vegan or vegetarian is pretty clear. It may feel daunting to immediately cut out a lot of your diet, but there are some great practical guides for going plant-based (Sentient Media, WorldOfVegan), which are filled with on-theground eating and nutrition tips, food groups to be mindful of, and other great support.
On the other hand, you do not have to go vegan right now (although that would be awesome!) Instead, you can start small. You can try the Beyond Burgers at Val (which are often served on Thursdays at lunch), the pakora wraps, an eggplant parm, or the sesame nuggets. You can try to eat one meal a day without meat. You can try going vegetarian, vegan, or pescetarian for a week, or a month, which really helps because you find out how easy it is. You can make it a “big event” marking some date/time: Personally, I went vegetarian as a sophomore in high school as a New Years Resolution, and it stuck. I recently went vegan this March. The catalyst for my switch to vegetarianism was reading “Animal Liberation” by the philosopher Peter Singer in my ethics class. Many vegans or vegetarians describe having some “catalyst” moments in their lives. If this article is the catalyst for you, then great! If it is your first, second, or third exposure to these ideas, that’s also great!
Probably the most common response to going vegan or vegetarian is that “meat is tasty.” First, I’d say you should see the ethical arguments I already mentioned. If you engage in some sort of behavior that is primitively gratifying but ethically unsound, you should just stop. Second, you just get used to not eating meat, especially once you accept the ethical arguments and realize how morbid it is to eat dead animals. If you ask most vegans or vegetarians what they feel about eating meat, they’d probably say it sounds repulsive. They’re not some otherworldly beings that somehow have the discipline to give up something so tasty, and whose lives are permanently less fulfilling because of that.
Obviously, I can’t cover every aspect of vegetarianism or veganism in one article for The Amherst Student. So, if you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll be happy to talk to you about any aspect of the process. Or, if you’re vegan or vegetarian and you want to just chat with me about that, I’d be happy to talk.
Photo courtesy of Kenny Kim '25
Would you eat this bunny? Snuff out its tiny life and feast on its miniature entrails?
Rants and Raves: Stop Whining About Amherst Dining
Thomas Brodey ’22
Columnist
In an era of war, plague, and political crisis, only one topic is guaranteed to raise the ire of an Amherst student — the food at Valentine Dining Hall. It’s the single most important cultural touchstone of the Amherst experience. People complain about the food at every meal, sometimes in front of the people who make it. When I attended the senior speak-off several weeks ago, the dining hall was roasted more heavily than the average Val brussel sprout.
I admit that I’ve often participated in the mockery on days when my green beans were particularly rubbery or my conversational ability especially stale. Yet constantly complaining about Val food, as therapeutic as it may be, is simply unfair. While our dining hall may not compete with the legendary delicacies of UMass, we aren’t at the back of the pack either. I’ve eaten in dining halls at Yale, Smith, and Williams, and they were all more or less the same as Valentine. In fact, when the time comes for Yale students to put away their dirty dishes, they must resort to untidy and unstable stacks of plates and cups, in embarrassing contrast to our glorious, efficient, and hygienic conveyor belt.
The idea that Amherst, a college that spends over $100,000 per student per semester, is somehow forgetting to devote adequate resources to dining is patently absurd. While I can’t prove it, I’m pretty confident that Amherst’s dining food is as good or better than most other college cuisines across the country. And not to play the guilt card, but about 36 percent of college students in the U.S. are classified as food insecure, meaning that their meal plans are either too unaffordable or too limited to permit a balanced diet. Even the most die-hard Val critic must admit that if there’s one thing Val has, it’s quantity.
Amherst College dining, on the other hand, is reasonably priced. After financial aid, the average student pays about $1,800 per semester for 120 days of food (more if you stay on campus during breaks). That comes to about $15 per day, not particularly expensive compared to other colleges. For that price, we get unlimited food that is far more nutritious and sustainable than average. There is plenty of room to question whether the entire college package is worth the exorbitant price, but on the whole, dining is one of Amherst’s better deals. If only we had eaten Grammy Award-winning artist Common instead of hiring him.
I understand that some good-natured griping is a fun and therapeutic activity. I myself spend much (perhaps too much) of my time criticizing Amherst. But let’s set our sights farther than just our feeding troughs. There are so many important issues on campus that we can and should talk about instead of overcooked summer squash. Let’s talk about the unfair treatment that Val workers face, or the school’s ludicrously fast endowment growth, or even about the AAS corruption scandal last semester.
Not all criticism of the Val food is unjustified. If you have particularly severe dietary restrictions, you have good reason to be upset at Val’s limited options. But most complaints about Val aren’t good-faith constructive criticism. They’re reflexive, a kind of shibboleth to prove that you are a real Amherst student, not a Williams student who got lost on the way to a football game.
If we measured priorities by volume of discussion, we Amherst students would seem like one of the most short-sighted and entitled groups in the world. But we’re better than that. It’s time to prove that we can have our cake and fête it too, that we can scarf down salty asparagus with a smile, and that we can put aside our mindless material concerns in exchange for joyful mastication during our matriculation.
w Amusements
The Amherst Student Crossword | May 4, 2022
ACROSS
1 Geometry calculation 5 And so forth: Abbr. 8 Some kissing sounds 13 Many a frequenter of 19-Across, according to some 14 Open a tad 15 Unite, in Ulm 16 Tel ___ 17 Infamous Roman fiddler, purportedly 18 Historical record 19 Campus building that curves spacetime the most?, or where to 27A or find 36A, 48A, 9D with 44A, and 44D with 63A 22 Kilt wearer 23 SSW opposite 24 Passing remarks? 27 Watch, as in stars 31 Type of ski lift 32 Nick name? 33 Williams, per U.S. News & World Report 35 Cry convulsively 36 Computer science, physics, and biology spaces, in 19-Across 38 Egyptian boy king 39 Ming of the NBA 40 __-ski 41 Prefix with dynamic 42 Unoriginally 44 Vegetable plot 46 Title for McCartney 47 Tennis redo 48 Play before the play, or the light-regulating mechanism of 19-Across 54 Pacific island nation 55 Small batteries 56 Tinted 58 Prepared for a hand 59 Yaks away 60 Cheers in Chihuahua 61 Bobby of the Black Panthers 62 Carry-___ luggage) 63 "___-E"
DOWN
1 Actress De Armas 2 Guns, as an engine 3 Leif's father 4 Registration gatekeeper 5 Be a bouncer 6 Scale button 7 Shoe that may be put in adventure mode 8 Grinch trait 9 "___ is coming" 10 Green Gables girl 11 "___ ye, ___ ye!" 12 NBC show since 1975 14 Drive bananas 20 Heart test, briefly 21 Follow 24 Online craft store 25 WWII sub 26 Toil 27 ESPN baseball analyst Buster 28 End-of-semester eye features 29 Upheld your civic duty 30 Accustom 32 Bicep builder 34 Oxbridge feeder 36 Longitude pal 37 Professor Schneider’s seminar topic, along with musical theatre 41 Exhibitionist's hangout? 43 UN member since 1949 44 Houses around which you shouldn't throw stones 45 ___O-U-and-sometimes-Y 47 Many Middle Easterners 48 Amherst graduation gift 49 Sephora competitor 50 "Othello" villain 51 Indian flatbread 52 Faulkner femme fatale Varner 53 Film unit 54 Faux ___ 57 Internet access option
Liam Archacki ’24
Senior Managing Editor
Solutions: April 27
& Arts Living
Eren Levine ’24
Staff Writer
On March 20, a TV special titled “Step Into…The Movies” premiered on ABC, before being released on Hulu. The iconic sibling duo Derek and Julianne Hough, alongside many other well-known dancers such as John Stamos and Jenna Dewan, recreated famous movie dance sequences from films like “La La Land,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” and “Dirty Dancing.” Dance is often regarded as a less important aspect of movies, so as someone who has danced for years, I was excited to see these moments being celebrated for how outstanding they truly are. However, what could’ve been a touching and beautiful homage to iconic dances from films of all decades instead turned out to be a cheesy program with much less dancing than expected.
I was expecting to watch multiple acclaimed dances with beautiful sets, costumes, and superb dancing, perhaps featuring some scenes showing the rehearsal process. Instead, much of the special focused on Derek and Julianne Hough trying to put together the show with very little time. This was clearly just acting — and not very good acting at that — which made the whole production feel fake and generally unimpressive. I found myself skipping through the scenes of the Houghs’ “planning” because I was mostly interested in the rehearsals and dances. It seemed as though the directors wanted to add some sort of a plot to make the show more interesting. But it came across as forced and unnecessary. The appeal of the special was watching iconic dances, which is how it was advertised, so anyone who was enticed to tune in would have been interested in the dances; there was no need for the added aspect of a faux storyline.
Despite the forced plot line's major shortcomings, the rehearsals and dances were still very enjoyable to watch. Just like how many episodes of “Dancing with the Stars” feature the practices leading up to the performance, “Step Into…The Movies” brought the viewer into the rehearsals. In the special, though, the rehearsals were treated as a side aspect and were not shown nearly as much as I would have liked. I was eager to see more of the training process because watching the final product is even more enjoyable when you know how much work has gone into making it happen. It is also nice to get to know the dancers a bit better, through scenes of them practicing, messing up, and interacting off-stage.
Another positive aspect of the special was having those involved in the original dances featured in some way. For example, Kenny Ortega, who choreographed the film “Dirty Dancing,” was involved in “Step Into…The Movies,” providing feedback for the dancers during a rehearsal for the performance. I would have loved to see more people who were crucial to the original movies featured in equally crucial roles constructing the new pieces of the TV special.
While I was pleased to see so many dancers I recognized, I believe the special could have done a better job of featuring less well-known dancers or dancers who aren’t primarily known for their acting. Having A-list celebrities probably appealed to viewers who don’t know as much about the dance industry, but those dancers didn’t have to be the only people featured. When dance is the center of the show, I think it is more respectful and representative of the industry to include people for whom dance is the main aspect of their career. Lesser-known dancers are often overlooked, so a big production such as this one could have been a great way to support the careers of such dancers.
Ultimately, “Step Into…The Movies” was a letdown, and I would hesitate to recommend it to others. If you are interested in enjoying the well-executed dance pieces, I suggest doing what I did and skipping through the forced acting to find the impressive dancing and more authentic rehearsal scenes.
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