Caliber Magazine - Issue 20 by Caliber Magazine

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STAFF PRESIDENT Vanessa Wan Sophia Stewart* EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Vanessa Wan Sophia Stewart* CHIEF PRINT EDITOR Marie Bellevue HEAD OF PHOTOGRAPHY Henry DeMarco HEAD OF DESIGN Lauren Leung HEAD OF MARKETING Samantha Miller CHIEF WEB EDITOR Evelyn Taylor *Fall

2020

PRINT WRITERS Vanessa Wan Shivani Ekkanath Evelyn Taylor Reg Lim Sanjana Manjeshwar Jennifer Co Hannah McKelson Sophia Stewart Salwa Meghjee Rachel Pekelney Caitlyn Jordan Leandra Ramlo PHOTOGRAPHERS Henry DeMarco Emily Que Charlene Wang Carissa Lewis Shiva Vemireddy Anna Chang Zach Grove Will Brinkerhoff Sophia Stewart Aria Dasbach Thibault d’Auriol Alexandra Hanyue von Minden DESIGNERS & ILLUSTRATORS Timothy Yang Connor Lin Jadyn Lee Emily Que Neha Shah Frances Yang COVER ART Timothy Yang

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EDITOR’S NOTE

t has been a week since the shooting in Atlanta and I am just getting to the point of functioning and listening to my thoughts once again. This past year has been one of frustration, grief, and immeasurable change. Through art I found ways to heal, though creativity was not easy to grasp, and hope is still a discipline I am learning to stick to. I am so honored to introduce you all to a particularly special Issue 20, written and created in the midst of chaos that continues to threaten our minds and hearts. The pieces in this issue were written between the start and end of 2020, many still ringing true as we wrap up the final touches in 2021. In this issue, the writers of Caliber confront pain and loss. How do Asian Americans reconcile with a history of anti-Blackness? How do you grieve in the midst of a school year, in an unforgiving institution? How do you learn to

move on, whether it be from a first job or a great therapist? With so many of us back home with our parents, how do children of immigrants reconcile with traditions that we don’t fully understand? Our Caliber staff also take you with them in their journey to find comfort in this confusing time, through dreams, in music, in art, through cut fruit and awe-inspiring spaces. How do we get through this? This issue also questions the dangerous face of fitness evolving in influencer culture and explores the double standards in female activism. In my final year at Berkeley, I am proud to be able to share the work of so many creatives who continue to inspire me with their dedication and creativity. We shouldn’t be expected to be this resilient in a system that continues to fail us, but relentlessly we keep questioning and challenging the structures around us, and most importantly, we keep moving forward. 03.29.2021 Vanessa Wan Editor-in-Chief & President

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 6

Nostalgia, Imagination, and Storytelling in Taylor Swift’s folklore

A Photo Spread: Street Views

Female Activism Today S H I VA N I E K K A N A T H

C A L I B E R P H OTO G R A P H E R S

S A N J A N A M A N J E S H WA R

Inside the Mind of the Dreamer

A Photo Spread: Daydreaming in Monochrome

Watching Things Turn Past Tense

E V E LY N T AY L O R

J E N N I F E R CO

ZACH GROVE

A First Job, A Second Home

A Photo Spread: Big Sur

My Hal-abeoji’s Funeral

H E N RY D E M A RCO

REG LIM

The Face of Fitness

A Photo Spread: Documenting Daily Life in a Pandemic

On Flourishing in Unrelenting Spaces

RACHEL PEKELNEY

C A I T LY N J O R D A N

C A L I B E R P H OTO G R A P H E R S

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HANNAH MCKELSON

The History Behind UC Berkeley’s Architecture

Asian Anti-Blackness: From the Street Corners to the Screen

She’s Only Hueman (and A Very Big Deal)

S A N J A N A M A N J E S H WA R

S O P H I A S T E WA R T

REG LIM

104

108

114

Cut Fruit and I Love Yous

A Photo Spread: Gaze

Sacred Spaces

J E N N I F E R CO

CLARISSA LEWIS

L E A N D R A R A M LO

A Photo Spread: Bay Area Escapes

Let’s Unpack That: The Patient-Therapist Relationship

Cong Mei Guo Lai De

C A L I B E R P H OTO G R A P H E R S

VA N E S S A WA N

S A LWA M E G H J E E

120 C ha sing Go lden L ight t hrough North Berkeley WILL BRINKERHOFF

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nostalgia, imagination, and storytelling in taylor swift’s

folklore W O R D S B Y S A N J A N A M A N J E S H WA R

V I S U A L S B Y C H A R L E N E WA N G A N D T I M O T H Y YA N G

n a year where everything seems to be a constant deluge of bad news and disappointment, one of the few bright spots of 2020 was the release of Taylor Swift’s surprise eighth album, folklore. Released on July 23rd less than twenty-four hours after it was announced, folklore was a surprise even to Swift’s most devoted fans. The album was written and created entirely during quarantine, which is evident in the themes and lyrics, often evoking feelings of isolation and loneliness. A sharp deviation from Swift’s mainstream radio pop era, as well as her earlier teenage pop-country music, folklore’s most defining qualities are minimal production, muted sepiatoned aesthetics, and a foundation in folk storytelling. While Swift’s music has never easily fit into a single genre, folklore is best described as an indie folk and alternative rock album. folklore contains collaborations with some of indie music’s most prominent artists, including Aaron Dessner of the alternative rock band The

National, Swift’s writing partner Jack Antonoff of the bands Bleachers and f.u.n., and indie folk icon Bon Iver, who performs a duet with Swift on the song “exile.” folklore’s most memorable quality is undoubtedly its melancholic, poetic lyricism. Swift has always been an imaginative songwriter, but folklore’s lyrics seem uniquely descriptive and vivid, with symbolism and layers that indicate her maturation as a writer. A defining characteristic of Swift’s music has always been her writing about her personal, usually romantic experiences. However, she takes a new approach on folklore, instead choosing to write songs from different points of view. There are fictional songs with imaginary characters, historical songs about real people, and a few songs that are personal but seem more detached and disengaged than Swift’s previous work. Swift describes, “I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing from the perspective of people I’ve never met, people I’ve known, or those I wish I hadn’t.”

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Above all else, folklore is defined by its wistful and delicate atmosphere, as well as its nuance and complexity. The first track, “the 1,” is one of the more upbeat songs on folklore (an album that is decidedly not upbeat at all). Swift reminisces about a past love on this piano-driven and nostalgic song. On “cardigan,” Swift recalls young love — the narrator ruminates on how they never really gave up on their first love, recalling a cardigan as a physical reminder of their relationship. In “the last great american dynasty,” Swift masterfully tells the true story of Rebekah Harkness, a controversial and rebellious 1950s socialite and the former owner of Swift’s house in Rhode Island. “exile” is a sorrowful, string-laden duet that resembles a conversation between two former lovers, ending in them singing over each other as an analogy for an argument with no resolution. “my tears ricochet” is a plaintive ballad that sees Swift singing from the perspective of a deceased lover’s ghost, while in the effervescent “mirrorball,” Swift compares herself to a disco ball, reflecting her fans’ and the media’s perceptions of her back onto themselves. “seven” is an ode to a childhood friendship that hints at the darker experiences that come with adulthood. “august” is a wistful and dreamy meditation on a summer fling, and the tense strings and despairing lyrics of “this is me trying” convey the narrator’s desire to heal from past relationships. In “illicit affairs,” Swift muses about infidelity and betrayal, with a powerful bridge that is both longing and disdainful. “invisible string,” one of the more personal songs on folklore, explores Swift’s romance with her current partner, Joe Alwyn, with numerous references to past songs and personal details such as Centennial Park in her hometown of Nashville. The next two songs make direct references to societal issues: “mad woman” is an ominous and vengeful ballad that decries the demonization of women who do not adhere to society’s standards, while in “epiphany,” Swift explores the devastating stories she heard from her grandfather who was a military veteran, relating this to the tragedy of the current pandemic. “betty,” which almost sounds like a 2008-era Taylor Swift song but with a modern twist, details the emotions and anxiety of teenage romance. “peace” and “hoax,” the final two tracks on the album, are sparsely produced, confessional, and melancholy.

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folklore

the 1 cardigan the last great american dynasty exile (featuring bon iver) my tears ricochet mirrorball seven august this is me trying illicit affairs invisible string mad woman epiphany betty peace hoax

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One of the most interesting aspects of folklore is the subtext and symbolism present in Swift’s intricate songwriting. Although the songs are diverse in their plots and style, there are common themes and character arcs that thread them together. Intrepid fans discovered that three of the songs collectively form the story of a love triangle (later confirmed by Swift in an interview). “Betty,” the song that makes the most direct references to a love triangle, is from the point of view of James, who attempts to win Betty back after an affair by showing up unannounced to her party and apologizing. At the end of the song, James describes Betty as “standing in [her] cardigan / kissing in my car again” which alludes to an earlier song on the album, “cardigan”. Fans infer that “cardigan” is from the perspective of Betty, reminiscing years later about her young lost love with James. The song directly references kissing in cars as well as James’ failed apology on the porch. Finally, the third song in the teenage love

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triangle is “august” from the perspective of Inez, the “other woman” in “betty” who originally spread the rumors about James’ affair. Many fans believe that in “august,” Inez is singing about her summer fling with James, reflecting on what could have been. It should also be noted that James’ gender is never explicitly stated, and fans have numerous theories on whether James is actually a woman or even Taylor Swift herself (who was named after singer James Taylor), which would provide a new and poignant frame of reference in analyzing the trio of songs. Regardless of Swift’s intentions, the elaborate and complex plots of her songs create an immersive listening experience that leaves her dedicated fans constantly searching for clues and subtext. folklore’s near-universal acclaim is somewhat new for Swift; while all of her recent albums have been bestsellers, they have not been as well regarded among critics. Swift has been in the spotlight for nearly fifteen years, and

has undergone a musical and personal evolution that contributed to where she is today. She began performing in 2006 as a teenage country star with romantic, contemplative ballads that showcased her songwriting skills at a young age. folklore often alludes to Swift’s country roots with similarly pensive lyrics and instrumentals. For example, the opening harmonica on “betty” or the dreamy bridge on “last great american dynasty” would not be out of place in one of Swift’s country songs in 2010. Swift’s album Red, released in 2012, incorporated a distinctive pop sound alongside the country style she was known for, and 2014’s 1989 finalized Swift’s transition to upbeat, commercially successful pop music. Reputation, released in 2017, explores darker, hip-hop sounds, while her most recent album before folklore, Lover, is upbeat, fluorescent bubblegum pop. folklore marks a new aesthetic and area for Swift as well — the reflective storytelling and cinematic themes are indicative of Swift’s maturity and

evolution as a songwriter. While Swift has been one of the most well-known celebrities of the past decade, her notoriety has not always been positive. In the past, Swift was mocked and belittled in the media for what was believed to be her string of famous boyfriends and her excessive focus on her love life in her songs. Many of Swift’s critics and even some former fans derided her transition to pop in 2014. There was definitely a point in the 2010s when hating Taylor Swift was the “cool” thing to do, and her music was often seen as shallow or something only teenage girls would listen to. folklore’s near-universal acclaim represents a new era for Swift, as many of her former fans are returning and have a newfound appreciation for her talent. “I’m personally not a big Taylor Swift fan — the last time I listened to an album by her was in 2008 — but folklore is so good. The songs tell a story, introducing you to characters and

conflict and tension the way a book or T.V. show would, but it does so in 3-4 minutes in a catchy beat,” says college student Aly Smith, who appreciates folklore’s avoidance of mainstream radio pop sounds. Others appreciate folklore’s intricate storytelling and the way it lets listeners detach from their own problems and enter Swift’s imagination. “When I listen, I feel like a mysterious rich woman throwing Great Gatsby-esque parties after leaving my former life behind. folklore makes me nostalgic for days I never even had,” explains Bella Darling. “folklore is the perfect title for this album as it progressively takes the listener on a magical journey by word of mouth. By the end, I had a genuine attachment to the songs’ different characters through Swift’s incomparable storytelling. While the songs are sad, it’s also very serene and calming,” says Paige Brunson. According to Brunson,

who appreciates the album’s rustic and autumnal aesthetic, “It’s on my bucket list to listen to folklore in the middle of the forest and ascend.” Part of folklore’s appeal comes from its refusal to stick to one genre, as well as its musical and lyrical innovation. Moreover, Swift’s emphasis on storytelling and her drift away from first-person stories to third-person narratives signify a new era in her personal evolution. For women who began listening to Taylor Swift as children in the 2000s and are now in their late teens and early 20s, folklore holds a special significance as they grew up alongside Swift. Themes such as the loss of innocence, loneliness, reflection and nostalgia are omnipresent on folklore, leading many of Swift’s lifelong fans, as well as those who stopped being fans and have now returned, to recognize her maturity and evolution over the past decade and a half.

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STREET VIEWS A Photo Spread

P H OTO AT T R I B U T I O N S : 1 ARIA BURDON DASBACH / 2 ANNA CHANG / 3- 4 CARISSA LEWIS / 5 W I L L B R I N K E R H O F F / 6 A L E X A N D R A VO N M I N D E N / 7 ZAC H A RY G R O V E / 8 T H I B A U LT D ’A U R I O L

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Female Activism Today AND THE LABELS THAT COME WITH IT: A CLOSER LOOK INTO INDIAN FEMALE ACTIVISM

W O R D S B Y S H I VA N I E K K A N A T H

V I S U A L S B Y E M I LY Q U E

omen in power and politics continue to be burned at the stake for their passions and beliefs in today’s society. They are held to a higher standard and often called out for qualities that are perceived differently when exhibited by their male counterparts. One can only imagine the media fixation that female politicians like AOC receive, as she is continuously villainized simply for her passion and commitment to social justice issues. “AOC is a machine of silly things she says, gaffes and extreme statements,’’ said Tim Graham, from the conservative Media Research Center. Is this sentiment due to her commitment to universal healthcare and

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a Green New Deal, or is the sinister role of gendered media at play? Women who are passionate about a cause are consistently given harsh labels. They are regarded as angry, shrill, derailed, and often, even violently insane, like Charlotte Bronte’s “madwoman in the attic” character and Bertha Mason, in the classic Jane Eyre. These women were meant to be kept in check by society and the men in their life, so they would not be a danger to themself or besmirch the reputation of the family. Similarly, the madwoman of Victorian literature is still seen in stereotypes such as the “angry black woman” in western pop culture and the so-called “nagging shrew.” We may now even see her as the “angry”

or “crazy feminist” or even know her by the heinous and damaging “feminazi” pejorative that has now come to dominate our socio-political discourse today. Upon further examination and the reading of the 2020 article “The Perils and Possibilities of Anger” by Casey Cep in The New Yorker, I was introduced to the political power of so-called “female rage” and how it further underlines this trope, feeding into the language we use to understand and describe female protestors in mainstream media. Around the world, women who have spearheaded protests and revolutions have often been shunned, telling them to be more “ladylike.” Even though women activists are at the receiving end of this degrading

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treatment, the sheer and inherent political power of female rage can be channeled in different ways and can also be a source of strength today. Female Activists In India: A Closer Look he arrests of Pinjra Tod activists sparked a needed reminder, as participants were depicted and reduced to yet another misplaced and prejudiced, cliche stereotype. Arresting women such as Safoora Zargar, Devangana Kalita, and Natasha Narwal revealed a stark insight into how society views women who dare to take to the streets. According to the 2020 The Hindu article “Anti-CAA protest: Pinjra Tod activists granted bail, rearrested,” despite

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the nationwide lock-down, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, members of Pinjra Tod, a Delhi based activist group, were arrested under the rather vague charges of “obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions” in connection with the Jafrabad sit-in during the anti-CAA protests in May. These protests were held in light of a recent bill by the Indian Government to target Muslims and some other minority groups for seeking Indian citizenship. This has come under fire for being wildly discriminatory and a gross miscarriage of justice considering the fact that India is a secular country. It was implied in The Free Press’s 2020 article “Pinjra Tod activist Natasha

Narwal arrested under UAPA in Delhi riots case…” that these activists were a part of a “conspiracy case” and Shubhda Chaudhary mentions in their 2020 “Students Are Not Enemies of the Nation” piece in The Citizen that they were also called “enemies of the nation.” Arvind Ojha notes in their 2020 India Today article “Delhi Riots: Days after being granted bail…” that despite being granted bail and the court finding no evidence of any violent activity, they have been rearrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The Wire’s Siddharth Varadarajan states that this act is a piece of legislation that has often been criticized for being vague and draconian in its provisions in his 2020 article

titled “Allowing the State to Designate Someone as a ‘Terrorist’ Without Trial is Dangerous.” The UAPA has also been used to charge Safoora Zargar and other activists, many of them predominantly Muslim. Zargar is an M.Phil Student from Jamia Millia Islamia University who has been accused of orchestrating the antiCAA protests and the road blockade under the Jafrabad Metro Station in Delhi. In a recent analysis by The Wire, Apoorvanand who teaches at Delhi University wrote about how amid the “scripted drama” of the Delhi violence, the police are “casting for characters.” Female activists seem to have become the likely scapegoats where they are portrayed as “emotional and angry.” The Wire also

cites how many even proclaimed that the women were a cover for “dangerous” Muslim men and were behind a fictitious “urban Naxal group,” a political group in India that has historically communist links and is often perceived negatively. These cases parallel the sad realities of many student and female activists who have sought justice in a polarising and turbulent political environment. Trolls, as well as media outlets, have provided the ammunition to further malign the reputation of these individuals. The treatment of the Pinjra Tod activists is only a reflection of the government’s own fear of dissent where their commitment to social justice has instantly turned them into an “enemy of the state.” We are made

to believe that there is an almost militant vigor that made these courageous women ‘dangerous’ in some way. The reverse side of the Safoora Zargar narrative diminishes her worth and power further, by portraying her as a “helpless pregnant woman,” nearly akin to a damsel in distress. Unfortunately, this is fodder for further discrimination and bigotry against her that further underlines the spread of this gendered narrative. For instance, the media has constantly misrepresented her, with many right-wing trolls and news outlets labeling her, “unwed and pregnant,” amidst the barrage of hate and criticism attacking and maligning her reputation. Even some liberal and progressive press releases

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focus on her being “Muslim, pregnant, and in jail” during the lockdown. A Character Assassination he arrests also involve a swift character assassination with many deeming it a travesty of justice. Much of the injustices they face stem from the perception of these women being “characterless,” simply because they take to the streets to fight for their rights. Safoora Zargar’s pregnancy and marital status become an overarching and recurring aspect to a damaging character assassination tactic conducted to further support a certain narrative and political agenda. In a statement to Pakobserver found in “Detained Jamia student Safoora

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slandered online in Modi’s India,” Safoora Zargar’s sister, Sameeya Zargar said, “This is nothing but character assassination,” after a sexist jibe from Kapil Mishra, a prominent Indian politician in the nation’s capital of Delhi. Her marital status and pregnancy are seen as an aberration, making her “doubly deviant,” a term often used to describe female offenders. Worse still, a New18 report written by Rakhi Bose highlighted that sexist trolls even went as far as to declare, “Give her a condom,” thereby further exacerbating the deeply rooted and misogynistic toxic “Madonna-Whore” complexity. This is still used by society to further divide women, where a woman’s sexual desire is somehow equated with her lack of

morality. This is only the beginning of the level of lewd and sexist trolling that female activists have endured since the protests. The sexually-charged trolling against many of the arrested activists is only a reminder of the sexist and hierarchical society we continue to inhabit when women are silenced when they stand up for equality and justice. Female activism has become an essential part of our political landscape today, yet women still remain at the receiving end of society’s tire and the harmful stereotypes of toxic gender norms. This makes it difficult not to imagine that this is an extension of the anxiety and paranoia society feels when it thinks about a “crazy angry woman.”

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A First Job a second home

WO R DS BY R AC H E L P E K E L N E Y

V I S U A L S B Y T I M O T H Y YA N G

rom across the street, I watched the scene unfolding before me in the parking lot of Adventure 16, the local outdoor gear shop. A fallen pine tree lay on the pavement, surrounded by a small crowd of people sporting puffy down jackets, trucker hats, and Chaco sandals. Many of them held beers in their hands. They were sawing off slices of wood to take home as pieces

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of memorabilia. This tree was one of the iconic pines that had stood in the middle of the Adventure 16 parking lot. A few weeks prior, a windstorm had knocked it over — a symbolic felling of a tree as the store it belonged to shut its doors for good. My first job was at Adventure 16, nicknamed “A16” by its employees and devoted customers. It was where my parents had been shopping for hiking gear

since they first moved to Los Angeles in the ‘80s. A16 was founded by members of a Scout Explorer post that started making their own backpacking packs, eventually creating an industry-changing design. The number 16 in the store’s name comes from the movies the scouts shot on 16 millimeter film. These original packs, along with antique climbing ropes, ice axes, skis, and snowshoes adorned the interior of the store.

I’m not sure exactly why I rushed to get a job as soon as I turned 16. Perhaps it was my mother periodically telling me how she saved money by working for the telephone company in high school to pay her way through college. Every time she recounted this tale, I would sit there and roll my eyes, but it struck a subliminal chord. Privately, I was taken with the prospect of earning my own paychecks and watching the number steadily climb in my savings account, even if, in today’s world, working a minimum wage job in high school can no longer finance a college education. I knew that I didn’t want just any job — I wanted to work at A16 because I loved the outdoors and I liked shopping there, even if I wasn’t looking to buy anything in particular. In my interview, the hiring manager told me that this was the best place to work as a first job. His comment struck me, and I evaluated the truth of his claim over the course of my tenure there. Once

I was hired, the education I received as an A16 employee far surpassed anything I could have imagined. Part of A16’s unique (and now increasingly disappearing) business model was focused on extensively training sales associates with technical expertise about gear and outdoor apparel. As an employee, I was heavily invested in; I learned information about products that exceeded what would be necessary to share with customers looking for the right insulation layer, bug repellant for the Sierras, or hiking boots for their first backpacking trip. Beyond this technical training, there were countless unintentional lessons I learned about self-advocacy and what it means to be an employee. In time I may forget about the production process of Gore-Tex or the difference between polyurethane and EVA shoe soles, but I will always remember what it felt like to be inducted into the camaraderie of retail workers. As a 16 year old, it was

a revelation to me to be treated equally as another one of the employees — as one of the grown-ups, in a sense. Though my coworkers readily took me under their wings, I was subject to the same expectations for professionalism, sales goals, and customer service as everyone else. I wanted to prove to them and myself that despite my age, I was worthy of being counted among them as A16’ers. Progressively, I became speedier at counting out the register drawer at closing time and handling multiple customers at once on the sales floor. Soon, I was helping to train new hires that came after me. With time, I learned to ask with confidence for what I wanted, pushing back on managers when I disagreed with what they were doing or how they were treating me. Ensconced in this environment, I thought I knew what it meant to be “one of the adults.” But although I was just as much an A16 employee as anyone else — we did the same work, received similar

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paychecks — I was at an entirely different stage of my life’s trajectory. Surrounding me were people that made their living this way; when it came to money, I felt like a spectator observing the real world from a distance. Yes, I was an employee, but I was not financially dependent on this job like many of my coworkers were. Once I found myself on the employee side of the customer service relationship, I was simultaneously shocked, infuriated, and embarrassed by what I learned about how people treat one another. In a retail position that emphasizes the importance of customer satisfaction, I was supposed to be friendly and accommodate everyone, no matter how they behaved toward me. I observed around me a seemingly subconscious (and sometimes conscious) attitude about the position of retail workers as a subservient group with the sole duty of catering to the customer’s every whim. It was a peculiar experience to help a parent shopping with a teenager my age and be treated with a brusqueness of tone that I would not have been subject to had I not been wearing my green canvas apron on the sales floor. Working in retail is the ultimate reminder that employees are people and deserve to be treated as such. Unfortunately, not all my

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customers shared that view. I watched customers question the gear expertise of female employees and immediately turn to a male employee for a “more reliable” opinion. I’ve been told I’m “useless” for not having the correct size or color of a desired item in stock. I’ve watched customers express irritation through snarky, rude remarks in situations over which employees had no control. These occurrences were inherent to the job, and most of A16’s full-time employees had been dealing with this kind of treatment for years. While any other first job might have been able to teach me these same lessons, in many ways A16 had no parallel. At times it felt like I was dropped into the retail edition of The Office. When business was slow, we would prank call our competitor REI to ask if they carried longsleeve vests and opposum hats. We dressed up in the same outfits as the mannequins, answered the phone using the names of other employees or John Muir, and lobbed tightly packed balls of plastic at each other across the sales floor — a game creatively titled Sports Ball. At its height, A16 had seven stores across Southern California. The West Los Angeles branch, where I worked, was located in an industrial pocket neighborhood just east of the

405 freeway, encircled by a welfare office, a homeless shelter, and auto body shops. Yet on any given day, the parking lot would be peppered with Teslas and Mercedes, which formed a sharp contrast with the unassuming storefront and the surrounding neighborhood. This juxtaposition became something I associated with A16, and it continued inside the store. A16 was frequented by outdoor enthusiasts and amateur adventurers alike, but the majority of the profits came from the owners of the Teslas and Mercedes in the parking lot (including celebrities like Harrison Ford, who I once witnessed purchasing underwear at the store). As a salesperson, I outfitted such customers with thousands of dollars’ worth of the highest quality clothing and gear available. I helped customers going on safaris in Africa, glamping Kilimanjaro, and taking month long cruises in Alaska. After 58 years in business, A16 closed its doors for good in January of 2020. It closed for many reasons; chief among them are the changing way that retail is practiced, an inability to keep up with internet sales, and the sharky real estate market of West LA. But beyond the loss of the store itself comes the loss of the community that went along with it. Local gear shops play

a unique role in the outdoor community. Both customers and employees would gather around the map table trading trail stories and planning their next adventures. This was a place where people forged friendships, found hiking buddies, and even met their spouses. At the farewell party for the West LA store, the company’s president, John Mead said, “A16 is not just a place — it’s an idea and a spirit.” As I look back, I have a tendency to romanticize my time there. I dragged my feet working the closing shift on school nights, and I had my fair share of difficult customers that managed to ruffle my feathers. By the time I quit in the spring of 2018, my frustrations had mounted, many of the coworkers I first started working with had moved on, and I was itching to be out of there. But I loved that place like a second home, and it helped me grow into myself. The company had a saying that feels especially poignant now: “Once an A16’er, always an A16’er.” The store and my experience working there folded themselves into my identity. It saddens me that I will no longer be able to walk through the store’s front door to the smell of cedar incense and the tinkling of the welcome bell. A16’s unique community of outdoor enthusiasts is now scattered, but I know they’ll always find their way back on the trail.

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big sur: COLORS

CONTRAST A P H OTO S P R E A D BY H E N RY D E M A RCO

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My Hal-abeoji’s Funeral Grieving as a Student During COVID-19 WO R DS BY R E G L I M

V I S U A L S B Y R E G L I M & E M I LY Q U E

he shoes I wear to my Hal-abeoji’s funeral pinch as I walk. They’re glossy black loafers with a narrow shape and the delicate skin at the heels of my feet rub uncomfortably against the sharp edges of the shoes. The hot California sun burns through my black turtleneck and skirt while sweat begins to dampen the back of my shirt. 24 hours earlier, I was in Berkeley, attending Zoom lectures and preparing to have a good semester in spite of remote learning and the pandemic. I was introducing myself to classmates and professors with a smile and showing off my favorite plants to the camera. At 10:48 p.m., the text announcing my grandfather’s passing came with a simple ping. As the professor droned on in the background, I muted myself and sobbed into my hands, my phone digging into my cheek as I curled inward. When the lecture ends with everybody saying “thank you” and “bye,” I uncurl myself and my tears blur the screen as I send emails to professors and GSI’s about how “my grandfather has passed” and that “I’ll be unavailable as I travel to the funeral.” Some emails don’t get responses, while other professors send their condolences and excuse me from assignments. And yet, with every reply I receive, it feels more and more surreal. Even as I’m told to not worry about anything else, I continue getting emails about Google Forms and assignments that I’ve already been marked late for. When I receive a condolence email and then an email about action items from the same person within minutes of each other, I finally decide to turn off my phone.

s I drive to the funeral, I feel crazy, undone, like someone on the run. I push 100 miles down the I-5 to Southern California and my chest flutters and my eyes burst into spontaneous tears. Only for me

to go silent, quiet, a minute later. It feels unreal, like this is happening to someone else. You never think someone you know will actually die, until it happens. My Hal-abeoji ran a shoe shop in the flea market, so he always gave me and my sister a new pair of shoes during rare visits. I’ll always remember him fitting the shoes on me, the brisk way he tied the laces together. The last time he ever tied my laces together was for a pair of red converse that he looked at with a raised brow but let me keep anyways, even after he noted how thin the soles were. He would pat down the toe of the shoe, checking to see that the shoe wasn’t too small or big, checking to see that it fit just right. The shoes my Hal-abeoji gave me would always fit perfectly, as he had intended. I’m not entirely sure how he died, whether it was COVID-19 or not, until I’m actually at the funeral. I find out that he died during heart surgery and while he didn’t have COVID-19, I hear the same phrase whenever his death comes up: “Covid ttaemun-e,” which roughly translates to “because of Covid.” With that small little phrase, my relatives encompass the chaos and death that has been overtaking hospitals in the last year. Eliza Barclay and Dylan Scott from Vox point out how “Several counties in California are facing major outbreaks of the virus, with resources stretched thin to care for the sickest patients.” On July 16th, at the time of the Vox article, the New York Times reported that 75,682 new cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed and as overworked as hospitals were in July, it has only gotten worse as the number of new COVID-19 cases continue to stay steady in the tens of thousands. If it wasn’t already enough for hospitals to be overrun with patients and stretched resources, the impact on nurses and doctors feels insurmountable. There is mounting pressure on nurses and doctors who are sick with COVID-19 to return to work as KHN reports that “In a survey of nearly 1,200 health workers who are members of Health Professionals and

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Allied Employees Union, roughly a third of those who said they had gotten sick responded that they had to return to work while symptomatic.” And there is already an ongoing joint project between The Guardian and KHN, Lost on the Frontline, to count and investigate the number of healthcare workers who have died during the pandemic. As of November 11th, 2020, there are currently 1375 healthcare worker deaths under investigation. And so when my relatives say, “Covid ttaemun-e,” I know exactly what they mean. Even though Halabeoji was older and the surgery was risky, my family couldn’t help looking at the ways hospitals have been ravaged by the pandemic and wonder, “What if?” With this tiny phrase, they hinted at the possibility that if Hal-abeoji had gone under the knife in a different time and place, when there wasn’t a pandemic and hospitals weren’t overworked with sick and dying staff, he might’ve lived.

hen the funeral finally starts, I notice that the funeral parlor has good air conditioning and that the ceilings are higher than I expected. I look everywhere in the parlor except for where my grandpa lies in his casket. Instead, I note that the air conditioning helps with the way the mask fogs up my glasses. We file into the brown wooden benches and sit apart from each other, trying our best to be six feet away in this small room with my Hal-abeoji. In the first and only other funeral I went to, it was for my friend’s mother in high school. It was also a Korean funeral, not much different from other kinds of funerals. We sing hymns in Korean, pay our respects, and then eat a meal together with everyone right after. We give money or send funeral flower stands, giant contraptions that are taller than a grown man with giant black and white ribbons that trail down the riotous combination of flowers. During the procession, family members stand in a line next to the casket. Funeral goers would shake the hand of each family member, going down the line to pay their respects. For my first funeral, I remember how tightly I gripped my friend’s hand as we held each other and the tight grip each family member gave me as I paid my respects down the line. Afterwards, we all went to the open hall where everyone sat together to eat meat, banchans, and rice as the adults drank and laughed and cried about the person long-gone. The smell of japjae and freshly made rice still lingers in my mind. For Hal-abeoji’s funeral, we awkwardly orbit each other as we talk through our masks. Friends of

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my Hal-abeoji, two older men, are turned away at the door as the parlor has already reached max capacity with the family present. I can hear them asking, “Why can’t we come in? We want to see him.” It’s not uncommon for funerals during the COVID-19 pandemic to result in a limited guest list and more restrictions. Jerry Davich from the Chicago Tribune says that “Today, how we’re allowed to grieve in public with other mourners has been significantly affected by numerous factors: funeral home precautions, delayed memorials, shortened services, cemetery limitations, and virtual mourning without public grieving.” When the funeral director repeats again that the parlor is full with family, they sit back quietly with crossed arms and white-knuckled grips. Weeks later, I wonder whether they did get to go in to say goodbye, whether it was enough to say goodbye to Hal-abeoji without seeing his body in the casket. When I finally do look into the open casket, Halabeoji looks peaceful, like he’s asleep. The only thing I can think of as I stand there next to his casket is how much my shoes pinch at the delicate skin of my heels. Only one person is allowed to go to the casket at a time, so as much as I want to hold Hal-abeoji’s hand, I don’t. During a pandemic, grief is dangerous. Teddy Rosenbluth from the Concord Monitor points out how “since the beginning of the pandemic, the very rituals that were supposed to offer comfort and normalcy became potentially dangerous. The CDC offered a number of guidelines – don’t share prayer books, don’t drive to funerals together, don’t touch the deceased.” Many of the rituals we clung to before the pandemic — holding each other, eating together — are health hazards and anyone who breaks the CDC guidelines risks infection of COVID-19. Now, as more and more funerals occur with the rising death toll, our rituals for closure are changing — disappearing even — and affecting the way our grief manifests. In the Concord Monitor, Robin Nafshi, the Rabbi at Temple Beth Jacob in Concord, says, “It’s not just the death of a loved one. It’s the absence of the communal norms that brought them comfort. It is the absence of what is familiar. It is grief upon grief upon grief.” And new research from Psychiatry Research reveals that prolonged grief disorder (PGD) cases will rise during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prolonged grief disorder is characterized by “distressing and disabling yearning for the deceased and/or preoccupation with the deceased, accompanied by anger, guilt, and other symptoms indicative of intense emotional pain experienced for at least 6 months after the loss.” And

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prolonged grief symptoms increase in intensity and frequency when “deaths are unexpected, traditional grief rituals (e.g., saying goodbye, viewing and burial of the body) are absent, and physical social support is lacking.” Many of the attempts to keep us safe from COVID-19 are the same efforts which will impede our ability to grieve, help us say goodbye in rituals we understand. When we finally all disperse from the awkward circle we had made after Hal-abeoji’s funeral, I think about whether this was enough to say goodbye, whether I should’ve stayed a second longer by the casket to really look at my Hal-abeoji for the last time. As we stand outside under the sun, I check my phone for the first time since the funeral ended, and I see that my inbox is bursting with emails about missed classes and assignments.

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hen I finally take off my funeral shoes in the comfort of my sister’s home, there is tender red skin at my heels, close to peeling. I shove the shoes in a brown bag and don’t look at them for the rest of the week I stay at home. My feet keep aching where the shoes pinched, leaving tender skin that becomes blisters. It feels right somehow though, how the blisters from the funeral stay with me. When I look back at the emails on my phone, I realize that going back to Berkeley feels like an admission to go back to normal — where classes, deadlines, and emails wait for me — it feels like opening a new chapter to a story I don’t want to be in. A story where I’m the grandkid who didn’t see my Hal-abeoji for 2 years, who kept putting it off until the next break, the next vacation, until he passed with no warning and no goodbye. As I spend days lying in bed and sobbing, I realize I don’t have any other option besides being okay and going back to school. UC Berkeley provides a page

on “Grief & Loss,” where they detail the symptoms and stages of grief and offer suggestions such as: “Be easy on yourself, consider how much you want to share with others, watch alcohol and drug use, utilize campus resources.” While the other suggestions require self-control that could be tossed to the wind in the throes of grief, the last suggestion is somewhat actionable. But when I look to see whether the school offers specialized support for grief counseling whether through Social Services or CAPS, I realize there is none. Instead, you’re meant to make an appointment with an overtaxed system where hundreds of students are seeking mental health guidance during a pandemic. In the same “Grief & Loss” page under the “Grief and School” section, UC Berkeley says that “Some students need the structure of classes to help them following a death. Others may need to drop their units to a minimum load to decrease the academic pressure. Still others may decide to take a semester out of school

due to the disruption in their lives and the inability to concentrate on school work. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ choice. We all grieve differently.” And yet, there clearly is a wrong choice when looking at the fact that, according to the Office of Registrar, withdrawing or cancelling a semester means submitting a new admissions application that costs $70, can put your financial aid at risk, and that you are not granted refunds depending on when you withdraw. Depending on how much the school says you “earned,” they may even demand that you pay back some of your financial aid. Other alternatives such as taking on a lighter course load brings its own set of complications, such as the cost of an extra semester in order to fulfill graduation requirements or the risk of not graduating on time. Even when I considered withdrawing, I was told that if I drop out now, I would miss my momentum and that the possibility of never returning to school

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was too high. This kind of sentiment is magnified for low-income students who may need to choose between taking a break to grieve with their families or the risk of never returning to school and losing financial support. UC Berkeley held its annual Campus Memorial virtually on September 14th but has given little acknowledgement to grieving during the school year since. It is not enough to provide how-to guides on navigating grief without actionable and material resources such as waivers and funding to help offset the financial cost that comes with grief, whether that is withdrawing from the school or being pushed into new roles of caretaker as parents and guardians pass away due to COVID-19. Although online resources for dealing with grief during the COVID-19 pandemic are freely available, they are targeted towards K-12 students, the students who are the most vulnerable. Still, even the resources available from the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement mainly contain how-to guides on talking to students. But many schools are still struggling with the switch to online education, which can’t bode well to their ability to comfort and adjust to grieving students when a computer screen stands in the way of real connection and support. As I stare at the “Grief & Loss” page late into the night, I look at the sentence again where they say “There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ choice.” While I weigh the costs of withdrawing with the negative impact on

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my financial aid and the five figures of debt I have accumulated for a school that cannot love or care for me — I realize that the choice has already been made for me.

t the first lecture I finally attended after my grandfather died, I put on a sharp smile that turned shaky by the end as professors talked about the assignments, readings, lectures. As they talked about how I absolutely should be doing the five 10-page readings that week, I scratch at my nails wondering whether my Hal-abeoji knew I loved him. I think about him alone in that casket, hands resting over each other, and I wonder if he felt how much love was in that room around his body. I think about how I thought I would see him this Christmas and wonder if there’s a world out there where we do see each other. As I keep thinking and thinking, turning over the question of whether he knew I loved him even from 397 miles away, I can hear the professor talking about something in the background. Did Hal-abeoji know that I thought of him? What was he thinking in his last moments? Did he know that I loved him in spite of the lack of phone calls and visits? I would frequently pray to my ancestors, because God felt too nebulous to talk to, and I remember praying for everybody to be safe in the beginning

of the pandemic. When the call with my professor finally ends, I realize that Hal-abeoji is now one of the ancestors I would pray to. The 10-page readings my professor assigns in this call turns into 100 pages of dense readings as classes combine and coalesce. As I stare at my laptop screen, staring into nothing, the pixels blur, my throat feels thick, and my eyes feel wet. But I don’t cry because being a student means being productive and crying isn’t productive. The blisters on my feet from the funeral are now gone, healing over now and leaving a small ache. In the daylight as I sit at my desk thinking of nothing, I rub the newly-healed skin of my heels until it’s red and raw. When I first began writing this piece about my Hal-abeoji on September 23, 2020, The New York Times reported that there were 201,129 deaths in the United States from COVID-19. Now, as I write this on November 11, 2020, the New York Times reports that there are 241,689 deaths. The data is not perfect but not in the way we expect, The New York Times specifically mentions how “confirmed cases and deaths, which are widely considered to be an undercount of the true toll, are counts of individuals whose coronavirus infections were confirmed by a molecular laboratory test.” There is a real possibility that the death toll is much higher than we expect as those whose infections could not be confirmed by a lab test were not counted in the death toll. The depth of loss has affected every facet of our lives, as the unfathomably large number of deaths continues to rise. For students, this means that some of those numbers from the death toll were their parents or loved ones. And now, many students are taking care of their families or juggling school, grief, and a move to a new guardian — stressors that the education system only compounds. A study in September 2020 by the United Hospital Fund found that 4,200 kids in NYC have lost a parent to COVID-19, and that the effect on households are severe and long-lasting. “Up to 23% of children who lost a parent or caregiver due to COVID-19 may be at risk of entry into foster or kinship care. Some children already in kinship care, due to the opioid epidemic for example, may be disproportionately affected” and “approximately 50% of children who lost a caregiver due to COVID-19 may enter poverty.” As the study finds that Black and Hispanic children experience parental or caregiver death disproportionately at twice the rate of other children, we see how the long-standing inequities that communities of color face are pronounced by the

COVID-19 pandemic. Children of color already face down many barriers in their path and losing their parent and caregiver only raises their risk of poor mental and physical health. But many students are left with no choice but to continue their schooling and work, even at the risk of infection and death. As we keep losing people to the COVID-19 pandemic, how do we grieve when we have no choice but to keep looking forward, to keep being productive?

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As we keep losing people to the COVID-19 pandemic, how do we grieve when we have no choice but to keep looking forward, to keep being productive? There seems to be no easy answer, because the answer requires resources and support from public institutions that are unwilling to provide them. For some, the answer is for the 241,689 people we’ve lost to come back. For me, it means asking for one last chance to say goodbye to Hal-abeoji. I finally drove back to Berkeley three weeks after the funeral, following the speed limit without even one tear falling from my eyes. And yet, when I finally arrived back in Berkeley, after I’d shoved the uncomfortable funeral shoes to the back of my closet, I looked for the red converse he gave me. The bright red stands out in the darkness of the closet, the red fabric has dark marks and the white leather is scuffed. The laces have smudges of dirt and are more gray than white. I turn them over in my hands and I sit down on the ground as I slip the shoe over my sock-covered feet. The blisters are long healed, not a trace left of the raw skin. When I tie together the laces and stand in the last pair of shoes my Hal-abeoji gave me, I realize that they still fit perfectly.

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Inside the Mind of the Dreamer

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W O R D S B Y E V E LY N T AY L O R

magine attempting to explain to someone who never slept what a dream was. How could you describe it? A shockingly lifelike hallucination of the subconscious mind? The revelation of buried desire, manifested in thought? Or even a message from some higher power, connecting with you through slumber? From neuroscience-oriented analyses to ancient religious explanations, humans have been attempting to understand the meaning of dreams for centuries. Endless studies have tackled the many interconnected levels of dreaming, from dream recall frequency, or how often individuals remember their dreams, to the analysis of dream content and the impact of dreams on the health of the waking individual. Still, many questions remain. The elusive quality of dreaming and the challenges that come with studying it are what make it so fascinating to many. In trying to interpret dreams, one must first record the elements of the dreams themselves. Dr. Kelly Bulkeley, a psychologist of religion and a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, describes dream journals as “invaluable source[s] of insight into your most important concerns, activities, and relationships in the waking world.” While some researchers may not share Dr. Bulkeley’s belief about the possible underlying meanings of dreams, dream reports or dream journals help dreamers remember and document the content of their dreams. And there tend to be many consistencies among the dreams of all humans, regardless of their cultures and backgrounds. In 1960, two American researchers developed the Hall/Van de Castle System of Quantitative Dream Content Analysis, setting the gold standard for measuring the elements of dreams. Through a network of

V I S UA L S BY N E H A S H A H

scales measuring emotions, intensity, and characteristics, this system helped recognize many universal trends in dream content. Some of the most well-documented trends include negative emotions, robust social interactions, a first-person perspective, and an emphasis on the visual sensory modality. Dr. Raphael Vallat, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley, also known as the Walker Lab, has been involved in neuroscientific research on sleep for two years with this lab, and wrote his PhD thesis on dreaming at the University of Lyon. In his thesis, Vallat not only explores the common themes of dream content, but also how differences in personality, sleep architecture, and brain physiology affect dreaming. “We spend one third of our lives sleeping, and I just think it’s so fascinating because we still don’t really know what’s happening,” Vallat says. “We have some clues obviously, but we still really don’t know, so for me it’s kind of a great mystery and there’s plenty of work to do.” The regions of the brain involved in emotion, memories, and social interaction are often highly activated during dreams, which explains the strong emotions and social experiences dreamers often experience. The more bizarre a dream is, Vallat explained, the better it will be remembered by the individual. But why are dreams often so bizarre and confusing in the first place? During Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, part of the prefrontal cortex is disabled. Because the prefrontal cortex is responsible primarily for rational thinking, the brain is now unrestricted to generate illogical dreams. “You can just do whatever you want because you have no adults in the house,” Vallat analogizes.

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Though some are more embraced by science than others, various explanations for the function of dreams have floated around the world of neuroscience, as well as cultural and religious realms. Perhaps one of the most scientifically-supported theories is one of emotional regulation and memory consolidation. Vallat explained that the way individuals dream of actual events that happened in their lives is much less emotional than when the events took place, suggesting that some processes are taking place to downregulate the emotional components of memories, therefore helping the dreamer consolidate important memories and forget irrelevant details of their lives. Vallat details how this theory aligns with the findings of studies he conducted while pursuing his PhD. “We noticed an interesting pattern that the content of dreaming at least is essentially composed of completely mundane and uninteresting things from the day before, but it’s also composed of some very strong social interactions and some memories that took place like three or five years ago,” Vallat says. “The brain is actively processing all the memories, everything that happened to you in your life, and trying to decide ‘Okay, this is not important, I can probably forget it,’ and ‘This is important, and I need to somehow regulate the emotional component of that.’ When you dream, you have a window into what’s happening in your mind.”

However, many researchers suggest this internal window may serve other functions in waking life. Finnish cognitive neuroscientist Antti Revonsuo is famous for his Threat Simulation Theory, the idea that dreams are like a virtual reality for the dreamer to prepare for and adapt to dangerous circumstances he or she might encounter in waking life. A powerful piece of evidence supporting this theory would be the overwhelming presence of negative situations in dreams. On the other hand, neurologist Sigmund Freud developed his Repressive Hypothesis of Wish-Fulfillment, which suggests that dreams reflect the “forbidden” thoughts and desires of the dreamer — material too inappropriate or evil to be expressed in waking life. Because the ego’s defense is lowered while someone is asleep, the mind is free to explore these secret wishes, thoughts, and fears. This outlook is much more controversial in the present day, but has influenced the interpretation of dream function throughout history. Vallat is familiar with many theories, and believes that dream interpretation is a complicated road. He emphasizes that individuals can likely gain some insight about themselves and their own lives by remembering their dreams and trying to interpret them personally, rather than according to some established, population-wide standard. Personality and experiences in waking life clearly impact dream content, and many theories of dream function are focused on the connections between major

“When you dream, you have a window into what’s happening

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in your mind.”

events in waking life and dreams. A 1984 study published in the Journal of Psychiatry entitled “Broken dreams: a study of the effects of divorce and depression on dream content” demonstrates a clear link between what we dream about and how we feel. The study found that, among couples who had been recently divorced, those who reported negative dreams at the beginning of the night (primarily about their ex-spouse) and less so at the end of the night were found to be less depressed after the divorce. Others who dreamed negatively consistently throughout the night tended to struggle more with moving on from the divorce in waking life. The findings of this study align with the popular theory of emotional regulation, as individuals who coped better with a traumatic event appeared to downregulate negativity while dreaming. Possibly one of the most captivating aspects of the study of dreams is the phenomenon of lucid dreaming, when the dreamer is able to gain control over events in their dream and change elements of it they don’t like. Vallat explains that lucid dreamers are able to exert control over their eye movements during these episodes (which primarily, but not always, occur during REM sleep), a difference that allows for researchers to begin to study brain activity during lucid dreaming. Lucid dreamers typically show a reactivation of the prefrontal cortex (the rational thinking part of the brain), as the dreamer gains consciousness and awareness within the dream itself.

When you ask someone to follow a circle with their eyes, their eye movement will show a smooth circle. However, when you ask them to close their eyes and imagine the circle they’re following, the eye movement will be choppy and imperfect. Dr. Stephen LaBerge’s 2018 study on eye tracking during REM sleep showed that lucid dreamers asked to perform this circle task while asleep showed smooth movement, indicating that lucid dreaming is more similar to waking life than it is to imagination. This underlines why lucid dreaming and non-lucid dreaming are so difficult to compare; lucid dreaming has much more in common with waking life. Lucid dreamers are aware of who and where they are in the real world, but are still experiencing an intense hallucination. On the other hand, sleepers experiencing non-lucid dreams truly believe the dream events are happening in real life and real time, a feeling Vallat describes as “the ultimate drug.” Though generations of scientists have studied the elements of human dreams throughout history, their precise meaning and function have eluded any definitiveness. A method of controlling negative emotion, perhaps? A phantasmagoric rehearsal of future events to train the dreamer? Or a cloak to hide one’s desires? With endless dream content to study and the continuing evolution of modern science, only time will tell whether or not there is a true way to analyze and interpret dreams.

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Daydreaming in Mo n o c h r o m e A P H OTO S P R E A D BY Z AC H G ROV E

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watching things turn past tense ON WRITING ABOUT WRITING

WO R DS BY J E N N I F E R CO

V I S UA L S BY C A R I SS A L E W I S

t is the March before the great many and I am sitting on the 51B, cradling a ruby red copy of Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Asian American creative writing’s final assigned reading. It is the March before the great many, so I don’t know what is coming, that I will be turning the final pages of the book as classes go remote and the world as we knew it slows to keel over into the world as we know it now. The book is deceptively titled to be one on genre, but it is a collection of essays that end up coalescing into autobiography, that is, to posit that perhaps the line is blurred in the act of writing. There are many writers that write

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about writing. A famous one I just read in a short fiction class was Flannery O’Conner’s pragmatically titled Writing Short Stories, in which she lasts only one page before laying out: “Of course, the ability to create life within words is essentially a gift. If you have it in the first place, you can develop it; if you don’t have it, you might as well forget it. But I have found that people who don’t have it are frequently the ones hell-bent on writing stories.” It is a rather pretentious corner of the bookstore that I don’t find myself agreeing with, but so well populated that I’ve begun to think it a milestone of the career, i.e., you’ll know you’ve made it once you start drafting op-eds on how “you either

have it or you don’t.” At the same time, I understand the yearning this genre holds. To write is an exercise in claim. It is quite bold to perceive something in this life and then have the audacity to give words to it. Conviction is a necessity you have to be bold enough to will yourself to afford. I had been toying with this for some time, bouncing between the writing workshops in the theater, English, and Asian American studies departments on campus: what does it mean to write, and who ought to be the ones entitled to do it? I found that different arenas had different colors to their answers. In playwriting there is the managing of breath that comes in fostering a production, laying the groundwork for something more —

exploring the emotion that rises from a live reading. In the English classroom we spent our hours dissecting a story’s function, from what psychic distance, from which shift in perspective, from which particular lens was a story operating? On what rhetoric and on what grounds? From there, it seemed a mastery of the word could be gained from simply caching in the perfect permutation of narrative device. In Asian American studies I recall the distaste of a visiting author, lamenting that Filipinos were not allowed to be creative. I thought of the dancing and singing that pulsed through my rendition of home, and at the time I did not understand. But in the classroom I’d see how our literature was brought up as ethnography, as

expository, as out of survival and reclamation and preservation. We were never allotted such terms as expression, exploration… creativity. In those classrooms to write was a radical act of straddling diaspora and the person looking back in the mirror. I’ve met writers who make dialogue sing, who can imagine music and gesture between every stanza. I’ve met writers who operate with such discipline, planning their short fiction with goals on narrative and shifts in point of view. Still more, I’ve met writers who operate out of fury, who know every syllable’s capacity to burn, who have crafted honor and declaration out of delocalization and storm. I admire all these but feel very far from them in my own moments when

writing feels good, and in something so central to identity in being the words I generate, I wonder what this silence means for those who are doing the generating. I am sitting in all of this as I read the final pages of Chee’s book, already surrounded in March’s debris. There is a line that I feel hurtling towards me from years ago, something he wrote surrounding the aftermath of 9/11: “in which the writer, who finally sees his novel published, then watches as the world ends.” I was sitting in the paralysis of those final days, brilliant things coming to seeming ends and so hauntingly unannounced. There is a final pocket of hopelessness when he follows:“what is the point of even

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writing, if this can happen?... which does not kill the artist so much as it kills the rationale for art.” I have spent the last six months toying with this inquiry. In truth, I have spent the great majority of it in nothing short of paralysis. There is a sense that one ought to turn to their art in the face of great devastation, but one cannot sustainably romanticize their pain in lieu of processing it. I felt my words had withered on the pages that I had so painstakingly lined them up on. Even music was too gaudy, too out of touch, daunting reminders of a reality that was no longer mine to draw from. It had seemed the bounds had changed, and I didn’t know where to start to rebuild. It is now October 2020. I write this from the childhood home, which is as loaded a sentence as it ought to be this semester. I get the feeling that this will be a time in my life that I will remember for a long time, something about how the sky turns. I am waking up from a long period of watching things turn past tense. I feel old in this way, straddling the gap between resignation and defiance, acceptance and hope. The words are coming

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lately, but not in a way I could’ve ever facilitated for myself. They are coming as an extension of my silence. They are honest. They let me sit next to them. There is something here moving at the speed of trust. I recall a letter that I wrote to Alexander Chee in the middle of that semester, chicken scrawl on journal page ripped: “Are you a different person when you write then when you live? How do you separate the writer from the lifer?” I am still haunted by the words I remember in his reply (a rushed message passed on by my professor over the phone): “It is lonely to choose yourself, but sometimes it is lonelier not to. The person that I am, needs to survive the writer that I am. Between me and me…” Writing is not a gift from the heavens in its exclusivity, but in a way, it is opening up and leaning into something that the Earth does not necessarily provide. It is perhaps the realization that sometimes, maybe most times, to look forward means to look inward.

These last seven months we have been tasked to look forward. I have held up every aspect of my life to such a merciless scrutiny. What moves me when the bounds have changed? Where do I put my time, in what direction am I heading and did I choose it? How did I get here and do I want to stay? I think writing mirrors this in its sensitivity, in its daring to ask, and still more, daring to try to answer. I do not write because I have something to say and need to broadcast it, for that is the role of the advertisements and the speech givers, but I find I write for the same verbs that many use to live: I write to honor, I write to feel, I write to mourn, I write despite, I write alongside, I write to exhale. The world bloodletting comes to mind. In this way, I think writing is your sensitivity. It’s a willingness to see and to be open. I recall the opening lines of my professor that semester, asking us for insights upon entering her classroom: “I am going to teach you how to have the eye.” In this life we have been tasked to witness a great many. I feel that we have been shown, in the last seven

months, all the extremes to which we can be debilitated. It is a radical act, then, to continue to see ourselves as generative in these contexts, and always. And so I suppose, I want to commend all of us in this, as creatures of language and as creatures on this Earth. In finding our footing with every given day, to go out of our way to assign feelings to the storms inside us, to see ourselves in an ever changing world and dare to honor, to feel, to mourn, despite and alongside: to exhale, and revel in our capacity for breath. This is my wish for us as we dare to look inward, which is to say, to have the audacity to imagine that there is something on the other side of this, to have the courage to believe that we are already on our way. I wish this for us tonight, to believe this beyond imagination, to believe this beyond courage. I will leave you with some of the last words in that book, waiting for me between my palms on the 51b: “it’s a strange time to teach someone to write stories. but i think it always is. this is just our strange time.” Our strange time indeed, and perhaps here I am, writing about writing, daring to see if I have made it, daring to believe that we will.

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the face of fitness W O R D S B Y C A I T LY N J O R D A N

type the word “fitness” in YouTube’s search engine, and immediately an array of tanned, toned bodies fill my screen. Laying in my bed, blanket pulled to my neck, I scroll through thumbnails of colorful leggings and abs. The titles of the videos range from “My Daily Fitness Routine: How I Keep 45 lbs Off!” to “What I Eat In A Day for Weight Loss.” Nearly all the suggested videos reference weight loss in their titles. I click on one of the videos and watch a woman with blindingly white teeth tell me what she eats in a day. Cheerful indie music plays in the background as she carefully doles out portions of food. She speaks with a fervent devotion about detoxing your body through smoothies. Curious, I scroll to the comments. One of the first comments reads, “If I had a body like yours I could die happy.”

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V I S U A L S B Y L A U R E N L E U N G & T I M O T H Y YA N G

The YouTube fitness community ranges from models to bodybuilders. Their videos include workout plans and popular “What I Eat in a Day” videos, where content creators, often called “influencers,” walk viewers through their healthy diets in precise detail. Yet, nearly all of these videos have one thing in common — advice. Influencers coach their viewers, produce guidebooks, and promise results. And while oftentimes these videos begin with a general disclaimer (“I am not a licensed dietitian”; “This is just what worked for me!”), it’s difficult to imagine their audiences not wanting to imitate the images on the screen. This YouTube fitness world appeared in my life almost by accident. I was growing increasingly dissatisfied with my body. I wanted my stomach to be narrow and toned; I wanted my hips to extend in perfect, round circles. On

“Slowly, these videos stopped being about eating food and began to be about controlling it instead.”

a whim, I searched for ab workouts on YouTube. One helpful video turned into another, and soon, the YouTube algorithm was suggesting new videos.These videos referenced workouts, but their focus was on food. Oftentimes, creators began by showering viewers with positive affirmations; for instance, some creators emphasized the importance of eating full meals in order to build muscle from workouts. After all, they were focused on fitness, not dieting. Yet, by the end of the videos, I would watch portions shrink. The creators would celebrate “earning” their food by working out. Some would prevent “detoxing” by drinking only juice cleanses. Slowly, these videos stopped being about eating food and began to be about controlling it instead.

The language of these videos mirror a term that has recently gained more attention: orthorexia. According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), orthorexia describes an obsession with proper or “healthful” eating. Although this pattern of disordered eating may not originally focus on losing weight, the obsession with eating healthy or “pure” foods can cause dramatic weight loss, or even malnutrition. For instance, health blogger Jordan Younger made headlines in 2015 when she revealed that her obsession over eating only “clean,” vegan food had morphed into eating only 800 calories a day, leaving her malnourished. Despite its rising prominence, orthorexia has not been formally recognized as an eating disorder by

the American Psychiatric Association. However, NEDA lists the condition as a disorder. In NEDA’s description of orthorexia, one of the symptoms includes “obsessive following of food and ‘healthy lifestyle’ blogs on Twitter and Instagram.” Twitter and Instagram may have been the first platforms to promote orthorexia, but YouTube is where orthorexia thrives. YouTube allows a level of virtual connection that Instagram and Twitter cannot provide. On YouTube, viewers are taken into someone’s kitchen. They look into their screen and make eye contact with an impassioned speaker. They listen to videos that often extend beyond 30 minutes. In one video, entitled “WHAT I EAT as a 23 year old MODEL,” influencer

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Natalia Taylor encourages a “raw” diet to detox the body in the morning by only eating fruits and vegetables before noon. Although she informs her audience that she believes in “instinctual eating,” the video quickly devolves into promoting a calories tracking app. Taylor’s video is an example of YouTube fitness language coinciding with orthorexia. Although repeated studies show that there is no need to detox the body, creators like Natalia rely heavily on orthorexia-based language, which assumes that eating is inherently contaminating. Yet, the fitness world provides alternatives to this vision as well. For instance, dietician Abbey Sharp runs the YouTube channel “Abbey’s Kitchen,” which offers science-based advice about achieving healthy eating. Sharp has created a popular video series reviewing “What I Eat in a Day” videos from vegan and fitness YouTube communities. Through her balanced reviews, Sharp uncovers some of the unhealthy practices behind seemingly healthy meals. For example, in a recent video, Sharp reviewed a “What I Eat in a Day” video by popular YouTuber Dr. Dray, a dermatologist and vegan health influencer. Sharp noted that although

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Dray’s meal totaled 2,000 calories, almost none of those calories included fats, a necessary component of a healthy diet. More alarmingly, Dray had compiled many foods with laxative properties in an attempt to subtly limit her weight gain. Other influencers promote different eating patterns all together. Fitness influencer Stephanie Buttermore spent 2019 doing something that is wildly uncommon in the fitness community: eating whatever she wanted. Buttermore is a scientist and self-described “fitness educator.” Before 2019, many of her videos focused on “cheat days” in which Buttermore (who consistently kept herself at a 14% body fat percentage) would break up her extreme dieting for fitness competitions by eating over 10,000 calories in a day. But in June 2019, Buttermore announced that she would be “going all in” and eating without restriction, for typically more than 3,000 calories a day. She described that she had been facing health complications as the result of her fitness-focused diet, including losing her period, feeling cold constantly, and facing extreme hunger and fatigue. Over the course of the year, Buttermore gained

over forty pounds, while still exercising regularly and meeting her gym goals. Yet, watching these videos, I noticed that the bulk of the popular comments were not directly about fitness. Instead, many of Buttermore’s comments came from young women attempting to overcome eating disorders. “I just want to say I was borderline anorexic before you started your journey and really close to hospitalization and now I’ve been following on your footsteps and going all in and I’ve gained 21 pounds and my body image is horrible but I know that it’s just a part of the process and you are my only role model who sheds light on the importance of going all,” wrote one user. “In 4 months, your body acceptance role modeling has done more for my eating disordered brain than 12 years of therapy,” said another. These comments demonstrate that YouTube can alter people’s relationship to their own health — for the better, or the worse. YouTube creates access to fitness advice that has typically been contained behind gym memberships, dietitian prices, and paywalls. However, this democratization also creates the opportunity for misleading, or simply

false, information to spread. After all, many of these influencers are not doctors, dieticians, or even personal trainers. Their health advice is not fact-checked; their results and routines cannot be verified. Instead, for these influencers, their bodies are their credibility. For those of us who want desperately to look and feel different, their bodies provide something to which we can aspire — if we act like they do, we can become the person we’ve always wanted to see in the mirror. Yet, how responsible can we hold influencers for sparking this reaction in their audiences? Is it the fault of the YouTube creators that I scrolled through tens of videos of fitness influencers promoting restrictive diets — and was briefly persuaded? Cassey Ho, a popular fitness influencer, entered this debate last year when she announced her intention to embark upon a 90-day challenge in order to lose weight. After criticism from her followers and members of the body positive movement, Ho exasperatedly responded that she was simply embarking upon a personal journey to become healthier. Of course, this personal journey was broadcast to her 4.86 million followers. When an individual’s health is streamed for millions to see, even personal journeys become shared. Ho was right; she was focusing on improving her health, and after her 90 day challenge, she excitedly shared that she felt stronger than ever. But, in this era of interconnectivity, with YouTube creators growing ever more influential, it is essential that influencers consider the impact of their work. YouTube must provide a way to identify potentially misleading videos, while content creators should implement trigger warnings, disclaimers, and links to scientifically-based information in their videos. And yet, for those of us watching at home, it’s also up to us to seek out medically sound information and establish healthful patterns for ourselves. The YouTube fitness community provides many faces of fitnesses, and not all are healthy. Yet, creators like Buttermore and Sharp demonstrate another possibility: health without restriction. Ultimately their videos draw attention to the fact that fitness does not have a defined “look.” Instead, their videos provide a radically different vision of fitness — to care for yourself with compassion.

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documenting daily life in a pandemic

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A Photo Spread P H OTO AT T R I B U T I O N S : 1 , 2 , 5,6 A N N A C H A N G / 3 C A R I SSA L E W I S / 4 H E N RY D E M A RCO 7 E M I LY Q U E / 8 ,9 , 1 0 , 1 1 C H A R L E N E WA N G

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On Flourishing

In Unrelenting Spaces

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WO R DS BY H A N N A H M C K E L S O N V I S UA L S BY H E N RY D E M A RCO

he Fall semester of 2019 was hands down, no questions asked, the worst semester I have ever experienced in my life. It was nothing short of a godawful disaster. This most recent semester on the other hand? This semester is amazing. Every single day brings new wonders and the opportunity to bear witness to tiny miracles. Even in light of my impending graduation and massive Lack of a Plan, I have zero complaints about this semester. “Hannah!” you ask. “How can this be?” You might be surprised when I tell you this: the differentiating factor between last semester (The One From Hell) and this semester (The Semester To Crown All Semesters) has been going outside. Of course, my passage through the storminess of Fall into the fair weather of Spring had to do with a multitude of factors, like quitting my job and spending more time at home. But going outside was a major part of the improvement, and prioritizing outdoor activity played a significant role in finding balance and returning to myself. It all started with what my friend likes to call an “aesthetic trip,” the sole purpose of which is to go outside with our cameras and take artsy photos. We headed for Cataract Waterfalls up near Mount Tamalpais. To say that our arrival was rapturous does not do the experience justice. Stepping out into the crisp air, no cell-signal to be found, awash in a sea of evergreen, was like coming back to something I didn’t realize I’d left. Away from my roommates and the clamor of my apartment, separated from emails and bCourse updates by a dead-zone, and many miles from the cacophony of downtown Berkeley, I felt peace for the first time in months. My skin was prickling with cold but quickly warmed up with the sunlight and movement. The songs of morning doves and robins were the only sounds I could hear, and when I crested the hill I found that the poppies were in bloom. For the next seven miles, I wasn’t thinking about my readings or my essays. I wasn’t worried about if my roommate had finally cleaned her side of the room, or how I’d do on my next midterm. The entirety of my focus was on every beautiful moment that caught my eye, and there was a new one with every step. That hike at Mount Tamalpais inspired me to take weekly hikes a little closer to home, at the Berkeley Fire Trails. It’s a five-minute bus ride and a 15-minute trek up to the start of either Hamilton Gulch or Heartbreak Hill, and a couple hours of easy hiking after that. I figured that hiking three hours a day one day a week took up not even 2% of my time. Factor in the sheer joy it brought me and the fact that it leveled my sanity, and it was a dividend I was willing to pay. Long before I was a Golden Bear, I was a small human whose mother thought it was a good idea to let her run wild in the high-desert hills behind our house. I had the social skills of a very cranky mole rat and preferred to spend my time chasing

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blue-bellied lizards, pressing leaves, and digging around in any patch of dirt I could get my hands into. And because I was neither equipped nor inclined to hang out with kids my own age, I sought out the company of books, written by people who saw the world the same way I did. I read Jenny Linford’s A Pocket Guide to Trees, Coelho’s The Alchemist, a vintage Nature Lover’s Book, and any poetry from Dickinson or Frost or Wordsworth. These grown-ups had vastly superior vocabularies and a treasure trove of experiences that informed the way they wrote. Emerson instructed me that “the health of the eye demands a horizon.” Muir told me that “the clearest way into the Universe [was] through the forest wilderness.” Wordsworth exhorted me to “come forth in the light of things, let nature be your teacher.” Though they used words that I could not, I understood what they were saying: that a connection and kinship with nature was fundamental to our wellbeing. Something about who we are is tied inextricably up with the land of which we are part. Beyond inspiring a sense of kinship, nature has a profound effect on how we feel. Just as I felt both joy and restoration from spending time outdoors, so did the writers I admired. In his poem “I Wander’d Lonely As A Cloud,” Wordsworth notes: ...For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood,

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They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. Though it was tough for a little kid to relate to sprawling on the couch in a “vacant” or “pensive” mood, college-Hannah gets it. And Wordsworth knew, long before I realized it, that a healing reprieve from our anxieties and sadness can come in the form of things as small as daffodils. This is not to say, of course, that nature is The Antidote to all things sad and vexing and weighty. Mental illnesses can exist on a plane beyond the reach of influenceable factors since chemical balances can be divorced from external factors. But research supports that getting outside can be particularly helpful for those struggling with mental illness. One 2018 study at Queen’s University found that engagement with nature helps protect the psychological wellbeing of adolescents and can even reduce the occurrence of episodes of anxiety, depression, and insomnia. A 2016 study at the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Institute for Health and Society found that spending time outdoors improves the depressive symptoms of individuals across the board, regardless of race or ethnicity. And researchers

at the University of Tampere discovered in 2016 that nature walks facilitated a marked decrease in depression and an improvement in psychological health. These are only a handful of the countless studies being done on the impact of nature on our wellbeing. So why does nature have such a positive effect on people? Why is it linked to improved wellbeing in people of all genders, races, and ages? The key may be found in an unexpected area: the science of awe. In a 2018 study entitled “Awe in Nature Heals,” researchers in Berkeley’s Department of Psychiatry define awe as an emotion “elicited by vast stimuli that do not fit into existing mental schema,” most powerfully produced by interacting with nature. Their research found that experiencing a sense of awe increased life satisfaction, better postures, muscle reflex, and peripheral vision, as well as lowered inflammation and increased perceptions of personal wellbeing. This was the case not only for participating military veterans, but for youth in underserved communities as well as college students — no doubt students from our very school. The “Awe in Nature Heals” study prominently references someone I’ve already introduced, John Muir, who wrote in his 1912 book Yosemite that “everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.” Acclaimed poet Walt Whitman was 53 when he suffered a debilitating stroke that left him partially paralyzed. In his journal he wrote: I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; but my spirits are first-rate. I go around in public almost every day — now and then take long trips, by railroad or boat, hundreds of miles — live largely in the open air — am sunburnt and stout — keep up my activity and interest in life, people, progress, and the questions of

the day. About two-thirds of the time I am quite comfortable. What mentality I ever had remains entirely unaffected; though physically I am a half-paralytic, and likely to be so, long as I live. But the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplished — I have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affectionate relatives — and of enemies I really make no account. This kind of optimism in the face of hardship can seem so foreign to the young and inexperienced. And yet Whitman possessed it. In the same journal, Whitman asked, “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains?” What remained for Whitman was nature, which brings out the kinship that humans have “with the open air, the trees, fields, the change of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.” To Whitman, the natural world was more than the sum of its mechanical parts. It was a source of “bracing and buoyant equilibrium,” something concrete, and “the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life.” Our lives are uncertain. Even when things are going “well,” we remain vulnerable to stress, burnout, exhaustion, and anxiety. These emotional hurdles do not discriminate based on circumstance. We may fear our finitude while feeling powerless against seemingly infinite challenges. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Yes, we are finite — but so are our struggles. Grounding ourselves in the present and connecting with the things we have right in front of us can help combat our fears of the uncertain future. Wonders are finite as well, yet they provide the most poignant relief and balm for our souls. Seeking out the solace of nature is a way to equip ourselves against hardship and cultivate meaning in our lives. Luckily, it isn’t hard — it’s right outside our doors.

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The History Behind

UC BERKELEY ARCHITECTURE W O R D S B Y S A N J A N A M A N J E S H WA R

hen I was in high school, I decided I wanted to attend a college with breathtaking architecture — not necessarily a wellknown college, or a good college, but one with jaw-dropping buildings and awe-inspiring libraries. Growing up in the suburbs, where the landscape is flat and lifeless and the buildings look identical, I craved architecture that was diverse in style and rich in history. This dream was realized when I was accepted to Berkeley. The first time I visited campus, I fell in love with its buildings right away. The history behind UC Berkeley’s architecture is more intriguing and complex than most people realize. Opened in 1855, UC Berkeley was originally just a two-acre campus in Oakland, then called the College of California. At the time, what we know today as the city of Berkeley was nothing more than wilderness, punctuated by the occasional piece of farmland, just a few miles north of Oakland. But in 1868, the state of California bought a small plot of land in Berkeley and officially chartered the University of California. Frederick Law Olmsted, who is famous for designing New York’s Central Park, was hired to design the new campus in Berkeley. This campus looked nothing like the campus we know today — it had a grand total of 40 students, 10 professors, and two buildings: North

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V I S U A L S B Y S H I VA V E M I R E D D Y

Hall, which has since been demolished, and South Hall, which is still standing today. South Hall’s architectural style is distinct from most other buildings on campus: its brick facade, ornamental moldings, and strikingly shaped windows are evidence of the Second Empire architectural style, which flourished in the latter half of the nineteenth century and was notable for its opulence and Gothic influence. As UC Berkeley grew larger throughout the late 1800s, so did its need for more buildings. What we now know as some of the most iconic buildings on campus were actually the result of an architectural competition financed by philanthropist Phoebe Hearst in 1898. The International Competition for the Phoebe Hearst International Plan for the University of California, as it was called, was borne out of the rivalry between the prominent Stanford and Hearst families — two extremely wealthy and distinctly old money families from Northern California. Soon after the Stanford family founded Stanford University, the Hearst family adopted the University of California and committed to funding it. When the competition’s winner Émile Bénard declined to be appointed as the campus’ architect, fourth-place winner John Galen Howard was tasked with implementing Bénard’s plan for the campus’ design. Howard was responsible for the

distinct classical style of numerous campus buildings and landmarks, from the elaborate patterns of Sather Gate to the striking Grecian columns of Wheeler Hall. Howard utilized the Beaux-Arts classical style, which was taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he was educated in the early 1890s. This architectural style is notable for its emphasis on neoclassical, Gothic, and Renaissance designs. One of Howard’s most impressive buildings is Doe Library, one of the defining landmarks of Berkeley’s campus. The library was imagined as both the physical and intellectual center of campus and has strong Greco-Roman influences, seen in its twelve imposing columns and marbled interior. The reading rooms inside Doe, with their intricately carved ceilings, ornate wood paneling, and towering windows, offer the feel of a traditional European university. Howard also designed what is arguably Berkeley’s most famous landmark, Sather Tower. Often referred to as “the Campanile,” due to its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Italy, Sather Tower is the third-tallest clock tower in the world and, notably, houses numerous fossils from prehistoric times due to its cool and dry interior. Sather Tower is also notable for its location — on a clear day, one can stand on the steps in front of the tower and look straight across the Bay

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at the Golden Gate Bridge. Ultimately, Howard designed 18 buildings on campus, including Wheeler Hall, California Hall, Stephens Hall, and the Greek Theater, and established the university’s iconic look. As he designed Berkeley’s campus, Howard was assisted by architect Julia Morgan, who attended Berkeley from 1890 to 1894. Because there was no architecture major at the time, Morgan studied civil engineering and was often the only woman in her classes. She was also the first woman to ever be admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts. Morgan was a renowned architect in her own right, designing over 700 iconic buildings in California including the Berkeley City Club and the lavish Hearst Castle in San Simeon. At Berkeley, Morgan was instrumental in helping Howard implement the Beaux-Arts style on campus. Some buildings heavily influenced by Morgan’s direction include the Hearst Gymnasium for Women, the Hearst Memorial Mining Building, and Morgan Hall at the UC Botanical Garden. The Hearst Gymnasium for Women is noteworthy for its concrete

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exterior and emphasis on Romantic Classicism, while the Mining Building best illustrates Morgan and Howard’s commitment to combining the esteemed classical Beaux-Arts tradition with contemporary regional influence, in that it is reminiscent of both a stately European building as well as a traditional California mission. Although Morgan’s work was essential to shaping Berkeley’s campus, her contribution is often overlooked due to the fact that she was a woman. Howard once told a colleague that Morgan was “an excellent draftsman whom I have to pay almost nothing, as it is a woman.” One of the most interesting aspects of Berkeley’s campus is the way that it is designed completely around the natural environment. Howard was fascinated with the wildlife and nature of Berkeley, and kept this in mind when designing the campus. He painstakingly tried to preserve Strawberry Creek, the Eucalyptus Grove, and several natural glades, building around these features and incorporating them into the campus rather than destroying them. Howard especially

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valued landscape architecture, and felt preserving the natural environment was just as important as maintaining the built environment. The unparalleled diversity of trees, plants, and flowers on campus made the university feel peaceful and idyllic, even though it was situated in the middle of a rapidly urbanizing city. Natural landmarks on campus include the oddly shaped London Plane trees on the north side of Sather Tower in the Campanile Esplanade, the redwood trees located to the west of McCone Hall, and the tall and twisted California Buckeye Tree, located on Faculty Glade, which is the oldest native tree on campus and represents Berkeley’s natural landscape before the founding of the University. Howard was ultimately dismissed as Berkeley’s supervising architect by the UC Board of Regents in 1924, due to his strong opinions and frequent clashes with the university administration. His successor Arthur Brown Jr. graduated from Berkeley in 1896, and is best known for designing City Hall and the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, as well as Hoover Tower at Stanford University. Brown attempted to recreate Howard’s elaborate and classical style, but faced financial constraints due to the economic conditions at the time. This was during the Great Depression and World War II, and university funds were tight, although there was also a pressing need for new buildings to accommodate the growing student body. Buildings designed by Brown, such as Sproul Hall and the Bancroft Library, echo the Beaux-Arts style but are much more minimalist in design. Additionally, the Valley Life Sciences Building, colloquially called VLSB, was designed in 1930 by George W. Kelham, yet another graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts. VLSB is notable for its sheer size of over 400,000 square feet. It was the largest concrete building west of the Mississippi at the time it was built, and is still the largest building on campus. At one point, VLSB required so

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much power that it temporarily broke the university’s power generator. During the 1960s, an exponential increase in students led to a desperate need for the expansion of both educational buildings as well as student housing. By this time, the architectural style of Brutalism was popular. Brutalist buildings are characterized by their monolithic and geometric appearance, as well as their massive size and use of concrete. The Brutalist buildings on campus — like Evans Hall, Wurster Hall, and Barrows Hall — are often derided as “ugly” or “plain,” primarily because they are strikingly different from the elaborate and classical Beaux-Arts buildings on campus. The 1960s also saw the construction of the Student Union building on Sproul Plaza, which was a timely addition considering the proliferation of the student-led Free Speech Movement. During the Free Speech Movement, protestors often gathered in front of the imposing and unyielding Sproul Hall, a representation of the unsympathetic indifference of the university administration to the passion and anger that emanated throughout campus. In recent years, campus expansion has slowed, with the campus focusing on repairing older buildings, though some new buildings have still been erected. These new buildings are notable for their sleek, modern, and minimalistic design, with an emphasis on using natural materials. Stanley Hall, which was built in 2007, is notable for its large size and white and green tiles. Berkeley’s newest library, the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, has a similarly modern style, as well as distinctly East Asian influences. It is made of granite and clay tile, and is reminiscent of traditional Asian architecture through its use of the cracked ice motif on the screens outside the library. The Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, the newest building on campus, uses wood, bamboo, and lots of natural light.

Currently, Berkeley is working on retrofitting and remodeling certain campus buildings, some of which are hundreds of years old, to make them more structurally sound and earthquake-safe. In 2019, Tolman Hall, which had a seismic rating of “deficient,” was demolished. Seismic safety corrections are also being made to Giannini Hall, which was built in 1930. But there are new buildings and facilities being constructed, like the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub at Woo Hon Fai Hall. There are many new construction projects in the planning and development phase, including a new beach volleyball facility at Clark Kerr, an expansion of the Goldman School of Public Policy, and new student housing in People’s Park. While many Berkeley students see our campus’ architectural history as interesting but unimportant, architecture and physical space have a profound impact on our everyday lives. Architecture is more than just the built environment; it greatly affects and is affected by our culture, emotions, and worldview. I am writing this article not in one of Berkeley’s many libraries, as I had planned to, but back home at my parents’ house in the suburbs, due to the pandemic that has forced so many of us to leave Berkeley and return to our hometowns. There is nothing I want more right now than to watch a sunset from the fifth floor balcony of McCone, to look up and be able to see the Campanile no matter where I am on campus, or even to get lost in the never ending hallways of Dwinelle. While these times are incredibly uncertain, to me, it is a reassuring thought that architecture and physical space are one of the few things that will be there no matter what. It is comforting to know that the buildings on my campus, the places where I spend so much time and that have undoubtedly impacted me in ways that I am still trying to understand, are unfazed by the fear and doubt that has disrupted so many of the world’s institutions — and they will remain when it is all over.

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ASIAN ANTI-BLACKNESS FROM THE STREET CORNERS TO THE SCREEN

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WO R DS BY R E G L I M

V I S U A L S B Y F R A N C E S YA N G

n the past few decades, Asian Americans have adopted many aspects of Black culture into the fabric of Asian-American culture. But while Asian Americans may love Black culture, it is clear that they often do not love Black people. Anti-Blackness continues to seize the Asian community in America, playing out in often-ignored and complex ways. And while the Asian community is trapped and hurt by the same white supremacist structures that harm the Black community, the Asian community still actively benefit from and perpetuate anti-Blackness through those same structures. In her article for The Outline “Black-Asian Animosity is an American Tradition,” Ann-Derrick Gaillot points out that members of both the Black and

Asian communities “learn about each other through the white gaze of American pop culture.” The model minority stereotype that has long permeated the Asian community in America is inherently at odds with the pervasive stereotypes that paint the Black community as lazy, criminal, and uneducated. Through these stereotypes, the white gaze pits both communities against each other, causing both communities to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about each other while setting off a rat race for limited resources. Such competition arises despite the fact that both communities exist under the same oppressive structures of white supremacy. Paradoxically, the Asian community can benefit from such racist structures — intentionally or not — and often have a better chance at upward

economic mobility than their Black peers. Those same structures that allow the Asian community better access to health, education, and economic mobility are structures that limit Black communities’ access to those same rights. While tension between the Black and Asian communities has been playing out for decades, it reached a notable boiling point in the 1992 Los Angeles riots. 13 days after Black motorist Rodney King was videotaped being brutally beaten by white LAPD officers, a Black 15-year-old named Latasha Harlins was shot to death by a Korean convenience store owner as she was walking out the store. The owner, a 51-year-old woman named Soon Ja Du, avoided jail time and was only given probation and community service. The death of Latasha Harlins and the

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subsequent lack of full criminal justice against Soon Ja Du, combined with the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King, triggered intense rioting in Los Angeles. By seeking justice for the unjust treatment of King and Harlins at the hands of white and Asian perpetrators, the riots responded to anti-Blackness not just in the white community, but also in the Asian community. Animosity between the Black and Asian communities had been brewing

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for decades: Black community leaders had long referred to Korean American business owners as “foreign intruders,” as Elaine Kim points out in her book Home Is Where the Han Is, and Koreans had a history of treating Black patrons rudely, as Angel Jennings notes in her Los Angeles Times article “How the Killing of Latasha Harlins Changed South LA, Long Before Black Lives Matter.” The riots directly and tangibly reflected this tension: the Los Angeles mayor’s office

estimates that 65 percent of all businesses vandalized or destroyed during the riots were Korean-owned. Before Latasha Harlins’ death, there was a growing effort in solidarity between the Black and Asian communities in Los Angeles. Such efforts included the founding of the Black-Korean Alliance, joint church services and poetry readings, Black volunteer teachers helping Korean immigrants study for the citizenship test, and active efforts to translate Black history

materials into Korean. But the 1992 riots effectively ended these budding efforts at strengthening bonds and combating the antiBlackness within Asian communities. Today, we still see antiBlackness rearing its ugly head in the Asian community, especially as Asian-owned stores proliferate in Black communities. Viral videos of Black patrons being chased or beaten at Asian-owned beauty stores and nail salons evidence the disturbing history of Asian anti-Blackness. There have been countless documented acts of physical violence from Asian owners and workers towards black customers, whom they often suspect of “stealing.” In 2017, one beauty store owner stalked and physically restrained a young girl at a mall in California; another Oklahoma beauty supply owner punched a woman in the face in 2018; that same year, salon workers from a local Brooklyn salon attacked a woman after she complained about an eyebrow wax; in 2017, a local store owner in North Carolina strangled and pushed a woman to the ground. Such suspicions and physical attacks stem from the anti-Black stereotypes that pervade American society, which many in the Asian community have internalized. Ironically, the Asian community has monopolized industries that cater primarily to the Black community, effectively shutting out Black entrepreneurs from those industries. Black entrepreneur Karen Coffey revealed in a 2017 interview with MPR’s Emma Sapong that Korean wholesalers of Black beauty products have systematically “denied or ignored her requests” for beauty and hair products, making it even harder for Black beauty supply owners to succeed in their chosen industry. This is a common experience for Black entrepreneurs attempting to break into the beauty industry. Sam Hwang, vice president of the National Federation of Beauty Suppliers, says in the same article that Koreans “saw a business opportunity that others didn’t see; Koreans embraced those neighborhoods and they control the market today because they took the risk and were first to get in.” Yet, there’s clear evidence that Asian business owners aren’t embracing Black neighborhoods but rather profiting off the Black community while harboring anti-Black views. Now, the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of beauty products for Black folks are held in a tight grip by Korean companies. In a 2011 article, writer Kimathi Lewis notes that “for almost 50 years, the Korean-American community has dominated the Black beauty supply market by opening large stores, buying out smaller Black-owned ones and using the faces of Black celebrities on their products and Black employees in their stores to grow their businesses in the Black community.” And despite

indications that the Korean community and the Asian community at large continue to hold anti-Black sentiments, they continue to thrive and open businesses in Black neighborhoods where they know there are customers. Profit appears to outweigh prejudice while taking up space in Black neighborhoods and communities. Although there has been a rise in Black-owned beauty businesses, with 150 Black-owned beauty stores opening in 2017, a general lack of economic agency and Black-owned stores means that Black folks have no choice but to go to Asian-owned shops. While Asian business owners rake in a heavy profit, Black business owners may struggle to keep their businesses up and running. The uneven economic access and mobility afforded to the Asian and Black communities means that Asian business owners start out with more support and financial backing, allowing them to establish monopolies in industries that serve Black communities, while Black entrepreneurs struggle to get started. And it’s not just in the beauty industry where the Asian community benefits from anti-Blackness — it’s in the entertainment industry too. When Crazy Rich Asians first came out in 2018, the media was abuzz with Awkwafina’s performance as the character Pei Lin, who spoke with a distinctive “blaccent.” Her performance included affectations in speech all common in AAVE, or African American Vernacular English. Those affectations included smoothing over consonants, the habitual “be,” and smoothing words like “that” or “this” to “dat” or “dis.” Though the larger public often dismisses the “blaccent,” AAVE is a dialect of English with its own rules of grammar and phonology. In a 2018 Vulture article entitled “Who Really Owns the ‘Blaccent’?” Lauren Michele Jackson argues that the blaccent “shouldn’t imply blackness at all” and instead should imply “a global phenomenon that makes it impossible to know whether a nonblack millenial from Forest Hills studied black culture like a textbook or grew up with the same media as most of us, where blaccents in the mouths of white, snappy performers has been autonomous and apart from the actual speech patterns of black people since America had a theater tradition to call its own.” Still, while international audiences might see the blaccent as an “American” way of talking, it doesn’t change the fact that this style of speech and use of Black vernacular still signals Blackness in the United States. And it doesn’t change the fact that aspects of Black culture, like AAVE, continue to be stolen and appropriated for commercial gain and consumption, without giving Black creators or the Black community rightful credit or compensation.

The United States has a long history of profiting off of Black culture within the entertainment industry, harkening back to the 1800s.

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The United States has a long history of profiting off of Black culture within the entertainment industry, harkening back to the 1800s. White performers would paint their faces black, speak in exaggerated African American vernacular, then dance and act for white audiences. These performances were known as minstrel shows, perpetuating stereotypes about Black people that continue to haunt the American imagination today. Minstrel show characters like “Jim Crow,” a dancing beggar and “Mammy,” a loud matriarchal figure, were popular with white audiences into the mid-1900s. Now, the minstrel shows of the past have evolved and found subtler ways to find a home in the entertainment industry through performers like Awkwafina. Her appropriation of Black aesthetics and culture has been a consistent part of her public persona. She consistently evokes AAVE and a caricatured view of Blackness, from throwing out nonsensical “yo’s” to performing a “gangster persona” in her acts. From her viral rap song, “My Vag” to her role in Ocean’s 8, Awkwafina has a history of using Blackness as a stepping stone to success. But it’s clear that when no longer useful, Awkwafina is more than comfortable abandoning her adopted Black affect. From The Farewell to her latest project Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, Awkwafina ditches the “blaccent” that she was more than comfortable employing in the past.

Awkwafina has built a career out of Blackness, and she’s not the only Asian performer who has. Asian rappers like Keith Ape and Rich Brian have no qualms about appropriating Black culture if it means success. In 2015, Keith Ape went viral from his music video for “It G Ma,” in which he dawns grills and braids. Rich Brian appropriated from Black culture even more explicitly. Before he was Rich Brian, he was “Rich Chigga.” For those who are luckily unfamiliar, “chigga” is the combination of the word “Chinese” and the n-word. And in the song that made him viral, “Dat Stick,” Rich Brian throws out the n-word and repeatedly calls himself a “chigga.” From the beginning of his career, Rich Brian has been picking and choosing aspects of Black culture to incorporate into his music and image by using AAVE and incorporating the n-word into his former stage name and songs. Even though Rich Brian has dropped the stage name “Rich Chigga,” it still follows the pattern of using Black aesthetics and culture as a stepping stone until reaching mainstream success. The Asian appropriation of Black culture is a pervasive trend that you can see everywhere if you just stop to look. The popularity of rap stars in the Asian music industry — with their braids, dreads, grills, and streetwear — makes clear that what fans of Asian rap want is Black culture in a lighter, more acceptable package and presentation. Korean rapper Ha Dong-hoon, for example, frequently

tries (and fails) to pull off Black hairstyles. Melo, a member of Chinese rap group Higher Brothers, has even told VICE in a 2019 interview that his favorite rapper is Eminem because “Eminem is white. It’s encouraging to us because it means that Chinese people can be like white people and make Black people’s music. It made me realize that I can do that as well.” While Asian performers can profit from the imitation of Black culture, Black people often face severe consequences for expressing their own culture. Asian rap stars can wear Blackness like a costume but those same characteristics put Black kids at risk of expulsion or brutality like unlawful shootings or hate crimes. A 12-year-old at Faith Christian Academy was threatened with expulsion for not cutting her natural hair; a sophomore at Mater Dei High School was suspended for his braided hair; another Texas teen was banned from graduation due to his dreadlocks; and a 12-year-old girl in Virgina was pinned down while white classmates cut off her dreadlocks. The crucial difference is that Black people can’t slip out of their Blackness like these Asian entertainers can. This issue of the Asian appropriation of Black culture gets even more complicated when you consider the trend of globalization. Intercultural exchange between Asian and Black culture can be seen as far back to the Wu-Tang Clan, a popular hip hop group who took their name from the 1983 Hong Kong martial arts film

While it’s true that there has always been an intercultural exchange, the uneven standing of the Black and Asian communities in a white supremacist society means that it cannot be simply thought of as equal exchange.

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Shaolin and Wu Tang. And you can still see this exchange today, as Korean boy band BTS has collaborated with Black artists like Lil Nas X and Nicki Minaj, racking up millions of hits. But while it’s true that there has always been an intercultural exchange, the uneven standing of the Black and Asian communities in a white supremacist society means that it cannot be simply thought of as equal exchange. Black people have been systematically disenfranchised, incarcerated, and oppressed all the while white people have profited off of Black bodies since the nation’s inception. While all people of color in America face oppressive structures that impede their economic mobility, political representation, and social freedom, it’s clear that what makes it easy for the Asian community to take what they want from Black culture is that there are no real consequences for them. Structures of racial and economic power that make upward mobility easier for the Asian community also make it easier for the Asian community to profit off the Black community. There are no consequences for anti-Blackness in a white supremacist

society, which encourages anti-Black racism in the Asian community while oppressing Asians themselves. The result is that the Asian community is too willing to forget that whatever success they build within a white supremacist society lies on a rotted foundation. Even as time has passed since the 1992 Los Angeles riots, anti-Blackness continues to run rampant in Asian communities. From cultural appropriation to physical attacks to economic disenfranchisement, the Asian community continues to perpetuate the same anti-Blackness learned from structures of white supremacy. And while the Asian community clearly loves Black culture, as seen through their exploitation, appropriation, and monopolization of Black culture, it doesn’t seem to extend that same affection toward Black people. So the next time the Black community needs support and solidarity, we can only hope that everyone across color lines shows up, shows out, and makes clear that it’s not just the culture they love — it’s the people who make that culture that they care about too.

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She’s Only Hueman (and a Very Big Deal) spring 2020 / calibermag.org

W O R D S B Y S O P H I A S T E WA R T

V I S U A L S B Y S O P H I A S T E WA R T A N D A L L I S O N T I N A T I

ear downtown Oakland, less than a mile from the Fruitvale BART Station, there’s a tall, colorful rectangular prism that juts out above the low-rise, grayscale cityscape. It’s a proud building, brightly painted pink and yellow and turquoise all over. The exterior design is abstract, with massive shapes and vibrant colors colliding with each other across the building’s many doors and windows. This is Artthaus Studios, an enclave and communal workspace for artists and start-ups. This is where I meet with Oakland-based artist Allison Tinati, who paints under the name Hueman. As I’d quickly learn, Hueman is responsible for the bright pink and yellow and turquoise of Artthaus’ exterior — she painted the entirety of the building. Hueman and I meet at her studio, which sits at the end of a long hallway within Artthaus. It’s a large, white room with sunlight streaming in from a skylight overhead. Long nights spray painting canvases has left a large empty rectangle on the back wall, an outline of a canvas since removed. It’s a permanent remnant, an inadvertent study in negative space. There’s a couch on the north wall, which is decorated with shelving full of spray cans, framed photos, and a Nike sneaker. In a top knot, leggings, and winged eyeliner, Hueman embodies comfort and cool. She occupies space with an ease and confidence that I envy. She talks to you like she would to an old friend, and she’s distinctly unpretentious — a welcome surprise, considering Hueman is unequivocally a Big Fucking Deal. Hueman has worked with some of the biggest brands in the country, like Nike, Forever 21, Xbox, NYX Cosmetics, Lyft, and North Face. She designed Pink’s most recent album cover. She’s painted murals and held exhibitions around the world. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the women’s basketball team wore a sneaker adorned with her work. But despite her major success, Hueman’s origins are humble. The daughter of Filipino immigrants,

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Hueman was always drawing as a young girl and drew inspiration from her urban surroundings. “I grew up in the East Bay,” Hueman says, “and I was inspired by a lot of the graffiti I saw on freeways, like 880, and by the train tracks behind our house. It felt like I was seeing art in the wild.” The aesthetics of graffiti quickly began to shape Hueman’s artistic practice. In middle school, she started tagging her name in the backs of her textbooks. Meanwhile, she was sharpening her painting skills, and quickly caught the attention of the local art scene. By the time she was 18, during her first quarter at UCLA, Hueman was invited to do her first gallery art show. Of course, becoming a full-time artist was hardly an easy path. To support herself, she did freelance graphic and web design. She worked at Wetzel’s Pretzels in the UCLA Student Union for a time. As a student, pursuing art professionally didn’t feel entirely possible. “I’m very much a Capricorn,” Hueman shares, “so I’m very logical.” There was no money in art, so the post-grad job hunt became about finding “something cool and creative where I would get a paycheck.” The solution? Hueman created her own design and branding studio, where she accrued an impressive roster of clients. But it still wasn’t art — it was business. And Hueman had no interest in running a business. “It made me feel like a robot, so I got pretty depressed,” Hueman admits. “A way for me to help myself snap out of it was to say, I’m human, not a robot. I was always reminding myself: You’re human, you’re human, you’re human.” Thus, her moniker was born. Spending time in LA lit a new fire under Hueman. “LA is one of the big street art capitals of the world,” she says. Most importantly, she began to notice something strange and empowering during her time in the city — “There were women on the walls.” Women artists have long been marginalized in the world of street art; seeing their work on the walls made anything feel possible. So with a homebase in LA and a newfound sense opportunity, Hueman

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decided to do art full-time. That required a phone call to her mother. “That was one of the scariest phone calls I ever made,” Hueman says. She feared her mother’s disapproval. Instead, Hueman got an unexpected answer from her mother, who told her daughter, “I was wondering when you were going to decide to just go for it.” So Hueman went for it. She started painting murals around the city, and offered to help to her fellow artists. It was a hustle: “I would just get the word out,” Hueman remembers of her time as a burgeoning artist. “I was figuring it out — just a lot of trial and error.” It was during those years that Hueman began to develop her distinctive style. Early on, she gravitated towards Light and Space artists like James Turrell, Robert Irwin, and Larry Bell. Their influence on her work has been unconventional: “My work is kind of the opposite [of theirs], because mine is a lot of organic and texture, and theirs is very minimalist.” But what she divined most from their work is the experience they created, one she wanted to emulate in her own work: “The color palette and the feeling is what I’m going after when I see their work. I’ve been trying to find this balance with the ethereal; I want my work to glow.” Hueman has been in intense pursuit of that glow over the last year. “I’ve started working on these transparent pieces,” she says. “When they’re against a wall, it looks like it’s almost illuminated from the inside. They look like light boxes.” She shows me some small, square studies she’s done — it’s hard to believe the pieces are not lit from behind. “I wanted to incorporate that light and space and color, but still make it very much textured and organic style.” Then I see it — the culmination of those studies, the masterpiece. It’s a large, rectangular canvas, covered partially by butcher paper. Hueman begins to tear the brown covering away, somewhat heroically. Something about the scene recalls Arthur pulling Excalibur from stone. The piece is revealed. Stretched over the frame of the canvas is silk organza, a lovely sheer fabric. Painted onto it is an abstract portrait of a woman. “I put a layer of acrylic paint and then another

layer of spray, so the spray will either catch up to the opaque parts or pass through,” Hueman explains, elucidating her process. “They’re basically like giant silk screens. In a gallery setting, when it’s behind a white wall, it creates a crazy drop shadow.” Something about the piece really moves me — I can’t tell if it’s its luminescence, the uniqueness of the portraiture, or the size of it. Perhaps it’s the combined effects of all three. The piece will be going to a solo show in Denver soon, where it will likely move attendees just the same. “If I could do all abstract, I would,” Hueman says of her style, “but there’s a part of me that really likes depicting the human body, so I try to find more creative ways to do it.” Creative is certainly one word for what Hueman has achieved with this particular work — I might go with original, unprecedented, brilliant. I’ve never seen portraiture of this style done on a sheer canvas before. Indeed, Hueman admits, “I haven’t seen anyone else doing this.” The more we talk, the more I realize Hueman and I have a lot in common, which helps dispel the intimidation I feel talking to a bonafide BFD. We both love Alex Garland’s Ex Machina. We both listen to music while we work (although when she needs to focus on highly detailed work, she’ll turn on a podcast). We both have an introverted streak: “If I’m feeling kind of anti-social, I like to lock myself in here and just paint canvases,” Hueman confesses. Finally, it’s time to leave Hueman’s studio. I very much want to stay — I imagine reclining languidly on Hueman’s couch and watching her create, her leggings paint-splattered, her top-knot messed. She’s so comfortable in her space and her body, I want some of that comfort to rub off on me, too. But we part ways, and as I head out to the parking lot, I take a moment to snap a few pictures of Artthaus, Hueman’s vast creation. It’s hard not to get caught up in the structure’s grandeur, in its many bold colors and abstract shapes. It stands tall and resolute amidst the quotidian — there’s a gas station and a McDonald’s just up the street. With Artthaus, Hueman has forged her own piece of “art in the wild,” profound beauty where you least expect it.

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BAY AREA

ESCAPES — A P HOTOS PR E A D —

P H OTO AT T R I B U T I O N S : 1 , 6 H E N R Y D E M A R C O / 7 A R I A D A S B A C H / 2 , 8 S H I VA V E M I R E D D Y 3,4 WILL BRINKERHOFF / 5 ANNA CHANG

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LET’S UNPACK THAT The Therapist-Patient Relationship

W O R D S B Y S A LWA M E G H J E E

V I S UA L S BY CO N N O R L I N

hen I was trying out different therapists, I decided to stick with Erika because, unlike the other therapists I had seen, she actually talked to me, instead of just nodding and hmming. But as much as Erika talks, everything she says is really just in response to me; she never says anything about herself beyond responding to my customary “How are you?” at the beginning of each session. It dawned on me how little I know about Erika when in one session, three years after I started seeing her, she let slip the biggest hint about her personal life she had told me thus far: she had once been married. That I went three

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years without knowing this significant detail about her life was a reminder of how little I know about this person who knows everything about me. It’s hard to remember that Erika has a life outside of the room I see her in once a week. I started seeing Erika in the spring semester of my freshman year of college. After seeing a string of terrible mental health professionals, I had sworn off therapy until my older sister, worried about my worsening depression, found Erika off Yelp and booked me a next-day appointment to see her. My sister had done EMDR therapy, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, and she insisted I try it too. After one session

of cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR therapy with Erika, I knew that I had found the person for me — my therapist soulmate, if you will. While I know next to nothing about Erika, she knows everything about me — my deepest secrets, my strangest thoughts, my most buried feelings are all Erika’s to purvey. She sees me exactly as I am, with almost nothing hidden. She is someone who makes me feel safe and at home, a feeling I craved while I adjusted to college life 3,000 miles away from my hometown. When I told Erika I had suicidal ideation, she took me seriously without overplaying how I was feeling, and she kept me safe without hospitalizing me. Having had a therapist once try to send me to an inpatient program just because she didn’t know what to do with me, I appreciated that Erika was willing to put in work to help me feel better, without overdramatizing how I was feeling or downplaying how much help I needed. Erika meets all the criteria of a good therapist. The National Alliance on Mental Illness asks seven basic questions to assess whether a therapist is effective: Do they guide you to your goals? Do they show acceptance and compassion? Do they challenge you? Do they check in with you? Do they help you learn? Do they practice cultural competence? Do they treat you like an equal? Erika does all those things, and more. During our conversations, she often steers me towards lines of thinking I would never arrive at otherwise. She talks in sessions, taking up maybe 40% of the conversation, giving her insights and pointing out when the things I say don’t add up. But during our sessions, she rarely references herself at all, sharing nuggets about her life only when it’s relevant. This approach

is one of the hallmarks of a good therapist. By keeping our conversations mostly onesided, Erika avoids us having what is called a “dual relationship,” or a relationship that encompasses roles beyond therapist and patient. This includes being friends. According to the American Psychological Association, a dual relationship between a therapist and patient can “impair the psychologist’s objectivity, competence, or effectiveness in performing his or her functions as a psychologist, or otherwise risks exploitation or harm to the person with whom the professional relationship exists.” I can see why a dual relationship can be damaging to a therapeutic relationship. I know that Erika and I can’t be friends, because if Erika were my friend, she couldn’t be an effective therapist. But I love Erika — she has helped me through times of intense pain, and celebrated with my moments of immense joy. I cannot feel ambivalent towards someone who has invested so much time in me. And I can’t imagine that Erika feels ambivalent about me either. How could she stand to spend so much time with me without also caring about me, at least a little? I know she does care about me, because she has said it before — that she thinks about me, and worries about me. A previous psychiatrist once told me when she left her job that she found me to be a particularly difficult patient to leave behind. Our doctors aren’t just our doctors; after spending so much time with us, they become invested in us as people, as we may become invested in them. But does that automatically mean that after a while, a therapist becomes less effective, because they become biased in their patient’s favor? I don’t think of Erika as my friend, but

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I do think of her as a mother figure, and she once referred to herself as such. This didn’t feel like crossing a boundary. It felt instead like a natural description of our relationship. She is a guiding and nurturing figure in my life, just as a mother is, and I feel very close to her. But such an important relationship also comes at a cost. My relationship with Erika is valuable, and it has a price tag that reflects that value. Our sessions cost up to $150 an hour. It can feel strange paying for such an important relationship. When she says nice things about me, I can’t help but think: am I paying her to compliment me? Or when she poses difficult questions, I sometimes question why I pay such a hefty price for someone to make me feel feelings that I don’t want to feel. When I leave Berkeley at the end of this semester, I will likely never speak to Erika again. It will be a difficult adjustment — Erika is currently one of the most important people in my life. I have spent hundreds of hours with her, and I see her weekly. After spending so much time together, it feels odd that our relationship will be so abruptly cut off. My friend Drew describes this as part of the “ebb and flow of therapists.” Over the past two years, he’s gone through three different therapists — when his first two therapists both relocated, he was forced to find new ones, although he had already established strong relationships with each of his previous therapists. But what Drew sees as ebb and flow, I see as the end of the world. I

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can’t imagine my life without Erika anymore. I want to keep seeing her every week for the rest of my life. I told her once that I wanted her to be my therapist forever. It’s no coincidence that one of the subjects we talk about most is my inability to let go. Perhaps if I better understood the nature of the therapist-patient relationship, I might be more able to wrap my head around the idea of letting go of one. I recently took a class about literature and therapy, in which we learned about D.W. Winnicott, a psychoanalyst who talks about the idea of “transitional objects.” In his book Playing and Reality, Winnicott describes these objects as ones that babies use to mediate between their inner reality and the outer world. These objects are both a part of the baby and a part of the real world; they are not imaginary, but they are not completely external to the baby. When I think of transitional objects, I think a little bit of Erika, someone who I use to mediate between my inner reality and the outer world that I’m still trying to understand. Sometimes in her office I feel somewhat like a baby, one who barely grasps the world, who has so much left to learn. I’m still trying to make sense of everything, and I need my Erika to help me wade my way through the world. The relationship I have with Erika is not natural. In fact, it is designed: modern talk therapy came about with Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, in the late 1800s. Freud’s theories of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression, and his conception of the mind’s structure created a radically

“

[This was] a reminder of how little I know about this person who knows everything about me.

new conceptual and therapeutic framework for treating mental illness. Freudian therapy first proposed the importance of providing patients with a comfortable physical environment and an accepting social environment — both essential components of the cognitive behavioral therapy that I currently undergo. When we think of it as the recently invented practice that it is, psychotherapy seems strange. Indeed, the idea of baring my soul to a stranger is a little unsettling, but it is the foundation of one of the most special relationships I have ever experienced. The relationship I have with Erika teeters the line between professional and personal in a confusing and fuzzy way, but I wouldn’t want it to be any more professional or any more intimate than it is. In no other relationship could I comfortably reveal so

much about myself and learn so much about myself in the process. People commonly misunderstand therapy, picturing it as someone asking you “And how does that make you feel?” over and over again. In truth, therapy is predicated on a mutual relationship that helps build a greater understanding of oneself and of the world. It is a unique and important relationship that everyone can benefit from. I would quite literally not have survived the last three years without Erika, and it is only because our relationship is so strange that it works so smoothly — in attempting to demystify our relationship, I think I finally grasp that.

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cóng mei guo lai de W O R D S A N D V I S U A L S B Y VA N E S S A WA N

hen I was little, I thought I was Chinese. That’s what my parents said we were when faced with the inevitable question: “What are you?” However, I later learned we were not Chinese. Assigned with the task of researching the flag of my parent’s home country for class, I went home to find out that I needed to check out books not on China, but on Taiwan. As it turned out, my parents simply went along with people’s assumptions that we were Chinese because it was easier. When I asked why it was easier I was met with one of my favorite phrases: “It’s complicated.” From then on, I embarked on a journey to unravel the complicated. I ended up at a Taiwanese camp where I was first surrounded not only by other Asian kids (a rarity where I grew up) but Taiwanese kids. There I learned more about Taiwanese culture and was exposed to a new world that I wanted to learn to claim as my own. It was exhilarating and refreshing to share a space with people from the same place as me, who had many of the same experiences as me, who knew what it was like to grow up Asian. That was something I didn’t have in my hometown. Back in Concord, where I’m from, I was the one Asian kid in a sea of people that did not look like me, and I was expected to code switch between the outside world and the world inside my house. I think a lot of people of color growing up outside

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communities of their ethnicity understand when I say I did not feel as if I fully belonged where I was, though I was able to blend in. The experiences other kids had growing up were vastly different from mine and the understandings they had of my experiences were surface and quite frankly stereotypical. At the same time, I didn’t feel Asian enough for my summer camp community either. My Mandarin was incredibly broken and I laughed at phrases and jokes I didn’t quite understand. There were things in English I couldn’t translate into Mandarin, and there were things in Mandarin I couldn’t translate into English — I found myself constantly at a loss trying to explain one world to another. It was as if I was putting together a puzzle but never seemed to have the right pieces. During the winter break of my freshman year, I got the opportunity to go to Taiwan with my mom and my

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sister. I was excited to finally have a chance to better understand my culture and get the references that my Taiwanese friends seemed to make. Maybe I’d finally get an understanding of where the pieces are supposed to go, an explanation of why I just couldn’t get things to fit. Getting on a plane for the first time, and leaving the country for the first time, I was anxiously headed toward the place where my mother and father grew up, towards the home of strangers that my mother called family. 13 hours later, walking out of the airport in Taoyuan, instant sunshine wrapped itself thickly around my entire body, making me painfully aware of the many layers I had put on during the freezing plane ride. I tried to keep a calm composure and pretend as if my chest was not disastrously imploding with nerves, anxiety, and excitement. No travel guide can prepare you for the culture shock of having your

relationships reverse in an instant — suddenly my mother had become my guide and my translator, helping me weave through the cultural capital that slipped through my fingers. At home, my mother often leaned on me, as I guided her through conversations while she mindlessly nodded along. Here, I was the one leaning on her, all the while practicing my pronunciations and expanding my vocabulary. We stayed with my mother’s side of the family in Taichung. I was unsure of how to act, desperately trying to find any sort of footing. That same day we walked around the street markets, the tropical weather clinging to my back, along with the eyes of the locals who could tell right away I was cóng mei guo lai de, or “from America.” It was only day one, and I was already itching to settle in and shake off the unfamiliarity of the area. My mother, on the other hand, was radiating like I had never seen before. She expertly led

us along the roads without sidewalks, through neighborhood day markets filled with fresh fruits and cheap clothes, past long lines of mopeds parked outside food stalls. Everything was drenched in golden sunlight, nature crawling out through the spaces between tall buildings and snaking through the cracks in the concrete. Unique variations of potted plants lined the fronts of houses, all tightly packed together along the roads. During this time I thought a lot about other children of immigrants who spend a lot of their lives unable to, for one reason or another, reconnect with their parent’s motherland. Is it still considered reconnecting if there was never a connection made to begin with? While in Taiwan we managed to see a lot of different landmarks and create a kaleidoscope of memories. In Taichung, I discovered night markets and witnessed the street smarts my mother was never able to show off in

America. There I began to watch the lessons I learned at camp come to life around me, dancing in multi-colored lanterns and string lights amidst cramped store fronts and a million street snacks. Taiwan came to life at night. The streets became filled with the sound of vendors yelling orders and the sizzling of food being fried, stir-fried, or tossed in the air. There were blocks and blocks filled with people swarming under the soft glow of stringed lights for their fix of street food, a cool breeze running in the warm night, with lines interrupting the heavy flow of foot traffic. At the night market your taste buds dance with flavor. The savory, albeit acquired, taste of chòudòufu, “stinky tofu” goes into your nose with the first crunch, indulgent da chang bao xiao chang, a Taiwanese hot dog wrapped in a glutinous rice bun, breaks your heart because American hotdogs will never be the same. On every corner

there is an old man with a cart making fresh plum juice or serving hóngchá, “red tea.” In Taichung, I stayed happily sleeping on the floor mats at the “house” of “Auntie Number Six.” I awoke covered in mosquito bites the size of dimes and developed an unspoken kinship with my aunt and cousins in only a matter of days. In Tapan, I discovered my disdain for hot springs, which smelled faintly of eggs and old people. Sweating in my swim cap, I drowned out the conversations my family had about the health benefits of the springs and took note, as I frequently did, of the scenery around me. Everywhere in Taiwan we were met with lush green vegetation, grassy mountains that kissed the clouds, and water so clear you could see the sand dance in it. There I met “Auntie Number Four” and more cousins, which led to the discovery that my little sister’s mannerisms did indeed run in the

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family. In Rìyuè Tán, I discovered what it really means to be humbled by the vast and awe-inspiring presence of nature as I sat in a tiny sky gondola, one in a line that seemed to run forever, overlooking the largest body of water in Taiwan, contrasted by the bright green mountains that surround it. There I began to feel comfortable; there I began to feel the pieces start to make sense. In Jiufen I discovered bawan made by someone who was not my grandmother and found myself enchanted by the narrow staircases lit by iconic red lanterns, just like a scene out of Spirited Away. In Kenting and Kaohsiung I discovered stillness staring out at crystal blue water that sparked relentlessly and seemed to touch the ends of the Earth. I thought I would be able to find myself by traveling across the island my parents knew so well, but self-revelation came crashing down in another form, shattering my happyending expectations. Though it did not matter to the people around me, I still wanted to fit in. I found a thrill when I was not questioned about where I came from, and I was embarrassed when people could immediately spot that I was an outsider. Needless to say: I still could not put the puzzle pieces together. Though I was immersed in the culture I so longed to understand, a culture that I proudly claim, I still did not feel as if I belonged here. Taiwan holds references I will never be able to understand, experiences I have never had, and a language barrier I am constantly attempting to scale with no end in sight. I always believed that being a Third Culture Kid meant to be born in one place and end up growing up in another, unable to fully assimilate to either. It was not until recently that I began to consider that maybe this space could hold those of us who have found themselves existing in the in-between. Being raised outside the culture from which our parents were raised can be challenging, but rewarding. Going to Taiwan made me realize just how much my parents had given up in order to reach the land of opportunity, in order to create the present in which I exist. Contemplating one’s existence and seeking out growth are privileges — Taiwan showed me that I am where I am, in America, weaving through questions of identity and belonging, for a reason. Immigrants battle language barriers, not-so-micro aggressions, and labor-intensive work so that their kids may surpass them and worry not about food being put on the table but the kind of person they will become. I have been walking the yellow line that divides the road in two, believing one day I’d figure out which side to step on, never realizing that perhaps I was already where I belonged: where two roads touch, existing in the transition between two scenes of a movie, living in the jagged mismatch of two halves of a puzzle, right where I am supposed to be.

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Cut Fruit and I Love Yous on love and its languages

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“You got these when you were young,” the piercer says. WO R DS BY J E N N I F E R CO

V I S UA L S BY N E H A S H A H

had been eyeing her hardware and wondering what it took to line up a rod between the brows, if under that layer of skin there was metal taut against bone. I glance at the plastic mirror she’s holding up and squint toward the first set of punctures between her gloved fingers. I nod my head. “I was six months, maybe. I don’t even remember it.” I look at the tiny divots now, mini craters in my flesh and in her clinical grip. “How could you tell?” She begins sanitizing the spots above her thumb’s hold. “They’re uneven,” she replies, and I feel my skin prickle as the alcohol dries. “Your ears don’t grow at the same rate. Baby piercings are under no obligation to keep relative to each other.” She lines up her needle and pushes the metal through, leaning back to admire her work: two new craters, side by side. My mom had my ears pierced when I was six months old. I had always seen it as a heroic gesture, badass even, to drag her young daughter to the woman with the sharps and introduce her to pain. But in reality, my mom is a prudent and practical woman, and the two diamonds I wore growing up seemed too flashy and frivolous a thing for her to go out of her way for, especially in her first years in America and with her firstborn child. The scene of my mother gladly piercing my infant ears stands in stark contrast to how she bristled at the nose piercing I would get in college, and even more so to the classmates I would watch drag their mothers to Claire’s after much negotiation on thirteenth birthdays, or who had to beg for their own set of craters to stick ladybugs and purple gems into — Croc charms for the body. It’s that contrast that I used to romanticize, that caused me to deem her a “cool-mom” and thank her for her service, all those years ago.

It is as I get older that I realize the true nature of these first piercings. “It’s just what people did,” she tells me one day in passing. “I got my ears pierced when I was born, in the hospital.” I smirk at her from my spot in the living room and roll a thumb over the lobes, realizing ear piercing is really just the Asian daughter analog for circumcision. I began to think more about the discrepancies between Asian and western upbringings. I remember how often I would writhe against my mom’s silence when I shared stories in the car, only to catch her eyes laughing along when I brought them up again at dinner. Unlike the white family units in the movies, there were no verbal apologies or I love yous, or even how-are-you-doings. But there were many full bellies of home cooked meals, adobo and pan de sal; entire afternoons filled with driving between practices and rehearsals; and the cut fruit — apple slices for homework assignments, persimmons in the morning before big test days, purple and green jewels of grapes, peeled and seedless after driveway soccer games, my father hacking down cantaloupes for sugary juices and pungent durians for post-dinner ice cream. I would eat pineapple cubes until my tongue puckered from the sweet acid and let the Asian pear slices prune my finger tips. This is the transaction of affection in my family, and it is one that I know started generations before me. My dad tells me the story of his mom’s apology when a round of chastisement went too far: “I heard a knock on the door and she was there, sheepish almost, a cup of juice in her hand.” He finishes the story there. We both look away. We are caught in a great time for selfrealization, taking Meyers Briggs tests and

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reading our horoscopes to find language with which we can better understand ourselves. To better understand our interpersonal relationships, “love languages,” which were first outlined in Gary Chapman’s 1992 book The Five Love Languages, have emerged as a powerful form of taxonomy: what are the ways that we give and receive love, and are the discrepancies between our loved ones deal breakers? Complications? Even complementations? The five “languages of love” have been formally categorized as words of affirmation, physical touch, gift giving, quality time, and acts of service. Any manifestation of affection can be neatly categorized into one of these love languages, and each person will respond to some of these languages better than others. As someone who spends a lot of time trying to communicate herself, my test results report words of affirmation and quality time are tied as my top love languages, leaving acts of service, gift giving, and physical touch to trail at the bottom. There is a lot one could unpack here. My parents, as many Asian immigrant parents tend to be, are well versed in acts of service and gift-giving. Looking back at my childhood, it is one saturated with these silent acts of sacrifice, and therefore love: waking up early to prepare school lunches or working extra hours in order to afford dinners out and of course college tuitions. There were no explicit “I love yous,” but, perhaps, there was also no need. In that vein, one could say that words of affirmation and quality time are the languages that I received least growing up, and venture to posit that that absence is what caused those two languages to be the ones to which I am now most sensitive. Or perhaps, it is my witnessing such wordless care that has tied guilt to these categorizations of love, as I find my aversion to expecting gifts or service from my loved ones comes from a cultural tradition of avoiding inconvenience for others. I can recall an entire childhood full of dodging the money-filled red envelopes from aunties or the profuse refusal of food or

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drink when visiting someone else’s home, all while still being sure not to enter empty handed. Applying the terminology of love languages to my relationship with my parents is an interesting challenge. Since gift giving and acts of service are the love languages they seem most primed to give, are these also what they are most primed to receive? Thus, do my “I love yous” before bed or phone calls from college not resonate with them as much as if I, say, bought them something with my own savings, or did all the chores in the house? This mismatch in love languages is the crux of many a lamentation from my friends who come from similar Asian upbringings: “Yeah, my top love language is words of affirmation,” I remember a classmate of mine telling me, “but for my parents it is acts of service, so we aren’t as close as we’d like to be.” I empathize. The ideology of love languages promotes this idea that the ones we are equipped to love best are those whose love languages mirror our own — or perhaps, the ones for whom we are willing to compromise. But I think about my dad, the night he told that story, the night I had thrown one of the spicier tantrums of my adolescence, and that first time he told me he was sorry, and how all I had wanted in that moment was for him to take it back. I did not want him conforming to my personal definitions of love, of remorse, of anything. I remember being seven and sobbing over a failure of my Easy Bake Oven, ugly crying to my mom over my inadequacy and charred sugar crumbs. I remember the yellow lighting of our hallway, and the paralysis of that moment — my mother, waiting out the emotional episode, allowing me the luxury of her presence — her witness — and me, waiting in my own five-foot radius, wanting a hug but not wanting to be the one to ask it of her. This give and take, this desire, this waiting out, this game. And so while the idea of love language compatibility makes sense to me, I do not wield it against my parents.

There is a certain surrender in this analysis, in categorizing our affections for each other into groups; and in the grand scheme of Asian culture and western expectations, even more so. What I mean to say is, in deploying our American measurement systems on our Asian upbringings, a whole lot gets lost in translation. My friend once told me how difficult it was to go to the Philippines and reconnect with her grandparents, who only understood Tagalog, with her toolbox of Filipino 1A words and phrases. “Our conversations are already prewritten,” she said, as they were only able to exchange their contrived “how are yous” and “how old are you nows.” I think about her situation often, one common to many of us who have traded in our parents’ dialects for English, but I also think about how sacred it is that, despite our limitations, we continue to do this dance with our elders. My friend’s conversations are prewritten, yes — venture too far and she knows she or her grandparents will not have the language to understand. But she attempts to have the conversation anyway, as do her grandparents, and there is a language there being written — a love language, even — in that act alone. At the same time, this goes beyond language. At the family parties that speckle my memories of home — running from red envelopes and taking only water, despite the insistences of our relatives playing host — we are living out the nuances and conventions that ultimately build a culture. Asian tradition is housed in humility, consideration, and honor. We are considerate of our hosts and community members who make room for us, who in turn go to great lengths to make sure visitors are comfortable and cared for, both sides honoring the energy it takes to go out of your way for another. And just so, when I dance around accepting gifts, I honor the upbringing I’ve received, one that tells me to be grateful for what I have, that is deeply aware of the hard work that goes into anything gifted to me. “This is too much,” we prime our tongues to say,

which means: I see you, I know that you went to great lengths to be able to give this to me, and I did not come with the expectation that I would receive. And it is with that humility that we later go back on our own word and allow the red envelopes to be slipped into pockets. My mother tells me to accept credit cards or receipts with two hands — “It’s out of respect,” she insists, and I roll my eyes at the performance of it all. But I know the message she is sending when she reaches out, handing her dollars between both palms: I see you, I know that in this moment I am the recipient of your energy and presence, and I honor that. There is beauty here that can’t be categorized, that I feel we ought to stop trying so hard to translate. The piercer leans back and looks at her work, and I grin into the plastic mirror on the wall. Two sets of craters, evidence of a dance I’ve been doing my whole life, that many of us are dancing, in all directions, all the time. In sitting next to my mother, peeling and seeding grapes for my younger siblings; my Amah, smiling along to the rises in my stories and hmMming along to the parts we both know she didn’t understand; the way she will slow down when she has instinctively spoken to me in Hokkien and realizes I do not understand it anymore; my Angkong rubbing my shoulders all the while; my mom, lifting her arms to let me hug her in that yellow hallway, a moment as awkward for both of us as you’d imagine, as I traded my pride to ask for a hug and she traded her comfort to play along; and still more, my mom, hoisting me up on that Claire’s piercing chair at six months old, doing what my Amah had done for her in a hospital bed so many years ago. I’m sure I threw a tantrum and sobbed full force as I received those surprise craters in my ears, wailing even as the alcohol dried. But I like to think that even my tearfilled eyes understood the exchange taking place, the dance I was learning, the language we were writing — a love language, certainly, that we’ve been speaking ever since.

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A PHOTO SPREAD BY C L A R I SS A L E W I S

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SACRED SPACES WO R DS BY L E A N D R A R A M LO

V I S UA L S BY C A R I SS A L E W I S

y love affair with UC Berkeley’s libraries began the moment I first stepped foot on campus; I fell fast and hard. I’ve had affairs with each of our 28 libraries — some stronger and more consuming, others less so. Even the libraries that were initially less compelling somehow wriggled their way into my heart, as their initially more bothersome qualities developed into charming quirks. The Hargrove Music Library was my first love — the dusty light caressing the white walls on the second floor always sends me into a dream-land; I blast Debussy in my headphones to honor the space. Doe Library came next — the arched ceilings in the North Reading Room stretching up to heaven invoke the muses; I feel connected to a higher, intellectual power. I had heard whispers about the beauty of the East Asian library, but I didn’t quite understand until I discovered it for myself at the end of my first year — its dark caverns are illuminated only by the purple glow of desk lamps, but the north wall, which is a single expanse of glass stretching from floor to ceiling, seeps natural light inside and reveals a view of a lazy sloped hill, making it easier to breathe. Even Main Stacks has its own aesthetic appeal — buried

deep beneath Memorial Glade, it feels as if I’m descending into a fortified bunker, a parallel universe where time stretches forwards and folds in on itself. But my love for these spaces extends beyond superficial aesthetic pleasure: I’m also drawn to the quiet each library lends me, the alone time, the space. I’ve felt nurtured by the campus libraries for almost four years now, but it’s felt like a lifetime. So when I was strolling down Sproul on a recent afternoon, my ears perked up at the mention of libraries coming from a familiar pugnacious voice, shouting something along the lines of, “You all flock like a herd of sheep to the libraries and you don’t even read the books! You just click away and stare into your screens like a bunch of robots!” Lo and behold, the comment came from the man who sits on the south entrance of Sproul just shy of Telegraph, who preaches mostly about how hypocritical we “liberal” Berkeley students are. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything this man says or does, this particular comment resonated. His words echoed in my head until I reached the Environmental Design Library, where, upon arriving, I shamefully slipped my laptop out of my bag and onto a desk. I peered up at the rows and rows of books encompassing

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me. It’s true — in that moment, the books lining the walls constituted something to be looked at from afar. More often than not, they contribute to an ambiance, as opposed to being used for their intended purpose — to be picked up, held, read. I looked at the books a little longer on this particular afternoon, but as I redirected my gaze toward my screen and began typing away at my keyboard, I felt them glaring back at me, burning holes into my head. Suddenly, I felt that I was neglecting the heart and soul of a space that I had claimed to adore so dearly. I couldn’t shake the guilt — but why did I feel so guilty in the first place?

In my head, the word “library” immediately conjures up the image of a book. One of my fondest and most formative memories of the library is from elementary school; I loved the quiet of curling up in a corner of my school’s tiny library as I fondled the pages of a book by Kate Dicamillo, my then-favorite author. But upon further reflection, I realize that conceptualizing libraries as merely homes for books is a surface-level understanding of what a library is — the link between a book and a library is in fact more associative than essential. The true essence of a library lays in its function as a haven of information that serves a community. Libraries are rooted in the principle of free, equal access to knowledge, and historically, books have been the principal source of knowledge. But as times have changed, information no longer resides solely in books; information has been downloaded and uploaded and recorded onto all kinds of online databases and digital archives. I have physically checked out a book at Main Stacks exactly once, because I had to write a research paper and couldn’t access the book I desperately needed on my computer. But most of my research and reading can be done online. Without having to navigate a maze of bookshelves, I can access hundreds of thousands of books and articles on my laptop through UC Berkeley’s library databases.

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Technology has democratized knowledge and made it more accessible — many of us can access anything we’d like to know using just our devices. Yet even as information becomes more accessible, it’s apparent that it is still not easily accessible for many of us. In lower income communities, for example, individuals lack the means to purchase personal computers, severing them from a world of skills, knowledge, and information that is much more readily available to their affluent counterparts. Knowledge is power, and a world wherein knowledge is only accessible to the privileged few disempowers less privileged communities, posing a direct threat to the principles of equality and democracy. Public libraries attempt to counteract inequality by creating spaces where anyone can enjoy equal access to knowledge and informational resources. In addition to offering thousands of physical copies of books, many public libraries also provide vast online collections of ebooks and audiobooks. Plus, public libraries provide free computer access, as well as workshops on how to use digital technology. Beyond lessening the effects of the digital divide, public libraries work to ensure that no one gets left behind in other domains as well, offering everything from career counseling and job preparation to hosting cultural events and language courses for immigrants. While Berkeley’s libraries are more attuned to serving students and faculty of the university, they still boast a range of services that foster a sense of community and a culture of inclusion — librarians teach courses on how to do research; circulation desks lend out everything from laptops and microphones to art pieces and frisbees; art exhibitions and speaker panels consistently bring forth a diversity of voices and ideas to keep the free flow of thought alive. That’s why it’s so disturbing when public libraries are attacked for wasting taxpayer money, or for being outdated and inessential spaces that should be replaced with profit-generating businesses. Regardless of whether you attend library-hosted

events or utilize library-offered resources (as I myself shamefully admitted, do not), it’s essential that we support the maintenance of spaces that serve and enrich the community. It’s essential that public libraries exist as a matter of principle: simply by existing, the public library upholds values of equity and equality. The library is essential in other ways as well. For some members of the community, the library offers a safe space or temporary shelter. Any student who uses the Berkeley libraries knows that virtually anyone can walk into most of our libraries, which are available to the public. As a result, it’s not uncommon to see a cast of homeless characters shuffling in between aisles of books or browsing on a desktop computer. When it’s raining outside, I see even more of these visitors around, wrapped up in blankets, reposing in an armchair, taking shelter from the cold.

Sharing the library with these people may be uncomfortable for some of us. I’ve overheard students express annoyances about their presence and I’ve seen a handful of posts on confession pages and forums about the homeless population violating our spaces — these kinds of posts surged a few years ago when a homeless man was temporarily banned from entering libraries after disposing of his body lice in a few of the library restrooms on campus. Of course, no one should be using any public spaces in this manner, but I would argue that students commit their fair share of “violations” as well: three separate times I’ve witnessed people filing their nails or clipping them into a trashcan; twice, my studying has been interrupted by puffs of Juul smoke being violently blown toward me; and more times than I can count I’ve tried to tune out the snores of a student beside me taking a nap. The point is that so long as anyone intends

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to use the library with respect, they deserve to be there. No single population should be excluded. In fact, it’s precisely when the library is serving marginalized populations that the library is truly embodying its purpose. In the words of Philip Schmidt, director of the MIT Media Lab’s Learning Initiative, “Libraries are the last safe, free, truly public space where people from all walks of life may encounter each other.”

To a much lesser degree, the library is a safe haven for me as well, though I mostly use the space to study. As a student, it can be difficult to find quiet or carve out your own space. But the library allows me to create my own space while also sharing in one. On a Friday or Saturday evening — the times when I feel the least motivated to do work — the library is my only hope that I may potentially be productive. Whether I’m feeling unmotivated to study, or if I’m feeling alienated and bombarded by an overwhelming amount of work, the library atmosphere possesses some magical force that transforms any initially-depressing task into something empowering. In the library, the spirit of my mission as a university student diffuses into me. The buzz of fellow students collectively engaged in the same task is like a motor, compelling me to study. In Doe’s North Reading Room, Galileo and Descartes’ names carved into the walls stare down at me; perhaps egotistically, I feel like I’m walking in their footsteps, carrying on the spirit of the same kind of intellectual endeavor they were engaged in. Few spaces feel so safe, empowering, and sacred. The library atmosphere motivates me, but I know others seek out different environments to maximize their focus. While I cherish the silence of the Music Library, some of my friends prefer libraries like Moffitt, where you can chat with those around you and munch on snacks. And while I worship Doe in all of its early-20th century architectural

glory, others feel energized by the terror of being trapped many stories underground in a cold, sterile space like Main Stacks. I appreciate the different climates and ambiances of different libraries; I like to have a variety of options to suit my various study moods. But it has always been difficult for me to get behind the ambiance of the modern library, such as recently-renovated Moffitt. With its intensely vomitgreen chairs and its impractically low couches and tables, Moffit attacks my senses and distracts me from my work more than it aids in my focus. Aside from its aesthetic, Moffit is intentionally designed to be “modern” because, in theory, the library should not only store knowledge, but also generate it: its multi-story structure contains dozens of study rooms, plenty of whiteboards and projectors, and a makerspace. And by being open 24 hours a day, the library accommodates any student schedule. Moffitt is emblematic of the way in which libraries are ever-evolving spaces that directly respond to our ever-changing educational and social needs. I admire Moffitt and support its endeavor — I just don’t know why they have to make the chairs vomit-green. I believe my preference for a more traditional architectural style is somewhat tied to my tendency to romanticize libraries. My nostalgic yearnings for giant, ancient rooms empty of anything except for piles and piles of books is well-meaning but a bit short-sighted. Libraries are not merely a space for books. Libraries, I’ve come to realize, are meant to be multifunctional, dynamic spaces that serve the entire community. People lay at the heart of a library, not books. In fact, I think I knew this all along. When I recall the warm, fuzzy feeling of my elementary school library, sure, books are center stage in my memories; but so are the experiences of sharing those books with my parents, teachers, and friends. When I reconnect with this conceptualization of libraries, I feel a little less of that guilt that tugs away at me. It’s become a bit easier for me to sit down, slip out my laptop, and be thankful for the space, all while marvelling at the books surrounding me.

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CHASING GOLDEN LIGHT through north berkeley

A PHOTO SPREAD P H OTO S BY W I L L B R I N K E R H O F F MODEL: ARIA DASBACH

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Caliber Magazine Issue 20 | Fall & Spring 2020

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