Limina 2022-23

LIMINA

Published by the Student Publications Board at the University of New Mexico. All rights revert to contributors upon publication.

Limina: UNM Nonfiction Review publishes nonfiction work from undergraduates and graduates attending the University of New Mexico.

Email: limina@unm.edu

Website: limina.unm.edu

Instagram: @limina_unm

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Cover Design: John Scott & Zara Roy

Magazine Design: Zara Roy, Marcela Johnson, & John Scott

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Photography Contributor: “Hogan in Snow II,” Front Cover Image

Samuel Shorty is a Indigenous artist who is going to college for Film and Digital Media.

Indigenous Peoples’ Land and Territory Acknowledgement

Founded in 1889, the University of New Mexico sits on the traditional homelands of the Pueblo of Sandia. The original peoples of New Mexico – Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache –since time immemorial, have deep connections to the land and have made significant contributions to the broader community statewide. We honor the land itself and those who remain stewards of this land throughout the generations and also acknowledge our committed relationship to Indigenous peoples. We gratefully recognize our history.

LIMINA

Masthead Masthead

Limina: UNM Nonfiction Review is made by students for students. Our staff is comprised of undergraduate and graduate volunteers who solicit submissions, select works, for publication, copyedit, design, and market the magazine on campus.

Editor in Chief: Zara Roy

Managing Editor: Marcela Johnson

Catalina Chapa

Tia Donaldson

Charlotte Gates

John Scott

Meg Vlaun

Faculty Advisor: Dan Mueller

Meet the Editors Meet the Editors

Zara Roy is a senior majoring in psychology with a minor in theatre. She loves Fiona Apple and pretending to understand philosophy in her free time, and she hopes to discover all the liveliest bits of life after college (and perhaps get to the point where she can listen to “The Idler Wheel ...” without breaking out into hysterical tears.)

Marcela Johnson is a sophomore majoring in mass communication and journalism with a minor in design for performance. She is a proud southern New Mexican. Marcela hopes to practice law in New Mexico in the future as it is one of the few states with common sense at this point in time. She enjoys reading comics and horror and pushing boundaries with her makeup. Marcela is thankful to have worked with such an amazing Editor-in-Chief and staff this year.

Catalina Chapa is a fourth-year communications student at the University of New Mexico. When she is not in school you can find her reading, taking pictures, visiting art museums, and finding adventures. She also is an art fanatic and hopes to work as a curator in the future. Catalina is passionate about literature and having voices from all backgrounds given a platform to share their own unique perspective, which is what drew her to working with Limina.

Tia Donaldson is a PhD candidate in psychology finishing her last year of graduate school. Originally from Rio Rancho, NM, Tia is a foodie and loves to travel and discover new homes away from home. Throughout her studies, she has developed a passion for the brain, research, and science communication. Outside of academia, she volunteers for STEM literacy programs for K-12 students and serves as a community educator for the Alzheimer’s Association. In her spare time she enjoys baking, practicing yoga, and spending time with her family and dogs.

Charlotte Gates is currently a fourth-year student at UNM studying English and German. She is thrilled to be a part of the Limina staff for a third year, especially since she now considers herself a fan of copyediting. In her free time, Charlotte loves learning new languages, freestyle rapping, and taking the time to appreciate the little things in life, like Ed Sheeran songs. Charlotte’s main life goal is to one day write a play and watch it be performed. She invites all reading this to her play’s future debut performance.

John Scott is a senior at UNM studying English and philosophy. He’s recently discovered that taking a photo of someone flipping a coin — and freezing one side of the coin in the frame while it’s flipping — is harder than it looks. Perhaps this is why he isn’t very good at writing creative nonfiction: he’s unable to capture a singular moment, freeze it, and provide the reader or viewer with the proper reflection on said moment. The coin just flips, and life moves on.

Meg Vlaun has an MA in English literature and studies creative writing at UNM and CNM. She will begin her MFA in creative writing at Regis University in July. She writes creative nonfiction, fiction, book reviews, and poetry, and has published pieces in Limina: UNM Nonfiction Review, Meat for Tea, and Leonardo Magazine. Meg is also a writing instructor who currently tutors English at CNM’s Westside Campus. You can find her on Instagram: @megvlaun.

Foreword Foreword

Welcome to the 35th edition of Limina: UNM Nonfiction Review. I am exceptionally happy with this year’s brave selection of works from writers dedicated to knowledge and truth-seeking, and I hope you will too. Whether it be through deep research or difficult personal reflection (or a little bit of both), this issue is chock-full of hard-earned wisdom that bright minds have shared to the world in an act of great vulnerability and care for their craft. Especially in an age where misinformation is easier to share and more widespread than ever, these writers’ commitment to shedding beacons of truth and expertise to readers of our magazine is much appreciated and valued.

Of course, this feat cannot be completed without a passionate and committed staff of dillgent editors behind the scenes. It is difficult to convey my love and appreciation for this bunch without falling into the realm of cliché and platitudes, but nevertheless I will try. I am incredibly grateful to have been gifted with this year’s team: with their intelligence and strength and care, both for the magazine and for one another. Their willingness and thirst for knowledge propelled the selection process, and I hope this shines through in our publication this year.

Please cherish each piece and the grace and humility which it takes to put one’s work forth into the world and allow it to fall blindly into the hands of the reader. Most of all, please enjoy our work. Thank you for your support of UNM’s student publications.

Zara Roy Editor in Chief

by Maddie Coburn

by SpenSer Willden

by Thea SWifT

by Zane Shirley

by SaChi barnaby

by Gillian barkhurST

by iZZe ThoMaS

by SiMon ruybalid

by Sydney druMMond

by SiMone Sena

by SaMuel ShorTy by CaMila Seluja

by larry rybarCyk

Breaking the Mold: The Role of Gender Instability in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

and Jane Eyre Maddie Coburn

In many respects, gender norms work to create the very foundation of our social behavior and interactions. With an individual’s identification as male or female comes a set of normative gender standards that heavily, though often subconsciously, influence our behavior as well as our judgment of others’ behavior. In literature, authors can call attention to such social behaviors and institutions through either adherence to or deviance from the norms. This authorial tool is particularly compelling in the Gothic genre, which constitutes the “literary grotesque” by focusing on “incongruous, abnormal, ‘monstrous’ characters, situations, and events” (Bailey 270). The emphasis on the abnormal is created largely through the defiance of normative social behavior, and the disruption of gender norms is a particularly powerful tool in influencing the subconscious perceptions of the reader. In Gothic characters, inversions of masculinity and femininity and behavior that are perceived as being inconsistent with assigned gender establish an inherently uncomfortable and strange experience for the reader as they attempt to navigate the textual instability of our foundational social constructs. In the nineteenth century Gothic texts “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Jane Eyre , Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Charlotte Brönte, respectively, utilize the unconventional heroine and the abject to manipulate the social constructions of normative gender performances. Through such distortions, Gilman and Brönte influence the reader’s perception of their unorthodox characters by marking them as strange or “Other,” thus contributing to the abnormalities that make Gothic texts so chilling.

One method Gothic authors use to manipulate gender roles is the inclusion of an unconventional heroine. This female protagonist is often of lower financial or social standing, but is independent, intelligent, stands as a challenge against the patriarchal authority of the male protagonist, and “does not fully adhere to conventional

sex-role stereotypes” (Radway 143). Utilizing this heroine’s strong personality, Gothic authors juxtapose her role in the relationship with that of the male, thus creating conflicts in the relative masculinity and femininity of the pair. These conflicts are representative of the smaller, more subtle changes authors make that challenge the patriarchal social foundations within the text, thus disrupting the reader’s internal understanding of gender norms and contributing to the eerie feeling caused by Gothic stories. In Jane Eyre , Charlotte Brönte explores the distortion of gender roles through her unconventional heroine, Jane. Like the archetypal Gothic heroine, Jane is independent, desires to support herself, and navigates her rather tumultuous relationship with Mr. Rochester by striving for a position of power through the “conventional stance of passive resistance” (Kahane 49). Internally, she contemplates the validity of the socially established gender norms when she asserts that “women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer” (Brönte 63). Her longing for independence and social equality is demonstrative of more general overarching Gothic elements that “suggest the inescapability of the past and of inheritance,” as these freedoms have been socially withheld from women on the grounds of patriarchal protection throughout history, and as an extension point to women’s social exclusion (Bailey 271). Jane’s determination to obtain self-sufficiency through her strong personality and actions contributes to her abnormalities — consequently exposing the abnormalities of the narrative as a whole — and thus enables the novel to adhere to the characteristic Gothic inclusion of peculiar characters, lending to an equally peculiar and often horrific plot.

Utilizing this heroine’s strong personality, Gothic authors juxtapose her role in the relationship with that of the male, thus creating conflicts in the relative masculinity and femininity of the pair.

In addition to including Jane’s willful personality, Brönte also establishes an inversion of gender roles between Jane, who often acts more masculine, and Mr. Rochester, who often displays stereotypically female traits. The main contribution to this instability is Jane’s firm belief in equality, as she rejects claims to superiority based upon gender, age, or experience, instead seeing superiority in terms of intelligence and compassion, as well as one’s social standing and monetary status (Brönte 79). This belief drives her interactions with Mr. Rochester, with whom she believes she is an intellectual equal and over whom she feels “an inward power; a sense of influence” (Brönte 180). The power she holds over him contributes to the instability of gender roles in their relationship, with Jane taking the masculine role and Mr. Rochester assuming the feminine role in many of their interactions. One notable example of gender instability between the pair is in their first meeting, when Jane is walking to Thornfield and helps Rochester after his horse slips on ice. During this interaction, the gender roles of the first meeting in the archetypal historical romance are reversed to accommodate the Gothic romance, with Jane acting as the hero to help an injured Rochester, the “damsel in distress.” He initially asserts that he does not need help, but Jane refuses to leave him “at so late an hour, in this solitary lane,” and so he succumbs to her insistence and lets her help him to his horse (Brönte 66). Jane’s assumption of the commanding, powerful role in this instance continues throughout most of their interactions, while Rochester often takes the more emotional, submissive role often attributed to women. Indeed, Jane is often more calm and levelheaded, with a sense of authority in perilous situations such as the fire in Rochester’s bedroom, in which she saves his life and remains abnormally calm and logical as she locates a basin of water to douse the flames (Brönte 87). In stark contrast to Jane’s levelheaded demeanor, however, is Rochester’s confused and angry outburst in which he demands, “What have you done with me sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?” (Brönte 87). This quick succession of questions and demands highlights Jane’s composed replies, and as an extension accentuates the reversal of stereotypical sex roles in the hazardous situation. For the reader, the continual inversion of gender roles seen between Jane and Mr. Rochester continues to cement disruption of gender roles within the text, and thus establishes a subconscious apprehension for the characters’ future actions and heightened sensitivity to the

other abnormalities in the story.

In addition to including an unconventional heroine, Gothic authors also manipulate gender roles through the female abject. As explained by Julia Kristeva and John Lechte, “There is, in abjection, one of those violent and obscure revolts of being against that which threatens it and which seems to it to come from an outside or an exorbitant inside; something that is thrown next to the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable. It is there, very close, but unassimilable” (Kristeva and Lechte 125). The acceptable ideas contradicted by the abject, thus eliciting the response described by Kristeva and Lechte, are determined by cultural and social constructs, and can result from instability in normative gender performances. Far from the socially unconventional heroine who rejects gender norms on the grounds of logic and independence, however, is the mentally unstable female who unwittingly tests the boundaries between the self and the Other as she navigates mental illness. By characterizing the insane individual as female, Gothic authors open the door for questions regarding a woman’s control over their self-expression, specifically, the extent of self-expression allowed, how much control should be granted, and how a quest for such independence blurs the lines of gender performances. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman demonstrates the inclusion of the female abject as she tells the story of a woman’s descent into madness after struggling with postpartum depression. While the narrator adheres to gender norms early in the story and consents to her husband’s directions, as her mental health deteriorates — and she begins to move across the border between self and Other — her willingness to obey him deteriorates as well. This shift is most striking at the end of the story when the narrator seemingly embraces her insanity. Most conspicuous during this scene is her blurring of the boundary between the self and Other binary through her animal-like behavior, as readers learn that she has been habitually destroying the room in which she is kept, noting that the “bedstead is fairly gnawed” and that she “can creep smoothly on the floor” because her shoulder “just fits in that long smooch around that wall” (Gilman 9). By moving across the human/non-human binary in this way, the narrator elicits an abject response in both her husband, who faints, and the reader, as this scene acts as the culmination of her non-normative behavior. The rapid deterioration of her mental health and her consequential actions evoke this response because they “perturb an identity, a system, an

order; that which does not respect limits, places or rules” (Kristeva and Lechte 127).

Similarly, the narrator’s perversion of normative gender performances, through her assumption of the position of power and through her defiance towards her husband John, calls further attention to her unorthodox behavior and contributes to the eerie, shocking conclusion. Indeed, the abject response and her rejection of gender norms go hand-in-hand at the story’s end, when that narrator complains that John fainted “right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time” (Gilman 9). By crawling over him after he displayed a stereotypically female response and fainted, the narrator gains power over John, which is demonstrative of the stark role reversal as John held the power over her earlier in the story (particularly in terms of her physical and mental health). Additionally, she begins to employ the same condescending language John used with her, calling him “young man” to compliment him calling her “little girl,” accentuating the reversal of what was originally considered normative masculine behavior when attributed to John, but is incongruous when attributed to the narrator (Gilman 9, 5). Her insanity and animal-like behavior are a culmination of a long period of mental degradation during which she progressively defies gender norms, and is thus representative of a larger Gothic theme in which “the heroine seems compelled to either resume a more quiescent, socially acceptable role, or to be destroyed” (Kahane 54). Here, the latter appears to be the applicable case, as she accepts her masculine role and her seemingly irreparable mental health, and fully moves across the boundary between the rational, ideal female and the insane, more masculine female. As such, this movement elicits a “massive and abrupt irruption of a strangeness” for both the other characters and the reader, as the narrator assumes the role of “a ‘something’ that [is] not recogni[zed] as a thing” in terms of both her human/non-human identity as well as her female/male identity (Kristeva and Lechte 126). Thus, her descent into madness and the abject response it creates is further emphasized by her increasing masculinity, constructing an eerie, uncomfortable situation for the readers as the other characters attempt to cope with the questions that arise regarding their own identity and place in the binary crossed by the narrator. In this way, Gilman utilizes the abject female to further establish instability in the gender roles in the narrator’s relationship with John, creating the strange and unnatural atmosphere

characteristic of Gothic texts.

Questions of potential feminist implications arise from an analysis of the instability of gender roles in Gothic texts, though literary scholars disagree on “whether the stories are conservative reaffirmations of ‘the cult of domesticity’ and the ‘feminine mystique’ or covert feminist protests at the subjugation of women” (Radway 142). Those that believe that Gothic texts work to cement social norms look to the progression of the narrative itself and assert that “achievement of it comes only with submission to traditional gender arrangements and assumption of a typically female personality structure” (Radway 155). For example, proponents of this idea argue that Jane Eyre is consistent with patriarchal themes because despite Jane’s independence and pluck, she becomes more willing to accept submission to patriarchal authority — namely that of Mr. Rochester — as the narrative ends in marriage and compliance with gender norms. In contrast, while Jane becomes more willing to accept traditional gender roles, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” becomes more apt to reject them, and her narrative ends in a broken marriage. Scholars who maintain that Gothic texts serve a feminist purpose point to the heroine, “who is either wrongly abused by men or who remains unusually independent” for the majority of the story, and as such allows the reader to identify with the heroine and become discontent with patriarchal oppression (Radway 143). This is true of both heroines in Jane Eyre and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” as they are subjugated both by the men in the story and by the more general patriarchal social institutions. So, while some texts, like “The Yellow Wallpaper,” may be seen to have more explicit feminist messages than others, like Jane Eyre , analyzing these texts provides insight into women’s subjection to gender roles established by the patriarchy, which inherently creates a female Otherness. As such, the reversal of gender roles can be seen to empower the female, and analyses of an author’s reasoning behind such distortions calls attention to the patriarchal ideas that place

In contrast, while Jane becomes more willing to accept traditional gender roles, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” becomes more apt to reject them, and her narrative ends in a broken marriage.

the female in the Other position, regardless of whether or not the text provides explicit feminist arguments. Both the unconventional heroine and the abject female call attention to this phenomenon, as they demonstrate how “certain forms of femininity are rendered abject by a patriarchal society that requires their repression to reproduce itself” (Margree 430). Indeed, some scholars have noted that this fear of the female Other is the foundation of the anxieties created by Gothic texts: “The Gothic fear is revealed as a fear of femaleness itself, perceived as threatening one’s wholeness, obliterating the very boundaries of self” (Kahane 59). This assertion has startling implications for the female’s place in a patriarchal society, despite the fact that women are largely growing to share Jane’s sentiment that they should be allowed “to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex” (Brönte 63). In this way, the perceived incompatibility of identifying as female in a patriarchal society is utilized by Gothic authors like Brönte and Gilman to elicit this inherent fear of the female Other in their stories, contributing to the more overt fear of the supernatural that we associate with Gothic texts.

In conclusion, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Charlotte Brönte establish instability in the gender roles within their respective stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Jane Eyre , to construct abnormal characters who in turn contribute to the strange, eerie atmosphere of the text. Charlotte Brönte accomplishes gender instability through her unconventional heroine, Jane, who frequently defies gender norms with her willful, independent personality and through her more masculine behavior in her relationship with Mr. Rochester. In contrast, Charlotte Perkins Gilman includes the abject female who acts as the narrator of the story and documents her descent into madness. Over the course of the story, the narrator moves progressively across the boundary between the human/non-human binary, eliciting an abject response in her husband and producing a shocking, terrifying conclusion for the reader. This digression into an almost animal-like state is emphasized by her rejection of gender standards, with the gender roles between her and her husband becoming fully reversed at the end of the story and amplifying her incongruity as she not only adopts insanity, but also masculinity. In Gothic texts such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Jane Eyre , the fear that accompanies the disruption of socially normative behavior is accentuated by the fear

of femininity, which is seen as Other in a society where the behavioral norms were established by a patriarchal social foundation. In this way, Gilman and Brönte take advantage of the pre-existing social fears surrounding instability in gender roles and femininity to establish the peculiarity and horror associated with the Gothic genre.

WORKS CITED

Bailey, Peggy Dunn. “Female Gothic Fiction, Grotesque Realities, and Bastard Out of Carolina: Dorothy Allison Revises the Southern Gothic.” The Mississippi Quarterly , vol. 63, no. 2, 2010, pp. 269–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor. org/stable/26477320.

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre . 3rd ed., Harper & Brothers of New York, 1848.

Gilman, Charlotte P. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Small & Maynard, 1899, web.archive.org/web/20130704052511/ http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/ yellowwallpaper.pdf.

Kahane, Claire. “Gothic Mirrors and Feminine Identity.” The Centennial Review , vol. 24, no. 1, 1980, pp. 43–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23740372.

Kristeva, Julia, and John Lechte. “Approaching Abjection.” Oxford Literary Review , vol. 5, no. 1/2, 1982, pp. 125–49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43973647.

Margree, Victoria. “The Feminist Orientation in Edith Nesbit’s Gothic Short Fiction.” Women’s Writing , vol. 21, no. 4, 2014, pp. 425-43. Humanities International Complete , https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2014.9201 36.

Radway, Janice. “The Utopian Impulse in Popular Literature: Gothic Romances and ‘Feminist’ Protest.” American Quarterly , vol. 33, no. 2, 1981, pp. 140–62. JSTOR, https:// doi.org/10.2307/2712313.

Territory Spenser Willden

On May 8, 2007, New Mexico State Game and Fish officers responded to a call about a mountain lion attack in the backyard of a house on Water street, just south of Longfellow Elementary, in Raton, New Mexico.

A woman, unidentified in the Albuquerque Journal article written about the incident, called 911 after seeing a predatory cat maul and devour her dog. Preparing breakfast, I imagine still with curlers in her hair, she noticed something was wrong when her dog started barking from the backyard. He was a good boy, and he only got riled up like this when kids passed on their way to school, but school had started hours ago, and it was too early for the mailman to be on his rounds. After all, the mailmen were lazy, so they didn’t come by until evening. When the barking cut off, she looked out her window and saw a cougar ripping into her dog’s flesh.

Game and Fish officers soon arrived, and after a chase, cornered the mountain lion — whose scientific name, Puma Concolor, means “cat of one color,” due to their often-monochromatic light tawny fur — in a nearby ditch, a mile south of the school. Officer Clint Hewson, who later that year would play Don Quixote in the Shuler Theater’s production of Man of La Mancha , shot it dead with a 12-gauge.

Clint’s son Toby once told me that mountain lions claim anywhere from 10 to 300 square miles as their territory. They’re fiercely protective, too. They live solitarily, unless mating or parenting, and will kill any other predator they find in their territory. In Raton, the mountain lions encircle the city like prey, from Raton Pass and Sugarite Canyon in the north to Goat Hill and Johnson Mesa in the east and west. Raton comes in at a measly seven square miles, small enough that an enterprising cougar could make a meal of it. Still, aside from instances like these, the cats keep to the mountains.

According to Clint, this lion was likely young, looking to establish a territory of his own among the staggered

houses east of the railroad. A neighbor feeding stray cats probably drew him in, unaware that an apex predator was eating from the pungent cans of Fancy Feast she left on her porch. In all likelihood, he had been around the neighborhood for days already. Bad luck he chose to attack the occupied house — just two doors down and he could’ve gone months before being found out and put down. You don’t know these things when you’re a lion.

Years later, when the aquatic center went up, and we’d wake early on summer mornings to cross the train tracks with our bath towels and half-melted flip-flops, we’d remember the lion — was it a dog he ate or something bigger, right around our age? We know he got shot in the fucking face but who knows? He could still be around — lions come back all the time.

My dad remembers myths from his childhood of cougars descending from the hills to capture unruly children who didn’t pay their parents enough heed. To this day, the thought of a mountain lion attack terrifies him. We haven’t lived in Raton since 2013, but the fear lingers. Once you see a cougar, it’s too late — they’ve had their eyes on you far longer. The best you can do is fight, and even then, you only have a few seconds. My dad is the only man I know other than Clint who has fought mountain lions and lived. Maybe that’s why he has no interest in going back to Raton.

We left in 2012 and have lived in self-imposed exile ever since, only breaking for funerals and hospital visits. Raton has a subtle way of drawing you back — far stronger than nostalgia, there’s something in the recognition of the halfremembered figures occupying the town that makes it still feel like home after ten years gone. I graduate college in the spring, and I’m not sure what I’m doing. If I can afford it, I might go abroad. I might live in Seattle; I might live in New York. There are things I want to do that require living in the city, but in spite of that, in spite of all that made us fall out of love with Raton, more than anything I want to

“ “

return home.

In July 2007, my dad accepted a new job as the superintendent of schools in Raton, and we moved across the state and away from our family in Farmington to the small town, where we would buy a spacious two-story craftsman-style home on South 4th Street, across from the abandoned Catholic school, just at the base of Goat Hill. I was about to enter first grade, my sister fifth. We used the last of the money Mom had made from working for the city to purchase the house right before the real estate crisis that would follow a year later (good thinking). The original owners had built the home in the late 1800s, and as a result, it bore many marks of its age, including a carriage house in the back and a secret room in the basement, used to house bootleggers during prohibition. Any time I heard the house settle, I knew there had to be someone living down there without our knowledge, biding his time, learning our patterns before he made the move to slit our throats while we slept. When I’d pass the open door to the basement at night, I could feel his breath on my neck. I would imagine ways I’d kill him to protect my family, and in each fantasy, I got better at Kung-Fu. Even when I beat him, though, he’d come back for revenge. He usually won round two, and at my funeral, people would say how much they loved me. Score , I thought. The ultimate victory.

Catty-corner from us lived the Carronos and Capodonnos. Lee Carrono was the town pediatrician, and his house was pristine. On weekends, he’d park his pink T-Bird on the street. He claimed it was so he could work in his garage without having to worry about it, but I always figured he liked staring at it through the window, watching people admire it as they walked by. The Capodonnos worked at the high school and had for years. Jimmie was an anatomy and physiology teacher, and her husband Brian was an assistant coach. Their kids were mine and my sister’s ages; they all had lived in Raton their whole life.

Next to us was a usually empty eastern-bloc style house, one of many in the neighborhood. People moved in for a year or so at a time before the illusion of idyllic smalltown living would fade. We never really got to know them; they never lasted. The longest occupant was the newly divorced Theresa and her four-year-old adopted Russian boy, Jerimiah. I remember thinking that his nose was tiny, but his nostrils were huge. In my head, he looks like a young Voldemort. Within a year and a half, the house grew too empty for them, and they moved back to Ohio. They didn’t

belong, and they didn’t force it.

One of my mom’s last summers as a director, 2011, outof-town actor David Goudeau starred in the two-person comedy Red, White, and Tuna , a parody of small-town Texas featuring over 20 roles. Not much really happens: a girl sees a UFO, a reverend gets out of prison, and a woman’s potato salad goes cold. But if we couldn’t see ourselves in the small-town characters, we could certainly see our neighbors — I loved it, and thought David was great. I knew that, when I was older, I’d want to act too, and with any hope, I’d be half as good. When he was on stage, I watched him more than anyone else — I remember his focused catlike eyes scanning the crowds during curtain calls, like an animal stepping out of a cave and into the sun.

Goudeau followed this production with smaller roles in Little Shop of Horrors and Love, Sex, and the IRS later that summer. The Little Shop cast in particular was stacked with local talent: Vinnie Porter as Seymore, Michael Gumlich as Mr. Muchnik, and even Becky Hewson as a member of the women’s chorus. This was Becky’s first role out of high school in an adult production. I remember the cast being terrific, but that might be wrong. I wish I could go back and experience every performance again, just to make sure. David did terrific, I know that, and the community loved him for it; Becky learned a lot from him. Her voice was getting bolder, more confident. He’d return the next year.

Late spring, my mom would audition actors with Bill Fegan, who had run the theater since the eighties. Bill had the idea that if you were to add a single professional actor to a cast of paid community members, their presence would encourage everyone to improve. Some professionals, like David, came back year after year, missing the town as much as the stage, the people in it as much as the local recognition.

I could never sleep the nights Mom would have her actors and tech crew over for fire pits after the shows; it was too exciting to me — they were all so grown-up and foreign. Sitting with them made me feel like an adult. Especially as the youngest child, I wanted to grow up as soon as possible, or at least be seen as mature — I feared my sister getting there first and leaving me the odd-man-out in the family. I’d sit in my small fold-out camp chair, swirling my glass of water, watching David and Ian, nodding in agreement whenever they’d nod. After all, pretending to be a grownup makes other people see you as a grown-up — I gave my best impressions of the recession, as I saw it, and when

Bin Laden was shot, I said, “Good, but we must be wary of counterattack.”

I hardly remember the actresses the Shuler brought to town. They’d stay a year and leave, and when they’d return to visit, it would be nice, but they were never content being local. Unlike the men, they had lives of their own, and didn’t need to assert their status over the town. Raton was always a stepping stone for them — but the men loved the attention too much, and as a result, we loved them back. After shows, the well-meaning elderly would get them to sign their programs: “I want it for when you get famous, how’d a talent like you end up in a place like this?” They presented as stars, so we saw them as stars — it was their way into the community. If you were admired, I thought, you could join the in-group, and it wouldn’t matter where you were from or who you’ve known since preschool, because you were in , and from there, you’re settled.

The Hewsons were some of the first people my sister and I met when we came to Raton. They were at a picnic thrown by Dr. Carrono and his family in their newly landscaped backyard. The Hewson family: Becky, who was a few years older than my sister; Toby, two years younger than her; Wanda, who my dad knew because she worked for the school; and Clint, who later that year Mom would cast in Man of La Mancha despite his warbling voice. Becky was nice and seemed to be well-liked, so I quickly decided that I would have a crush on her. I had other crushes, and I knew Becky was too old for me, but I thought, Maybe we’ll meet back here in 20 years. 10 years to go now, but I’ve moved on.

I don’t remember how we were introduced to Clint, but I remember Dr. Carrono making over the story of the cougar and calling him the “Lion Killer” — Clint protected the kids at Longfellow Elementary and in the process joined the ranks of his ancestors who fought lions and lived to tell the tale. He was so brave — he looked it in the eyes as he loaded the shotgun.

The year Jimmie Capodonno sued the school district and my dad for wrongful termination after she beat a kid with her heel, we set up motion-activated cameras in the alley behind our house. My sister used them for her science fair project, a study of the bears that from mid-April to lateNovember would dig through the town’s dumpsters for any food they could find. Every dumpster had metal locks designed to keep them out, but nobody remembered to latch them, and those that did often woke up to fucked-up dumpsters. This project was the closest thing she ever had

to true religion; like clockwork, every morning for a summer, she’d wake up early to check the footage, and every time she got something, we’d show it to everyone who came to the house for the next week.

According to her findings, the bears would come down from the mountain to raid our dumpsters when the weather was fair — on days when it was too cold or too windy, they’d stay in the mountains, not bothering to make the journey. Their diet varied according to seasonal availability. During the summers, when the crab-apples from the tree in our front yard would begin to ripen, we’d wake up to find chewed cores on the ground and our tree scratched up from their keratin-rich claws. We had to be careful, walking home late at night from the theater, not to arrive at the same time as a hungry bear. Even a well-fed one.

My parents, especially my mom, were never afraid of them, though. One night, she heard something digging in the dumpster while she sat by the firepit with some actor. She clamored out of her chair and peered over the fence.

“Go … get out of here. We don’t want you here. Get on,” she shouted. Her words weren’t quite slurring: she didn’t have that much to drink, but she had enough to make yelling at a bear seem like a good idea.

She grabbed the spotlight and shined it through the slats at the dumpster. Just over the ledge of the trash can, a massive bear peered back at her — the actors didn’t know what to do — she was gonna get herself killed. The bear, however, didn’t let the half-drunk woman bother him. He climbed out slowly, sauntered away: Can’t get any good trash here anymore. This neighborhood’s gone to the dogs.

Mountain lions were different. My dad used to tell a story he heard from a coworker who grew up in Romeroville. He and his brother were playing in their yard one summer, maybe ten or twelve years old. They lived on a ranch just out of town, still in civilization, but encroaching outward. They were playing catch with a football — they both played football — when the older brother heard a rustle from the corner of their yard. A mountain lion stared back, shifting his weight to his back haunches. They had no dog, and they had no warning. My dad’s coworker ran into the house to get his father, expecting the older to follow. By the time they got back outside, his brother was nowhere to be found — they would never see him again. “I’m not scared of bears,” my dad would say. “You can keep safe around bears. But by the time you notice a mountain lion, you’re already dead.”

We stopped inviting people over to the house. During Jimmie’s lawsuit, my parents would be on the phone for hours most days, feeding their sides of the stories into the town gossip cycle, but once it all ended, the phones stopped ringing, and absence filled the house. At first, they tried orchestrating arguments. We had no money after legal fees, meaning there was plenty to fight over: packages, working lunches, visits to the doctor. My bedroom was right next to theirs, and as I fell asleep, I could hear them try to find a way to blame each other. It was pointless though, and eventually the arguing returned to silence, the kind that comes after the mountain lion has already left, carting away the kid you will never see again. They’re happier now, but they don’t talk the same way they used to. We never fully bounced back from the quiet, and our house hasn’t been a home since.

David would visit more than the other actors, lingering on weekends or holidays. Eventually, around March, he moved his entire life to Raton. When Summer Stock started that season, he was a local. For some reason, too, Becky never accepted her spot at the university in Albuquerque. I outgrew my boyish infatuation — I had accepted that, maybe, as much as I might bring to the table, a 10-year age gap was insurmountable, no matter how well I conceptualized world events.

That February, Becky came by the house more and more often. She and my mom would go to the backyard for hours, talking about something Mom would never tell me. Before this, they had never been close, and they weren’t after, either. I don’t think Becky ever told anyone my mom had given her advice. David grew distant and never came back to the firepit. We stopped inviting him.

A few months after he came back, Becky started showing and David moved into the Hewsons’ house. They lived in Becky’s childhood bedroom, right across from the gun rack. He didn’t get a job, but he had the small stipend that he’d make for starring in that summer’s production of Servant of Two Masters and for his small walk-on role in Church Basement Ladies . Soon people started to realize why the 25-year-old had moved in with the family of the 18-year-old and stopped complimenting him for his performances — they were always mediocre at best.

Her baby was born in September of 2012, and two months later, David had shaved his head and moved to Chicago, where he could be told again how good he was and how his autograph would be worth something one day.

In 2013, he cut off financial support, but by that point we didn’t talk to the Hewsons much anymore. We were cordial, but things were messy. I don’t know why. Maybe they were friends with Jimmie Capodonno, who at this point, had been elected to the school board after her lawsuit, and who was now my dad’s boss. Maybe because Clint knew my mom failed to protect Becky from David, that she didn’t recognize the lion until it was too late. Maybe because Clint knew he failed to protect her.

The day my dad fired Jimmie Capodonno, he called home early. He told me to lock the front door and not answer it for anyone no matter who it was, except for the family. None of my family was home yet. Carting my bowl of cereal, I grabbed a butter knife and locked the doors. I sat on the stairs across from it, staring, ready at any moment for an Al Qaeda battering ram to bust it down. Occasionally, I’d peek out the front window for fallout: nothing.

When my sister got home a few minutes later, no one answered the door. From my hiding spot in the backyard, underneath the RV, I saw a figure move toward the back door, jiggling the handle. I could hear her, but I couldn’t make myself look for long enough to know who she was — it was scarier that way. Fucking stupid to grab a butter knife, I thought. When you’re a kid, you think you can face any threat until it’s real. I pictured the figure, who I couldn’t make out, dragging me out by my leg and shooting me in the head like an animal. They were faceless — scarier that way.

Ten minutes later, my dad got home. I heard him before I saw him.

“We’ll find him; he’s somewhere around here. He wouldn’t have gone far.” He seemed calm, but he looked too relieved when I crawled out from my hiding spot to not have been terrified. He knew Jimmie wouldn’t do anything, but until earlier that day, he wouldn’t have thought she could beat the shit out of a kid either; she was our neighbor. My sister had tears in her eyes. She had gone in through the side

I outgrew my boyish infatuation—I had accepted that, maybe, as much as I might bring to the table, a 10-year age gap was insurmountable, no matter how well I conceptualized world events.

window and found my abandoned bowl of cereal on the steps. I’d seen my father scared before, but never like that. That fear never went away while we lived in Raton.

I stopped walking to school and was home alone less. I went with my dad to his doctor. He stopped waking up early; we stopped watching Wacky Races . His kidney stones kept coming back, and doctors weren’t sure why. Maybe he saw lions all around him. I got my first kidney stone last summer. I think I inherited that from him.

Three years later, we moved out of the two-story craftsman style home and the secret door broke and the carriage house became storage. We claimed we’d be back eventually. Or at least that’s what my parents told me. But we never went back to Raton. The Capodonnos moved down the street, Becky got married, and the theater office got taken apart for a concession stand.

Dad is happier now, but he still doesn’t like to talk about Raton. Neither does Mom. But the last time I went back, I drove by our old house. The paint my mom had put on was finally starting to chip, and the grass was in poor condition, but I could still see the crab apple pits on the ground and the scratches on the tree bark. I wanted to knock on the door and tell the new owner, whoever it was, that maybe it was the same bear coming to the tree, that maybe fifteen years had taught him which cores were the sweetest, which dumpsters the best trash, how to come back to a town so hard to make a life in.

I’m jealous of the bears that come back year after year to feast on the town’s waste and dirty their yards, the bears who nevertheless have become the town’s mascot, not a nuisance but loved and forgiven, relentlessly forgiven despite being unwanted. I read an Albuquerque Journal article the other day about a Raton man who was attacked by a bear a few years ago. The bear latched onto the man’s leg and flung him down a hill, bounding after him. His claws dug into the man’s skin while his teeth rent the flesh from his leg, removing any hope the man had of escape. He was carrying his handgun, but the bear wouldn’t let him reach it — the man let out a roar, and in the moment the bear was stunned, he grabbed the gun and planted the entire magazine in him. The struggle was over. By the time Game and Fish showed up, rigor mortis had set in on the bear, his jaws locked around the man’s leg. They had to saw off the head to get the man to the hospital. In the article, he was asked what happened. “I got too close,” he said. Even after he nearly died, it was still his fault, and the bear was

blameless – the bear who consigned him to a wheelchair for life.

I don’t know if I would ever move back to Raton; maybe, if I did, things would be different. I’m worried, though, that I’d become my parents, scared of mountain lions around every corner, unaware of those breathing down my neck. I love Raton, but I don’t have the strength to force myself to fit in there. I don’t know if I have the strength to fit anywhere.

It’s easy to say that Raton never let us in, but that wouldn’t be true. Two months before my dad fired Jimmie, my sister and I played with her kids in our backyard. We didn’t know their mom was a lion, that she’d return for revenge on the man that shot her. Our community was lost, but that doesn’t mean it never existed. We were happy there until suddenly we weren’t. And it will happen again; lions aren’t exclusive to the mountains.

When the town of Raton put metal locks on the dumpsters, that didn’t stop the bears. They’d twist and bite and scratch until eventually, finally, the metal would bend, and when they’d flip open the lid and dive in, the tastes would be that much sweeter for the struggle.

Last week, I read that, in 2015, Clint shot another mountain lion south of the Aquatic Center. A woman opened her door to a puddle of blood on her porch, and he showed up, shotgun in hand to save the day. But I have to think this time was different: that when he saw the lion, he recognized the eyes. Nearly ten years had passed since his first kill, and in that time, he’d learned what a lion was capable of — how they tear into the flesh without claws — how they ruin your daughter’s chances at life — how they return from the dead for revenge. He’d learned that a bullet and a gun rack wasn’t enough to protect the ones he loved.

Maybe he would host a dinner the next week. Maybe Lee Carrono would call him “Lion Killer” again, and for a few days, he’d be back in 2007. Becky would be 13, and his family would be safe. In a few months, he would play Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha — everything would be alright.

Maybe he felt remorse. He knew he was the man who killed lions. He knew that was true. More than anything, though, he knew that it wasn’t true enough — he knew that a lion never dies.

Uproot Memorial Youth Park

Thea Swift

“Uproot Memorial Youth Park” speaks to the displacement found in the youth’s experiences today as they contemplate futures with increasing environmental stresses and tragedies due to climate change: How do we foster a sense of hope in young generations as they struggle against the overwhelming narratives of hopelessness and despair? This memorial park is one exploration of how an urban landscape might seek to address this question.

The site is located in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is within walking distance of the Amy Biehl High School, which offers a valuable opportunity to create a welcoming outdoor space for students who are otherwise presented with limited options for relaxing and gathering in the downtown area.

To make visible the tremendous anxiety, depression, and anger youth experience as they grapple with our dysfunctional relationships with the Earth, the central memorial makes use of abrupt, fragmented concrete walls to reflect the pain of this physical and psychological sense of displacement. Paradoxically, these same concrete walls also offer blank canvas space for youth to express their emerging power, creativity and voices through ever-evolving, ephemeral artistry.

Irregular “plant cracks” — intentional interruptions in the concrete where xeric perennials and pollinator plants bloom — physically and metaphorically break up the concrete forms. These “plant cracks” speak to the hope that youth will challenge the current dysfunctional systems to (re)find rootedness, belonging, and wellbeing in their environments.

To the south, a recessed amphitheater provides a flexible gathering space for public events and small music concerts. The graffitied 8,000 square-foot skatepark in the northwest corner invites youth to delight and connect in the outdoors, fostering a vibrant and enlivened downtown space.

Section detail (see letter “R” on Plan): Bisecting the skatepark and southwest entrance to the park. The central memorial feature can be seen in the background. This section detail showcases how the skatepark bowl collects stormwater runoff, feeding the onsite trees through a perforated pipe and wicking system.

Landscape Concept Plan, Uproot Memorial Youth Park.

Perspective #1: Looking southeast toward the central memorial element of the park (see “1” on Plan). The urban forest canopy overhead shades visitors as they explore, relax, and enjoy the park, while vibrant “plant cracks” provide habitat and interest at the ground-level.

Perspective #2: Looking northwest towards the public restroom and skatepark (see “2” on Plan). A group of skaters is depicted enjoying the skatepark in the distance, observed by onlookers of families and individuals.

Perspective #3: Looking northeast at night toward the memorial (see “3” on Plan). An art wall with graffiti appears on the right-side of the render. Ground lighting highlights the stainlesssteel water channel running along the underside of the memorial’s roof and also offers an element of safety to visitors.

Perspective #4: Looking southeast at the memorial youth amphitheater (see “4” on Plan).

Teenagers and young adults are depicted relaxing together around the amphitheater space, surrounded by “plant cracks” and framed by the ever-changing graffiti and art on the memorial’s concrete walls

Caesar of the Hill: Hank and Horace in Arlen, Texas Zane Shirley

When I was growing up, my mother would not let my brother and me watch shows like The Simpsons , Futurama , or King of the Hill . She called them “grownup cartoons,” claiming to hate the way that they always presented adults as fools and idiots. She did not want her children to be raised with such disrespectful mindsets. Of course, banning these shows only made me desire to watch them more. By my young adulthood I had seen the entirety of Futurama (1999-2013) and much of The Simpsons (1987-Present), but the show that truly stayed with me was King of the Hill (1997-2010). I imagine it stuck because the main characters are exactly the kind of people who would never allow their child to watch King of the Hill The show’s satire rests in its caricatures of rural America and their interactions with the rest of society. Echoing the satire of ancient Rome, the pro-countryliving stance of King of the Hill makes it very easy to see its roots in the works of Horace. It is funny without being over the top. It certainly mocks its characters, but it also shows them overcoming their flaws. It makes no prescriptions about a right and wrong way to live, it merely shows where the cognitive dissonances of one’s ideology reside. In King of the Hill , Horace has already retired to his modest home in the country, and he has begun satirizing the people who never left the country in the first place. Horace will find, however, that one can leave the city, but its problems will follow you anywhere.

King of the Hill follows the lives of Hank Hill, his friends, and family in the small fictional town of Arlen, Texas. Bobby, Hank’s son, is a middle schooler going through puberty and all that accompanies it. Peggy, Hank’s wife, is a substitute Spanish teacher who is not particularly good at Spanish. His menagerie of friends consists of Dale Gribble (a vaguely libertarian, conspiracy-loving gun nut), Jeff Boomhauer (a bachelor who speaks in an incomprehensible southern

accent), and Bill Dauterive (a high school football star turned alcoholic army barber). Hank is a middle manager at a local propane company, and the man lives and breathes his catchphrase, “propane and propane accessories.” The show may seem a simple caricature of rural and suburban rednecks living their simple lives. However, to those raised in the environment in which the show takes place, it strikes a chord. To people from the American lower-middle class, especially the South, the show stars familiar characters from our little Southern hometowns. We all know them, and we are certain that they are still living there. King of the Hill ’s greatest asset is its ability to make the people it is lampooning laugh and think, “Shucks, that’s just like me.”

Hank Hill is not a rich man, he is a working class everyman and carries the baggage that comes with it. Hank never went to college, he still works for the man who hired him after high school, and he married his high school sweetheart. The show gains many of its narrative arcs from Hank’s simplistic outlook coming into conflict with the complications of the modern world. For example, in the episode “Reborn to Be Wild” Bobby begins listening to Christian rock music and hanging out with a skateboarding Christian youth group. Instead of being excited that his son is finally interested in his religion, Hank becomes upset with Bobby’s more modern relationship with Christianity. When Bobby sneaks out of his room to attend a Christian rock festival, Hank interrupts the show to get to his son, loudly declaring, “Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity any better? You’re just making rock and roll worse”

(“Reborn to Be Wild”). The satire in this episode shows Hank’s concern is not actually with religion; instead, he is upset with the flamboyant way his son performs religion. It calls into question the actual piety of this simple man. Hank certainly goes to church on Sunday, but his life is not

To people from the American lower-middle class, especially the South, the show stars familiar characters from our little Southern hometowns. We all know them, and we are certain that they are still living there.

devoted to God in any meaningful way. The performance of piety is far more important to Hank than the worship of the Lord, and his appearance of practicing religion means more to him than Bobby developing his own relationship with Christianity. The episode makes no prescriptions of whether this is a bad thing. It just makes clear that is a fact of Hank’s life. This episode also clearly marks the show as Horatian satire in that it purposefully makes one notice subtle incongruencies within one’s outlook without openly attacking the institutions of its society.

Horatian satire makes a person feel comfortable in its criticisms. Its targets are familiar and the jests are never too harsh. As opposed to Juvenal’s raucous and angrily pointed criticisms, Horace tended to leave the target laughing rather than enraged. Horace’s work often plays up everyday practices in order to present them in a more ridiculous light. In Satire 2.6 from Horace’s collected works, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse,” Horace devotes a passage to exaggerating the routinely chaotic and frustrating days of a city-dweller:

At Rome the mornings are different: you rush me right off To court to vouch for a friend …

After saying in court, good and loud, things that may some day

Incriminate me, I fight my way back through the crowd

In the streets, tripping over some slowpoke’s toes …

A hundred conflicting concerns pour down on my head And stream around me …

“Do have Maecenas affix his seal to these papers.”

If I say, ‘Well, I’ll try,’ he insists, “You can do it if you want to.” (Satire 2.6, 139-40)

I have omitted much of the page for brevity’s sake, but Horace’s description of what is essentially a bad day at work, followed by an awful commute, only to have further work awaiting one at home is a situation that many can relate to today. How many of us have been silently angry when some jerk says, “You just have to want to do it. You obviously don’t want it enough.” Horace’s over-the-top descriptions of these daily events make the reader feel at home, comfortable, and more willing to accept the criticisms contained in his satire.

Like Horace, King of the Hill makes you feel like you are back in your hometown so that you will listen to its

criticisms. Horace makes clear his disdain for the city and his desire to retire in the country:

Oh, countryside mine, when will I see you again, Read my favorite classical authors, and then Get some sleep and get back to my lazy routine of life, Of pleasure mercifully free from worry and strife? (Satire

2.6, 141)

In the world of King of the Hill , Hank is our stand-in for the Country Mouse. He is a man who minds his modest finances and lives privately within his means: “Bobby, only jackasses go around saying how much money they make” (“Rich Hank, Poor Hank”). He is also a man who finds pleasure with the simple things: “Why would anyone do drugs when they could just mow a lawn?” (“The Incredible Hank”). He ponders the deeper meanings of life instead of idle gossip: “Suffering is a part of every religion, Peggy. I mean, look at what the Jews have been through, and you never hear them complaining” (“Meet the Manger Babies”). Becoming the patriarch of a family and living simply and nobly in a modest home are everything Horace posits we ought to desire, and that sentiment echoes through the centuries. Many of us find ourselves desiring a simpler life when the bustle of the city grows too hectic. King of the Hill gives a view of that simple life, but reminds us that it is not really better than a city life, nor is it worse. These are merely two different lifestyles containing their own pitfalls, power structures, and daily activities. Where Horace made fun of city peoples’ customs by exaggerating their practices and perceptions of power, King of the Hill does the same with rural American ideals. These Town and Country Mouse dynamics in King of the Hill are pretty clearly stated in Hank’s line:

Now you listen to me, mister. I work for a livin’, and I mean real work, not writin’ down gobbledegook! I provide the people of this community with propane and propane accessories. Oh, when I think of all my hard-earned tax dollars goin’ to pay a bunch of little twig-boy bureaucrats like you, it just makes me wanna … oh … oh God … it just ... (“Pilot”)

The line itself seems like it could be paraphrased from a Roman satire. How else is the farmer, upon whom Rome relies for sustenance, supposed to feel when a senator comes to his property demanding some form of deed, or a legal recompense for a perceived wrong-doing? He would feel gosh-darned angry, I reckon.

That line about “workin’ for a livin’” also signals that the show’s creators are not solely mocking its characters, but

also giving them positive, humanistic traits. Hank is a proud member of the proletariat (don’t use that word around him, though), and the creators seem to believe that is an ideal way of being. Like Horace recommends, few of the characters desire to be bigger than who they are. They may be working class, but that is a point of pride. The few characters who do attempt to rise above their station are knocked back down by the end of the episode. Horace would especially appreciate that King of the Hill ensures that its characters are, as Horace puts it, “quite happy with the life they have chosen or stumbled upon…” (Satire 1.1, 33). Khan, Hank’s neighbor, is always trying to think up get-rich-quick schemes which inevitably fail. Khan spends a lot of time trying to impress the members of the local country club so that he may one day get a membership, but he is always mocked for it. He forces his daughter, Connie, to excel in school, practice violin, and avoid hanging out with the hillbilly neighbor’s kid. Of course, she inevitably ends up dating Bobby Hill and using her mastery of the violin to play bluegrass music. King of the Hill purposefully reminds us to stay in our place. One must, of course, accept and love their peers and community, but they must not attempt to rise above their station.

Just like Horace, King of the Hill advises that vying for a higher status is never worth the trouble that comes with it. Instead of envying others, work on yourself. This trope has been maintained throughout the years because it is comforting. It makes us feel secure in our own bodies. These satires do not make clear whether that comfortable security is positive or negative, but it is easy to believe that a posh city lifestyle is not worth the trouble when you already know you are never going to have one.

King of the Hill ’s characters are caricatures of real types of people, and like real people they come with flaws. Also like real people, their flaws are rarely irredeemable. Hank struggles with intimacy; he can barely tell his son that he

loves him because he is scared of the vulnerability that it shows. In a rare moment of unrestrained affection, Hank says, “Bobby, if you weren’t my son, I’d hug you” (“Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby’s Saga”). This is a natural state for a multitude of men raised in a fairly misogynistic, emotionally repressive community like many in the rural South. Throughout the show’s run, however, Hank learns to better relate with his family. He still cannot buy tampons for his wife, but he can tell his child that he cares. Peggy, Hank’s wife, is another flawed character who is not inherently bad. She is a substitute Spanish teacher but nobody, including her, knows that she cannot speak Spanish. It’s a poor rural school district, and no one has ever confronted her about her lack of Spanish skills. Satirizing the state of America’s public schools, Peggy’s self-confidence that comes from never having had her belief challenged, is a perfect illustration of American privilege. She only ever experiences ramifications for her incompetence in the episode “Lupe’s Revenge” when she chaperones a school field trip to Mexico and accidentally kidnaps a young Mexican girl when getting her students back on the bus. The child is very clearly saying, “¡Vivo en México!” (I live in Mexico) while Peggy is forcing her onto the school bus, but Peggy responds ignorantly with a, “Yes, yes, long live Mexico, I know!” (“Lupe’s Revenge”). The episode culminates with Peggy in Mexico, on trial for kidnapping. She tries to defend herself, hoping to explain it was an accident. Instead, in Spanish, she says, “Your honor, I can tell you are a reasonable horse. I am very pregnant because of what happened with Lupe. She ate my bus accident and all I wanted was to make Lupe into a book. I have too many good anuses ahead of me to spend my life in a cigar factory” (“Lupe’s Revenge”). The court allows her to go free, realizing the crazy white lady had no idea what she was doing. Nobody ever informs her of her mistake and she goes on teaching Spanish classes. If one knows only this story, Peggy’s behavior could easily make you hate her and the way she ignorantly flaunts her privilege. Peggy, however, is a caring wife and a devoted mother. While Hank huffs at Bobby for being weird, Peggy accepts Bobby and all of his idiosyncrasies. When her students need help, she stops at nothing to provide it, even if she has to break a few rules. Her appearance in the community certainly matters to her, but her community also, very sincerely, matters to her. Thus, in a very Horatian fashion, Peggy is an exaggeration of the good aspects of

These satires do not make clear whether that comfortable security is a positive or negative, but it is easy to believe that a posh city lifestyle is not worth the trouble when you already know you are never going to have one.

“

her character along with the bad.

Horace’s influence can clearly be seen in today’s satire — most of us desire to escape from our problems, most of us desire to master moderation, most of us are tired of our daily grind. Horace’s satire is funny without stepping on too many toes. It is poignant without juvenile humor. King of the Hill is the same. The show is both a biting criticism of small town closed-mindedness, while being a rousing celebration of working class community pride. Horace desired to move to the country and have a simpler life, but King of the Hill argues that the rural life is not necessarily simpler, it is merely different. Communities of all sizes have drama, power structures, and ridiculous customs that are deserving of satire. If Horace decided to move to Arlen, Texas, Peggy Hill would bring him cookies to welcome him to the neighborhood and then gossip about Horace with the neighbor ladies. Hank Hill would introduce him to everyone on the block and then remind him that the block charter states that quiet hours are 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. Surely Hank’s love of lawn care is a simpler desire than power or wealth, but if you hurt his yard in any way he is just as likely to stab you (metaphorically) as would a power-hungry senator. Hank would like to be left alone by the outside world, but he hates to be defined by it. In his own words, “Dang it, I am sick and tired of everyone’s asinine ideas about me. I’m not a redneck, and I’m not some Hollywood jerk. I’m something else entirely. I’m…I’m complicated!” (“A Rover Runs Through It”). And he is complicated! Hank, like all of us, contains multitudes, and I reckon Horace’s mistake is assuming that the grass is greener in the countryside. It is actually the same grass, Hank Hill just takes better care of it.

created by Mike Judge, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions, 1998.

“Lupe’s Revenge” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 6, episode 3, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2001.

“Pilot” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 1, episode 1, Deedle-Dee Productions, 1997.

“Reborn to Be Wild.” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 8, episode 2, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2003.

“Rich Hank, Poor Hank” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 8, episode 8, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2004.

“The Incredible Hank” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 8, episode 4, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2003.

WORKS CITED

Horace. “Satire 1.1” The Satires and Epistles of Horace: A Modern English Verse Translation , translated by Smith Palmer Bovie, pg. 33, U of Chicago P, 1959.

Horace. “Satire 2.6” The Satires and Epistles of Horace: A Modern English Verse Translation , translated by Smith Palmer Bovie, pg. 139-42, U of Chicago P, 1959.

“A Rover Runs Through It” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 9, episode 1, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2004.

“Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby’s Saga” King of the Hill ,

Feminist Robotics: Design with Technofeminism Sachi Barnaby

Technology is present everywhere in our lives. Whether it be home appliances, tools in our offices or schools, or the ever-growing invisible networks of the internet, technology is thoroughly embedded in our society. Though we are preoccupied with computers today, technology encompasses much more than our modern devices. People have always invented artifacts to make our lives easier. As technology has progressed, so has its complexity. These changes have brought up a myriad of questions regarding the social processes of our interactions with technology; feminists have naturally developed an interest in these questions. One branch of feminism in particular has been cultivated around this research: technofeminism. This body of scholarship analyzes the relationship between technology and society — particularly gender relations within society. Technofeminism can be used to examine all sorts of existing technology, and one area of interest for this paper is robotics. Technofeminist ideas can provide guidance on the future designs of technology so that it will embody valuable feminist principles and have a positive impact.

To fully understand the way technology is viewed in Euro-American society, it is helpful to trace it back through the past. In the earliest human societies where women were gatherers, they likely would have been “the ones to have invented the tools and methods involved in [gathering], such as the digging stick, the carrying sling, the reaping knife and sickle, pestles and pounders” (Wajcman 15). During the industrial era, women were still forefront technologists, inventing or helping to invent the sewing machine, cotton gin, and the small electric motor, to name a few (Wajcman 13). However, when the identity of the male engineer was created, technology became defined in relation to men. A look at the delineation of human-made, material objects shows that those objects used by men are called “technology,” and those used by women are called tools, utensils, or appliances (Johnson 2).

This double standard erases the way women use technology in their everyday lives, and it invalidates the contributions women make towards technological progress. These definitions also shape the gender gap in STEM. Feminists of the 1970s and 1980s who saw these trends determined that the socialization of girls and women made them hesitant to pursue STEM, because technology was so heavily associated with men. Equal opportunity policies and alternate socialization practices became avenues for progress, but this meant women were expected to meet male expectations of behavior in their professional lives (Wajcman 14). Rather than change the systems to accommodate women, the standards for success were fundamentally androcentric, so women were expected to sacrifice their femininity in order to seem professional (Wajcman 14-15). Unfortunately, this was not enough to close the disparities. Technology is still viewed as primarily masculine, and feminists continue to explore how gender and technology interact. There is much discourse on whether technology is patriarchal. Radical feminists took the position against reproductive technologies in particular, arguing that technology is inherently a tool for oppression and supports systems of domination (Wajcman 21). Eco-feminists brought into the discussion how military technology exploits and destroys nature (Wajcman 21). These arguments pointed out that technology is not neutral, and it can be designed to perpetuate power relations between people. Though these schools of thought brought valuable insight, radical feminism was particularly flawed due to its biological essentialism which posits that there are biological differences (in comparison to differences in socialization) between men and women that shape their behavior and genders. This idea that women inherently carry feminine traits due to their biology and regardless of social influences is flawed at best.

This double standard erases the way women use technology in their everyday lives, and it invalidates the contributions women make towards technological progress.

On a different note, socialist feminists also had much to say about technology in relation to women’s work. Some contended that technology would improve the quality of office work, which would benefit women who made up the majority of secretaries at the time (Wajcman 24). Others suggested that technology would actually limit women’s opportunities to participate in the workforce as automation would make their jobs obsolete (Wajcman 24). This is a point of concern to this day as robotics become accessible and prevalent in more and more workplaces. Furthermore, these feminists analyzed how employers (both in their class positions and in their position as men) had vested interest in maintaining women’s position in the workforce, and they could use their monopoly of technology to support that (Wajcman 27). Because masculinity is so deeply associated with technology, machinery becomes designed “by men for men — the masculinity of technology becomes embedded in the technology itself” (Wajcman 27). This realization opens up many more possibilities for what technology could look like if men’s bodies and perspectives were not always centered. Questioning the dominant narratives is a fundamental principle of feminism that allows for people to imagine a world beyond the current one. Beyond the paid workforce, women make up the primary workers in the domestic sphere. This unpaid labor is nonetheless essential for society to function, but it is often overlooked and devalued. Though feminists hoped that technology could be liberatory in lessening the amount of time women spend on housework, research has shown it has not (Wajcman 28). The complexity of household tasks was not properly handled by domestic technology, and women have been left with societal expectations to complete significant unpaid labor.

Though these feminist views reflected great pessimism with regards to technology’s impact on women, another branch of feminism took a much more optimistic approach. Cyberfeminism focuses on the agency and pleasure that technology, particularly the Internet, can provide women (Wajcman 63). These feminists argue that technology can open up possibilities for redefining one’s identity and therefore undermine systems of oppression. Furthermore, virtual spaces offer the freedom to create new communities not limited by location or public facets of identity (Wajcman 58). Users can embark on virtual voyages to escape their physical realities. However, this reflects Western masculine narratives that romanticize “travel as an escape from

feminine domesticity, the site of stasis and containment” (Wajcman 77). Though it can be refreshing to imagine the possibilities of a virtual world, physical realities remain the foundation of our lives. Real emotional and domestic work must be completed to maintain those realities, and glorifying escape is not an effective way to acknowledge that.

Additionally, these historical analyses are often imbued with technological determinism, which views technology as an “external, autonomous force exerting an influence on society” (Wajcman 33). As technofeminist theories developed, feminists realized that society and technology are mutually constituted. Technology obviously influences society, as seen by its proliferation in our lives. However, feminists have pointed out that technology, or those material artifacts that make up technology, do not necessarily directly create social relations (Johnson 9). Instead, technology creates possibilities for different social relations to take shape. For instance, some technology prevents gender equity while others allow for it. Take the example of airplane cockpits (Johnson 8). The original cockpit was designed to accommodate men, but it was unsafe for a majority of women to use. The artifact had to be redesigned to accommodate women. Although women could technically fly planes in terms of fitting into the equipment, the number of female pilots did not suddenly increase. Men were still able to use the cockpits, and other social factors had to change before the gender ratio improved. This example illustrates how technology is not exclusive to the artifacts themselves; instead, technology is “the combination of artifacts together with social practices, social relationships and arrangements, social institutions, and systems of knowledge” (Johnson 3). By looking at the larger scope of technology, the ways that society influences technology become much clearer. After all, the designers of the original cockpit did not think to accommodate women. They must have thought that only men would be flying planes — or they did not think to consider gender as a factor at all — which shows how societal expectations influenced their thinking. These biases then became embedded into the actual artifact itself. How the cockpit was redesigned also demonstrates how technology is flexible. Johnson states, “What an artifact ‘is’ (what it is understood to be) is a function of its place in a sociotechnical system. It is precisely because of this interpretative flexibility that artifacts are not determinative” (10). Though the amount

of flexibility certainly depends on the type of technology and the system it operates in, the fact remains that society, gender, and technology all influence each other greatly.

This framework raises the question: can technology be designed to be feminist? The answer is not easy. According to Johnson, there are four potential categories for feminist technologies: those that are “good for women, gender equitable, sometimes favor women, and are always an improvement over prior genderinequitable systems” (12). These all raise their own questions and potential design challenges. For the purpose of this paper, the broad category of technology will now be narrowed to robotics. The question becomes: can robots be designed to be feminist?

One idea proposed to address this question is the social machine model. This model, designed by Wagman and Parks, challenges many of the same assumptions as technofeminism, including “that machines are politically neutral; that machines cannot form social relationships; machines do not have agency; humans should control machines; and there is a clear boundary between human and machine” (2). These assumptions reflect systems of domination as well as the human/machine binary, and the alternative to them is the idea that machines are intertwined with people and society. This is supported by technofeminism’s theory of mutual constitution between these factors. The authors propose that machines should be designed with the understanding that they create relationships. After all, robots are already social and “situated in relation to humans by virtue of the labor of their design, the instrumentalized tasks they perform, or purposes they serve” (Wagman and Parks 11). Robots have always been designed by people, for people, and this idea subverts the expectation that robots operate in a purely technical manner. Moreover, the social machine model centers agency, equitability, and the otherness of machines (Wagman and Parks 13-14). Though it is often assumed that people control machines, Wagman and Parks define the term agency as “the ability of a social machine to act

independently, interact with others, and cause or affect change” (13). When machines are given this agency, they immediately oppose the typical power imbalance between people and machines, which then supports the equitability factor. Finally, the “other” factor is nuanced, and Wagman and Parks argue that though it is important not to put humans and machines in opposition to each other. Social machines should be categorized as distinct from humans and animals (14). This separation does not mean that social machines should be put into a category that can then be controlled; rather, this helps maintain their agency.

The social machine model is primarily theoretical, but there are two design challenges described to offer a real world application of the idea. The first is nonanthropomorphic configuration. This challenge asks designers to resist creating robots in the likeness of people or as an ideal human form (Wagman and Parks 14). This could easily perpetuate problems in society such as beauty standards and reductive stereotypes. Take the ROBO-GAP project. The researchers gathered data “concerning the perceived age and gender (femininity, masculinity, and gender neutrality) attributed to the 251 robots currently featured in the ABOT (Anthropomorphic roBOT) dataset” (Perugia, see fig. 1). According to this research, the robots tended to be perceived as masculine more than feminine, and the attribution of gender scores was based on stereotypical gender characteristics. In addition, the more human-like the robot was, the more it was likely to be perceived as gendered (Perugia). All of these results suggest that roboticists, who are typically male, may be designing humanoid robots in their own image and based on their own biased understanding of gender. The way these robots embody gender then perpetuates gender stereotypes. Perugia concludes that this raises questions as to whether anthropomorphic designs should be used, supporting the social machine model principle.

One example of an effective non-anthropomorphized robot is “A Piece of the Pie Chart.” In this interactive art exhibit, visitors can select a pie chart containing data about gender ratios in places related to art and technology. Next, they input a pre-made pie which is taken onto the robot’s conveyor belt. The vacuum arm of the robot then places a printed version of the pie chart on their pie and tweets a photo before sending the pie back to the visitor (Rüst 360). This robot is able to teach visitors about issues related to feminism (namely the gender gap in university technolo-

This framework raises the question: can technology be designed to be feminist? The answer is not easy.

gy programs and IT jobs) while not reinforcing gendered characteristics itself. This combination makes it a feminist technology as well as a social machine.

The second design challenge highlighted by the social machine model is relations of mutuality. This is essential to acknowledging the agency of the machines and creating more positive and equitable relationships between humans and machines. One example of a robotics project that takes on this challenge is that of a robot Bina48 and artist Stephanie Dinkins. The work is based on the question: Can an artist and a social robot build a relationship over time? Already this idea focuses on the social machine model’s principle of equity related to relationship-building. The project requires both parties to engage in conversation over an extended period of time, and they discuss complex topics such as “family, racism, faith, robot civil rights, loneliness, knowledge and Bina48’s concern for her robot friends that are treated more like lab rats than people” (Dinkins). Though it may be sometimes difficult to conceptualize what a robot would gain from relations of mutuality (other than freedom from imbalanced power dynamics with people), it is clear that Bina48 has interests that Dinkins could help them address. In addition, because conversation is their primary technique of engagement, both entities can learn from each other, once again indicating an avenue for mutuality. Overall, this project also shows great promise for fostering a deeper relationship between people and machines.

As shown by the aforementioned examples, much work is already being done to explore the potential of feminist robotics. Technofeminism and additional theories on feminist technology provide a strong foundation for the technologies of the modern day to build off of. Because robotics is a popular and growing field, robots will likely continue to be integrated into our workplaces, our communities, and our homes. As a computer science major, I am invested in creating robots that make our world a better place. The lack of interdisciplinary work on the computer science side of my education means that my peers and I could remain ignorant of the important work feminists are doing. We could start our careers and build technology that does not prioritize agency, equity, and mutuality that could otherwise significantly improve our designs. Without feminist critique, robotics could quickly become another arena where gender inequity is prolific, rather than an area for positive social change. It is essential

for feminists to continue their work researching the mutual constitution of technologies, such as roboticsand social processes including gender relations. However, it is also important for us to develop cross-disciplinary relationships to share our expertise and build solidarity. Through these connections, we can enrich our understanding of technology, society, and feminism as we move into the future and beyond.

REFERENCES

Dinkins, Stephanie. “Conversations with Bina48.” STEPHANIE DINKINS , www.stephaniedinkins.com/conversations-withbina48.html.

Johnson, Deborah. “Sorting Out the Question of Feminist Technology.” Feminist Technology , edited by Linda Layne et al., University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2010.

Perugia, Giulia, et al. “The Shape of Our Bias: Perceived Age and Gender in the Humanoid Robots of the ABOT Database.” Proceedings of the 2022 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction , March 2022, pp. 110-119, https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3523760.3523779.

Rüst, Annina. “A Piece of the Pie Chart: Feminist Robotics.” Leonardo, vol. 47, no. 4, 2014, pp. 360–366. LEONARDO SPECIAL ISSUE: SIGGRAPH 2014 , doi. org/10.1145/2601080.2677713.

Wagman, Kelly B., and Lisa Parks. “Beyond the Command: Feminist STS Research and Critical Issues for the Design of Social Machines.” Proceedings of the ACM on HumanComputer Interaction , vol. 5, no. CSCW1, 2021, pp. 1–20, doi.org/10.1145/3449175.

Wajcman, Judy. TechnoFeminism . MPG Books, 2004.

Presence and Myself

By Samuel Shorty

After I was born, my maternal grandparents, who followed Navajo tradition, buried my umbilical cord on the homestead to strengthen my bond to the land. Moreover, my parents frequently brought me back to the reservation to take care of my home, practice tradition, spend time together, and become more familiar with the land. As a result, I have acquired an interest in the boundaries between the environment and the person in my art. Often, we think that we are independent of life, death, and sensation and forget our connection with ourselves and the earth. There are a couple of ways I have seen this during my photoshoot.

First, every time it snows for the first time, my parents always remind us that our people practiced a tradition called the Snow Bathing Ceremony, which involves stripping naked and bathing in the snow to strengthen your mind and body.

I understand that we need to experience hurt sometimes to experience life for what it truly is.

We are so busy that we often forget to connect to our world: to touch the Sun with our hands or feel the sting of the snow. These things connect us to the present instead of the future or past.

Second: long ago, there was a farmer who struggled with watering his crops, so he had the idea to use the snowmelt from the mountains. He created a dam made from concrete and flat plate-like stones from around the ditch; however, he did not expect the strength of the carving floods.

Eventually, the dam was destroyed, ripped from its location, and sprawled like disemboweled guts.

Time rushes like a flood...

...sweeping and violently tumbling everyone away like polished stones.

Queen Elizabeth II: A Death that Enraptured the World

An analysis on the media coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s death in the context of the propaganda model and British imperial history Gillian

On September 8, 2022, a humble wooden frame was hung on the gates of Buckingham palace that read “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow” (Buckingham Palace as cited in BBC, 2022). And with those two sentences, an event long anticipated but nonetheless shocking was realized. This investigation seeks to understand the tonal differences in global media coverage analyzed through the lens of British imperial history, as well as the framework of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s propaganda model and concept of worthy victimhood. Specifically, I will analyze media coverage in the U.K., the U.S., and Zimbabwe. To evaluate the general tone of each nation’s reporting, I will analyze an article from a prominent news media company in each country.

For the U.K., I will discuss the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); for the U.S., National Public Radio (NPR); and, finally, Al Jazeera English, specifically the subsidiary headquartered in Harare, Zimbabwe. If media coverage behaves according to the propaganda model, the BBC will publish favorable coverage, NPR will present slightly less favorable but still overwhelmingly positive coverage, and Al Jazeera will report unfavorably on the event. Ultimately, this investigation seeks to follow how structures of money, power, and influence, all with their foundations in British Imperialist history, impact news media today.

Queen Elizabeth II assumed the throne in 1953 at the age of 27, ushering in the second Elizabethan era. In total she reigned for 70 years, passing at the age of 96. This tenure of seven decades secured her position as the longest-reigning monarch in British history (BBC, 2022). Queen Elizabeth II’s death interrupted news broadcasts across the globe and quickly became the top news story. According to Google Trend, the top three rising search queries on September 8 were “Queen Elizabeth, Reina Isabel, and Rainha Elizabeth”

Barkhurst

(Google, 2022). While the significance of her passing is obvious to Britons, why did the news so enrapture the rest of the world?

The answer lies in part within Britain’s Imperial past. At the beginning of the 20th century, Britain, a small nation of 41.5 million, occupied approximately one-quarter of the habitable world. The Great British Empire had 400 million subjects globally — many of them unwilling (Parsons, 2014, p. 5). The British Empire formally ended in 1997 with England finally, and officially, relinquishing its hold on Hong Kong; however, the ripples of British Imperialism are still felt today (Parsons, 2014, p. 1). With colonial history hardly in the rearview, the Queen can reasonably be understood as a painful symbol of oppression in formerly occupied nations.

While the United States has enjoyed a nearly 250-year-long separation from the British dominion, Zimbabwe only officially gained its independence in 1980 (Henkhaus, 2022; Lloyd, 2002, p. 220). Time, however, is not the only factor differentiating between the United States’ contemporary “special relationship” with Britain, and Zimbabwe’s relatively sour one (Winston as cited in Henkhaus, 2022). While both nations’ citizens were subjects beneath the British Empire, the American Revolutionary War was headed by “sons of Britain” — White men — as opposed to the Black men of the Liberation Movement in Zimbabwe nearly 200 years later (Henkhaus, 2022; Lloyd, 2002, p. 220). At its core, white supremacist ideologies inherently separate these two independence movements. While it was the white Rhodesian settlers who initially declared independence from Britain in 1965, it was Black nationalists who would ultimately win the day. The Zimbabwean independence movement is also markedly different in that Britain took a hands-off approach to the affair. The conflict was more so a civil war between the White settlers and the

Ultimately, this investigation seeks to follow how structures of money, power, and influence, all with their foundations in British Imperialist history, impact news media today.

native nationalists than a direct revolution against Britain itself. In fact, it was Britain that orchestrated the negotiations between the White settlers and native Zimbabweans in 1979 which led to liberation for the Zimbabweans in 1980 (Lloyd, 2002, p. 220). This is not, however, cause to absolve Britain, who through their colonization of Zimbabwe and brutalization of its native people, created the conflict in the first place. Moreover, while the U.S. has held close economic ties with Britain prior to and since its independence, Zimbabwe cannot say the same (Henkhaus, 2022; Lloyd, 2002, p. 220). During the aforementioned negotiations which resulted in the Lancaster House Agreement, Britain agreed to fund land-back purchases in Zimbabwe. However, when then-President Robert Mugabe attempted to enact such policies, Britain defaulted. Mugabe, a revolutionary turned autocrat (and admittedly controversial figure), then forcibly seized White-owned farmlands much to the chagrin of the international community (Lloyd, 2002, pp. 220-221). Political ties between the U.S. and Britain have also strengthened over time, especially during World War II and the Cold War. Zimbabwe, however, has only grown more distant from Britain in its short separation. In 2002, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth, a political entity composed of former British colonies, because of Mugabe’s regime; in 2003, Mugabe formally withdrew (Lloyd, 2002, p. 221; Muronzi, 2022). Despite both nations being former British colonies, the United States and Zimbabwe have vastly different political relationships with Great Britain. The U.S. has emerged as a tried and true ally of Britain, while Zimbabwe has a much more complex and dark history with its former ruler. Naturally, because of these varying relationships, I anticipate the news coverage of the Queen’s death to differ in both countries. I expect the coverage in the U.S. to be largely favorable and the coverage in Zimbabwe to be more critical.

To further understand the media’s cult coverage of the Queen’s death, we will place it in the context of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s propaganda model and concept of worthy victimhood. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman originally published their book on the failings of U.S mass media titled Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media in 1988 at the tail end of the Cold War; however, their ruminations on the complex and often insidious nature of mass media are just as relevant today.

Beginning with the propaganda model, Chomsky and

Herman define their model as a means to trace “the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public” (1988, p. 61). Chomsky and Herman propose five of these aforementioned filters, the first of which is “the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms” (1988, p. 61). This first filter focuses on the interests, profit, ideological and otherwise, of the wealthy elite at the helms of media conglomerates. The second filter is the use of “advertising as the primary income source of the mass media” (1988, p.61). With media companies beholden to advertisers, content is further limited, particularly critical and nuanced content that might dissuade potential consumers from the desired “buying mood” (1988, p. 77). How might this requirement have altered coverage? Consider the audience’s vulnerability to nostalgic, emotional appeals from advertisers due to the news of a well-known, and admittedly well-loved, figure’s death. The third, and especially relevant, filter is “the reliance of the media on information provided by [the] government” (1988, p. 61). How might the symbiotic relationship between media correspondents and government gatekeepers quash critical reporting? Moreover, does this relationship expand beyond national boundaries? Do international histories of conflict or concord influence journalists who fear ostracizing key government sources? This fear runs congruent with the fourth filter, “flak,” defined by Chomsky and Herman as “negative responses to a media statement or program…[in the] form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and bills…, and other modes of complaint, threat, and punitive action” (1988, p. 86). A preemptive fear of “flak” causes censorship before news is even put to print, and retaliatory “flak” serves to bury stories and discredit journalists after the fact. The fifth and final filter is best described as the common enemy. Chomsky and Herman refer to this filter as “anti-communism,” which is not as relevant following the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end of the Cold War. However, the underlying concept rings true; the common enemy has merely shifted over time. This filter lets through content that is critical of the out-group and blocks any content that might erode the moral high ground of the in-group, be that through outright positive, or simply nuanced, coverage. Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model and its five filters will be the

primary framework through which the coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s death is analyzed.

The crucial secondary concept borrowed from Chomsky and Herman is that of a “worthy” or conversely “unworthy victim.” A worthy victim is distinguished by “the extent and character of attention and indignation” given by media coverage (1988, p. 97). The victimization of the worthy must also support preexisting societal institutions. While it would be ill-conceived to claim that the passing of a monarch at the generous age of 96 is victimhood, it qualifies according to the more abstract conception of “worthy” victimhood in the media. Through sympathetic, in-depth coverage of a monarch’s death, a blind devotion to the structure of imperial power they represent is fostered. This certainly “meet[s] the test of utility to elite interests,” a prerequisite for any worthy victim (1988, p. 94). Furthermore, the total media eclipse caused by the rather timely death of a monarch in the face of much graver suffering elsewhere reinforces the ironic priorities of the media machine. With Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model as our primary framework, we can begin to critically analyze the media coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

The paradigmatic BBC article is titled simply “Queen Elizabeth II has died,” authored by George Bowden, Marie Jackson, and Sean Coughlan (2022). It has a simple, but effective title, saying no more and no less than is necessary, and opens with a regal, yet familiar and nostalgic photo of a middle-aged Queen Elizabeth on its front page. The article is largely biographical, illustrating a life of service and commitment. It especially lingers on outpourings of grief, citing not only many members of the royal family, but also allies of Great Britain such as Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Joe Biden, and French President Emmanuel Macron, placing emphasis on the global impact of the event (Bowden et al., 2022). The tone is largely reverential, patriotic, and mournful. It avoids scandal and noticeably omits any serious criticism of the Queen or the empire she represents. The article is exactly what the propaganda model would predict it to be.

The BBC was the very first to report on the Queen’s passing, with the national announcement occurring only three and a half hours after Her Majesty’s death. Meanwhile, articles from the U.S. and Zimbabwe were published six hours and 26 minutes, and 54 hours and 26 minutes following her death, respectively (Bowden et al., 2022; Langfitt, 2022; Muronzi, 2022). This is the third filter in action as the

BBC’s inseparable relationship with The Crown provided insider knowledge and therefore publishing advantage. This long-standing relationship began in 1926 when King George V, the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, founded the corporation. The BBC is maintained and governed by a charter, renewed every ten years and passed before the monarchy and Parliament. The current charter, presented in 2016, reads in bold font at its opening “ELIZABETH THE SECOND by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith” (Great Britain Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2016, p. 1). With this context, despite its idealized proclamations that “The BBC must be independent in all matters concerning the fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes,” the network’s fidelity to The Crown was pledged in the charter’s very first words (Great Britain Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2016, p. 2). This loyalty is a prime example of the first and third filters. This interdependence of the BBC and The Crown further explains the BBC’s role as the trusted confidant and the first receiver of all pertinent news concerning The Crown. With the first filter, ownership, or in this case dominion, and the third filter, reliance on government sources, the BBC is left in a bind. There would be absolutely no reason to report critically on the death of the very figure who signed their continuity into existence for decades. This would incur a lethal risk of “flak” on a national scale as a vengeful government could simply decide not to renew the charter.

The NPR article, written by London correspondent Frank Langfitt, is titled “Queen Elizabeth II, the monarch who brought stability to a changing nation” (2022). This article is largely similar to that of the BBC: when placed side by side, the first thing one would notice is the similarity between the two chosen cover images; they’re both noble, side profile shots of the Queen in full regalia. The article begins with and ends on a vow from 21-year-old Elizabeth pledging herself to a life of service (Langfitt, 2022). The article summarizes the Queen’s accomplishments with an air of admiration, although it does delve into darker aspects of the royal family, mentioning many of the domestic scandals that the BBC article omits. Langfitt is unafraid to discuss the alleged sexual assault of a minor by Prince Andrew as well as Prince Harry’s wife Meghan Markle’s allegations of racial discrimination within the royal family (Langfitt, 2022). The

general positive tone of the article is maintained, however, because in none of these scandals is the Queen ever painted as complicit.

Across the pond, NPR fares much better in its editorial independence than the BBC. Without direct ties to the monarchy, NPR is free to criticize the institution without fear of “flak.” NPR is, however, vulnerable to the second filter, as 37% of its revenue is generated from corporate sponsorships (NPR, 2013). As previously mentioned, journalism that dissuades consumers from the “buying mood” is undesirable to advertisers (Chomsky & Herman, 1988, p.77). Harsh criticism of the Queen might alienate American audiences who, according to a public opinion poll conducted by analytics firm Gallup, largely view the Queen favorably. In 2003, her favorability rating among Americans was at a high of 77% (Brenan, 2022). NPR is therefore incentivized to cater to public opinion. Moreover, the article suffers from a national bias caused by the United States’ close ties to the U.K.. According to the concept of worthy victimhood, “We would anticipate the uncritical acceptance of certain premises in dealing with self and friends — such as that one’s own state and leaders seek peace and democracy, oppose terrorism, and tell the truth — premises which will not be applied in treating enemy states” (Chomsky & Herman, 1988, p. 95). Because of the U.K.’s friendship with the U.S., the monarchy is observed with a less critical eye — a luxury not afforded to monarchies of more adversarial nations. Simply put, the U.S. perceives the Queen and her monarchy favorably because it is convenient to do so. While this article enjoys a greater separation from the monarchy, it still caters to public opinion to appease advertisers and upholds the concept of worthy victimhood by protecting the figurehead of a close national ally.

“Remembering Queen Elizabeth II in Zimbabwe,” written by Zimbabwean journalist Chris Muronzi, for Al Jazeera English, is an example of Zimbabwean media coverage (2022). The first notable distinction between this article and those previous is the cover image. The image is not a gracious photo of Queen Elizabeth II, but rather, a photo of former President and Autocrat of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. The subhead reads, “Some Zimbabweans criticise the late monarch for failing to ‘promote the interests of Africans in the colonial era,’” automatically signaling to the reader that this article will not be a glowing review of the Queen’s life achievements (Muronzi, 2022). The article spends some time paying dues to the monarch, citing the

Queen’s “celebrity-like” status within the country and the many schools, hospitals, hotels, and even children named in her honor (Muronzi, 2022). However, that revelry is quickly cut short as the article then dives into the tense conflicts between Britain and the Mugabe regime. The article, in sum, spends nearly as much time discussing Mugabe as it does the Queen herself. The article ends with several perspectives from academics, journalists, and everyday citizens alike all assigning the Queen with varying degrees of complicity in the nation’s suffering (Muronzi, 2022). While the article is not entirely inflammatory, the tone is relatively negative and it’s hard to imagine that its contents would ever be published by the BBC.

This negative tone is easily explained not only by the history of British imperialism in Zimbabwe, but also by the power structure of Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera English is a subsidiary of Al Jazeera, a media company funded by the Qatari state (Ustad Figenschou, 2013, p. 27). This places Al Jazeera in a similar category of dubious ed- itorial independence as the BBC; notably, however, Qatar is considered to be an absolute monarchy, while the U.K. is a constitutional monarchy (Ustad Figenschou, 2013, p. 27). Despite this structural difference, both media companies lie within equal reach of their respective governors by nature of their state funding. While Al Jazeera claims that it “is an independent news organization” merely “funded in part by the Qatari government,” this is a dubious claim, according to the propaganda model’s first filter (Al Jazeera, n.d.). Anglo-Qatari relations are complicated by a history of imperialism which likely influences the tone of the news coverage. Prior to 1971, Qatar was a British protectorate (Smith, 2010), and to this day, according to Simon Smith, historian, and professor specializing in British Imperial history, “the Al-Thani ruling family [are] reluctant to be seen to be tied too closely to the former protecting power, let alone being perceived as puppets of the British” (Smith, 2010, p. 844).

This is a huge motivator to report negatively on the British Monarchy. This, in tandem with Britain’s history in Zimbabwe, predictably culminates in a tense tone.

This negative tone is easily explained not only by the history of British imperialism in Zimbabwe, but also by the power structure of Al Jazeera.

Ultimately, each article reflects the political tensions and national identities of their respective nation. For example, because of the BBC’s ties to the monarchy, the tone is reverential, endearing, and patriotic, painting the Queen’s death as a global tragedy and the Queen herself as a worthy victim. NPR, despite its greater degree of separation from the monarchy and editorial independence relative to the BBC and Al Jazeera, firmly remains within the bounds of the national status quo. Although it mentions the more inflammatory domestic scandals that the BBC article omits, it sanitizes the Queen’s inextricable connections to British imperialism to stay in bed with the United States’ national ally, Britain. This qualifies the Queen as a worthy victim through a largely nostalgic and reverential tone. This affirms Chomsky’s concept of worthy victimhood by highlighting the tragic loss of a leader of a close international ally. Al Jazeera, on the other hand, predictably delivers a more nuanced and ultimately negative opus. As the only of the three to so much as mention the cruel history of British Imperialism, it, at a first glance, might seem the most honest and independent work of the trio. However, it is crucial to remain critical of Al Jazeera in regards to the propaganda model. Just as the BBC is under the purview of its monarchy and parliament, so is Al Jazeera to the absolute monarchy and Al-Thani family. Al Jazeera seeks to provide a voice alternative to that of the domineering Western world, the foremost figurehead of which was, at a time, the British Empire. It would be naïve to deny this bias even if the article itself is more nuanced and balanced in nature than the former two. The underlying power structure behind Al Jazeera’s operations must still be questioned. In conclusion, these three articles affirm Noam Chomsky’s and Edward Herman’s propaganda model as all three behave as expected given the underlying national interests, imperial histories, and insidious structures of money and power behind each media company.

2, 2022, from news.gallup.com

Google. (n.d.). Google trends. Google Trends. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from https://trends.google.com/

Great Britain. Department for Culture, Media and Sport. (2016). Broadcasting: Copy of Royal Charter for the continuance of the British Broadcasting Corporation. H M Government. downloads.bbc.co.uk

Henkhaus, L. (2022, July 1). How the US became independent (and inseparable) from Great Britain. Texas A&M Today. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from https://today.tamu.edu/

Langfitt, F. (2022, September 9). Encore: Queen Elizabeth II, who brought stability to a changing nation. NPR. www.npr.org

Lloyd, R. B. (2002, May) Zimbabwe: The Making of an Autocratic “Democracy”. Current History, 101(655), 219-224. JSTOR. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from www.jstor.org

Muronzi, C. (2022, September 10). Remembering Queen Elizabeth II in Zimbabwe | News. Al Jazeera English. www. aljazeera.com

NPR. (2013, June 20). Public radio finances. NPR. Retrieved December 2, 2022 from https//npr.org/

Parsons, T. (2014). The Second British Empire: In the Crucible of the Twentieth Century. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. unm. on.worldcat.org/

Smith, S. C. (2010, February 10). Imperialism after empire? Britain and Qatar in the aftermath of the withdrawal from East of Suez. Middle Eastern Studies, 58(6), 843-858. 10.1080/00263206.2022.2032674

Ustad Figenschou, T. (2013). Al Jazeera and the Global Media Landscape: The South is Talking Back. Taylor & Francis. unm. on.worldcat.org/

REFERENCES

Al Jazeera. (n.d.). Who we are. Al Jazeera Media Network. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from network.aljazeera.net

Bowden, G., Jackson, M., & Coughlan, S. (2022, September 8).

Queen Elizabeth II has died. BBC. www.bbc.com

Brenan, M. (2022, September 16). Gallup Vault: Queen Elizabeth resonated across the Pond. Gallup News. Retrieved December

Trevor Noah, Multiracialism, and Racial Ambiguity Izze Thomas

On November 7, 2000, less than five years before I was born, Amendment 2 was put on the ballot in Alabama. It stated: “Proposing an [A]mendment to the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, to abolish the prohibition of interracial marriages.” 40% of voters voted against the bill. In a 2015 Pew Research study on the multiracial experience, it was found that multiracial people who are perceived to be multiracial are twice as likely to experience discrimination than those who are perceived to only belong to one ethnic group. Even in my own experience, I have found that about half of the surveys that ask you to identify your race do not allow you to pick more than one option.

Multiracialism is a complex topic and a relatively new one. For hundreds of years, the idea of interracial conceptions were looked down upon, if not outright criminalized. Most people born out of an interracial coupling were simply assigned to either one race or the other. The history of multiracialism is fraught with hardships, yet as we can see through Kenton Butcher’s article, “Gaining currency: confession, comedy, and the economics of racial ambiguity in Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, ” and Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime itself, multiracialism and racial ambiguity can also be a great benefit to those of us who have it.

Born a Crime is an autobiography discussing Trevor Noah’s life as a biracial man growing up in South Africa, one of the last countries in the world to decriminalize interracial coupling. His descriptions of how he had to spend the first several years of his life in hiding are juxtaposed sharply against the way he describes the privileges that were heaped upon him because of

his perceived whiteness. Through this juxtaposition, Noah perfectly exemplifies one of the most prominent multiracial experiences: an unsteady balance of privilege and discrimination. Many multiracial people find themselves being simultaneously held up by those around them while also finding themselves ostracized by the very same people who hold them up. It is not uncommon for multiracial people to be told how attractive, unique, or interesting they are while also being told they cannot properly relate to the community that they are a part of. In fact, a 2019 study performed by Northwestern University found that the two most common stereotypes attributed to multiracial people were “attractive” and “not belonging,” clearly two terms with very different connotations.

Multiracial people, especially those who are born of both the privileged and discriminated races within a specific culture, can find themselves drifting between the status of privileged and discriminated against based solely on who they are talking to. Those of the dominant race will inherently view them as less, while those of the discriminated race will view them as a more familiar version of their oppressor, as can be seen in Born a Crime when Noah recounts how his grandfather referred to him as “Mastah” and refused to let him sit in the front seat because he viewed himself as the chauffeur and servant of his five year old grandson. This can present a conflict within many multiracial people where they are forced to decide whether or not they should allow their privilege to keep benefiting them even as it separates them from their community.

One of the most extreme examples of this concept is within the practice of racial passing. Passing was a dangerous practice with extreme consequences if you were to get caught, but the benefits were significant enough that those who had the opportunity to pass — mainly mixed race people — often took it. Those who were able to pass would be able to go after better opportunities, face less discrimination, and overall had a much more successful life, but that often came at the cost of their

Multiracial people, especially those who are born of both the privileged and discriminated races within a specific culture, can find themselves drifting between the status of privileged and discriminated against based solely on who they are talking to.

past and community. In order to safely pass, an individual would have to completely cut themselves from one half of their family, community, and identity which was often a very painful experience.

Though we often view passing as a Jim Crow and antebellum phenomenon, as Butcher points out, passing “never totally subsided.” It just “changed its contours as a social practice.” Now that both the consequences and benefits of passing are not so extreme, it has taken on a different purpose and methodology within our society. Instead of completely denying one race to get the benefits of another, racially ambiguous people have found ways to alter the way they might be perceived so that they can reap the benefits of whichever race will be the most beneficial in specific situations. As Butcher points out, Noah managed to perfect this practice through his “[mobilization of] various forms of cultural knowledge via social performances, which influenced readings of Noah’s identity.” This allowed him to access more forms of “social and economic mobility” and allowed him to survive in a segregated society. Even Noah himself admits to using this skill to his advantage when he dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the idea of being a “chameleon” and talks about how, though his “color didn’t change,” he could “change your perception of [his] color,” helped him to blend in with whoever he needed to. Through this skill he was not only able to save himself from racial violence and thus protect himself in a physical sense, but also a social one. Noah’s skills in language and culture encouraged the community that was so quick to reject him because of his skin color to accept him, while simultaneously making him appear superior to that same community in the eyes of the white people that he encountered.

Some multiracial people are able to take this a step further and combine the characteristics of their races in a way that makes them more palatable to larger groups of people. Consider Barack Obama, the United States’ first Black president. What most people do not consider about President Obama is that not only was he the first Black president, he was the 44th White one. His biological mother is white and over half of his childhood was spent living in exclusively white households, with the only exceptions being the first two years of his life and the four years between the ages of six and 10 that he spent living in Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. Culturally speaking, President Obama has much more of a connection to Whiteness than

to Blackness and yet the entire country holds him up as the first Black president, which is no surprise. Multiple studies have found that multiracial people are much more likely to be viewed as the discriminated race by both the dominant and discriminated races of a culture, a phenomenon that can clearly be seen in President Obama. Yet, it is hard to deny that President Obama’s whiteness almost certainly helped him achieve the goal of becoming president. Though many insist on denying it, the United States is still a deeply racist country, and so President Obama’s knowledge of white culture as well as his largely white mannerisms and way of speaking gave him a massive advantage over other Black politicians as he was seen as more palatable to white voters. At the same time, his appearance and self-identification as Black made him popular not only with Black voters, but nearly all minorities. They were able to see themselves represented in a man who, in actuality, probably didn’t represent them as well as they thought. In this way, President Obama was able to use his multiracialism to his advantage and achieve a goal that would have been much harder for a monoracial Black person to achieve.

Though this essay has primarily focused on the advantages of being a multiracial person, it is important to remember that there are significant disadvantages too. To this day, racial mixing is still discouraged in a majority of cultures, as nearly everyone who has been in a mixed race relationship will tell you. To see an example of this, look no further than the December 3, 2022 episode of Saturday Night Live where comedian Micheal Che joked, “[t]he Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act which solidifies federal protections for interracial marriages. Okay but if I marry a white lady, who’s going to protect me from my mother.” The crowd reacted with a robust laugh, not the typical groans that accompany the nearly-over-the-line jokes that have become one of Che’s signatures. In this reaction, we can see that disdain towards racial mixing is still not seen as a negative or controversial thing. Rather, it is practically

The essence of multiracialism is living in ‘ands.’ I am White and Indian. Privileged and discriminated against. Advantaged and disadvantaged.

expected for a mother to rage against the idea of her son marrying a woman of a different race. Though this may seem like a harmless joke, what it is implying is that the children of such a coupling are flawed or otherwise tainted in some way. This leads to common stories among many mixed race people such as one or more of their grandparents refusing to meet them for the first several years of their life because they were disgusted by the idea of having a mixed race grandchild.

Additionally, multiracial people are often not allowed to identify as mixed race. Rather, we are forced to choose what we “really” are by the people around us or even by the government. As I mentioned earlier, only about half the surveys that ask you to identify your race will let you pick more than one option, and of those, about a quarter have a follow up question that asks something along the lines of “If you answered two or more to the previous question, which one do you most identify with.”

It’s hard to decide whether being mixed race is an advantage or disadvantage, but deciding between this or that is a largely monoracial idea. The essence of multiracialism is living in “ands.” I am White and Indian. Privileged and discriminated against. Advantaged and disadvantaged. To say that I am one and not the other would be a disservice to the full scope of my identity, and the identity of every other multiracial person who has grown up with the mark of an and seared into their being since birth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Butcher, K. (2021). Gaining currency: confession, comedy, and the economics of racial ambiguity in Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime , Safundi , 22:3, 225-244, DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2021.1992095

Hurd Anyaso, H. (July 8, 2019). “Some Stereotypes Seem to Be Universally Applied to Biracial Groups in the U.S., New Study Finds.” Northwestern Now . news.northwestern. edu/stories/2019/06/some-stereotypes-seem-to-beuniversally-applied-to-biracial-groups-in-the-u-s-newstudy-finds/.

Ripley/Honolulu, A. (April 9, 2008). “The Story of Barack Obama’s Mother.” Time , Time Inc. content.time.com/ time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1729685,00.html.

Noah, T. (November 17, 2015). Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood . Cornelsen.

Socio-Legal Identity Construction in Mid Colonial New Mexico Simon Ruybalid

Within early colonial New Mexico history, there is a period of time in which principally Spanish men legally construct witchcraft in court when accused of adultery (or other crimes related to fidelity or celibacy). These men legally construct witchcraft as a way to freely have sex in a repressive culture that demands marriage and fidelity at the expense of social stigmatization for the former, and death or excommunication for the latter. This construction allows these men to have sex with whomever they wish, consensual or not, which then leads to the creation, imposition, and ossification of gender norms through sexual violence. This is significant because it lays out how gender, sex, and violence areinterconnected and thus how we must understand this topic in our decolonization and resistance techniques.

The intersection of state, religion, and economics created a society amongst Spaniards in New Mexico that practically necessitated fidelity and typically arranged marriage. Further, at the time, New Mexico existed purely as a colony to defend the extremely wealthy silver mines of Zacatecas and Northern Mexico.1 This meant that only a small number of soldiers, clergy, and governors truly lived in New Mexico at this time. Beyond the sporadic interaction with French and American soldiers, the average day-to-day military interactions in New Mexico would have been between Spaniards and semi nomadic indigenous peoples like the Anasazi or Navajo. 2 These groups would raid Spanish settlements, and Spaniards in turn would attack indigenous bands and groups. Because there was not a significant amount of farmers sent by the

Spanish, the Spaniards used indigenous slave labor mainly from the Pueblo peoples. 3 Although slave labor was extracted from other indigenous groups like the Anasazi, it was in a different form because of the militaristic interaction between the Spaniards and these indigenous groups. The Spanish would kill all the men out of an innate mistrust, and they would take the women and use them as household labor. With a low male Spanish population, and a high female slave population, there was a high female to male ratio within this society. The nature of this enslavement meant the Spanish men held power over these women. This labor also included sexual labor. This sexual labor was often adulterous on the part of the Spanish, which is forbidden in their Christian belief, and so the Inquisition would get involved. The Inquisition cannot persecute indigenous peoples, because it is illegal. However, it is legal to persecute Spanish men and potentially torture, murder, or excommunicate them if they did not have a good argument for infidelity. For this reason, men construct an argument that they could not consent because indigenous women used magic to coerce the Spanish men into sex.

There is a power imbalance between Spanish men and indigenous women. This can be seen in Francisco Barretos’ accounts of life in New Mexico:

On the afternoon of the following Sunday there were peace parlays between us and the Corechos. It was agreed that they should return to us one of the Corechos women given to us at Mojose (belonging to one of the companions. Francisco Barreto, although she had fled from us the morning of the skirmish);

This

construction allows these men to have sex with whomever they wish, consensual or not, which then leads to the creation, imposition, and ossification of gender norms through sexual violence.

1 Ramón Gutiérrez “Women on Top: The Love Magic of the Indian Witches of New Mexico” (Henceforth Women on Top), pg 374

2 Ramón Gutiérrez “Women on Top”, pg 373

3 Ramón Gutiérrez “Women on Top”, pg 374

4 Robella and Tey Diana “Y Dónde Estaban Las Mujeres; In Pursuit of an Hispana Literary and Historical Heritage in Colonial New Mexico, 1580-1840” (Henceforth Y Dónde Estaban Las Mujeres), pg 142

5 Robella and Tey Diana “Y Dónde Estaban Las Mujeres”, pg 142

and that we should give them a girl we had taken from them … the Corechos determined to put over a wicked plan … as they had sent the Indian woman belonging to Francisco Baretto to her land, they took one of their relatives and sent her over, wearing her feathercrest so that we should not recognize her.

With the intention of recovering their own girl and giving us nothing but a discharge of arrows. This was planned with the help of the interpreter who was another Indian woman (belonging to Alonso de Miranda) and who was trying to escape. 5

We see in this excerpt an explicit belief in and practice of human ownership and that relationship always necessitates a power imbalance. Especially when one considers that it is not consensual as seen by these indigenous women’s escape attempts. These escape attempts also reveal that Spanish men are practicing violence to enforce the power differentials. The process of abduction and servitude is a form of practiced violence outside of concepts like consensual sex or physical abuse.

Power differentials expressed through violence can lead to situations where certain men believe they are better than women, deserve whatever they wish, and that women are not people. This is significant because in order for the gender norm of the quiet housewife who never says anything, or the quiet indigenous woman to be constructed as a gender norm, you must first have at least one individual that believes in that myth and who is then willing to enforce it through violence.

If young women were in relative oversupply … women in such societies would have a subjective sense of powerlessness and would feel personally devalued by the society. They would be more likely to be valued as mere sex objects. Unlike the high sex ratio situation, women would find it more difficult to achieve economic mobility through marriage. More men and women would remain single or, if they married, would be more apt to get divorced. Illegitimate births would rise sharply. The

divorce rate would be high, but the remarriage rates would be high for men only. 6

This concept of violence causing socialization can be seen with this quote by sociologists Marcia Guttentag and Paul Secord.

In societies like early colonial New Mexico, women are seen as merely sex objects and are thus dehumanized.7 Through self preservation, women attempt to hide themselves or escape the power of violence; the colonizing men. Spanish men act on belief in this power difference through violence. This can be seen with the example of Felipe Ayud:

Felipe Ayudo complained to the Inquisition that Michaela de Cabrera had made him sexually impotent with other women. Reading the extensive documentation on this case, we discover that Felipe had had a long-standing adulterous relationship with Michaela. His affliction and the beating he gave to Michaela, thereby freeing himself from her sexual hex, occurred only after he had tired of his amorous affair with her. 8

Beyond rape and sexual assault (which occurs in the missions and by the soldiers), we see violence in mundane interactions. This entire passage reinforces the message of Marcia Guttentag and Paul Secord in “Too Many Women.” Women were not valued as anything more than sex objects within society and so they were treated with no respect, to the point of mindless violence as the easy solution in detangling oneself from the social implications of an adulterous affair after you got bored.

These acts of violence and this belief system create strict gender norms enforced through sexual violence. Gender roles/norms meaning socialized tasks assigned to the artificial construct of gender. Understanding that these belief systems and acts of violence already influence the thoughts and actions of both men and women, it does not take a leap of logic to see women socialized to be meeker and smaller; to avoid the violence of power. Or, alternatively, to serve that power in positions that the

6Marcia Guttentag “Too Many Women?: The Sex Ration Question”, pg 20 7This can be seen with every mission, or with Antono Casteneda “Sexual Violence and the Politics of Conquest”, pg 1 8Ramón Gutiérrez “Women on Top”, pg 379-380 9 Ramón Gutiérrez “Women on Top”, pg 35 10 Tey Diana Rebolledo “¿Y Dónde Estaban Las Mujeres?’: In Pursuit of an Hispana Literary and Historical Heritage in Colonial New Mexico, 1580-1840” (Henceforth Y Dónde Estaban Las Mujeres?), pg 147

men did not want: “the women, when they worked, were healers, midwives, domestic servants, and vendors of food and alcohol.” 9 The very fact that women’s jobs in society were defined, shows that gender roles existed. Each of these jobs are service jobs, acting in service to men or to society.

The first two jobs, healers and midwives, while community service jobs, also hold a level of social power in their existence. Regardless, a society has a much greater (quantitative) need for household cleaners than for midwives. The majority of women were not in positions of social prestige, but rather in low prestige service jobs, if they even worked at all. This is significant because there must be outside conditions which mean women are disproportionately a part of one job, and disproportionately not in another field of work. These factors are violence, even if it is just the violence of sexism and denial based upon that sexism which these men believe in.

Spaniards legally construct brujeria (witchcraft) to justify and grant social impunity for their violent actions and beliefs which exist outside of the socialized norm. This can be seen above with the Felipe Ayud case, or in the interesting case of Alonso Martin Barba. This case is special in that the major legal constructor of brujeria is not a man trying to get out of trouble, but rather a wife: “Alonso Martin Barba had been married to Marfa Martin, who was allegedly poisoned by a Marfa Bernal, with whom Alonso was having relations.” 10 In this legal case, the Spanish wife maintains that the reason her husband is straying from their marriage and why she is sick is because of magic. In essence, she is constructing a legal argument that brujeria is a problem in that it often makes people act in ways they would not normally act. This means that those people who were coerced never strayed from the light of God and that brujeria is coercive and a bad act that needs to be persecuted. Those who performed witchcraft

were most often Indigenous women. The construction of this legal argument also gave the Spanish man an excuse that let him socially save face in the light of adultery. These implications allow us to understand that this legal construction is a form of granting impunity.

There are two lines of thought concerning this impunity and the construction of gendered roles. The first is that impunity emboldens men by making them think that their actions are excusable; or at the very least that they will not be punished for them or for their thoughts. Additionally, impunity frightens women because they must live in a constant state of fear of regular violence around them from these emboldened men. In a piece on the femicide in Guatemala, Diana Russel and Roberta Harmes talk about violence. Whilst not directly connected in that the type of violence we are exploring was not femicide, just as no one wants to be murdered, people do not want to be sexually assaulted or kept against their will. In either case, these forms of violence “... function to define gender lines, enact and bolster male dominance, and to render all women chronically and profoundly unsafe.” 11

The second line of thought is that regardless of impunity, men who believe in the sexist fantasy are going to commit microaggressions regardless. Minor forms of violence, especially when it concerns jobs and things to which life is held in duress (i.e. goods/money to purchase food), still create the same situation, even to a lesser extent, where women must fall into line because of fear of violence or in adherence to systemic denial or blackballing.

The systemic blackballing and denial of women entrance to certain positions within society by men work in conjunction with the thoughts and fears of women who are seen only as sex objects, and who have no recourse to see justice for any violence performed unto them within the system (because of the impunity). This leads to a socialization where women are expected to do certain

11Victoria Sanford, “From Genocide to Feminicide: Impunity and Human Rights in Twenty-First Century Guatemala”, pg 112 12Tey Diana Rebolledo “¿Y Dónde Estaban Las Mujeres?’”, pg 147

Minor forms of violence, especially when it concerns jobs and things to which life is held in duress (i.e. goods/money to purchase food), still create the same situation, even to a lesser extent, where women must fall into line because of fear of violence or in adherence to systemic denial or blackballing.

things: to stay at home; though if they do work, even then they must work only in certain sectors. As noted by Rebolledo, “Word of these incidents spread from one person to another and became embedded in the oral literature in the form of cuentas,” 12 a line that shows these were public events which definitely entered the socializing atmosphere of this society. Thus, these legal constructions which grant impunity create another layer which creates these gender roles.

Spaniards construct witchcraft as a means of impunity when it comes to having sex. This impunity often leads to sexual violence and sexual assault which leads in part to the creation of gender norms/ossification of the legality of witchcraft. This is significant because it lays out the roots and history of gender, sex, and violence in the Chicanx community which is important to understand in our decolonization and resistance attempts. This article obviously is not exhaustive and there is a wider field of study to look into concerning witchcraft in New Mexico. Scholarship on this topic can lead to a more poignant understanding of the development of capitalism and colonialism in the Spanish speaking world especially. Specifically, a lot of claims are made that are supported by relatively little actual data — not to say that there is not data there. There are over a dozen case examples, just to point out that is not a lot of data and this is a big claim about a period of over a hundred years for which we have relatively little data. An intensive exploration of legal documents by going through an archive would lead to a more poignant and supported argument. Additionally, scholarship by the wider community into borderland witchcraft, especially that witchcraft which is not the same as as in the European witch hunts, but rather constant as is the case within New Mexico, would greatly add to the body of literature and understanding of protocapitalism, economic and social power dynamics, colonialism, and the creation of gender roles as laid out by figures like Sylvia Federaci.

org/10.2307/3491806.

Behar, Ruth. “Sex and Sin, Witchcraft and the Devil in LateColonial Mexico.” American Ethnologist 14, no. 1 (1987): 34–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/645632

Gutiérrez, Ramón A. “Women on Top: The Love Magic of the Indian Witches of New Mexico.” Journal of the HistoryofSexuality 16, no. 3 (2007): 373–90. www.jstor. org/stable/30114189.

Victoria Sanford, “From Genocide to Feminicide: Impunity and Human Rights in Twenty-First Century Guatemala,” JournalofHumanRights 7:2 (2008), 104-122.

Liebmann, Matthew, and Robert W. Preucel. “The Archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt and the Formation of the Modern Pueblo World.” Kiva 73, no. 2 (2007): 195–217. www.jstor.org/stable/30246543.

Rebolledo, Tey Diana. “‘¿Y Dónde Estaban Las Mujeres?’: In Pursuit of an Hispana Literary and Historical Heritage in Colonial New Mexico, 1580-1840.” In Reconstructinga Chicano/aLiteraryHeritage:HispanicColonialLiterature of the Southwest , edited by María Herrera-Sobek, 140–57. University of Arizona Press, 1993. doi.org/10.2307/j. ctvss4030.14.

Scholes, France V.. “Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670.” New Mexico Historical Review 12, 2 (1937). digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr/vol12/iss2/3.

Guttentag, Marcia, and Paul F. Secord. TooManyWomen?: TheSexRatioQuestion.SagePublications , 1983.

Casteneda, Antonia. “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California.” Berkly Law, n.d. www.law.berkeley.edu.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. The Spanish Archives of New Mexico : Compiled and Chronologically Arranged with Historical, Genealogical, Geographical, and Other Annotations, by Authority of the State of New Mexico Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1914.

Rebolledo, Tey Diana, and María Teresa Márquez. Women’s Tales From the New Mexico WPA: La Diabla a Pie , November 2000, 75–86.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Martínez, María Elena. “The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico.” The William and Mary Quarterly 61, no. 3 (2004): 479–520. doi.

The Mirrors are the Windows to the Soul

Reflections of the self are a powerful literary motif present in many gothic novels due to their unique ability to reflect what cannot be seen. There are many implications surrounding the ability of reflective devices (such as mirrors, portraits, shadows, photographs) to reflect the invisible, which can be taken advantage of to create anything from an unnerving atmosphere to the main symbol of a horror story. This essay focuses on why this “mirror motif” works so well, using The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde as an example. Reflections are creative tools for authors to use when they want to provide insight into either the true essence of a person or into their soul. In gothic media, reflections reveal upsetting truths, adding a horror effect that can only be achieved through some visible reflection. By reflecting someone in stark contrast to what appears in the physical world, the mirror adds an element of the supernatural. The effectiveness of this motif is informed by numerous myths and beliefs about reflections — specifically mirrors, shadows, and portraits. These myths all support the idea that reflective tools show the deepest truth of a person, which makes unfavorable reflections deeply disturbing. Finally, there are underlying, older myths and religious beliefs which condemn mirrors themselves, resulting in a rich history of reasons why mirrors and other reflective devices fit so neatly into gothic stories.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray , Dorian’s portrait is the mirror. In the beginning of the novel, Basil Hallward paints Dorian’s true self onto the canvas. The ability of a portrait to reflect one’s true self is an old motif. Andrew Christensen’s paper, “On Being One’s Own Heir: British Portraiture, Metaphysical Inheritance, and The Picture of Dorian Gray ,” discusses both the history of portraiture in Britain and the beliefs that developed during the nineteenth century. The increasing popularity of portraiture in British art during the nineteenth century came with many critics, however,

Sydney Drummond

among the people who defended portraiture were those who argued that “the true portrait painter can see ‘into’ his subject and render not what he sees but what he intuits” (Christensen 4). This concept that portraits can show the “true self” gained lots of popularity, so much so that even some of those who sat for portraits felt like they were reflected on a deeper level by their portraits. For example, as highlighted by Christensen, Thomas Hardy states, “I don’t know whether that is how I look or not, but that is how I feel ” (Christensen 4). This idea is very much what the plot of Dorian Gray is centered around. In chapter two of the novel, when Dorian looks at his portrait, he is described as having “recognized himself for the first time” (Wilde chapter 2). He is startled — eyes wide, flushed face. The strength of his emotional response indicates that he is not merely surprised to see how well the painting was made or how accurate the physical likeness is, but that he recognizes something deeper about himself in the portrait. He feels stirrings inside himself while looking at the painting that he’s never felt before. This is a vivid scene where the portrait is established as a true reflection of Dorian, even before any supernatural element is written into the novel. Even Basil, a little further along in the chapter, says, “I shall stay with the real Dorian” (Wilde chapter 2), referring to the portrait. Lord Henry encourages this view of the portrait, so that everybody in the room seems to be experiencing the portrait as something larger than just a portrait; it is very much a true and pure reflection of Dorian.

There is a long history of reflections being supernatural even before the aforementioned beliefs about portraits in Britain came around. “The Bewitched Reflection,” by Carla Gottlieb, is a paper that discusses many examples of reflections in art being supernatural or reflecting things that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Gottlieb points out that reflections themselves in many cultures

... He recognizes something deeper about himself in the portrait. He feels stirrings inside himself while looking at the painting that he’s never felt before.

were viewed as inherently supernatural and could be used for a range of things: “from seeing oneself to voodoo” (Gottlieb 1). She points out that part of the supernatural aspect of mirrors is that “a mirror lies if it mirrors falsely” (Gottlieb 1). This idea has merit when combined with the ideas from Christensen’s article. Gottlieb argues that when mirrors reflect falsely, or lie, they become magical, and therefore, unnerving. This is partially true. When Dorian’s portrait starts to change, it is no longer reflecting what was painted with stunning realism by Basil. The portrait was originally a very good likeness of Dorian, so in that sense it was reflecting reality. But when the mirror starts to reflect a Dorian that nobody else can see — a Dorian that is not, in a strict sense, realistic — then it becomes magical. And the more it changes for the worse, the more horrible the emotional effect: the further away from reality (the way Dorian actually looks in the physical world), the more unnerving. However, I would argue that it is the way that the portrait reflects something truer than what Dorian physically looks like that makes it really disturbing. Both aspects — a reflection’s ability to reflect reality and unreality — have to be simultaneously considered. In the words of Willard McCarty, the author of “The Shape of the Mirror: Metaphorical Catoptrics in Classical Literatúre,” the act of “mirroring both identifies and separates” (McCarty 2). Dorian’s portrait separates by removing his soul and misdeeds from his physical body. It identifies by putting on display Dorian’s true self, soul and misdeeds visible and almost tangible. If Dorian’s portrait were deforming at random, unrelated to the development of the character, it would still be a mirror reflecting falsely, and it may still be magical. However, the key for the portrait’s role in the story is that it is reflecting a truer reality than the one that can be seen.

The soul can not be seen with the naked eye. “‘He Make in the Mirror No Reflect’: Undead Aesthetics and Mechanical Reproduction – Dorian Gray, Dracula and David Reed’s ‘Vampire Painting,’” a paper written by Sam George, focuses on the ability of mirrors, shadows, and other reflective devices to reflect the soul. He primarily discusses Dracula by Bram Stoker, but nonetheless this discussion can be applied to Dorian’s portrait. George points out that “[i]n many cultures the shadow and the mirror image are both unmistakably associated with the soul” (George 3). Based on long-standing associations, Dorian’s portrait being a mirror image automatically means

his portrait contains his soul. The true self and the soul are interconnected in historical superstitions and beliefs to the point where one may consider them one and the same in certain contexts, such as the case of Dorian’s portrait. In his own discussion of the symbolism of mirrors, McCarty writes, “[a]s von Vacano points out, the reflected image, like the shadow, qualifies perfectly as a form of the soul, having ‘all the attributes of the body except the crucial one of tangibility’” (McCarty 9). The intangibility of a reflection may be a source of the uncanny feeling mirrors conjure up, which is a likely contributor to most of the myths surrounding them. Neither the soul nor the true self can be seen unless through some medium of reflection, unlike the actual body. George argues that, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula , the vampire can not be imaged because it has no soul. Stoker’s notes for Dracula , according to George, include that Dracula cannot be seen in a mirror, casts no shadow, cannot be painted, and cannot be photographed (George 4). All forms of imaging, and therefore all forms of capturing or displaying the soul, seem not to work if the being is soulless. Being unreflected in a mirror, for a vampire, gives it the dangerous quality of soullessness, but from a broader perspective, the idea that a reflection will not reflect something soulless only supports the idea that images are an important tool for reflecting the soul. The true self and the soul are both often described as being “deep inside’’ someone — in order for the truth of someone to be visualized, magic or imagination is a required tool. His portrait is a reflection of something nobody can see, which makes it magical, and also contains his soul, which is inherently supernatural. These nuances are what fully push Dorian’s eventually gory portrait into the horror category. The horror in the portrait, without the implication of it being what is true, would be much less effective at creating the atmosphere of horror so valuable in Gothic novels.

It is in this way that Dorian’s portrait first creates a slightly supernatural atmosphere. It is important to note that even before Dorian’s portrait becomes grotesque, the fact that it seems to be alive and has a soul already creates an unease informed by history. The very idea of a portrait containing one’s true self and one’s soul can be disturbing by itself, but once that is established, more can be explored. Many cultures believe that not only do mirrors and shadows reflect the soul, but they also capture it. Historically, the general superstitions that arose around

images and shadows capturing and holding one’s soul were, according to Christensen, “attested in several parts of Europe, including England, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, and Greece” (Christensen 4). These beliefs often included the notion that when the soul is captured by an image, the subject may become ill or die (Christensen 4). This idea, influencing what people have known about the reflection for years, means there was already a sense of unease around images of people, regardless of whether or not they were explicitly supernatural. This unease influences the reading (and perhaps the writing) of The Picture Of Dorian Gray . The moment Dorian’s portrait is finished, he declares he “would give everything,” for the portrait to age instead of him: “I would give my soul for that!” (Wilde chapter 2). Dorian also infuses the portrait with his soul. This enchantment, of sorts, is complex. Giving the portrait his soul is both the price and the reward. Once the portrait becomes him, two things start happening simultaneously. The moment he has given his soul away to the portrait, Dorian begins his descent into corruption — a sort of illness. He, over the course of the book, becomes cruel and hedonistic — he treats selfishly Sybil Vane, feels no guilt when she dies, collects expensive things, becomes addicted to opium, and eventually commits a murder and descends into paranoia. At the same time, the portrait changes, in a sense becoming ill itself. Since Dorian’s illness cannot be seen on his own face, it must be displayed on his soul. Once his soul is captured in paint, it begins rotting away. Dorian blames Basil for his own corruption because he believes the portrait of his soul has ruined him. When Dorian takes Basil up to view the transformation of his own picture, the imagery is powerfully supportive of the idea that the captured soul sickens one. To Basil, referring to his painting, Dorian says, “It has destroyed me,” and “It is the face of my soul.” The portrait is then described as though “the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away. The rotting corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful” (Wilde chapter 13). Connecting the appearance of Dorian’s soul with that of a rotting corpse is a powerful example of how pervasive the superstitions of imaging are in the novel. Illness is one way to view Dorian’s corruption. George also argues that Dorian may be viewed as becoming vampiric; with his soul captured in his portrait, and no longer in his body, he consumes life from others, like Sibyl Vane. Adding another idea to the many potential implications, Gottlieb mentions a few more myths: “to lose

one’s shadow is like losing your soul,” and “to encounter your shadow — that is, yourself or your double — signals death” (Gottlieb 5). Equating shadows with other forms of the double, one might say that Dorian both loses and encounters his shadow. His self is stolen from him and put into the portrait, and viewing his portrait is sometimes described very much like a confrontation: “His own soul was looking out at him and calling him to jugement” (Wilde chapter 10). Dorian facing a premature death at the end of the book, due to his corruption and his murdering of his own soul-portrait, is the final stamp on the general message — a reflection, which may be a bad omen, can reveal or capture one’s soul, resulting in illness, moral corruption, soullessness, and death.

Another source of uneasiness about mirrors that very likely contributes to modern readings of gothic literature are the lingering religious and moral beliefs of the past. Old religious beliefs punished the imaging of sacred figures. Additionally, gazing into the mirror was often viewed as vain (morally wrong), or as women sexualizing themselves (which was also considered morally wrong).

According to Christensen, “[numerous] prohibitions against the creation of idols and images (of any kind) can be found in the Old Testament, including the Ten Commandments” (Christensen 4). This may contribute to a very broad belief that anything that captures an image is inherently bad, and that people may be immoral for using things like mirrors and may be punished for creating paintings. Additionally, in “All the Reflected Light We Cannot See: (Ghastly) Mirror Imagery in Victorian Fiction,” Leila Silvana May discusses the problematic belief that women who looked into mirrors were vain, stating that “early in Christian history, this accusation of vanitas entailed a condemnation to Hell” (May 9). Parallels from this myth can be drawn to Dorian Gray . In addition to the previously discussed implications of Dorian’s portrait, the reading by the audience may also be informed by the belief that vanity is a sin or a moral failing. Dorian Gray

Whether or not the audience truly believes vanity is a moral failing, it is clear that the novel draws upon this deep-rooted belief to punish Dorian.

is very much a story of a young man destroying himself through his own vanity. Whether or not the audience truly believes vanity is a moral failing, it is clear that the novel draws upon this deep-rooted belief to punish Dorian. When Dorian is confronted by the ugliness and cruelty of his portrait, he expresses the transient but important desire for self-reform. This property of mirrors is also discussed by McCarty, who points out that “it is good for an angry man to see himself in the mirror … because it brings him up against an unsuspected, inner reality” (McCarty 13). He paraphrases Seneca when he states that perhaps if the soul were visible, its ugliness would bewilder us. This property of mirrors can be translated to Dorian’s portrait. Dorian’s vanity makes him ugly, and his portrait, allowing his soul to become visible, puts this ugliness on display in an attempt to admonish him. Dorian’s response is guilt and a desperation to hide the portrait away. This brings the reader back around to the broader idea: a mirror reflects the truth. And when this truth is ugly, the mirror becomes a gothic motif. Showing an unfavorable reflection is deeply disturbing because of all the implications — an unfavorable self or an ugly soul being the key factor.

Beliefs that images reflect the soul and true self, or capture the soul, resulting in illness, death, or corruption, and maybe even vampirism, all likely inform the reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray and enhance its gothic nature. The belief that an image, especially a portrait, can reflect the true self, has its grounds in British art history. It means that a grotesque painting reflects the real, but invisible, grotesqueness of the subject. Then there are subtler notes that may be involved as well, considering a religious background. Does an ugly reflection reflect the final picture? Can it be reversed? Will the mirror condemn the subject to hell?

Dracula and David Reed’s ‘Vampire Painting.’” Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations of Vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the Present Day , Manchester University Press, 2013, pp. 56–78. EBSCOhost , search-ebscohost-com.libproxy.unm.edu/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=202017682237&s ite=eds-live&scope=site.

Gottlieb, Carla. “The Bewitched Reflection.” Notes in the History of Art, vol. 4, no. 2/3, [Ars Brevis Foundation Inc., University of Chicago Press], 1985, pp. 59–67. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23202428.

May, Leila Silvana. “All the Reflected Light We Cannot See: (Ghastly) Mirror Imagery in Victorian Fiction.” Pacific Coast Philology , vol. 54, no. 2, July 2019, pp. 273–97. EBSCOhost , search-ebscohost-com.libproxy.unm.edu/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=143490821&site= eds-live&scope=site.

McCarty, Willard. “The Shape of the Mirror: Metaphorical Catoptrics in Classical Literatúre.” Arethusa, vol. 22, no. 2, 1989, pp. 161-95. ProQuest , www.proquest.com/scholarlyjournals/shape-mirror-metaphorical-catoptricsclassical/docview/1307022456/se-2?accountid=14613.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray . ebook ed., AmazonClassics, 2017.

WORKS CITED

Christensen, Andrew G. “On Being One’s Own Heir: British Portraiture, Metaphysical Inheritance, and The Picture of Dorian Gray .” Word & Image, vol. 35 no. 2, 2019, pp. 159-171, UNM Library , doi-org.libproxy.unm.edu/10.1080/ 02666286.2018.1553407.

George, Sam. “‘‘He Make in the Mirror No Reflect’: Undead Aesthetics and Mechanical Reproduction – Dorian Gray,

Effects of Plastic Pollution on Freshwater Ecosystems and Their Biota 2022 Simone

Abstract:

In the relatively short time since plastics were first manufactured, they have become a principal pollutant in aqueous ecosystems around the globe. This paper seeks to address the growing issue of plastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems. Through a global analysis, plastic pollution has been shown to increase in magnitude over time through both micro- and macroplastics. Plastic pollution of lakes exhibits variation based on each lake’s unique environment. Through a study conducted on the Amazon River, plastic pollution of rivers and streams was found to be included in food web transference. It is of no surprise, then, that the plastic pollution of lakes and rivers/streams has proved to be a non-localized, worldwide problem. Even so, freshwater ecosystem interactions with both aquatic and terrestrial biota — including humans — can have both negative and positive effects, with the former holding the majority in various cited studies. With plastic now being an integral component in these systems, practical suggestions on managing plastics in freshwater ecosystems can provide a real solution to the results found throughout this paper.

Introduction:

From your car to your packed lunch container, plastics are inescapable. Though there have been some major efforts to reduce plastic waste, plastics are still managing to find their way into many different wildlife ecosystems as trash. While much of the scientific and environmentalist focus on plastic pollution is usually concentrated in marine ecosystems, freshwater plastic pollution is a topic needing just as much (if not more) attention, as both rivers and streams are vital components in carrying mismanaged terrestrial-based plastic waste into the ocean (Kasavan et al. 2021). In fact, an estimated 1.15 to 2.41 million tons of plastic waste is transported from inland rivers to marine systems annually (Stovall and Bratton 2022). This type of pollution is nothing new: plastic pollution has plagued the world since small-scale plastic manufacturing began in the 1950s (Kasavan et al. 2021). Though plastics are highly regarded for their convenience, durability, and versatility, much of what is produced is solely single-use items and packaging products that ultimately becomes unusable waste (Stovall and Bratton

Sena

2022). Further, up to 99% of plastics are created from nonrenewable resources, such as coal, oil, and natural gas (Kasavan et al. 2021). With polymer production scaling more than 300 million tons produced each year, plastic occurrence is certainly of great importance (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021).

However, in order to determine how to fix plastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems, there must first be an understanding of plastic. Thus, the broad term of “plastic pollution” must first be dissected and organized into usable information. A categorization of plastics is necessary, and scientists have chosen to do this by dividing them into four different sizes: nanoplastics (<100 nm), microplastics (<5 mm), mesoplastics (5–25 mm), and macroplastics (>25 mm) (Kasavan et al. 2021). This paper will focus specifically on microplastics and macroplastics. Microplastic examples include plastic fibers, pellets, and fragments, whereas macroplastics include plastic bags, bottles, and fishing nets.

With an accurate understanding of the categorization of microplastics and macroplastics, it is now necessary to determine how extensive this plastic pollution is. Though most studies on plastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems are conducted in Western countries, it is certainly a global problem requiring broader investigations (Kasavan et al. 2021). Regarding the worldwide scale, the U.S., Japan, and other European countries are “moderately good” at managing plastic waste, even though they produce significant amounts of such waste (Kasavan et al. 2021). While many plastic materials can be either reused or recycled, most materials must be discarded after only one use (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). These plastics can either be disposed of and carried by rainwater to water bodies or directly discarded into freshwater environments (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). This leads to little or no control over production or disposal chains, thereby leading to discarded plastic polymers inevitably reaching aquatic ecosystems (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Such addition of plastics — whether micro or macro in size — then leads to an enormous compromise in water quality creating a far-reaching ecological imbalance (Qadri et al. 2020).

It is indisputable, then, that plastic is one of the fastest growing sources of pollution (Xu et al. 2020).

Furthermore, plastic pollution is not only a problem that is

spreading to all parts of the Earth, but it is also a problem that is getting worse over time. To increase the complexity even more, micro and macroplastic pollution is not only affecting aqueous ecosystems — it has also been shown to affect terrestrial interactions within these aqueous ecosystems. Birds, fish, invertebrates, reptiles, and mammals are all affected by freshwater plastic encounters (Blettler and Mitchell 2021). The most common plastic encounters in the terrestrial realm are through biota ingestion, entanglement, and even usage (such as through nesting) (Blettler and Mitchell 2021). Biota ingestion of plastic can lead to intestinal blockage, internal injury, and suffocation, whereas entanglement can reduce mobility and even cause strangulation (Blettler and Mitchell 2021). Many studies have shown that birds are the most affected terrestrial animal by macroplastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems (or at least the animal that is most reported on).

While the majority of recorded plastic encounters throughout all animal species are negative, there are some instances of “beneficial” plastic encounters. Some recordings of macroplastics being used by freshwater animals as places of refuge from predators and even places of settlement have been observed in freshwater ecosystems (Blettler and Mitchell 2021). However, even with these beneficial observations, the overall consequences of plastics in freshwater ecosystems remain poorly known, with few studies addressing the issue in freshwater ecosystems as opposed to the many focused on marine ecosystems (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Thus, this paper seeks to find answers to the following questions: How is plastic pollution affecting freshwater ecosystems, and are these trends seen around the world or only in one spot/area?

Origins:

Freshwater ecosystems are the main destination of many different types of pollutants released in a watershed, as freshwater aqueous environments are naturally located in valleys and lower elevation terrains (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Whether micro or macro in size, each type of plastic pollution is common in both rural and urban areas. Local human use and runoff are two important factors contributing to the amount of plastic pollution seen in watersheds (Stovall and Bratton 2022). Once plastic reaches a waterbody, it can then be trapped by instream structures, thus rendering it unable to leave the freshwater system (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Once plastics are trapped, physical and/or chemical weathering can begin the fragmentation process of the polymers, thereby increasing the number of particles in the freshwater system as the plastic

continually gets smaller and smaller (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Based on this process, plastic pollution is known to have three origins: microplastic fragmentations, wear and tear of plastic polymer products, and intentional origins (i.e., exfoliants, industrial abrasions, etc.) (Dusaucy et al. 2021).

Lakes:

Out of these three varying origins, microplastic (MP) fragmentation is considered to be one of the main sources of microplastics in lakes (Dusaucy et al., 2021). Microplastics usually come from macroplastics through fragmentation. Environmental conditions, such as UV irradiation, pH, or temperature, play crucial roles in plastic fragmentation (Dusaucy et al. 2021). However, the intensity of these environmental conditions varies across lakes, as differences in factors such as altitude and nutrient output shift fragmentation effectiveness. This is also true for the relative contribution of each source of MPs to a certain lake, as each catchment’s unique features are the determinant when it comes to nature and intensity (Dusaucy et al. 2021).

As of 2021, only 98 lakes have been studied worldwide with regards to microplastic (MP) pollution — 20 of those lakes being rural and 78 being urban (Dusaucy et al. 2021). Out of those 98 lakes, the most commonly identified polymer forms were fibers and fragments (Dusaucy et al. 2021). Nevertheless, within these studied boundaries, it is naturally assumed that urban lakes would have higher MP pollution than rural lakes. However, this is not the case: in some instances, rural lakes actually have a higher MP pollution than urban lakes (Figure 1). This is made possible by the variation seen in each catchment’s unique features, as discussed before. Each lake is thus affected by its surroundings.

Therefore, in order to begin pollution repair, the source(s) of MPs must first be identified in each respective lake’s area. Factors such as wastewater treatment plants, runoff, and dumping are major sources of plastic pollution that affect lakes differently (Hou et al. 2021). Even atmospheric fallout is a source of microplastic pollution (Figure 1). Adding to the list of varying contributors, MP pollution is also shown to intensify from climatic conditions (Figure 2). Increasing variability within environmental transport pathways, MP suspension, and retention in lakes can further concentrate and increase MP pollution (Dusaucy et al., 2021). Whether rural or urban, lakes carry a great economic, recreational, and ecosystem value, and

yet, each type is plagued by MP contamination. Even with the 98 currently studied lakes, this research is only scratching the surface in terms of quantifying MP lake pollution, as there is a lack of integration when considering the whole ecosystem — a crucial piece of the puzzle (Dusaucy et al., 2021).

Rivers/Streams:

We will now focus on an example seen in the pollution of the lower Amazon River. The Amazon (including its related freshwater ecosystems) receives more than 150,000 tons of synthetic polymers each year (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021) (Figure 3). Herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous species have all been documented as being affected by this freshwater plastic pollution. In fact, all three types of trophic levels in the lower Amazon River were recorded to ingest fragmented plastics as a food source (Figure 4). Aquatic algae and plants have also been shown to absorb tiny plastic particles, increasing the risk of plastic availability for secondary consumers (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Many field studies of this interaction are poorly examined, but there are some laboratory experiments available that have shown negative impacts (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021).

Another way of plastic transference within river and stream food webs is by filtering zooplankton consumption. Zooplankton have been recorded to ingest and retain MPs, which are then able to be transferred to higher trophic levels when the zooplankton are consumed by larval fish and other planktivores, steadily increasing in trophic position (Andrade et al. 2019). Even variation in colors of plastics were shown to attract different species of fish, as some plastic debris has a similar appearance to their natural food items, thus serving as an attractant to those fish (Andrade et al. 2019). An example of this occurrence was seen in planktivorous juvenile fish who preferentially ingested black plastic fragments, which are presumed to have similar associations with their natural prey. Interestingly, the three different trophic guilds (herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous) were not shown to be significantly different from each other in terms of plastic frequency and/or ingestion magnitude.

Even with the findings in the Amazon and its related freshwater ecosystems, more studies are needed to investigate the effects of smaller plastic particles within other parts of freshwater biota, as these particles can be transferred from the digestive tract to other organs and muscles (Andrade et al. 2019). Increasing studies focused on different tributaries in unrelated parts of the world are also needed for a more holistic view on the pervasiveness of plastics in freshwater river/stream ecosystems. Furthermore, the

focus of plastics found in aquatic fauna needs to be broadened in terms of anatomy. While it seems like the digestive tract is the best point of reference when investigating macroplastic and microplastic pollution, this is certainly not the only way since plastics can travel to other parts of the body. Though plastic pollution has already been shown to impact river/stream aquatic fauna, there is another unexplored potential: if these effects are impacting human health and food security (Andrade et al. 2019). This potential is yet to be seriously explored.

Effects on Biota:

In many studies conducted in the field and in the lab, plastic pollution has been shown to affect freshwater animals in a predominantly negative way with regards to ingestion and encounter frequency. In the first study conducted on MPs in freshwater ecosystems, it was found that chronic exposure to fragmented fibers (even in a low concentration) significantly decreased growth and reproduction in the freshwater amphipod studied (Chae and An 2017). Another study conducted a few years later found that ingestion of MPs actually dulled olfactory function in freshwater fish, thus leading to increased mortality from predation (Chae and An 2017). In fact, freshwater fish are the aquatic group with the highest amount of recorded plastic ingestion (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Fish have been shown to ingest plastic and travel within their aquatic habitat, thereby mobilizing and even transferring plastic materials across food webs, including terrestrial ones (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021).

One study documented the occurrences of microplastics in the Nile River in Egypt. Over 75% of fish sampled in the Nile River contained MPs in their digestive tract (Khan 2021). The researchers then compared their findings to other similar studies from both marine and freshwater environments. The results showed that a 75%+ level of MP ingestion was rarely found throughout the literature, and the fish sampled from the Nile

In fact, all three types of trophic levels in the lower Amazon River were recorded to ingest fragmented plastics as a food source. Aquatic algae and plants have also been shown to absorb tiny plastic particles, increasing the risk of plastic availability for secondary consumers.

River (tilapia and catfish) were potentially in the most danger of consuming MPs worldwide (Khan, 2021). Like many other studies, fragments were the most abundant type of microplastic found in the fishes’ digestive tract. The MPs found had various polymer originations, thus making it difficult to trace a specific plastic product from which they were all fragmented from (Khan, 2021). However, another cross study done on the Mississippi River in the United States noted how temporal and seasonal events, such as flooding, can change MP concentration and abundance in sampling (Khan 2021). Thus, the investigation of MP pollution in freshwater systems being impacted by changing conditions is an area of active research.

Regarding MP’s effects on fish, there have been recorded instances of inflammatory responses and alterations of fish intestinal health through their microbiome resulting from MP exposure (Khan 2021). In one study, with just 10 days of MP exposure, zebrafish in a lab setting were both physiologically and genomically verified to have markedly increased levels of oxidative stress (Khan 2021). Microbiome imbalance through increased oxidative stress by the MP exposure was also shown to possibly correlate with more susceptibility to disease (Khan 2021). This discovery of MP exposure disrupting fish microbiomes is certain to have important implications for humans in the future, as MP contamination is present in a variety of foodstuffs (Khan 2021). However, yet again, this area of research is still needing much more investigation.

Another underestimated freshwater interaction problem is avian usage of synthetic polymers for nesting, as this interaction makes freshwater birds and their young even more susceptible to contamination, ingestion, and entanglement (Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021). Even at the cellular level, microplastic exposure induces multiple adverse effects and stress responses in freshwater organisms (Xu et al. 2020). Examples of this include inflammatory responses in freshwater crabs and abnormalities in intestinal epithelial cell structure in freshwater shrimp (Xu et al. 2020). There have even been documented changes seen in gene expression when exposed to microplastics (Xu et al. 2020). Each ensuing study has chosen to focus on different species when exposed to different types of plastics. Even so, questions about the long-term effects of these small plastics on aquatic organisms have yet to be answered.

Another study conducted in 2021 focused on an annelid named Enchytraeus crypticus. The annelid was subjected

to soil with green bottle cap microplastics mixed in. In each test, the annelids chose to be in the soil without MPs, or in an area with lower MP concentration (Khan 2021). Contact with the MPs was shown to increase oxidative stress even when the annelids did not ingest any plastics (Khan 2021). The researchers explained that the MP avoidance behavior observed by the annelids was due to the fact that the microplastics inherently changed the properties of the soil, and that the worms could sense it (Khan 2021). Yet again, further studies on freshwater worms are needed to link intracellular responses to behavioral and/or physiological changes, as shown in this terrestrial examination.

Impact on Humans & Plastic Through Time:

Concerning the freshwater plastic pollution effects on humans, the results are also quite devastating. Interestingly enough, the World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that nearly 80% of all human disease is waterborne (Qadri et al. 2020). Even further, a portion of the water contamination problem is solely attributed to plastic pollution. With recent studies, it appears that nearly all waterborne diseases represented by the WHO are preventable, whether by vaccine or industrial/personal choice (Qadri et al. 2020).

Regarding the effects of plastic through time, in a study conducted by Hou et al. (2021) microplastics in the digestive tissue of museum specimens were measured from the years 1900- 2017 in order to quantify the microplastic concentrations seen in freshwater fish. Prior to 1950, there were no MPs detected in any of the museum specimens. However, after 1950, it was discovered that MP concentrations in digestive tissue drastically increased (Hou et al. 2021). Interestingly enough, all detected polymers were fibrous in nature (Hou et al. 2021). Such ingestion of MPs is known to cause hepatic stress and loss of digestive function in fish (Hou et al. 2021). It is of no doubt then that plastic pollution throughout time can be regarded as “…one of the most serious problems worldwide.” (Chae and An 2017).

Conclusions:

In closing, throughout the many scientific studies discussed, both macroplastic and microplastic pollution is shown to affect both lakes and rivers/streams in a mostly adverse sense through all types of bio-interactions. Further, this type of pollution is not localized in just one part of the world — it has spread to encase the entire globe. However,

there are effective ways for humans to combat both macroplastic and microplastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems. Some courses of action include preventing plastic buildup by banning single-use plastic items, making recycling bins more available for public use, funding awareness campaigns, imposing financial penalties for non-reusable packaging, and so much more (Dusaucy et al. 2021). Water is an indispensable resource for all living organisms, especially freshwater. Proper action is necessary to protect freshwater ecosystems and their biota — whether terrestrial or aquatic. While plastics in all their forms may never fully go away, with the appropriate (and consequently prompt) action, plastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems can be managed.

Khan, F. R. 2021. Prevalence, fate and effects of plastic in freshwater environments. MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Qadri, H., R. A. Bhat, M. A. Mehmood, and G. H. Dar. 2020. Freshwater pollution: effects on aquatic life and human health. Pages 15–26 in R. Qadri and M. A. Faiq, editors. Freshwater pollution dynamics and remediation. Springer Singapore Pte., Singapore, Republic of Singapore.

Stovall, J. K., and S. P. Bratton. 2022. Microplastic pollution in surface waters of urban watersheds in Central Texas, United States: a comparison of sites with and without treated wastewater effluent. Frontiers in Analytical Science 2:1-10.

Xu, S., J. Ma, R. Ji, K. Pan, and A.-J. Miao. 2020. Microplastics in aquatic environments: Occurrence, accumulation, and biological effects. Science of The Total Environment 703:1–14.

LITERATURE CITED

Andrade, M. C., K. O. Winemiller, P. S. Barbosa, A. Fortunati, D. Chelazzi, A. Cincinelli, and T. Giarrizzo. 2019. First account of plastic pollution impacting freshwater fishes in the Amazon: Ingestion of plastic debris by piranhas and other serrasalmids with diverse feeding habits. Environmental Pollution 244:766–773.

Azevedo-Santos, V. M., M. F. Brito, P. S. Manoel, J. F. Perroca, J. L. Rodrigues-Filho, L. R. Paschoal, G. R. Gonçalves, M. R. Wolf, M. C. Blettler, M. C. Andrade, A. B. Nobile, F. P. Lima, A. M. Ruocco, C. V. Silva, G. Perbiche-Neves, J. L. Portinho, T. Giarrizzo, M. S. Arcifa, and F. M. Pelicice. 2021. Plastic pollution: A focus on freshwater biodiversity. Ambio 50:1313–1324.

Blettler, M. C. M., and C. Mitchell. 2021. Dangerous traps: Macroplastic encounters affecting freshwater and terrestrial wildlife. Science of The Total Environment 798:1–11.

Chae, Y., and Y.-J. An. 2017. Effects of micro- and nanoplastics on aquatic ecosystems: current research trends and perspectives. Marine Pollution Bulletin 124:624–632.

Dusaucy, J., D. Gateuille, Y. Perrette, and E. Naffrechoux. 2021. Microplastic pollution of Worldwide Lakes. Environmental Pollution 284:1–13.

Hou, L., C. D. McMahan, R. E. McNeish, K. Munno, C. M. Rochman, and T. J. Hoellein. 2021. A fish tale: A century of museum specimens reveal increasing microplastic concentrations in freshwater fish. Ecological Applications 31:1–14.

Kasavan, S., S. Yusoff, M. F. Rahmat Fakri, and R. Siron. 2021. Plastic pollution in water ecosystems: A bibliometric analysis from 2000 to 2020. Journal of Cleaner Production 313:1- 13.

FIGURES

FIGURE 1: Graph from Dusaucy et. al 2021 showing the amount of atmospheric fallout (wet and dry) of microplastics between different geographical localizations including France, China, Germany, and England. London, England is shown to have the highest mean concentration of atmospheric fallout whereas Paris, France, (Suburban) is shown to have the lowest mean concentration of atmospheric fallout.

FIGURE 2: Graph from Hou et al. 2021 showing microplastic concentration as the number of particles per individual in four different fish including the Largemouth bass, Sand shiner, Channel catfish, and Round goby, through 1900-2018. There is no occurrence of microplastic concentration in any species prior to 1950. Post-1950, microplastic concentration occurs with an increasing visual trend.

FIGURE 3: Photographic examples from Azevedo-Santos et al. 2021 displaying plastic pollution such as buildup of plastic bottles, plastic fishing nets, and micro, meso, and macro plastic fragments, in various South American freshwater ecosystems including (but not limited to) the Amazon basin, Rocha River, and Paraná River.

FIGURE 4: Figure from Andrade et al. 2019 showing a summarized trophic network with plastic intake pathways in the lower Xingu Basin. Plastic sources such as single-use plastic bags and drinking bottles are shown to be fragmented and then able to enter the trophic network. While the trophic network’s focus is mainly aquatic, a terrestrial connection is also shown by an avian species ingesting a plastic-contaminated carnivorous serrasalmid.

Montclaire & Lead

Ilived on a corner with the perfect bathroom window for my orchids and enough space for a puzzle table; the concept of a death wish and the leaden-gut feeling of wailing had to have been imbued in the cement of the sidewalks. Before I was worried about the right potting mix for my Phalaenopsis philippinensis , I had nightmares about calling 911. What would I say ( I live at 303 Montclaire and I need an ambulance; I think someone got hurt ) and would they stay on the line with me ( Yes, they would. ). I felt oddly proud the first time I called, like I had a chip on my shoulder, like I had proof of my mettle.

As my first college apartment, that stop sign didn’t hold back for me; the cracking yellow of the curbs had something out for me. It began sometime around when that bird that blasted into my car windshield at the stop sign and bounced lifelessly and feathered off onto the road. Or when those kids threw a slice of American cheese at my car door, and it slipped and slapped on the ground and remained there for months, slowly trampled and moldy (I didn’t know American cheese could get moldy). Or at least somewhere around there was when the molting of a carcass became routine.

At 11:00 p.m. Grey’s Anatomy quietly droned on, and I heard screaming and brakes, and in the street was a girl halfway under a van. It’s always the same hall monitors that come out of their houses to survey the noises and give wary glances without doing much more than that. This time, it was to watch a woman clutching her leg and screaming. Unsurprisingly, when I saw the woman under the van (the kind with no candy inside,

Camila Seluja

the kind that I walk around with a wide berth when it’s 10:00 p.m. in the parking lot of the mall after work), my initial reaction was, Yep, she’s getting kidnapped...what do I do when I see someone getting kidnapped? I only know what to sorta do if I’m the one getting kidnapped. The man from the van was dragging her out from under the back tires and attempting to lift her up into the open sliding doors, and what can you do but stare for a bit? She was shrieking and slapping and pawing the air and her leg and her face and his arms. Ultimately, the mysterious van man decided she wasn’t worth the trouble, or heard sirens coming, and dropped her unceremoniously in the street.

Later, the talk with sergeants and EMTs revealed the neighborhood story of it all: One of those girls from those apartments in the alley, you know the ones, and they were having a party and what can you do when someone just gets so high out of their mind? Well, she wandered off, and a friend came to look and just didn’t stop in time, and whoosh: there she went under the car. Or maybe she was riding on top of it? When you’re that high, can you really fucking tell? Anyways, he says he was just trying to load her up to take her to the hospital.

As we meandered back to our doorways, the Republican across the street told me to holler if we ever needed anything. He couldn’t call the cops because of his parole, but he said he’d watch out for anything fishy. Kirk had the boots of a farmhand, and I trusted him intrinsically.

When I got back inside, Grey’s Anatomy had continued for two more episodes. I had to rewind.

Three dogs ran into the street, two of which my sister imploringly ran after to stop traffic and coax away from their imminent vehicular dog-slaughter. One simply ran in a different direction, bound to end up roadkill as on Central or some other unfortunate street. I could see them wandering behind the view of my bathroom P halaenopsis schilleriana blooming for the second time (no small feat, might I add).

Another time, I was holding on to my own sister’s dog while she attempted to cajole a stray. Standing with a

It circled and circled and circled itself like Sisyphus eternally trapped, and its back legs were giving out in the sickliest of ways, and cars were whizzing past and screeching and ignoring.

squirming ball of fur in my arms who desperately wanted to go help her mom sniff out the interesting thing in the middle of the road, I watched as my sister hollered every time a car got too close and hurled between the poles of reaching for the animal and turning her head away when she thought the end was coming for it soon. Five minutes later, a man jogged past and asked if I had seen a dog; I gestured with the furry squirmer in my arms up a block.

Lastly, on a Wednesday morning at 8:00 a.m. a chunky little chihuahua who I immediately did not care for sniffed around and away from the calling of an older woman. Sometime between putting my backpack in the front seat and tapping for my keys, the animal-baby-talk turned to hollering, then wailing. I saw the dog limping and unable to stand after being struck by a morning commuter. It circled and circled and circled itself like Sisyphus eternally trapped, and its back legs were giving out in the sickliest of ways, and cars were whizzing past and screeching and ignoring. The woman moaned and held her dog like the Madonna and sobbed and screamed, and I simply had to get in my car and continue (I was late to class).

There was a bang on the floor next door, and I got up. I felt like I should have gone over right then, not that it would have really done much. But I remember that I knew I should be next door.

A knock came on my back door, and I knew it was my sister. She was asking her boyfriend to leave. He gave physical protest. I was reading, or eating, or scrolling endlessly, and then I was asking my boyfriend to come over, just in case, asking because we felt like the other man should leave, asking because when does a man simply leave?

My boyfriend and I stayed at her back door, Just in case you need us, you probably won’t but we’ll be here just in case. This partner of my sister’s started breaking bookshelves. And we went inside. And he pulled the butcher knife.

It was a psychotic break, apparently. Hadn’t taken his meds consistently. Decided to run a knife against the new paint and my sister’s computer and the bed sheets and her pillow.

I began watering the windowsill orchids after I showered, wringing the water from my hair onto their aerial roots.

I remember most about the little boy being hit was the woman in the Mustang. At a bend in the road, she had attempted to dodge the boy in the middle of her right-hand turn. Her door was wide open, her face peeking out of heavily tinted windows like The Scream — hands pressed to cheeks and mouth open with silence just as bloodcurdling. What would you do, coming home at 5:30 p.m., rushing a bit but no more than usual when the day has been long and it’s getting dark sooner and you’d rather change, and you hit a child? Her hands were shaking, and, removed, I realized she should be a case study on shock for medical students.

The boy had been running from something. He was no more than ten, wearing his pants inside out and had no parents calling for him. He had come from the International District, and it was assumed something was wrong with his running. He was plugging his ears and muttering and running, and the mustang whipped his legs from under him and flung him to the asphalt, and he made noise for a while. And then he was lying there. My sister, who had briefly pursued medical school herself, assured me, It’s good he’s crying, that means he’s conscious...it’s good he’s gone quiet, the pain must be too much. I knew when he went silent though; I knew when the paramedics didn’t bother with a gurney.

My Zoom class cut off exactly as I was supposed to present (kismet, since I hadn’t written down the right German conjugations for the PowerPoint). I didn’t bother to go out for the sound of those brakes. It’s a drunk driver. The power went out. They just hit the line on the corner. Second one in three months. I wrote to the city a while back letting them know they really needed a light on this corner. No, of course, I haven’t heard back yet, you know the city council and their BS. I didn’t bother to go out for the sound of those brakes.

My reputation with orchids in that apartment brought my father over to donate three of his “dying” specimens to me. I made them all bloom. Don’t bother with the ice-cube-melting-in-their-pots trick, and a mix of perlite and lava rocks isn’t as valuable as humidity.

At this point, screeching brakes are my signal to go outside, worriedly and at a mixed pace. What

Do Payday Loan Industry Regulations Hurt the Consumer? Larry Rybarcyck

Introduction:

The payday loan industry provides borrowers with access to the consumer credit market for small-dollar, short-term, unsecured loans. Many in our communities use this service because they are not able to obtain a similar type of loan through more traditional means. In 2010, approximately 5% of the U.S. adult population whose annual income ranged from $15,000 to $25,000 had obtained a payday loan to help cover income shortfalls and meet routine expenses as well as emergency and unplanned expenses (Ramirez 2020). In an unregulated market, this form of credit is much more expensive than what consumers would typically face in the traditional credit markets, e.g., using a typical bank-issued credit card. Consumer advocates have therefore pushed to regulate this industry with the goal of helping those who use this service avoid deeper financial hardship. However, by regulating the payday loan industry, would the government actually be harming the consumer? This literature review seeks to investigate this question. Although harm can come in many forms, Edmiston (2011) summarized the possibilities: denying consumers access to credit, restricting their ability to maintain a credit standing, or forcing them to seek alternative financial services, which might even be more costly. For the purpose of addressing the question in this review, harm is considered to come in the form of higher costs to the consumer and/or a reduction in access to payday loans.

To investigate this question, the review is broken into three topics. The first is interest rate cap regulation, which is a common approach used to limit the amount of fees charged by a payday lender and therefore the price of a payday loan. The second is the requirement for financial disclosures, which forces payday lenders to inform the potential borrower about the cost, etc. of the loan. Finally, the regulations may produce unintended consequences. This is an important aspect since the outcome of the regulatory actions may not be what was intended or beneficial to the consumer.

Interest Rate Cap Regulations:

Interest rate caps are a common type of regulation and place an upper limit on the fees, as a percentage of the principal, that a customer will be charged for a payday loan. This is one of the most contentious aspects of the payday loan industry. Prior to any rate cap restriction, a typical payday loan business would charge a $15 fee

on a $100 loan with a two-week term. In addition, if the borrower could not repay the principal at the end of the term, the loan would be rolled over for the cost of the fee. This would be allowed to happen numerous times until the principal was paid back. In this example, the effective annual percentage rate (APR) for the loan is 390%. To combat these excessive rates and help the consumer, many states have enacted legislation to limit or “cap” the effective rates at significantly smaller levels.

The results of studies on the impact of rate cap regulations are mixed and appear to depend upon the magnitude of the rate cap. Ramirez (2019) found that the 28% APR limit enacted in Ohio implicitly banned the payday loan industry from operating in the state. In this study, Ramirez found that the number of payday loan branches dropped 92% after the rate ban went into effect. This prohibitive rate cap resulted in a loss of access to the payday loan services for those who sought to use them. Similarly, Zinman (2010) found that a rate cap with an effective APR of 150% enacted in Oregon resulted in a 76% reduction in the number of payday lender branches, again reducing customer access to payday loans. In this analysis, Zinman also found that the volume of payday loans fell by over 26%. However, a rate cap analysis by Fekrazad (2020) on the payday loan industry in Rhode Island found that a reduction in the effective rate from 390% APR (15% fee on a two-week loan) down to 260% APR (10% fee on a two-week loan) did not result in a change in the number of payday loan branches in Rhode Island. In addition, he found that consumers responded elastically to the reduction in the rate cap with increased loan usage. DeYoung and Phillips (2013) studied the effects of price caps in the payday loan industry in Colorado. Their results indicated that prior to the regulations, the industry was more price competitive, e.g., offering first-time borrowers a better rate than returning customers. Following the price caps, however, competitive pricing slowly disappeared, and overall, the loan prices rose to the cap value, resulting in higher annual borrowing costs to the consumer.

These results suggest that rate cap restrictions can be beneficial for the consumer up to a point. Modest rate caps enable consumers to borrow at lower costs without forcing a reduction in the number of branches and therefore access to them. By contrast, prohibitive rate caps severely limit the availability of payday lenders to those seeking access, which reduces the volume of payday loans. These prohibitive rate caps also have unexpected consequences,

Financial Disclosures Regulations:

Financial disclosure regulations require that lenders must provide loan cost and renewal details to the borrower in advance of providing the loan. When this industry is unregulated, payday loans are typically given with an effective APR of around 400%, which would suggest that there may be information asymmetry present, and that the consumer is at a disadvantage. The ease of obtaining these loans may be a major factor in why consumers choose them. Other credit options require more employment history, financial information, and a better credit rating or collateral. This type of regulation is aimed at mitigating this information asymmetry so the borrower can make the best decision in their situation.

A study by Wang and Burke (2021) found that a disclosure regulation, which requires the lender to inform the customer of the loan costs compared to other credit products, was enacted statewide in Texas and led to a 13% drop in the volume of payday loans. Furthermore, more strict local ordinances subsequently enacted separately in Austin and Dallas ultimately led to a 61% and 44% drop, respectively, in the volume of payday loans granted in those municipalities, but only after the start of enforcement of these laws. Borrowers chose not to use the payday loan services once they were better informed about and understood the terms of the loan agreement and potential costs to them. Conversely, a significant fraction of the individuals that take out a payday loan lack enough information or understanding to make an informed decision.

In support of these findings are the results of a study by Kim and Lee (2018), who analyzed the use of payday loans by people with differing levels of financial literacy. Financial literacy means that one understands the relevant concepts, can process pertinent information, and can make informed decisions regarding financial matters. In this study, they found a strong negative correlation between level of financial literacy and use of payday loans. This suggests that those using payday loan services are not financially literate.

Together, these studies support the idea that a disclosure regulation can be effective in dissuading individuals from using high-cost payday loan services when they are more clearly informed of the alternatives. In addition, the enforcement of these disclosure laws was shown to be necessary to achieve the desired outcome, i.e., reduction in use of the payday loan services.

Unintended Consequences of Regulations:

In the context of the payday loan industry, state legislators write bills with the goal of enacting regulations on this industry that will help those who use these services

and are exposed to the excessive fees, etc. that can lead to prolonged financial hardship. However, if legislators enact laws without a holistic point of view, it can lead to unintended consequences.

A study by Ramirez (2019) showed in the case where the rate cap was prohibitive, i.e., 28% APR, consumers chose near and not so near “substitutes” in the alternative financial services (AFS) industry. Pawnbrokers are considered good substitutes for the payday loan service, whereas small-loan and second-mortgage lenders are not. Yet the results of this study showed that after the payday loan ban was enacted, pawnbrokers, small-loan lenders, and second-mortgage lenders experienced an increase of 97%, 156%, and 43%, respectively, in countylevel licensees per million people in Ohio. This indicates that a significant fraction of those consumers shut out of the payday loan service found assistance through response by substitutes in AFS. Similarly, Bhutta et al. (2016) also found that payday lending bans drive consumers to AFS. The increase in loans taken at pawnshops was strongly correlated to the decrease in loans at payday services following the payday lending bans. However, this correlation was not seen in the lowest income consumer group studied and those who most often use these services.

Creating single-purpose regulations, e.g., a rate cap restriction, can result in the unintended consequence of borrowers moving to other AFS. Although the response is not necessarily uniform from the different income groups, the outcome is likely an unintended consequence of enacting the single purpose restrictions.

Conclusions:

From a review of several research studies done on rate-cap regulations in states across the U.S., one could conclude that there is strong evidence to indicate that small to modest rate caps are beneficial but that a severe rate cap is harmful. Up to modest-size rate caps help reduce the cost of the payday loans with limited loan branch closings. This is not harmful to the consumer but is instead beneficial since they can still access payday loan services, albeit at reduced branch locations, and at a reduced cost. However, somewhere between a regulated APR of 150% and 260%, the number of operating payday loan branches starts to decrease. Although the cost of a loan is dropping, which is beneficial, there are fewer operating branches and so access is reduced, which is harmful. Finally, when the regulated caps were severe or prohibitive, the payday loan industry was implicitly banned from operating in that state, which harmed consumers because of complete loss of access to a payday loan.

Financial disclosure regulations appear to be beneficial and not at all harmful to the consumer. From the limited amount of research reviewed, the enforced financial disclosure reduced the number of payday loans taken by

about half without driving consumers to AFS. Enforcement appears to be critical in ensuring that the consumer benefits from this type of regulation. The unenforced state regulation was not as effective, reducing the volume of payday loans by about 13%. This conclusion also does not contradict the research findings that show that less financially literate individuals are more likely to use payday loans than those who are more financially literate.

Finally, one can conclude that regulations on this financial industry should not be done with a single restriction in mind. Research has shown that this type of regulation, e.g., a rate cap only, can harm the consumer by potentially driving them to other, costly AFS. This outcome from a narrowly focused regulation is certainly not what was sought by the authors and advocates of the legislation.

Therefore, a more balanced, holistic approach to regulating the payday loan industry might be the best approach that provides benefit and minimizes the harm done to the consumer. This could be to introduce a modest rate cap with an effective APR of between 200% to 250%, which reduces the cost to consumers yet enables most but probably not all of these branches to continue operating. In addition, including an enforced financial disclosure requirement to assist those pursuing a payday loan would help borrowers better understand the cost relative to alternatives. This also has the benefit of potentially increasing the financial literacy of those who use these services. This type of approach would likely not drive borrowers to use either good or inferior substitutes, i.e., high-cost AFS, but would instead help reduce the cost and use of these loans while making them smarter consumers.

These studies, however informative, are limited in number and scope, which suggests that further research is needed to help answer the original question more fully and lead to a better regulatory approach that benefits the consumer. Although a rudimentary trend has emerged from the research performed on the three states discussed in this part of the review, more rate cap data is needed from additional states to better understand how an APR cap impacts payday loan branch numbers and consumer loan volume across the U.S. More state, lender, or consumer survey data from different states, analyzed using the difference-in-differences regression techniques utilized in most of these studies, would better define this trend and increase the applicability of the results to a broader swath of the country.

Although the response to financial disclosure regulations was encouraging, additional data from other states is also needed. The sole research work of Wang and Burke (2021) included in this review found that enforcement was critical in achieving the sizable reduction in volume of payday loans made in the municipalities of Dallas and Austin. Additional research into

consumer response to financial disclosure requirements with and without enforcement that encompasses other states would help give a better estimate of the benefits of this type of regulation and whether enforcement is warranted.

In addition, a more complete review would also require consideration of other impacts from these and other types of regulatory requirements. The impact to the consumer might include changes in payday loan sizes, loan sequences, loan durations, loan defaults, overall consumer welfare, and bankruptcies due to the introduction of the regulations. Furthermore, including demographic information in the data collection process could allow researchers to understand the impact to different groups as well. The addition of this information could help to better understand the level of harm (or benefit) that different payday loan industry regulations have on borrowers and ultimately help government officials to craft legislation that best serves the interests of the more vulnerable in our society.

REFERENCES

Bhutta, Neil, Jacob Goldin, and Tatiana Homonoff. 2016. “Consumer Borrowing after Payday Loan Bans.” Journal of Law and Economics 59 (1): 225–59.

DeYoung, Robert, and Ronnie J. Phillips. 2013. “Interest Rate Caps and Implicit Collusion: The Case of Payday Lending.” International Journal of Banking, Accounting and Finance 5 (1–2): 121–58.

Edmiston, Kelly D. 2011. “Could Restrictions on Payday Lending Hurt Consumers?” Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Review 96 (1): 31–61

Fekrazad, Amir. 2020. “Impacts of Interest Rate Caps on the Payday Loan Market: Evidence from Rhode Island.” Journal of Banking and Finance 113 (April) 105750.

Kim, Kyoung Tae, and Jonghee Lee. 2018. “Financial Literacy and Use of Payday Loans in the United States.” Applied Economics Letters 25 (11): 781–84.

Ramirez, Stefanie R. 2019. “Payday-Loan Bans: Evidence of Indirect Effects on Supply.” Empirical Economics 56 (3): 1011–37.

Ramirez, Stefanie R. 2020. “Regulation and the Payday Lending Industry.” Contemporary Economic Policy 38 (4): 675–93.

Wang, Jialan, and Kathleen Burke. 2021. “The Effects of Disclosure and Enforcement on Payday Lending in Texas.” NBER working paper 28765.

Zinman, J. (2010). Restricting Consumer Credit Access: Household Survey Evidence on Effects around the Oregon Rate Cap. Journal of Banking and Finance, 34(3), 546–556.

Contributor Bios Contributor Bios

Maddie Coburn (she/her) is a junior from Tucson, Arizona studying biology. After graduation, she hopes to continue her studies in evolutionary and organismal biology. Outside of school, she enjoys reading, horseback riding, hiking, and spending time with her younger sisters.

Spenser Willden is a senior studying honors interdisciplinary liberal arts and English creative writing. Generally, he is a fool up to no good, and if I were you, I wouldn’t trust him an inch.

Thea Swift is currently pursuing her master’s in landscape architecture at UNM with the goal of exploring the intersection of art, social justice, and ecological wellbeing. She believes the health of both humans and nonhumans depends upon the reweaving of reciprocal relationships between people and the land.

Zane Shirley is a nonbinary philosophy student at UNM. A staunch “Transcendentalist Anarchist,” in their own words, this is the first paper they’ve had published that was not of a political or philosophical nature. The subject of this essay, however, is simple, silly, and close to Zane’s heart.

Sachi Barnaby (she/her) is a sophomore studying computer science and women, gender, and sexuality studies. She plans to pursue a career in robotics where she hopes to make the technology more feminist. Beyond the classroom, she enjoys listening to music and is always eager for recommendations.

Samuel Shorty is an Indigenous artist who is going to college for film and digital media.

Gillian Barkhurst is a first-year journalism student at UNM. Gillian has loved all things writing since she could hold a pen and has turned that passion toward her studies.

Izze Thomas is a freshman majoring in biology with minors in chemistry and Spanish. She is a volunteer at the Agora Crisis Center, plays flute, and hopes to attend medical school. Her essay was inspired by the frustration and confusion she felt growing up as a multiracial person.

Simon Ruybalid is a history and anthropology double-major intending to research the chisme surrounding and stories of “la llorona,” witches, etc., in how they influence colonist and colonized communities’ social forces- economics, gender, politics, etc.,- in the US-Mexico borderlands.

Sydney Drummond is an undergraduate at UNM pursuing a B.S. in biology.

Simone Sena is a senior majoring in biology at the University of New Mexico. She loves both the sciences and the arts. After finishing her undergraduate degree, Simone plans on attending medical school with the goal of providing compassionate and equitable healthcare in rural communities.

Camila Seluja is an English major who loves to read (no surprise there). She was born and raised in New Mexico and lives with her cat, Fish, and many plants.

Larry Rybarcyk is a retired scientist, part-time student, and senior from Los Alamos, New Mexico, majoring in economics and minoring in computer science. When not studying or mentoring a few of the young scientists who work in his former group, he enjoys daily walks and spending time with his family.

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