PRIME Spring 2019 by Daily Bruin

from the daily bruin SPRING 2019

In his interg alac novel, an illus tic graphic trator gains a new understand ing of his in troversion.

prayer & p

PG 24

PG 12

introvers odyssey ion

ride

Bible excerp ts, music, community â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a look at ho w UCL A studen ts reconcile d their Christian an d LGBTQ iden tities.

onging waiting to be seen Preparing fo r her cospla y de K

PG 38

becoming, bel

ennedy Hill but, explores the space black women have found in the anime community.

NO CORKAGE - EVER!

55 NORTH LA CIENEGA BOULEVARD ~ NEAR WILSHIRE P: 310.652.7673 ~ THESTINKINGROSE.COM

letter from the editors

Dear reader, If there’s one thing many of us will learn in college, it’s that meshing with the places, people and pursuits that make us feel like we’re home can be quite a challenge. But what does it take to belong? Kennedy Hill, a self-proclaimed “blerd” – a black nerd – and lifelong fan of anime, found the confidence to cosplay by speaking with other trailblazing female blerds. She confronts a persisting feeling of exclusion from the anime community head on. Similarly, Molly Wright addresses her unintentional withdrawal from friends and family post-breakup. Some take a more self-reflective approach. In his graphic novel, Marvel fan Cody Wilson illustrates how he came to terms with his introverted nature following the passing of his heroes. Kristin Snyder brings to light how individual study, music and friendship gave some LGBTQ students the will to reconcile disparate identities within the Christian community. And in her column, Anushka Jain tells us the story of her growing up, laying bare the nature of her grief after losing her mother. Abby Thomas uncovers the individuated paths the seemingly uniform cadets of ROTC walk on in their search for purpose. Writer Joy Harjanto shows we are capable of more than we think, speaking with students once dismissed from UCLA who, once convinced they didn’t belong on campus, made their way back. This quarter, PRIME shows us belonging isn’t contingent on comfort. Rather, it’s an active process those featured in this final edition prove is well-worth the time and effort. Thank you for picking up this last issue of PRIME, we hope you enjoy it! Best,

Juliette Le Saint PRIME director

Juliette Le Saint [ PRIME director ] Alexandra Del Rosario [ PRIME content editor ] Megan Le [ PRIME art director ] [ writers ] Joy Harjanto, Kennedy Hill, Anushka Jain, Kristin Snyder, Abby Thomas, Cody Wilson, Molly Wright [ photographers ] Joe Akira, Amy Dixon, Ashley Kenney, Kanishka Mehra, Tanmay Shankar, Niveda Tennety, Ellie Tsai [ illustrators & graphic designers ] Iris Huang, Juliette Le Saint, Pauline Ordonez, Claire Sun, Clara Vamvulescu,

Alexandra Del Rosario PRIME content editor

Cody Wilson [ designers ] Lauren Ho, Megan Le, Sophie Marencik, Edward Qiao, Khang Vinh, Callista Wu, Angela Zhou Anush Khatri [ copy chief ] Rachel Wong [ assistant copy chief ] Olivia Fitzmorris, Elton Ho, Phillip Krings, Saskia Lane, Maris Tasaka, Nidhi Upadhyay, Grace Ye [ slot editors ] Dustin Newman [ online editor ] Henna Dialani, Neil Prajapati, Richard Yang, Grace Yu, Mike Zhang [ assistant online editors ] Richard Yang [ PRIME website project

Megan Le PRIME art director

manager ] Mindi Cao, Karl Huang, Kevin Qian, Max Wu [ PRIME website developers ] [ daily bruin ] Jacob Preal [ editor in chief ] Amy Baumgartner [ managing editor ] Michael Zshornack [ digital managing editor ] Jeremy Wildman [ business manager ] Abigail Goldman [ editorial adviser ] The Daily Bruin (ISSN 1080-5060) is published and copyrighted by the ASUCLA Communications Board. All rights are reserved. Reprinting of any material in this publication without the written permission of the Communications Board is strictly

prohibited. The ASUCLA Communications Board fully supports the University of California’s policy on non-discrimination. The student media reserve the right to reject or modify advertising whose content discriminates on the basis of ancestry, color, national origin, race, religion, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation. The ASUCLA Communications Board has a media grievance procedure for resolving complaints against any of its publications. For a copy of the complete procedure, contact the publications office at 118 Kerckhoff Hall. All inserts that are printed in the Daily Bruin are independently paid publications and do not reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the staff. To request a reprint of any photo appearing in the Daily Bruin, contact the photo desk at 310825-2828 or email photo@dailybruin.com.

PRIME | SPRING 2019 prime.dailybruin.com

COVER PHOTO BY ASHLEY KENNEY ILLUSTRATION BY CLAIRE SUN

Split Ends

After her breakup eroded cherished relationships with her friends and family, Molly Wright examines her efforts to reconnect with loved ones.

Introversion Odyssey

In his intergalactic graphic novel, illustrator Cody Wilson cultivates a new understanding of his two idols: extroverted Marvel icon Stan Lee and introverted co-creator, Steve Ditko.

May Not Be There Tomorrow

Anushka Jain reflects on her winding grieving process after losing her mother to cancer at nine years old.

Prayer & Pride

From reinterpreting Bible excerpts to building community, UCL A students walk different paths to reconcile their Christian and LGBTQ identities.

Beyond the Uniform

In uniform, ROTC members stand at attention and march through campus. Abby Thomas takes the time to know the students behind the uniform and their different intents in joining the program.

Waiting to be Seen Kennedy Hill reflects on where black women figure in anime fandom ahead of her cosplay debut at San Joseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s FanimeCon.

A Second Chance

Academic dismissal and probation can push UCL A studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; goals and dreams to a standstill. Joy Harjanto uncovers how students gave themselves second chances.

PRIME | SPRING 2019

split ends written by MOLLY WRIGHT

illustrations by IRIS HUANG & JULIETTE LE SAINT designed by CALLISTA WU

Aw k wa r d c o n v e r sat i o n s, f o r c e d s m i l e s A ND avo i da n c e – these things became integrated into my daily routine after my breakup. When I met my now-ex-boyfriend my freshman year of college, I was ecstatic at how quickly and easily my ideal relationship seemed to fall right into my lap. We bonded over most things and joked about whatever we didn’t: He teased me over the fact that I didn’t watch movies, and I made fun of him for disliking coffee. Over time, he became a well-integrated member of my friend group, as I tend to bring together those I consider most important in my life. Even though I built my first two years of college on a foundation with this person in mind, I thought the rest of my social life – friends, clubs – was well-rounded and stable. Turns out, it was anything but. Regardless, we both knew we weren’t as compatible as we’d originally thought, so we had a candid talk and, in the end, our relationship ended amicably. When we eventually broke up, I was hit hard – as most young people are when having their rosy aspirations circulate down the drain. I couldn’t find a compelling reason to grab coffee or go on a hike with my friends. It was difficult to put on makeup in the morning or interact normally with others because I didn’t feel like myself. I

cycled through every emotion possible – I was upset, I was angry, I was even relieved for a period of time. Under the surface, this earthquake of a breakup left aftershocks in its wake, taking out my most cherished lines of communication in their path. The breakup disrupted every significant relationship I had – and I didn’t know why. When I relayed the breakup to my mom, I was met with an awkward silence that complemented the crackling on the other end of the line. “Well,” she paused. I could picture her forehead lines deepening; I heard her feet shuffle rhythmically as she paced around the kitchen. “I’m sorry about that.” My mom was at a complete loss for words, and I couldn’t blame her. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed and frustrated when I’d thought I could come to my mom for anything. But really, struggling with an appropriate response isn’t uncommon when dealing with emotional distress, said Dr. Benjamin Karney, a social psychology professor at UCLA. “With emotional pain, a lot of times there isn’t a

PRIME | SPRING 2019

solution – there isn’t really advice you can give,” Karney said. “Sometimes the helper misunderstands what it is a person in need actually needs. Sometimes we want advice, other times we just want to be heard, we want to be seen.” I couldn’t fill the empty pockets of silence left by the absence of the times I’d spent telling my mom stories about my relationship. Our conversations weren’t sustainable anymore, largely because neither of us knew how to act toward the other.

“

Sometimes we want advice, other times we just want to be heard, we want to be seen. Sitting down for dinner one night a few weeks after the breakup, we rushed through surface level conversation about what I was doing in my classes and how nice the weather in Los Angeles is compared to my hometown in hopes of moving on to more scintillating conversation. It was no use. Neither of us knew how to transition to deeper conversation when I’d grown tired of explaining the source of my sadness, only to make my mom feel uncomfortable in the silence that ensued. So we drifted apart, slowly, because all we knew now was small talk. We couldn’t follow the same conversational flow and talk for hours like we used to, so we distanced ourselves. Weeks would pass without more than a few words exchanged, and I’d never felt so disconnected. Someone I heavily relied on for emotional support was no longer available in the same way, like they were when I was still in a romantic relationship. Though it was easier to dismiss the relationship between my mom and me as a temporary rift that would eventually mend itself with some breathing room, the emotional distance felt more painfully obvious between my closest friends and me. These distances scared me the most because those relationships were the most transient and susceptible to breakage.

I noticed when my roommates would generate excuses like clockwork for staying outside our room. Whenever I’d enter, they’d fall silent, and the quiet felt increasingly oppressive until they eventually muttered an excuse for studying somewhere else or leaving for an errand. Conversations often switched from lighthearted banter to hesitant questions about how I was doing. They were uncomfortable, like my mom. My palms would sweat and trigger an endless stream of doubts: “What should I say? Why aren’t they talking?” I felt like a stranger in my room, a million times removed from people I call my best friends. I was afraid to return to the familiar subject of my breakup time and time again at risk of being an emotional burden. When I explained my situation to professor Thomas Bradbury, a psychology instructor at UCLA who studies relationship science, he said there is often a large disconnect between how your friends feel like they can help you when they’re unsure about why the relationship ended. “We’re in the midst of struggling with very complicated things, like, ‘Why did this go wrong? What happened? Is there something wrong with me? Did I do something wrong?’ And there often are not really simple answers to that,” Bradbury said. “If a friend doesn’t know what happened, it’s hard for them to help you when you’re undergoing hardship.” I wasn’t being fully honest with my friends because I was scared for my vulnerability to be met with silence and tension. It felt safer to guard my feelings rather than expose them to my friends who wouldn’t know how to respond. In turn, they weren’t sure how to breach the subject of my breakup to begin with. The disconnect in communication put us in very awkward limbo but brought some comic relief when our words danced around one another whenever we’d try to start a conversation. Similarly, I often had difficulty communicating to my friends that I needed them to be there for me. I was so self-conscious about inadvertently directing the conversation back to my sadness that I bottled up my feelings and was not honest about what I really needed from my friends. Whenever we’d go out to eat or do homework together, I would engage in lighthearted conversation like nothing was wrong because I assumed that everyone was tired of the exhausted subject. I felt like I didn’t have an adequate way to release my

feelings, which compounded anxiety and left me feeling more isolated than ever before. Maybe my friends couldn’t relate to me because I wasn’t straightforward enough about needing emotional support, according to Giovanni Rossi, an assistant professor in UCLA’s sociology department. Rossi said we’re not always clear enough. He said requesting help and offering help are very different interactions, and because of this, we’re not always explicit in our requests for help. I struggled with stating outright that I needed my friends to be there for me and listen attentively to my grievances. I didn’t want to appear needy or admit that I was having trouble recuperating and moving on because I was terrified of displaying weakness. And most surprisingly, as I’d suspected my friends were having a hard time speaking with me because they couldn’t understand me, they were likely also worried about a similar resurgence of distress. I’m not the only one who has experienced heartbreak – I’ve sat at the edge of the bed while one of my closest friends sobbed for hours on end, her cries echoing off the hallway and ringing painfully loud in the ears of whoever was around. “We use our own experience to empathize – it has the potential cost of bringing back suffering that might not have been completely processed. It might have cascading and unwanted collateral effects,” Rossi said. One of the issues, though, was that I didn’t know how to escape my anguish. Even when I left my room, the problem chased me. The sense of anonymity I thought I felt came back to me like a curse with a vengeance – I felt like everywhere I turned, I locked eyes with someone who transported me back to specific moments in time that I was trying to forget. When I’d run into someone connected to my past around campus, our eye contact would linger for a few seconds too long as we evaluated the socially acceptable way to acknowledge each other. Oftentimes, they would look away like they didn’t notice; other times, they’d force a half-smile and avert their gaze. A specific moment in time – studying, grabbing lunch – would surge back into my memory like a 30-foot wave. Every period of reminiscing led to days of dwelling and the inability to forget, no matter how much I tried to distract myself. My momentary lack of confidence led me to question how well I’d be received if I attempted to reach out – and it seemed clear to me that, with the averted gazes

and faint smiles, the others felt the same way, too. Karney said these uncomfortable social situations arise because one of the biggest problems after a breakup is people in your life having to choose a side. “When people are in an intimate relationship, a lot of times they share their social network; they share their friends and the other relationships in their life with their partner,” Karney said. “If you break up with somebody, that breakup affects other people you were in a relationship with as well because they have to decide how to treat the two of you.” One afternoon, one of my closest friends and I decided to go into Westwood Village to catch up over dinner. I wasn’t feeling very good about myself that day; my frustration concerning my lack of progress in recovering from my breakup months later still brought my mood down. I could tell my face reflected my dejected emotions thanks to my friend’s uncomfortable shifting in her seat and occasional glance down at her plate. I was staring intently at my bowl of shiny tomato soup when she let out a faint sigh. She opened her mouth, closed it as she turned thoughts around in her head and abruptly said, “I want to see you be more powerful.” I was so caught up in anticipating that those around me would be sympathetic that I wasn’t prepared for the bout of tough love. Red rushed to my cheeks and I remained mute, embarrassed that I once again couldn’t stow away my feelings at the expense of someone I deeply cared about.

”

If you break up with somebody, that breakup affects other people you were in a relationship with as well.

The rest of the meal was awkward, as I wasn’t sure how to humble myself by admitting that she had a right to be frustrated. I wasn’t alone in my feelings of detachment – the emotional distance was aggravating

PRIME | SPRING 2019

those close to me, too. In order for me to fully appreciate my relationships again, I first had to grapple with accepting myself for the person I was. I felt insecure and less worthy of future relationships, so I had to have a real heart-to-heart with myself. My realization in that moment was twofold: I wasn’t upholding my end of the bargain with the relationships I perceived to be floundering, and it was ludicrous to expect that everyone would cater to my feelings during my time of sadness. I was constantly at war with the idea that I knew my situation wasn’t unique or special. Relatable, yes, and almost everybody goes through a similar scenario in life and it isn’t any less valid nor emotionally demanding. I needed to work on actively bridging the gap with others instead of waiting for them to tend to my feelings. Accepting myself bloomed at odd intervals throughout the journey. It started with angrily sitting in the piercer’s chair and waiting for the needle to puncture my ear in retaliation for feeling hurt. It’s the most cliche trick in the book, but cutting my hair rang in the fresh change I wanted to see in my life. Altering my physical appearance in subtle ways provided a small enough distraction to catalyze accepting my current situation for what it was and that it was perfectly okay. Every morning, the oppressive feeling of heartbreak was the first emotion I’d feel each day when I sat up in bed. I still go throughout my day combating feelings of anger and sadness – whether I’m walking to Kerckhoff or taking notes in class, my mind always wanders back to the broken relationship, even though it happened many months ago. “Time heals all wounds” – whenever I heard that saying after my breakup, I’d roll my eyes and reminisce on feelings of fresh hurt, such as curling up under the covers and avoiding homework for days, that persisted long after the breakup was over. In reality, though, it’s miraculous how tenacious we can be when we have time on our side. As students, we still have so much life to live, and it’s important to keep focusing on exciting prospects for the future. Life doesn’t slow down, and the weight of the severed ties perhaps becomes the second, the third or the fourth thing you think about each day instead of the first when you have plans in motion. Though it still occupies a space in my mind, that space becomes smaller every day,

making room for the people who have stuck with me through it all. “Give yourself time to feel whatever feelings you need to feel – no one expects you to bounce back from a breakup immediately,” Karney said. “You have people that you care about – the period after a breakup is a chance to reconnect with those people.” And reconnecting was something I had to pull myself together enough to do. I had to swallow my pride and understand that my actions toward everyone I knew affected them more than I’d previously considered. One afternoon, I stared at my phone, waiting for feedback after I’d offered to do something fun with my roommates for the first time since the breakup. I was worried that I’d become so far removed they would brush off the offer, wondering why I was just now deciding to reach out. I texted my mom, asking if we could talk about what really happened when the relationship came to an end: I had to be completely open and honest if there was any chance for me to start feeling better and therefore treating others better. After a while, messages between my friends and me detailing plans in the works popped up on my screen. My mom and I agreed to set aside time to have a much-needed, cathartic discussion. I exhaled a sigh of relief, tears instantly clouding my vision. The people in my life who I’d momentarily lost sight of were still there. After looking past my heartbreak and realizing how important it was to have people on my side, I was finally able to dig through the rubble and uncover pieces – relationships – that demanded salvaging. The unfamiliarity of faces as I meander past clusters of students daily is something I’ve found immense comfort in throughout my three years at UCLA. I can rest easily knowing that there’s lots of potential for many new relationships and social and emotional growth. I can still walk around without seeing a familiar face, but my social networks have grown; they’ve become intricate and intertwined. Even in a crowd where I don’t recognize anyone, I think back to my friends and family and all the people who make me more connected than I realize. Many people will leave us throughout our lifetimes, but we overlook the fact that oftentimes, the most important ones remain. It’s okay to detach and drift away – as long as you find yourself back with the people who matter most to you.

The people in my life who Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d momentarily lost sight of were still there.

PRIME | SPRING 2019

Introversion Odyssey written, illustrated + designed by CODY WILSON

PRIME | SPRING 2019

May Not Be There Tomorr “K

al Ho Naa Ho” is one of Bollywood’s most well-known films. A romantic drama set in New York City, the film is a guilty pleasure my mom and I indulged in when I was a child, the disc regularly popped into our DVD player. The production stars Shah Rukh Khan, who plays Aman Mathur, the witty and charismatic boy next door to Naina Catherine Kapur, a cynical MBA student, played by Preity Zinta. The two unsurprisingly fall in love and despite the innately cheesy plot, watching Naina and Aman’s relationship bloom on screen always brought a smile to my and my mom’s faces. In the movie, before Naina is able to share her feelings out loud, she spots a wedding photo of Aman and another woman. Caught off guard, she runs away from his house heartbroken. She later learns the woman in the photo is not his wife, but his doctor. This is when she, alongside firsttime “Kal Ho Naa Ho” viewers, finds out Aman has a fatal heart condition. Aman doesn’t outwardly reciprocate her feelings because he won’t be alive to spend the rest of his life with her. The film ends with him at his deathbed, wishing a tearful Naina a happy life. In English, “Kal Ho Naa Ho” translates to “May Not Be There Tomorrow.” At the time, the film’s sentimental nature was simply another cliche aspect of a dramatic romance to me, something my mom and I watched at home for the sake of my own entertainment. One evening, when I was seven, the two of us lay on the couch as “Kal Ho Naa Ho” played on the television, watching it just as earnestly as we had the first time. The film’s closing scene showed Naina years in the future, sharing dear memories of Aman with her family. The movie ended like it always did, but my night ended differently than usual. A few hours after the credits rolled, our landline touted a shrill ring and my mom rushed to answer it. I walked into the living room minutes later to see her laying flat on her back with her hands covering her eyes as she sobbed quietly. I would soon learn that earlier that week, she had visited her oncologist, concerned that her breast cancer had resurfaced. Days later, my mom’s doctor confirmed her relapse.

row

written by anushka jain photos by AMY DIXON illustration by CLARA VAMVULESCU designed by SOPHIE MARENCIK

PRIME | SPRING 2019

Losing to Cancer

My mom passed away a year and a half later. Leading up to her death, I was constantly surrounded by the realities of living with a suffering, unwell parent. For days at a time I stayed at home with my grandmother while my mom received chemotherapy treatments at a hospital five hours away from home. My mom once drove me to a piano class after school and suddenly began throwing up, almost crashing our maroon Nissan Pathfinder on one of the busiest roads of our North Texas suburb. One night, my beforebed conversation with her was abruptly cut short by the onset of sudden breathing problems. Minutes later, there was an ambulance blaring outside our home while paramedics carried her out on a stretcher. The neighbors all stared as my dad hurriedly tried to make sense of what was going on. I cautiously stood near my front door, too shocked and afraid to inch any closer to the sirens. Seeing my mom pull chunks of her

hair out until she lost it all and watching her grow increasingly fatigued was frightening and unknown to me. I had never seen my mom lack enthusiasm in anything she did, but suddenly, she didn’t even have the energy to get out of bed. She was no longer able to pick me up from school or piece together vivid artwork or cheerfully dance and sing to our favorite Hindi songs. She used to spend her nights reciting the Hanuman Chalisa, a Hindu prayer hymn, to me before I would go to sleep. But after her diagnosis, she became increasingly restless, nearly unable to narrate the hymn through the lethargic rasp in her voice. Despite months of hospitalization and chemotherapy, my mom lost her battle to breast cancer at 38 years old. When I look back on her experience with the disease and her passing, I’m always met with memories of how I began my journey with grief. My coping method was meager, almost fleeting; on the day my mom died, I cried for a few minutes and went about the rest of my day, acting as if nothing had happened. While my parents’ friends visited my house to console my dad and grandparents, I sat alone in my dad’s office purposefully avoiding them as I watched a movie, acting like I was just another normal kid enjoying a leisurely summer. I even went to my best friend’s house that afternoon, choosing not to tell her about the day’s events. If I acted like she hadn’t died, then maybe she had never gotten sick. Everything was normal, I convinced myself. My mom suffered from cancer for a year and a half. And in less than an hour, I pretended that I had already processed losing her, trying to immediately revert myself back to who I was before her diagnosis.

Around Me Today, I believe I’ve slowly inched toward acceptance of my mom’s passing. Now, at least sometimes, I allow myself to tell those around me what happened in my life when I was younger. I let myself dig through some of her old jots and scribbles, ones in which she wrote down her travel bucket lists and interests at the time, which I’ve kept tucked away in a box in my dorm room. I cry when I need to, something I avoided doing for years. I did not follow a smooth path to reach this point. My grief was almost completely internalized – my pain perplexingly nonexistent – for years after she passed away. Soon after she died, my dad and I began making the half-hour drive to Journey of Hope, a grief support group, twice a week, at which we gathered with others who had lost their loved ones. We would split into rooms by age and I’d listen to other kids talk about the passing of their sibling or parent or friend. “I’m Anushka, I’m 9. My mom passed away in August. Breast cancer.” I rarely went farther than reciting that script. The remainder of the session consisted of others talking and me listening, afraid to say anything out loud because I didn’t

want to hear my voice quiver. Sharing more about my mom’s death than just the basics was frightening to me. If I let myself sob in a room full of people, then my grief was real, and I knew I was nowhere near ready to accept her passing yet. Don’t get me wrong, the grief support group helped at times. It was comforting to be surrounded by other kids who shared some of my experiences for once because being a motherless 9-year-old isn’t exactly common. But maybe I tucked my emotions away because I was surrounded by strangers. After all, I only saw those in my group for two hours per week. Maybe I would be able to share my feelings with my grandmother and mom’s sisters, I thought. But I soon realized my relatives’ approach to coping seemed quite different from mine. My aunt spoke to a picture of my mom daily, as if to cling onto every memory of her. I watched her from the other room, perplexed at how someone could so openly revisit the wounds left by my mom’s death. My grandmother wept at the very mention of her daughter’s name, constantly glancing at the photo of my mom perched above her bed. Meanwhile, I would sit in the corner of the room, absolutely silent as they

grieved. I began to feel uncomfortable in my own grandparents’ home. I felt abnormal surrounded by others who approached their pain so differently from me. While my relatives performed at one extreme of the grief spectrum, I was stuck at the other. I should be crying, too, I thought. In high school, a friend asked me why I only talked about my dad and never my mom. I panicked, racking my brain for some way to answer her question without including the truth. Flustered, I nervously told her my mom has a busy work schedule – “She’s kind of too busy at work to be around that much.” I was older and more mature, but I was no closer to acceptance. Instead I told a baldfaced lie, to myself and to my friends. I had all the support I needed: My friends, family and community were working overtime to make sure I had endless resources at my disposal. Middle school counselors could pick me out of the crowd, making sure to check up on me. And my closest friends were there for me if I ever needed it. But I had built a tailored avoidance to addressing my mom’s passing – something that followed me even as I grew up. Everyone deals with grief differently, but besides the occasional tear, sometimes I feel like I barely dealt with it at all.

PRIME | SPRING 2019

Drifting Away

My dad’s approach to grief was a lot like mine. He’s always been a relatively closed-off person. I only saw him shed a few tears throughout my mom’s fight with cancer, and he rarely brought up the topic to anyone. Regardless, he always reminded me that he was there for me, but I still found myself unable to open up to him. Grief was eager to strain my relationships. Dodging my grief for so long prompted our dissociation over the years, pushing my dad and I apart. He was one of the few people who truly understood what I was going through. We were missing the same person in our home, but I still found myself reluctant to ever bring up my mother. This wasn’t just the common phenomenon of teenagers distancing themselves from their parents. Having kept my emotions sealed away for so long, I felt like I couldn’t talk to my dad about even the simplest things, like the basics of my middle school day. It felt odd to engage in small talk and discuss matters of little relevance when there was a looming, traumatizing event we continued to ignore.

I began pulling away from him at the dinner table, feeling uncomfortable sitting down with him. I think he felt the same way, unsure of how to avoid a topic neither of us were open to sharing about. My dad and I have similar personalities and shared paralleled grieving processes. But instead of bringing us closer together, grief drew us further apart. I began to notice the grief unravel my own home; it proved to me that it could control even my strongest bond. My internalization was starting to catch up with me. The emotions I had been trying to annex away began to resurface, not only tugging at my closest relationships, but also controlling my thoughts and imagination. Sometimes my casual daydreams would lead me to imagining my life with my mom in it. She would have helped me move in to college, stuffing multiple suitcases chock-full of brightly colored room decor, all of which wouldn’t even fit into my plaza triple. After a day of unpacking, organizing and repacking, we would have stopped by a bookstore and then ventured to

Toward Acceptance I ignored my mom’s death for years, unsure how to revisit it years after her passing. But one day, somewhat spontaneously, I remember finally letting myself consider my loss. At 17, I began a gradual trek toward acceptance. The unfamiliar feeling was possibly caused by my forthcoming transition to college: I was beginning to reflect on leaving my home – the one that my mother had so intricately decorated – and leaving the town full of people who supported me ever since her passing. I recalled memories from the day she died and I pondered about all the moments we

missed out on together. This time, I didn’t berate myself for entertaining these thoughts after just a few minutes. I believe my delayed grieving process had a major role in my becoming who I am. By closing myself off to my dad, my relatives and my closest friends, I’ve hindered relationships with others and I’ve hindered my own emotional growth. I’ve been extremely picky with what I’ve shared with people around me, being an open book about some topics while promptly shutting myself off when someone mentions family.

“I couldn’t allow myself to stay in that world for more than a few minutes because I knew it would lead to tears.” the beach. My mom had been in and out of hospitals since she was 14, and I know she would have supported my interests in health care. She would be pleased to know I work for a newspaper, as her dearest hobbies included reading and writing. I’ve thought about how my winter breaks would be if I were to fly home to Dallas and see her. She would have a fridge full of all my favorite Indian dishes, such as pav bhaji, and an eloquently detailed list of subzis she planned to prepare for me. She would dig up even more Bollywood classics from the cabinet, stacking them up so I could easily choose the next one to watch. Snap out of it. Every time I let my mind wander, I didn’t let it stay there for too long. The longer I pretended, the harder it was to draw back to reality. I couldn’t allow myself to stay in that world for more than a few minutes because I knew it would lead to tears.

Looking back, I wish I had opened up to my relatives and to my dad. I would have strengthened my ties with my family rather than feeling out of place when they were grieving and I was not. I feel close to my dad again today, but that bond was weak for most of my teenage life. But I don’t blame myself or anyone around me. My family and community supported me in every way they could while simultaneously managing to cope. And I was only 9 when I lost my mom. My ingrained mindset of denial may have stemmed from immaturity or simply being too young to fully grasp what

had happened. I can’t blame myself for shying away from acceptance because maybe I wasn’t ready to accept it at that age. Everyone eventually loses someone who they have shared a relationship with that nobody else could ever fully grasp. Some people talk about it openly and others refrain until they feel comfortable. Some deal with it head-on, like my grandparents and aunts, who openly mourned with one another, and others, like myself, in a private manner. The closing scene of “Kal Ho Naa Ho” highlights Naina in a snowy landscape 20 years after Aman’s

death, as she sits beside her younger sister and slowly cries while talking about him. “He became a memory, a memory that is the foundation of all my relationships. ... I can never forget him,” she says in Hindi. Ever since my mom received the phone call with her diagnosis, the film became an emblem of her death. I no longer associate it with comfort, despite it being a story my mom and I used to love, something we shared together. I haven’t watched the full movie again since that night. But now, when I remember the ending, I feel a sense of hope. I

see myself in Naina; we both lost someone incredibly central in our lives. I have struggled to talk or think about my mom, but I saw Naina openly share how Aman impacted her life 20 years after his death. I feel like I am working toward this type of acceptance, and I can see myself nearing a point at which I might feel just as comfortable talking about my mom as Naina is sharing memories of Aman. I hope that I do reach this point someday, in which I am able to openly tell others about the kind of relationship my mom and I shared and what kind of a person she was.

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Prayer written by KRISTIN SNYDER

omans 15:7: “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” According to the Open and Affirming Coalition of the United Church of Christ, an advocacy group for LGBTQ people within the church, this verse serves as the basis for the concept of an open and affirming congregation – one that doesn’t just welcome queer individuals to attend their services, but asserts that God loves and embraces them. People who identify as queer and religious are often considered to be at a crossroads, as if they must choose between two seemingly disparate communities. And Christianity tends to center around the concept of community. From retreats to prayer groups to worship nights, the church often acts as a means for Christians to come together, an entity separate from the secular world. This community is meant to be a place of healing, of companionship and of support. Some people find their place in the Christian community despite not fitting preconceived notions of what a Christian might look like. Affirming churches offer the LGBTQ community not just a place to call home, but a space they can

feel bolstered in both aspects of their identity. Many queer Christians find they must come to terms with their own religion outside of an institutionalized setting, finding community through other queer Christians they know will accept them. Others can reconcile their beliefs within an institutional setting and still celebrate their sexuality. Either way, religion remains a highly intimate, personal experience for these UCLA students.

Tucker Growing up, Tucker Moses-Hanson spent Tuesdays at choir practice, Wednesdays at youth group and Sundays at Sunday school. After all, the fourth-year religion and Middle Eastern studies student’s primary social integration took place within their church. Their older brother and parents were highly involved with their Pennsylvania congregation, and Moses-Hanson accompanied them on mission trips and retreats – it was just part of being in their family. But what were once fun family trips transformed as they traveled with

their friends instead of their family. Retreats and youth group took on more gravitas as they reached middle school and high school, now featuring a sudden pressure to reaffirm one’s reliance upon God. There was still the characteristic group worship and discussion, but what struck Moses-Hanson was the long stretches of time intended for personal reflection, meant not for having fun and building a community but rather for communing with God and examining oneself. Each year highlighted a different aspect of oneself to dwell upon, ranging from general platitudes to career paths to personal relationships.

photos by Niveda Tennety & Kanishka Mehra

Moses-Hanson often visited Lake Champion, a retreat center in the Catskill Mountains, where they were unaware if there were other queer people. Returning to the same retreat center year after year, they felt as if they were constantly returning to their old self – the same person they had been over the past six years attending retreat. They were stuck. Their queerness was already beginning to cause a sense of internal separation from their church community, and being encouraged to look within only drew attention to this perceived difference. Such isolation was formative to Mose-Hanson’s growth, especially at such a critical

moment in their formation of an identity. Without a community to turn to for guidance, Moses-Hanson said they often felt disjointed from a rational sense of self, instead turning to extreme thought processes exaggerated by the retreat setting. In college, they went on retreats in Idyllwild, California, with Cru, a Christian group on campus. The topic of discussion that first year? Sacrifice – what would you be willing to give up for Christ? For Moses-Hanson, this question turned not to material goods but to their internal state. They had begun to explore a more queer-affirming theology in high school, delving into

dense scholarly texts such as James Brownson’s “Bible, Gender, Sexuality,” which considers how the verses that are interpreted as anti-LGBTQ apply to the modern world. But they felt as if leaning toward such theologies could be interpreted as choosing themself over God. In particular, they said Christianity’s common rhetoric surrounding new creation and transformation made them feel as if some sort of personal sacrifice or transformation was necessary for them to better serve God. For them, such language translated to potentially giving up their sexuality. “I feel like a lot of Christianity feeds off really extreme statements,” they

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said. “That it really does want to be culture-shifting, and I think that (culture shift) can be disproportionately placed on queer individuals who already see themselves as sites of cultural contestation.” But as they came to terms with their sexuality, MosesHanson said it became important to also explore it in relation to their religion. For them, however, their personal theology became a matter of interpreting the text; delving into the passage led them to understand the Bible in a way that affirmed their queerness need not be sacrificed. Deciding which sources to rely on was a matter of choice – one which incorporated intense research. Sources of authority shifted from those around them – pastors, parents, peers – to texts and theologians, such as Matthew Vines. Moses-Hanson could not simply reconsider this one aspect of their theology; they had to examine both affirming and nonaffirming theology, as well as topics outside of sexaulity. Choosing an affirming theology meant choosing to distrust the very community that had taught them Christianity. But despite focusing on scholarly studies, Moses-Hanson said the concept of a community remained important, as it is a central aspect of communal worship. Prism, in particular, served as a support system, as they found larger campus organizations, such as Cru, to be more isolating. Moses-Hanson said some members of Prism grew up in the church and are queer, but their background discouraged them from interacting with a larger queer community. Within Prism, members

can partake in both the Christian community and the queer community. And while it is important to examine texts and personal interpretation, MosesHanson said it is just as important to spend time with others in a community – a resource they didn’t have growing up. “I think just the practice of being with other queer people of faith (creates a support system),” they said. “Just the testament of lived experience is incredibly life-affirming for people who often see themselves as the only queer person in their religious group.”

James For some, coming to faith is a matter of delving into the texts. For others, an affirming faith stems from finding what feels right internally. James, a secondyear microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics student who identifies as pansexual and queer, also grew up in a Christian household. He went to preschool in a Presbyterian church, attended youth group and was the leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at his high school – faith was integral to his identity. So, when he began to gain an awareness of his sexuality his freshman year of high school, he said he wrested internally with the concept for many years. The concept of brokenness, in particular, was pervasive for James. His religion and his sexuality felt

“

as if they were at Pearson – a gay war with each other, I felt like I had to choose Christian artist sentiments he said who wrote the between my sexuality stemmed from track about growing up being his experience and my faith. taught that one was grappling with his wrong. sexuality – came “I felt like I had to on as James played choose between my sexuality and my regular pop music on Spotify. faith,” James said. “I felt very close to my For James, the moment felt as if God faith, so this was a very heartbreaking was reaching out to him. That he did process.” not want to see James as others wanted When he came out to his father at 18, him to be but instead loved him as he he was convinced he was destined for is. hell. But his father’s response came as And in his journal, in response to what a surprise – James’ father affirmed him, was on his heart, James wrote: “And for assuring him that he was okay, and that that, Jesus, I want to know you too.” his creator still loved him. Music continues to be integral to his And it was the reassurance of people worship experience, as he personalizes such as his father that brought him his music-based worship to his peace. Once at UCLA, James occasionally mood, such as if he wants something attended InterVarsity Bruin Christian upbeat or a song to bring him peace. Fellowship’s worship nights, and one Contemporary Christian music from night in January 2018, a girl who lived bands like Hillsong UNITED stand out on his floor approached him at the to him, such as “So Will I” and “Stay and event. She said God had told her that Wait.” Those songs, among tracks from he had been with James since the other bands, have brought comfort in beginning and would remain by his moments where he feels distant from side into the future. That he was proud God. of James. And as James walked home James said he now believes his that night, the song “Hey Jesus” by Trey sexuality has been integral to

strengthening his faith. Because he no longer fits into the box many institutionalized faiths want him to, he said his queerness forces him to reflect and ask questions he might not otherwise have felt compelled to ask. And as he grows in his faith, he said he bases decisions on if his spirituality feels authentic and Christlike based on his experiences, or if it is simply influenced by those around him. But he doesn’t want to cast stones at those who led him to feel such tension, as he said he believe it is important to try and bridge the rift between the two communities. James isn’t ignorant to the politics surrounding institutionalized faith. In fact, it’s such politics that make him feel compelled to show others how that perceived pressure can be mitigated. “I feel like in that moment of tension, we grow as people, and I feel like that tension has forced me to think critically about who I am, what I believe, what I want out of life, and has driven my path of what does my spirituality looks like,” James said. “I do feel like those things don’t have to contradict each other, and there’s a huge relief in coming to that conclusion.”

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Rachel Rachel Dobbs rarely attended mass growing up – twice a month at best, she said. Youth group and Bible studies – plus a short stint in confirmation classes – weren’t integral in the second-year psychology student’s adolescence. With a limited church community, she said she began to grow suspicious of her belief in God around her sophomore year of high school – something most teenagers experience, she said. But at the same time, she also began to question her sexuality. Not only was she internally wrestling with her religion, but now she also had this new, unfamiliar issue to contend with. And her internal struggle manifested within her external life. On days she particularly struggles to feel loved by God, she has difficulty feeling loved by others in her life, emphasizing a sense of isolation. But for Dobbs, her concept of religion and her concept of her sexuality primarily emerged as two distinct, separate entities. Figuring out her sexuality was more externalized, as Dobbs said she was more concerned with how the people in her life – mainly, her parents and her friends – would react to the

news. That struggle had less to do with her relationship with God as with her relationship with others, she said. Coming out to her parents was particularly stressful, she said, because at the time she witnessed a close friend come out to parents who used religion to denounce his sexuality. As she told her parents about her friend’s experience, she cried and asked what they would do if she was coming out to them. But they reassured her that they would love her no matter what, which helped her in the process of coming out. As for religion: They said it was between God and her. By her senior year of high school, Dobbs said she was fairly comfortable with both her religion and her sexuality. Her process of finding religion, however, was much more internalized. “Because faith is such a huge topic, that’s something I’m going to grow in probably forever. I feel like my identity is just there and it’s done for now unless something changes, and I don’t know if it will,” she said. “Right now, I’m pretty good with the label I’ve chosen for myself and how I choose to express myself.” Now, she takes two paths to coming to a queer theology: listening

to LGBTQ people discuss their experiences and self-reflection. For the former, Dobbs said everything she had studied led her to believe that God exists, that she is queer and God loves her. Examining the work of scholars such as Kathy Baldock, who discussed historical translations and the development of the word “homosexuality” within modern translations of the Bible, and Rachel Held Evans, who wrote about the right of LGBTQ people to exist within Christian spaces. Being exposed to such theology was a striking experience for Dobbs. “I’m just a lot more comfortable and confident in each of those identities coexisting, and I don’t have to pander to one more than the other,” she said. Now, Dobbs said she would absolutely call herself Christian – but that aspect of her identity continues to evolve. It requires more introspection as she reads the Bible and theological ideas to determine how they impact her religion, she said. “All of those things together are existing, which goes against the narrative I hear a lot. When you have your Christian friends, not many ... are queer, and then (with) your queer friends, usually none of them are Christian,” she said. “They have been

“ 28

I’m just a lot more comfortable and confident in each of those identities coexisting.

Now, her two identities don’t have to exist within separate communities.

“

pitted against each other.” In high school, Dobbs said much of her community was separated, with many of her friends coming out as queer while her Christian friends remained in another group. She wanted a united community, but thought it was unlikely. So she went to different people depending on her needs. If she needed to discuss her sexual identity, she went to her LGBTQ friends; if she needed to discuss religion, she went to her Christian friends. In college, however, that changed. After being admitted to UCLA, she

attended pride admit weekend, where she was introduced to the various LGBTQ organizations on campus. Attracted to Prism’s openness to multiple faiths, she said she immediately felt drawn to the group, and she enjoyed coming to her own conclusions about the texts instead of simply being told what they mean. Now, her two identities don’t have to exist within separate communities. Finding a connected community in which she can have these conversations has made her more comfortable with both her identities, especially when seeing people older

than her. With Prism, she has attended the annual Q Christian Fellowship conference, at which she has witnessed people with life experiences ranging from discovering their sexuality in their 60s to people who didn’t discover their queerness until they were 30 with kids. But these people didn’t lose their religion or their sexuality – which gives Dobbs hope for the future. “My identity in Christ as well as my identity with the LGBTQ community, they aren’t just tentatively coexisting, but they will continue coexisting throughout my life,” she said.

The tension existing between the LGBTQ community and the Christian community is not without reason, of course. The church is not universally accepting of the queer community, with the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church both opposing the Equality Act, a bill which expands nondiscrimination laws to incorporate gender identity and sexuality. The Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod still states that

same-sex marriage contradicts God’s intention. But those who identify as both queer and Christian are nevertheless able to examine their relationship with God on their own terms, reclaiming a space that often aims to isolate them. For Moses-Hanson, that meant interpreting the texts on their own. For James, that meant reassurance that God loved him. For Dobbs, that meant seeing others like her to know

that she could be okay. They have all found a community within which they can find a place to celebrate both their sexuality and their religion – any perceived tension need not exist. “I feel blessed and queer, not because it’s an easy path,” James said. “But because it’s a path that challenges me to be in touch with my creator, and at the end of the day – regardless of my sexuality – I desire to be in touch with my creator.”

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written by abby thomas photos + photo illustrations by TANMAY SHANKAR

t’s 0545 and the whole campus is quiet, except for the chirping of birds and the whir of maintenance vehicles on their way to prepare for the day. Making my way down to Wilson Plaza, I occasionally pass by students trudging back to their rooms after a night of studying, ending their day as I am just beginning mine. As I join the group of Army cadets dressed in black uniforms, I notice they are much more easygoing and laid back than I had expected, joking around with each other and casually chatting. The cadets begin getting in formation for revelry, the morning salute of the flag. Everyone is still chattering and joking around. Over the phone, one girl talks to a cadet who is running late, and with a playful roll of her eyes, she advises her friend to start sprinting. At 0600, the platoon leader calls the cadets to attention. They immediately straighten up, an abrupt contrast to the lax demeanor they’d held just a few seconds before, and turn to face the flag in

Royce Quad. A bugle plays “First Call” and “Reveille,” and the plaza is silent. One can’t help but notice the overbearing sameness of the group. The cadets march in neat lines echoing the same footsteps and the same chants as they call out to their leader. Uniformed and stony-eyed, they share the same look of respect. As 0600 passes to 0700, each cadet changes out of their uniform. Cadet Daly turns into Bill, and attends his engineering class. Midshipman Lee becomes Sean and clocks in at his job at the James West Alumni Center. Cadet Holden, Hannah, emerges from practice and makes her way to the farmer’s market where she regularly buys her groceries. I see the cadets practicing and I realize that this is all I know of them: uniformed groups of people marching in unison on rare mornings when I am awake early enough to catch a glimpse. What I don’t know is who each individual is, where they come from and why they choose to be Reserve Officer’s Training Corps cadets.

Midshipman Daly / Bill I met Bill for the first time at Bruin Plate, upon his request. Bill tells me that he is 20 years old and a second-year electrical engineering student. Over several plates of quinoa, he shares that he’s a fan of Manchester City F.C., “Game of Thrones” and pick-up basketball at Hitch Suites. Bill is also Midshipman Daly, an officer in his second year of training to be a naval officer. “It’s weird flipping the switch sometimes,” Bill expresses about the dual identity he holds of student and midshipman. “Every Tuesday, we have a thing called Pro-Lab in ROTC and then most of us have 8 a.m.’s. There’s a moment where we switch from officers-in-training to a student again. It’s definitely unique.”

military family environment I found from our conversation in Sacramento. Although Bill that this experience of balancing didn’t feel obligated to follow the two identities of being a in his father’s footsteps, it was midshipman and a student takes something he ultimately valued some practice to get used to. because of the way it would aid Navy ROTC members wear their his career goals of leadership. uniforms Tuesdays, and Bill says “Not to humble-brag, I always that something as routine as thought of myself as a leader,” Bill walking down Bruin Walk was not says to me with a reticent grin. “I comfortable for him at first. wanted to be put on a career path “At first you think, ‘Oh, that helped me explore that,” Bill everybody’s looking at me, says. literally everybody is watching Each midshipman in the Navy me.’ And then, you know, ROTC is granted a specific role to there’s a point where you’re like, gain direct leadership experience. ‘Everybody is doing their own Bill has worked as a thing, they’re not physical looking exclusively at There’s training me,’” Bill says. a momen t where w leader, Bill’s dad was e switch from officers a Navy pilot, so - in-train ing to a stu dent aga Bill grew up in a in definite

ly uniqu

. It’s

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designing and implementing workouts for the other cadets in the mornings, as well as a squad leader, in charge of keeping track of the progress and well-being of four other midshipmen. Bill says he has grown significantly from these leadership roles, developing his skills in public speaking, decision-making and being assertive. Before ROTC, Bill says if something made him uncomfortable, he wouldn’t say anything. He recounts a time he had a conflict with roommates and used his newly developed skills in assertiveness to address his roommate directly. “I remember my roommate had a habit of snoozing their alarm over and over. I put up for it for a while, but then one day I kind of just snapped. It might have been me just getting tired of it or part of the Navy training as well, but I was like, ‘Hey, is it possible for you to maybe only set two alarms instead of 10?’” Bill says.

It's a complete transformation and betterment of who I am.

Bill thinks the skills he’s learning today will help him in his civilian career if he decides to leave the Navy. “Basically the mission of the (Navy) ROTC is to create leaders for the military, for the government and civilian life,” Bill says, commenting on the Navy ROTC’s motto. “I never thought of what I’m going through here as purely Navy training. It’s a complete transformation and betterment of who I am.” While his dad went to the Naval Academy, a rigorous officer training school, Bill says he chose ROTC because he wanted

the experience of going to college. To Bill, the college experience is defined as staying in the dorms, having roommates, going out to Westwood to get good food, going to the movies with friends and having a girlfriend he can see on a regular basis. He says he doesn’t want his whole life to revolve around the military. Bill considers ROTC more in the context of his career, and he sees his college experience as separate from his midshipman training. He compares the act of balancing his different identities to wearing several different hats throughout his day. “In the morning I put on my midshipman hat and go do training. And then right afterwards, I put on my student hat and I go learn, and after that I put on my ‘Bill’ hat and I can go hang out in Westwood, or go play video games,” Bill says. One of his favorite activities is playing basketball at Hitch Suites with his friends. He goes about three to four times a week to get some exercise and clear his mind. He says this is something he loves to do and at times it comes to represent the many different identities Bill holds in his college years, sometimes playing with his buddies from ROTC and sometimes with his outside friend groups. “It’s interesting because it’s a melding of these different groups together through this one activity. Sometimes I’ll be up there playing with my ROTC buddies and some of my other friends will come over,” he says. “It’s kind of a weird entangling of friend groups and different parts of my life.” Overall, Bill is grateful for the life balance that ROTC provides him with all the other parts of his life. “It’s a good balance of a lot of different things. I couldn’t do just one of those things and maintain my sanity. You need a little bit of everything,” Bill says.

Cadet Holden / Hannah The first thing I notice about Hannah when I meet her outside Kerckhoff Hall is the approachable smile that lights up her freckled face. Hannah is 5 feet, 6 inches, has bright ginger hair, and dresses like any UCLA student you would see walking on campus on a sunny day. At first glance, you may not know she is a nationally high ranking ROTC cadet who was specifically chosen to commission as an Army officer in Vilseck, Germany. “I’m going active duty. So three days after commissioning, which is when we swear in as officers, I start my officer training, so I don’t get any time off,” Hannah says. “I’m really excited. I feel ready.” Hannah has spent several summers during her college years training for the Army in Fort Knox, Kentucky,

Tahiti and Hawaii, doing anything from teaching English, to building relationships with cadets from other countries, to interning with the Army in international relations. As she recounts these summers to me, I realize I had no idea what ROTC cadets actually did. All I had were vague notions of leadership building and physical training. The main reason Hannah explains she joined ROTC, I find out, was to address her desire to make a positive impact through her career. Growing up, she first dreamt of becoming a veterinarian, then later, of being a reconstructive surgeon. When she was preparing to go to college, she was drawn to the military because of its central goals to assist people who can’t help themselves. As I scroll through the Army recruitment website, I notice a theme: Most of the pictures and slogans refer to service and duty. Statements such as “Serve with honor. Live with purpose” and “There’s more than one way you can make a difference”

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catch my eyes with bold yellow text against a black background. This kind of message and value is what attracted Hannah to the Army. Hannah is the command sergeant major, meaning she is in charge of the discipline and accountability of all the cadets here at UCLA and at six sister schools including California State University, Los Angeles; Cal State Northridge; California Lutheran; Pepperdine; The Master’s University and Loyola Marymount. She tells me that although she loves helping other cadets be prepared and informed of their duties, it is not always the easiest job to have. Guided by her sense of morality and responsibility, she is often forced out of her comfort zone. When I asked Hannah about her leadership as a woman in the army, I expected a knowing sigh and a diatribe about the difficulties of identifying as women in a workspace of majority male co-workers. Instead, she gives a wry smile, indicating that my view of the Army is a little outdated. “Don’t get me wrong in saying that the military is a maledominated industry. I’d be a little naive to say it’s not,” she says. “I don’t think that it’s maledominated in the sense that I feel marginalized by my sex. I ranked very well among my peers and I don’t think my gender had anything to do with that at all.” Although Hannah is a nationally ranking and successful cadet, ROTC is only a part of her life. She is majoring in applied linguistics and minoring in Asian languages and cultures with a concentration in Mandarin. “I didn’t come in as a linguistics major, but once I took my first ling class I was sold. I knew WELL it was right for me. VERY It’s kind of like you ED K PEERS K MY have those people I RAN G MY T THIN THING ’ who are really really AMONI DON ANY AT ALL good at math; it just HAD HAT AND HT comes naturally to GENDERWIT

DO TO

them. It’s kind of like that with linguistics for me,” Hannah says. Hannah has a balance of good friends inside and outside ROTC. She thinks it is healthy to maintain an equilibrium of inside and outside social connections so you don’t end up only talking about ROTC all the time. “I am like the anti-cadet,” Hannah says to me with a smirk. “I don’t do army stuff really outside of the army. But I think that’s how most of us are, we all have our individual interests.” Hannah tells me she loves fitness, health and food, and the outdoors. “One day I’m going to have my own farm, like that’s what I want.”

VE WE ALL HA VIDUAL OUR INDI S. INTEREST Each week, Hannah makes a trip to the farmer’s market to get fresh produce for her cooking hobby. She says she tries to fill up her bag first with the things she actually came for, usually cashew yogurt and lots of vegetables, before meandering through the rest of the market to avoid buying too much out of temptation from the stands. One of her favorite parts of visiting is getting to speak to the vendors that she’s built a relationship with week after week. As the year comes to an end and she prepares to commission as an Army officer to Germany, Hannah passes on the new forming tradition of service, as she celebrates her younger brother’s enlistment into the Army this spring. She acknowledges that her decision of service has influenced him as he makes his own decision to devote years of his life to a greater good, just like she has. Hannah is proud of her brother and looks forward to the passion for service he will develop, just like she did.

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Midshipman lee/sean I meet Sean during a passing period between his aerospace engineering upper division classes, on one of the first warm days of spring. Sean is bubbly and easy-going, and his clear passion for his work makes conversation enjoyable and engaging. Sean is a fourth-year aerospace engineering student. He also goes by Midshipman Lee, and is a fourthyear Navy cadet about to commission into a minimum of four years of service. In a few months time, Sean will be stationed in Pensacola, Florida, to train to become a Navy pilot.

THEY’VE ALL DECIDED TO DO THIS WITH ME. IT’S LIKE ONE BIG TEAM .

When Sean tells me about ROTC, he talks about community. “There’ll be sometimes that I just kind of look around and think, ‘Wow, all these people with different backgrounds, different races, gender, things like that, they’ve all decided to do this with me. It’s like one big team,” says Sean. Sean has been a part of this military community his entire life. Sean’s dad was in the Navy, so Sean had a typical “military kid” experience for part of his childhood, making friends in one place, moving and having to start all over again in a new place. He says it was common to run into the same people after years of distance. “One of my best friends was in Japan in the second grade. When we moved away, I completely lost track of him until freshman year of college. He ended up being best friends with one of my really good friends in ROTC, like they went to the same high school and everything,” Sean says.

The prominence of the military community in his life has continued into his college years. A lot of his really close friends in college come from ROTC. After spending four years in the program, Sean will be graduating and commissioning with his fellow midshipmen to different assigned locations and positions, which is not an easy transition to make because of the physical distance it will create in his college friendships. “It is kind of hard to deal with the fact that half of them are going to go off and do their own thing, but I think one thing about the military, is it’s a lot smaller than you’d think. You will more than likely end up running into these people at some point in your life or in your career,” Sean says. Although the Navy community is a significant part of his life, Sean training as a midshipman isn’t the only thing Sean does. He told me about how he likes to go to the beach or go to Broxton brewery with friends on a Friday night. “I’m just pretty normal, I hope,” he says laughing. “I think there is a misconception that we are all military, always working out, or like always doing training and stuff. After our required responsibilities, you’re basically just normal college students.” Sean also finds some of his community outside of ROTC at the Alumni Center, where he works three times a week. Sean helps set up for events, but says the most important part of his job is not the tasks he performs. It is the people he connects with there who aren’t affiliated with ROTC. In the beginning of the job, Sean had the opportunity to explain the ROTC side of his life to his Alumni Center co-workers, and says it was a great chance to reflect on his time as a midshipman. “It provides a cool little perspective, because when you’re actually in ROTC, everyone is doing the same

thing. But when you actually explain the whole process of ROTC and you see that they’re actually interested, it’s kind of a cool feeling.” -The pursuit of individuality in college is something I feel most students can relate to. After all, we attend a large university with so many options for ways to define ourselves, whether that’s through a club, a major or even through outfits we wear. The way you choose to define yourself can have a significant impact on your college experience as well. It can be reflected in the friends you make, the clubs you join and where you end up after graduation. I believe finding individuality in light of these great consequences is a challenge. For this reason, these members of ROTC strike me as exceptional for committing to the task of forging unique individuality within an organization that values structure and uniformity. Through getting to know them, these ROTC members have shown me this task is not one that requires strategic planning or great visioning, but one that it is quite organic, a natural unfolding of identity into a place that becomes your home. It’s something we all do as we get jobs, refine hobbies, make friends and set career goals during college. The sense of individuality we build in college sets a foundation for the rest of our lives. These ROTC members will carry this special and honorable cadet identity with them into their service and in the years beyond. “It gives me pride to be able to say that I’ve decided to do this. And that idea also just kind of dictates a little bit of how I carry myself, and how I act in everyday life,” Sean says.

I THIN K THERE MISCONCE IS PTION A WE ARE THA ALWAYS ALL MILITARYT , OR LIK WORKING E ALWAYS OUT, TRAININ DOIN G AND STUFF G .

PRIME | SPRING 2019

WAITING TO BE

s 12-year-old me sank deeply into the couch, snug in old gym clothes and fluffy slippers, my mother asked why I stayed up late watching weird Asian cartoons. My father, an avid fan of anime since his teens, urged me to finish binge-watching his “Dragon Ball Z*” tapes as he shooed my mother away. Nagging as she often did, my mother said these nonsensical, oftentimes inappropriate children’s shows were not worth the sleep deprivation. Other women in my family, including three aunts, a grandma and

a cousin, held a similar confusion toward my late-night hobby. The next morning – or any other morning for that matter – I had similar conversations with peers who also found my interest in anime to be strange. Anime is to Japan as cartoons are to the U.S. Many anime series are based on manga*, or Japanese comics. Similar to how cartoons on Adult Swim have a different target audience than those produced by Nickelodeon, there are many subgenres in anime geared toward different demographics. Shojo* targets teenage

girls and shonen* targets teenage boys. However, despite my fondness for a romantic sob story, I have been shonen-obsessed since the eighth grade. As a girl often chastised for my sarcasm and smart aleck antics, the facetious humor present in anime entertained me more than any Disney show. Without knowing the word “cosplay,” I always wished to transform into a sword-wielding shinobi*. The thought of physically connecting to the on-screen world through costume and role play made the wait for Halloween nearly

SEEN

written by

KENNEDY HILL

photo illustrations by

ASHLEY KENNEY & CLAIRE SUN

Angela Zhou

Anime starter pack Black girl edition

Otaku: someone who is obsessed with all things anime and manga Melanated: blessed with high amounts of melanin Blerd: black nerd Magical girls: black women who can be soft and whimsical, with a fondness for pastels (not to be confused with the magical girl anime category) Shinobi: ninja Manga: Japanese comic Shonen: manga or anime intended for the teenage male audience that typically features action and a male protagonist Shojo: manga or anime intended for the teenage female audience that typically focuses on relationships and a female protagonist “Attack on Titan”: a shonen series in which humanity takes refuge from man-eating giants inside a walled community “Sailor Moon”: a shojo series about a clumsy young girl that transforms into warrior to fight evil forces of the universe “Naruto”: a shonen series that follows the life of a young ninja, Naruto Uzumaki “One Punch Man”: a shonen series chronicling the boredom of an overpowered superhero protagonist “Hunter x Hunter”: a shonen series about two young boys’ journeys to becoming licensed adventurers “Soul Eater”: a shonen series that follows the adventures of kids that can transform into death weapons and the comrades who wield them

PRIME | SPRING 2019

unbearable. But even though anime consumed my thoughts during the day, there was no one to share my enthusiasm with. For most of my adolescence, my seemingly peculiar hobby made me feel out of sync with my community. But well before this interest began to bud, I had already found it difficult to fit in with those around me. I seemed to stand out from the girls around me, who had no trouble pointing out what prevented me from being one of them. From being told I “talked too white” or “didn’t dress like a black girl,” there was always something about the way I carried myself that wasn’t “black enough.” Even my mom often wished I had a greater affinity toward our culture – secretly hoping I’d watch episodes of “The Proud Family” instead of a shonen. Regardless of the taunts of my classmates or my mother’s dismay,

There seems to be something about my appearance that contradicts watching anime in the minds of others. I never longed to change who I was or what I enjoyed. In hindsight, the otherness I felt within my own community is one of the forces that attracted me to anime in the first place. And as I grew more engrossed in the medium, it only reinforced my identification as an outsider. Then at the age of 16, I came across #28DaysOfBlackCosplay, a social

media campaign held in February to promote the work of black cosplayers. And so began my rapid plunge into the accounts of black women who shamelessly expressed their love for anime, winding downward into a network of melanated* otakus*. These women managed a feat that I had thought impossible: carving a space in which one can publicly love anime while being black and feminine. Having grown up before the widespread usage of social media, Eunice Ibama, who runs @blackgirlsanime on Instagram, didn’t think many other black women watched anime regularly. As someone who was bullied for her interest while growing up, Ibama said her page and the women it allowed her to meet helped bring her out of a state of depression. “I was in a really depressed state when I first started this page. Then I

set it up and started talking about my love for anime, and people just started coming out of nowhere,” Ibama said. “I didn’t think this many black women, black men ... watched anime. It was mind blowing to me.” Currently, Ibama runs an Instagram account with nearly 25,000 followers, and she said she constantly receives messages from black women telling her they feel less lonely after finding this platform in which they can explore their passions within their community. Like Ibama, I never held stock in the idea that there were other anime fans that looked like me. In my experience, a youthful brown face is not the first one imagined when the anime fandom – or any “nerdy” fandom – is mentioned. Oftentimes, people I speak with face to face, whether they are anime fans or not, are surprised when I mention “Naruto.*” They unknowingly convey through their widened eyes that this hobby is somehow uncharacteristic. Whether it is my complexion or gender that convinces others that I would not favor a gory shonen series, such as “Attack on Titan,*” there seems to be something about my appearance that contradicts watching anime in the minds of others. Albeit, I am used to being held subject to certain stereotypes. But, it seems odd for these misconceptions to pervade the niche of anime. To Jamie Broadnax, founder of the blog Black Girl Nerds, it is the limited range and quality of black women representation in the entertainment industry, including anime, that strengthens this misconception. Through recycling the stereotype of the stubborn, strong black woman, this image eventually gets ingrained into public perception and internalized by all who watch. Broadnax founded her site as a gathering place for “blerds*” – black individuals whose interest and personalities lie outside the tropes that are typically portrayed in media. Broadnax’s explanation reminded me of when I used to search for myself on the screen as a child. Typically, there was exactly one of me

on every show, and if not me, then one of my brother. But even when I did find a character who resembled my likeness, her personality was far from mine. I don’t roll my neck as I speak, and I don’t speak louder than everyone around me. Libby in “The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius” was too sassy and Raven Baxter was too meddlesome. Not only did my classmates think I wasn’t black enough, but neither did Nickelodeon or Disney or Hollywood. “Black women are seen to be hard, self-sufficient, sassy, ... but we can also be soft and also be the princesses,” said Jacque Aye, the founder of lifestyle brand Adorned by Chi. In hopes of catering to black women who don’t see their personality or interests represented in media, Aye produces merchandise and manga for soft, black girls. Aye said she wanted to promote the strength and existence of magical*, melanated women with interests and temperaments that aren’t stereotypically attributed to their appearance. Through shirts that read “Solange is my Patronus” and “I Call My Man Hokage,” Aye’s everyday apparel is a daily reminder of the presence of black women in nerd culture. Although I used anime to escape from my discomfort with American media, the same issues arose in Japanese shows, whether I watched Saitama half-heartedly train his cyborg companion in “One Punch Man” or Usagi Tsukino transform into the cute and girly Sailor Moon*. Even these shows that kept me from sleeping didn’t feature characters resembling myself. When there was a black figure in an anime, the character was rarely both prominent and inoffensive. Images of charcoal-skinned, fat-lipped men bumbling across the screen

occasionally stained the moments I spent watching “Dragon Ball Z” with my father. When I asked how he could still watch the show in spite of the racist caricatures, he shrugged as if to say, “It is what it is.” Lauren Vincent, a fourth-year art student, said she also used to ignore the bigoted animation style and characterization of black characters. She said she reconciled this bad aspect of anime with all that was good. But once she gained more confidence and respect for herself, she realized that staying complacent with the way things were would do nothing to make them better. Vincent said she takes a stand by refusing to watch anime with harmful depictions of black characters, all the while promoting black cosplay and art on her Instagram page. Like Vincent, I found ways to rationalize the misrepresentation of black characters in anime. Yes, some anime characters are bigoted – even appalling, at times – representations, but so are some American ones. It’s one thing for a foreign country to wrongfully portray me on screen, but it’s another for my own to do so. It’s similar to how I didn’t care nearly as much when a stranger scolded me as opposed to my mother doing so. Anime was the distant foreigner who didn’t have to care about me. But as I’ve grown up, I’ve realized that there is no justification for the disrespect of my community. Thankfully, there are a few good black-coded or black characters out there, such as Killer B from “Naruto: Shippuden” and Canary from “Hunter x Hunter.” Contrary to the usual attribution of aggression or feeblemindedness to large black men in media, shinobi Killer B prefers to use words rather than his fists. In men like Killer B, I can see my father

It was difficult to find a community that I never knew existed – it was something I casually stumbled upon.

PRIME | SPRING 2019

and uncles instead of caricatures – strong men with the capability to both protect and empathize. Canary is the epitome of a soft black girl, possessing a shy demeanor and delicate voice. Unlike the Libbys and Ravens, Canary displays her strength through action as opposed to attitude-ridden remarks. I want more characters like these, that I can identify with. Even though the lack of black characters didn’t prevent me from leaping into the anime fandom, others are reluctant to support a

medium that does not support them. Lauren Smith, secretary of Japanese Animation Club at UCLA, said she has trouble convincing her friends to attend conventions due to the limited amount of dark-skinned characters to cosplay. Even though many black women dress as characters of other ethnicities, Smith said her friends believe that representation is key – especially when it comes to cosplay. And for black women who do wish to cosplay all types of characters, there is still pressure to cosplay a character

that they resemble. Although I’m a cosplay novice, I have always been one to dress up for the occasion. Every Halloween, costume parties, the premiere of “Black Panther” – for each event, I spent time researching the disguises I hoped to don for the evening. But regardless of the event, there was always a nagging fear that I couldn’t successfully impersonate a character that had lighter skin. So, I dressed as Dionne from “Clueless” instead of Cher, as Numbuh 5 from “Codename: Kids Next Door” instead of Numbuh 3. There was a box that I confined myself in, believing it to be the only space in which I could look the part. If I don’t have the same complexion and hair texture as the character, how could I possibly masquerade as her? This misconception concerning the ability of black women to cosplay nonblack characters also affected Kiera Brown, who runs Instagram account @kieraplease, when she started to cosplay. She said people’s negative comments on social media used to prevent her from cosplaying as slimfigured, lighter-skinned characters. But it is impossible for anyone to have a perfect cosplay, since the characters are fictional. Once Brown realized this, she said she felt free to reimagine characters to fit her hair and curves and everything else that makes up who she is. In the same way Brown shows off her figure in her cosplays, Shellanin, known as “the curly cosplayer” and @shellanin_ on Instagram, also adds an element of representation to her costumes. Through curly-haired renditions of animated characters, Shellanin said she aims to normalize black hair by integrating it into her costumes. Transforming Elastigirl’s signature bob into a curly fro and Super Saiyan spikes into a textured puff allows Shellanin to infuse a bit of herself into these characters. People cosplay for myriad reasons: to escape from reality, delve into a fake world, better connect with a character. I want to cosplay to enter the life of a character, reimagined through my eyes. I will cosplay for the first time at the San Jose FanimeCon in May – realizing

the character transformations I wished for as a child. Within my community of black, female otakus, I can feel like myself regardless of what I do. I belong to a community of women who, like myself, didn’t entertain the notion of there being thousands just like them before entering into this space. Yet, I am hesitant to step outside the blerd community. Inside this bubble, I can discuss ship names and American release dates and the unholy amount of boob jiggles in every shonen series ever. I can dress up without having to straighten my hair or contour my nose. At the convention, I will meet a sea of people from different cities, subfandoms and nationalities. While many of these strangers are bound to be pleasant, there is still a chance that I will be subject to unwarranted stares and biased perceptions. I will be scanned and subsequently judged by those who can’t relate to my story, and some who wouldn’t even care to. My cosplay of a white character will be seen as imperfect, or my cosplay of a black character will be seen as mandated. But my cosplay, forged from the wisdom bestowed onto me by the frontrunners of the blerd community, will serve as my armor. Something that is fierce and representative. A character who can be badass and refined at the same time. A black character who subverts the intolerant tropes and carves out a persona for herself. A sultry death weapon from “Soul Eater,*” Mira Naigus. And while I’d like to think I’ve come a long way from the isolated, closed-off girl I was years ago, it’s easy to understand what forces in my life pushed me to that place. But after weeks of conversations with the women who pulled me from isolation, I recognized a common theme in their stories: At the end of the day, you have to allow yourself to be comfortable in spaces that weren’t originally made for you. Despite being 19 in college now, a part of me still feels like that 12-yearold who was eager to belong but didn’t. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I understand that it’s better to be myself and the odd one out than to

masquerade as someone else to fit in. But, it shouldn’t have taken a chance encounter with a Twitter account for me to be exposed to other women like myself. It was difficult to find a community that I never knew existed – it was something I casually stumbled upon. But I can imagine that there are other girls who haven’t been so lucky. Until there is more depiction of black women in the dominant fandom, blackness and anime will continue to be seen as generally incommensurable.

I am a black girl and an otaku, and I’m proud to be both. Being black does not prevent me from watching anime and watching anime does not detract from my blackness. After I found a hub of black women who are nerdy and soft at times and strong-willed at others, it became clear that there is no standard of “black enough” that I must ascribe to. I have friends now who love Cardi B just as much as they love Usagi. Friends that relate to the loneliness of my childhood and the biases I face in the present.

PRIME | SPRING 2019

A Second Chance written by JOY HARJANTO photos by Ellie Tsai graphic by PAULINE ORDONEZ designed by EDWARD QIAO

fter Teresa Gaspar was academically dismissed from UCLA, she started working multiple jobs at an ice cream parlor and as an administrative assistant. Although she was unhappy at both her jobs, she didn’t think about completing her degree because she thought she didn’t have the option to return to school. Students are placed on academic probation if their GPA falls between 1.5 and 1.99. Under this circumstance, they are unable to access MyUCLA until they meet with an academic advisor. And if they don’t manage to get off probation by raising their GPA, earning at least a 2.0 within two quarters, they are academically dismissed from the university. Students who have a GPA of below 1.5 in any quarter are automatically dismissed. Factors leading to academic probation and academic dismissal vary from student to student. Most

typically, they seem to stem from personal problems or dissatisfaction with their major. Before she was dismissed, Gaspar, a fourth-year transfer and firstgeneration student studying sociology, attended lectures and office hours regularly. But she said she would always keep quiet at office hours because she felt intimidated by her instructors. Her problems didn’t stop there. When Gaspar needed to do her school assignments, she focused on memorizing the material because she wasn’t interested in going past the bare minimum. “I would only read an article ... and wouldn’t synthesize it,” Gaspar said. Beyond this, Gaspar said she struggled with feeling like she didn’t belong on campus. She would volunteer for events like the Bruin Day held for transfer students, but said she would go home feeling disconnected because she would make friends with people she would

never see or talk to again. “I went out to parties and had study groups, but I felt isolated,” Gaspar said. “If I didn’t meet the expectations I set for myself, I felt like I didn’t belong here.” While having lunch one day during her third year, she received an email from the university saying she had been placed on academic probation after a string of bad grades. She thought she would be able to bring her grades up and just went about her day. She didn’t begin feeling the pressure until the university dismissed her. “Being on probation didn’t really give me a sense of motivation and fear,” Gaspar said. “I just told myself, ‘I can do it. I can reach this grade.’ But when I was dismissed I thought, ‘This is going to be hard to get back.’” Gaspar did not tell her parents about being on academic probation; as a first-generation student, she said she was worried she would disappoint

“

I went out to parties and had study groups, but I felt isolated. If I didn’t meet the expectations I set for myself, I felt like I didn’t belong here.

them. In their conversations, she would avoid answering their questions about how she was doing in school by saying she was fine. “I did not want to hear from them and used to be standoffish about personal stuff,” Gaspar said. “I got really upset but didn’t cry until days after realizing I messed up.” Several months after her dismissal, Gaspar received mail from UCLA about the Bruin Readmission Program. After meeting with several UCLA counselors to learn more about the program, she decided to apply. “I felt this is my chance to redeem myself,” Gaspar said. BRP, formerly the Summer Readmission and Retention Program, is a quarter-long program designed to help students who are struggling with college redefine success and learn to approach failure with an optimistic mindset. The program gives students who have been academically dismissed a chance to finish their degrees, even for those who have been out of school for several years. Corey Hollis, the assistant vice provost for undergraduate academic support, said the program admits students who are able to identify why they performed poorly and have begun taking steps to resolve those issues. The selection process was established because students who are not ready to come back typically end up dropping out again, she added. “We take whoever we feel is ready to be back,” Hollis said. “‘I cannot not be here,’ is not a good reason to be here.” When students are in the program, they need to pass three classes with

TERESA GASPAR a B or higher, including two classes that satisfy requirements for their intended major. In addition, they need to attend a two-hour weekly seminar, University Studies 30: “How to Succeed at UCLA: Retention,” which focuses on individual and collective strategies for succeeding in academics. Once students fulfill these requirements, they can submit an appeal and be readmitted to the university. Marian Gabra, one of the instructors for University Studies 30, said the program is modeled after validation theory, which encourages individuals to embrace their journey in college by capitalizing on the challenges and experiences they have been through, as outlined by Laura Rendon in a 1994 article in Innovative Higher Education. “We want them to have a sense of pride in the experiences and challenges they have been through and are working through,” Gabra said. Gabra’s class focuses on encouraging students to build relationships with faculty and to reflect on their goals through self-reflection assignments. At the start of the quarter, she pushes her students to fight any feelings of shame and redefine success, because she insists they belong at UCLA. “Success is more than serving grades and outcomes,” Gabra said. “You are going to have setbacks and failures, and being open to that feedback and wanting to grow and

learn is success.” Gabra said by bringing together students who have been academically dismissed, BRP helps build a sense of community that reduces the negative feelings associated with stigma that lead students to feel like they don’t deserve to be at UCLA. Currently, there is no program similar to BRP for students on academic probation – it is only available to students who have been dismissed and seek readmission. The program is also only available to students in the College of Letters and Sciences. Hollis said most students on academic probation are able to get their grades back up independently and avoid academic dismissal. But students like Gaspar said if they were exposed to programs like BRP earlier during their time at UCLA, they may have avoided dismissal. Through her experience, Gaspar said she has become more mature, having learned how to navigate the university by being more invested in her daily life and having developed a greater sense of purpose. Now, when she attends office hours, she tries to get to know her instructor by asking about their experiences and research. “I realize it shouldn’t just be about the grades, because it won’t help you succeed,” Gaspar said. “Now I think about what I want to do with what I am learning. I have a sense of where I want to go.”

PRIME | SPRING 2019

egardless of how students may feel after experiencing academic probation or dismissal, the journey always starts with confronting one’s feelings. Overwhelmed with shock and fear the day he found out he’d been academically dismissed, Nick Navejas sprinted out from his classroom and into his college counselor’s office in Murphy Hall. He had just opened MyUCLA and gotten the notice. “I’d never felt (as great a) sense of helplessness and disappointment in myself (as) I did that day,” Navejas said. Navejas, a third-year environmental science student, was dismissed in spring 2018 following a poor academic performance, which he said resulted from a lack of motivation that led him away from engaging in academic resources. He was readmitted to the university with the help of BRP, and since then, the Academic Advancement Program has given him the additional support he needs to succeed, he said. During his first year, Navejas, a first-generation college student, said he had no long-term goals and did not engage in either university resources or extracurricular activities.

joy NICK NAVEJAS

He said he does not know why he felt this way – like it was senioritis, but for college. “I was so heavy on trying not to fail, which is such a terrible way to perform as a student,” Navejas said. “I (felt) flawed my first two years, as I was trying to navigate as a firstgeneration (student) with no prior knowledge.” After he joined a fraternity in his second year, he was surprised to find his fraternity brothers securing internships at notable finance companies as first- and second-year students. Through this realization, Navejas developed the motivation to perform better in school, gain professional internship experiences and utilize campus resources like AAP. He appealed his dismissal after having finished with a GPA of 1.9 in winter 2018, and expected that things would proceed without a hitch – that the appeal would go through. Shortly after Nick developed this motivation, he was academically dismissed from the university in spite of the appeal. But still, he was determined to finish his degree. Navejas graduated from a high school in Bakersfield, California,

where he said only about 20 out of his 400 classmates went on to a four-year university. Of those who did attend university, many dropped out and returned home to Bakersfield to work in the oil fields. “I knew when I dropped out I didn’t want to fall into that pattern,” Navejas said. Three weeks after Navejas found out he had been dismissed, he came up with a plan to get readmitted with the help of his counselor at College Academic Counseling by taking classes at Santa Monica College later that spring. Several weeks after, Navejas received frantic calls from his parents. They had just found out about his dismissal through a letter from the financial aid office, which he had lost access to when he was dismissed. Prior to the calls, Navejas’ parents had not known about his struggles because he never shared them. Looking back, Navejas said he realizes he should have opened up to his parents sooner. He said he was in denial and afraid of telling them about the problem; he wanted to avoid facing the fact that his struggles were real and his situation dire.

NUMBER OF STUDENTS ON ACADEMIC PROBATION AND DISMISSED STUDENTS The data represents the total number of students who were put on probation and dismissed during the 2017-2018 school year.

800 700 600

599

612

572

500

students on academic probation

400

students dismissed

300 200 100 Fall ‘17

“

But, he said, the experience of academic dismissal brought them closer. Now, they talk on a daily basis. “My dad always emphasized getting a degree so I could work with my brain instead of body,” Navejas said. “I feel like I had to hide (my struggle).” Navejas’ road back to UCLA was not straightforward. He needed to take a full academic load to gain readmission at UCLA. But because of a policy at Santa Monica College that limits the number of units academically dismissed students can take, he was unable to. Students who are academically dismissed can only take a certain number of units and need to petition to increase the units. Then over the summer, he worked outdoors, swinging a sledgehammer and drilling concrete where the temperature would reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit to pay for his living expenses and the fees he owed UCLA after losing access to his financial aid. During the school year, he worked 40 hours a week at Trader Joe’s to support himself. When he was continuing his classes at Santa Monica College, he learned about BRP. Navejas said after being

Winter ‘18

Spring ‘18

I look at my (GPA) as an advantage. Here’s a challenge I faced and overcame. I now realize I am a person who can overcome different challenges and bounce back.

accepted to the program, his road to readmission became easier because he regained financial aid, could retake classes at UCLA and became more mindful about the experience, realizing that his GPA did not define him. Navejas made use of other oncampus resources like the Student Retention Center and AAP in order to get back on his feet. His peer counselor at SRC provided him with emotional support after he found out he had been dismissed, and later helped him with the application process for BRP. He also took advantage of AAP’s peer learning facility after he was readmitted to UCLA in order to help him improve his grades. He said he applied the good study habits he developed through the facility to all his classes. “(My peer counselor) would check in on me and make sure I was okay,”

Navejas said. “My grades increased dramatically (because of PLF).” In his internship search, Navejas acknowledges that his GPA has created an obstacle because it is the first aspect companies look at. But he is not discouraged and instead sees it as a chance to talk about his ability to overcome challenges. “I look at my (GPA) as an advantage. Here’s a challenge I faced and overcame,” Navejas said. “I now realize I am a person who can overcome different challenges and bounce back.” Navejas found out he was readmitted to UCLA during spring break, through an email. He said he had been anxiously waiting for the results. This time, he ran around his house to share the news with his parents. “I was like a little kid on Christmas Day,” Navejas said. “It was like a breath of fresh air after a long time.”

PRIME | SPRING 2019

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