S E P T E M B E R 1 0, 2 0 2 1
THE RADICAL VULNERABILITY OF JAPANESE BREAKFAST’S MICHELLE ZAUNER By Max Zhang
Contents
September 10, 2021 Volume 54 | Issue 2
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Editor-In-Chief Annemarie Cuccia Managing Editor Sarah Watson
features
Where have all the students gone? The medical leave policies destroying student mental health SARAH CRAIG AND ROMAN PEREGRINO
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halftime leisure
The Vil-A Cookbook ANNEMARIE CUCCIA
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internal resources
Executive Editor for Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion Editor for Sexual Violence Coverage Service Chair Social Chair
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The Voice’s guide to D.C.: Museums
halftime sports
When soccer and disaster collide NATALIA PORRAS
Executive Editor Features Editor News Editor Assistant News Editors
features
The radical vulnerability of Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner
Paul James Roman Peregrino
opinion
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14
15
Showstopper
New WGST director Nadia Brown aims to cement WGST program’s future
Social media activism and the PalestinianIsraeli conflict: Assessing the role and impact of international youth
news
MARGARET HARTIGAN
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PAUL JAMES
“We’re going to reuse materials. We’re going to be more creative in our problem solving. We’re still going to be able to do good theater... We’re just going to do it in a more responsible, economical way.”
leisure
news
SARAH KIRBY
Executive Editor Leisure Editor Assistant Editors Halftime Editor Assistant Halftime Editors
Abby Webster Olivia Martin Orly Salik, Anna Savo Lucy Cook Chetan Dokku, Gokul Sivakumar, Abby Smith
sports
Executive Editor Sports Editor Assistant Editors Halftime Editor Assistant Halftime Editors
Jacob Levin Roman Peregrino Hayley Salvatore, Tim Tan Alex Brady Langston Lee, Natalia Porras, Carlos Rueda
design
Executive Editor Spread Editors Cover Editor Assistant Design Editors
Deborah Han Josh Klein, Allison DeRose Insha Momin Max Zhang, Alex Giorno, Anela Ramos
copy
Copy Chief Maya Knepp Assistant Copy Editors Maya Kominsky, Kenny Boggess, Julia Rahimzadeh Editors Christopher Boose, Alene Hanson, Jennifer Kret, Stephanie Leow
multimedia
Executive Editor Podcast Editor Assistant Podcast Editor Photo Editor
John Woolley Jillian Seitz Alexes Merritt Nathan Posner
online
on the cover
Website Editor Anna Pogrebivsky Social Media Editor Emma Chuck Assistant Social Media Editor Margaret Hartigan
business
General Manager Alice Gao Assistant Manager of Megan O’Malley Accounts & Sales Assistant Manager of Abigail Keating Alumni Outreach
support
PG. 12 The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty, or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons, and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice, unless otherwise indicated.
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
Paul James Caroline Hamilton Annabella Hoge Ethan Greer, Sophie Tafazzoli, Nora Scully
Executive Editor Annette Hasnas Voices Editor Sarina Dev Assistant Voices Editor Sarah Craig, James Garrow, Kulsum Gulamhusein Editorial Board Chair Darren Jian Editorial Board Annemarie Cuccia, William Hammond, Annabella Hoge, Paul James, Darren Jian, Allison O’Donnell, Sarah Watson, John Woolley, Max Zhang
MAX ZHANG
LUCY COOK, PANNA GATTYAN, OLIVIA MARTIN
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Allison Grace O’Donnell
news
news
leisure
Max Zhang
editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University 3700 O St. NW Washington, DC 20057
“JBrekkie” INSHA MOMIN
Associate Editors Samantha Tritt, Sky Coffey, Amanda Chu Staff Writers Nathan Barber, Maya Cassady, Natalie Chaudhuri, Erin Ducharme, Blythe Dujardin, Arshan Goudarzi, Andrea Ho, Abigail Keating, Julia Kelly, Steven Kingkiner, Lily Kissinger, Bella McGlone, Anna Sofia Neil, Adam Pack, John Picker, Hayley Salvatore, Amelia Wanamaker, Sarah Weber, Alec Weiker, Katie Woodhouse
Page 3
An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice staff.
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@GUVOICESPORTS EVERY WEEK, THE VOICE WILL BE TAKING A LOOK AT GEORGETOWN’S MEN AND WOMEN’S SOCCER TEAMS. THIS WEEK, MSOC ROSE TO NUMBER 1 ON THE NATIONAL RANKINGS BEHIND THE SUSTAINED DOMINANCE OF SEAN ZAWADSKI AND RAPID RISE OF FRESHMAN KIERAN SARGEANT. MEANWHILE, WSOC GRINDED OUT TWO TOUGH DRAWS WHICH DROPPED THEM DOWN TO NO. 24 IN THE US COACH’S POLL, BUT THE FUTURE REMAINS BRIGHT THANKS TO THE EMERGENCE OF ELIZA TURNER. READ MORE ON OUR WEBSITE AND FOLLOW OUR SPORTS TWITTER @GUVOICESPORTS.
igloo by connor martin; recruitment graphic by deborah han
→ OVERHEARD AT GEORGETOWN
On the mail system: “The actual pony express operated faster than this”
→ PLAYLIST
Songs to Listen to While Waiting for Your Packages 1. Waiting for You The Aces 2. I Need U yaeow 3. Please Mr. Postman The Marvelettes 4. How Long Do I Have To Wait For You?” Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings 5. Bezos I Bo Burnham 6. Helplessly Hoping” Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 7. It’s Too Late” Carol King 8. I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) The Proclaimers 9. Signed Sealed Delivered I’m Yours Stevie Wonder 10. Dick In A Box The Lonely Island, Justin Timberlake
SEPTEMBER 10, 2021
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Where have all the students gone? How leave of absence policies hinder student wellness By Roman Peregrino & Sarah Craig Content warning: suicide and mental health ollege students are exhausted. Between overloading classes, working parttime jobs, and filling the few remaining hours with internships, college students are used to existing in a state of perpetual fatigue. This persistent crisis was only furthered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted the already-fragile balance students struggled to find. At universities, the spring 2020 semester was a race to the finish, with students and professors alike desperately seeking a reprieve from the catastrophe that was schooling amid a pandemic. The 2020–2021 academic year brought its own host of uncertainty, as well as a decrease in college enrollment, at least partially due to an uptick in voluntary and medical leaves of absence. For many college students, the pandemic caused alreadyweak mental health infrastructures to completely unravel. Lack of social interaction, unpleasant Zoom experiences, and a general existential dread took their toll, but these were not new phenomena. While severe mental illness is a problem across most college campuses, the issue seems to be heightened at elite institutions. This fact is particularly appalling considering many of these schools pride themselves on fostering personal and professional success while offering a multitude of resources to support students. The solution to these fundamental problems may seem to be a leave of absence from one’s studies. For some students, a leave of absence is an opportunity to take planned time off from school—a single semester, quarter, or entire year—to pursue internships or travel. On the other hand, some students do not have the luxury of anticipated leaves. In emergency cases, students will take a leave in the middle of a term, what universities refer to as a medical leave of absence.
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
It would be easy to attribute a rise in leaves of absence to COVID-19, but for Attiya Khan (Dartmouth ’22), the pandemic merely heightened existing issues. “COVID potentially exacerbated some factors and compounded them, but I don’t think COVID is the cause,” Khan said. “This is an ongoing type of crisis and the solution has been that people have stayed silent and tried to avoid, on a structural level, taking real measures to protect students and to treat this with the respect and kind of the care that it deserves as a healthcare issue.” Unfortunately, mental health is not colloquially considered a healthcare issue, especially on college campuses. College students have long been encouraged
to work through conditions of heightened stress and burnout and are used to masking the exhaustion that is seemingly universal. At the University of Pennsylvania, students call this performance Penn Face. At Dartmouth, it’s the Dartmouth Duck Syndrome. Georgetown may not have a specific name for the phenomenon, but every Hoya knows the feeling: put up a façade of ease and calm while struggling on the inside. “It’s this idea that everyone is like a little duck where they look calm above the water but underneath the surface, they are paddling furiously to stay afloat,” Caris White (Dartmouth ’23) said of the image.
illustration by sean ye; design by allison derose
According to White, Dartmouth students are expected to push themselves as hard as they can during the tenweek term, crash during a break, and then do it all over again. This pressure, felt across universities, has real and detrimental effects on students. When Skylar Rearick (University of Pennsylvania ’24) was a first year at Penn, her grandmother—who helped raise her—was hospitalized and eventually passed. She found herself struggling at a university where personal and academic hardship felt like something to suppress. “People don’t necessarily talk about the difficulties with their assignments or any personal life difficulties that may be impacting their mental health,” Rearick said. Despite decreasing her course load for the second semester, things did not improve for Rearick. “Throughout my life, I had a lot of unresolved mental health issues that I wasn’t really even able to start addressing until I got to Penn because of lack of access to healthcare,” she said. As a first-generation, low-income student, Rearick relies on campus health services, including Penn health insurance and mental health resources. “I was starting to dive into taking care of these mental health issues while I was starting my second semester at Penn, so trying to deal with that and school was kind of a lot.” Rearick ended up taking a leave the week of final exams, but despite agreeing with her medical provider that she is ready to return, the school has extended her leave until January 2022. “In a way, I feel like I am being forced out because my psychiatrist is the professional, but at this point, even if she says that I’m okay to go back in August, my housing has already been canceled. I have to pay all sorts of fees and things for taking this leave at the last minute.” Difficulties with housing are particularly relevant in the case of mental health-related leaves. Mental health crises are a common reason for medical leaves, a fact that is unsurprising considering the lack of regard universities have for mental health. However, students on leave are often barred from visiting campus during their absence, forcing students to return to potentially unhealthy home environments. Bernie Yamakaitis (COL ’22) experienced these consequences first hand during both of their medical leaves. The first occurred in fall 2017, following a suicide attempt. After spending a few days in the MedStar hospital, Yamakaitis returned home to live with his parents, despite having a strained relationship with them—a situation that only worsened their mental health. Two years later, in spring 2019, Yamakaitis once again took a medical leave of absence. Not only did the leave stretch for two semesters—longer than they had anticipated—the doctors at the Georgetown hospital outed Yamakaitis to his parents, straining their relationship even further. According to Yamakaitis, when a student faces a mental health crisis, university administrators and deans can provide a limited range of options and can pressure students to leave. In his case, Yamakaitis felt like the university presented him with no other choice. “Georgetown’s official statement is that no one is forced on a medical leave, but they get around that by other ways,” Yamakaitis said. Georgetown’s Student Health Services states that “students should consider requesting a medical leave of absence for situations that significantly limit their ability to function successfully or safely in their role as students,”
and the medical leave of absence policy guide notes that “the goal of taking a medical leave of absence is to ensure that students return to the University with an increased opportunity for academic success and students should take the time to achieve this goal.” “Medical leaves are voluntary, and the student must request them,” CAPS Assistant Director for Psychology Training Jenny Lloyd wrote in a statement to the Voice. “While the dean’s office or CAPS may advance an opinion about the wisdom of taking a leave, it is always up to the student to decide whether or not to request such a leave.” At Georgetown and other elite institutions, administrators and staff seem to push leaves of absence when they determine that a student’s needs (such as combating suicidal thoughts) are more than the school can provide for. It is in the school’s best
“You lose your sense of agency once you get entangled within the web of the policy, and it’s difficult to sort of get it back once it’s been given. Or taken.” interests to control every aspect of the leave process in order to best protect themselves, which can manifest in students feeling like they have no say in whether they remain at school. “You lose your sense of agency once you get entangled within the web of the policy, and it’s difficult to sort of get it back once it’s been given. Or taken,” Khan said. Dartmouth’s leave of absence policies have come into the public eye due to terrible tragedy. This past May, Dartmouth experienced its fourth student death in the past academic year. Following the deaths of Beau DuBray, Connor Tiffany, and Lamees Kareem, it was announced that Elizabeth Reimer had also passed away. Shortly after the initial announcement vaguely described the circumstances of her death as “noncriminal,” it was revealed that she had died by suicide. Reimer became the third first-year student to die by suicide in the 2020-2021 academic year, alongisde DuBray and Tiffany. Prior to her death, Dartmouth placed Reimer on an involuntary medical leave, which forced her to return home. Reimer was desperate to remain on campus and complete her first year, claiming that going home would only worsen her situation. According to her family, her assistant dean had emailed her about a potential year-
long setback in her academic progress. She died the same day she received the email. Dartmouth’s callous leave of absence policies are echoed across elite universities. The Ruderman Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on inclusion and equal access for students with disabilities and mental illness, authored a report evaluating the leave of absence policies of Ivy League schools. Not one school garnered a grade above D+ and the report found that each school’s policies were “ambiguous at best and discriminatory at worst.” Prospective students dream of attending these schools, only to arrive on campus and be met with a lack of support and oftentimes, harmful cultures. This was the case for Yale student Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum, who died by suicide this past March. She was a first-year student and had been struggling to feel mentally safe since her arrival on campus. While Shaw-Rosenbaum never formally requested a leave of absence, a social media post claiming she did garnered traction among both Yale students and residents of Anchorage, Alaska, Shaw-Rosenbaum’s hometown. Yale formally disputed the post in a statement posted to their website, claiming that the university “would never deny anyone permission to take time off to address a health concern; anyone who asks for that permission receives it.” Though it is unclear whether Yale’s medical withdrawal policies played a role in Shaw-Rosenbaum’s death, the social media post catalyzed a larger discussion on the school’s leave of absence and withdrawal policies. In a conversation with Yale Daily News, students described the policies as “completely ridiculous” and “overly punitive, isolating, and expensive.” A connection between punitive university policies and students’ mental health was clear in the case of Luchang Wang, a Yale student who died by suicide in 2015. In a Facebook post just hours before her death, Wang wrote: “Dear Yale: I loved being here. I only wish I could’ve had some time. I needed time to work things out and to wait for new medication to kick in, but I couldn’t do it in school, and I couldn’t bear the thought of having to leave for a full year, or of leaving and never being readmitted.” Wang’s death received immense media attention, sparking a conversation about mental health on college campuses that has continued today. While these conversations have been occurring for years, it seems that they yield few results beyond reactively retrofitting an inherently harmful system. After NYU saw six suicides in the 2003-2004 school year, they established a hotline. After two Cornell students jumped off of a campus bridge, campus police officers were stationed at the location. And at the University of Pennsylvania, fourteen student suicides between 2013 and 2019 drove the expansion of the campus counseling and psychological services, only to be followed by the suicide of program director Gregory Eells. The fears and needs of college students have been pushed aside for decades, culminating in the tragic loss of life across several institutions this past year. After the death of a third classmate in the past academic year, Khan wrote a scathing article in The Dartmouth entitled “For the Love of God, Do Anything,” demanding the Dartmouth administration change its medical withdrawal policy. In it, she declared that the university uses the policy in ways that actively hinder those who need help the most, such as low-income students and those experiencing mental illness. Continued on next page... SEPTEMBER 10, 2021
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Each of the students interviewed directly criticized their respective administrations’ treatment of mental health on campus, including the lack of follow-up from counselors and deans and impersonal and trite messages of support. White wrote her own piece in The Dartmouth in April after her third classmate passed. In White’s perspective, she and her peers were not given the opportunity to process the complex emotions they were feeling after losing fellow community members, nor had she seen the school make any tangible attempt to grapple with the underlying conditions that led to their students’ deaths. “When I wrote that piece, it sort of reached a tipping point on campus and I was so frustrated and fed up with what felt like canned responses by the administration to these really horrible tragedies,” she said. “I was just incredibly fed up and upset and tired of dry 400-word emails that were somehow supposed to make the campus just keep going as normal after someone died.” According to The Dartmouth’s 2021 senior survey, support for Dean of Dartmouth College Kathryn Lively fell from 39 percent to just 9 percent in the past year. College President Phil Hanlon did not fare much better, with his support rate plummeting to 11 percent. “There has been a huge, widening disconnect between the people in charge and the students who are like, ‘please help us, we are not doing well,’” White said. Georgetown’s administration is certainly not immune from such criticism. Students on leaves of absence have complained about the school not checking in on them once they went on leave, and nearly all students are aware vital resources such as CAPS and Health Education have been overworked for years now. Georgetown can do more. “I feel like Georgetown has to get a little more creative with their solutions other than just like, well, we don’t want you to be a liability,” Yamakaitis said. There has been progress in recent years. Spurred by the pandemic and student-led pushes such as the Black Survivor’s Coalition sit-in, the university has attempted to be more proactive when it comes to students’ wellbeing by increasing its mental health resources on campus, including adding new CAPS counselors, establishing HoyaWell (a university telehealth service), and encouraging professors to be more understanding when students are struggling. Yet, these efforts do not solve the underlying conditions that have caused student mental health to deteriorate. *** So where do we go from here? It’s clear that the fight for mental health justice on college campuses will be a long one, so it’s time that we start 6
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
interrogating harmful leave of absence policies and their impact on student mental health. The increase in students taking a leave during the pandemic must be the tipping point for destigmatizing the leave of absence process. No one should be considered weak or incapable for needing a break from the neverending cycle of struggling at college. While leaves becoming more common has led to more positive views of the concept, medical or voluntary leaves are still not seen as a viable option among the student population. “The feeling that I get from some people is this attitude of, ‘Oh, that’s great for you, take your time, but I could never,’ and it’s a little backhanded,” Rearick said. In addition to the harmful student culture around leaves of absence, the administrative processes surrounding them must improve as well. Khan has seen instances where school administrators and deans don’t listen to the advice of counselors, let alone students, when it comes to making a plan moving forward. Ignoring students’ needs and the advice of professionals can lead to isolation, relapse, or even danger. “I think what’s in the best interest of the student is to work on a safety plan that involves the students’ input and I think that’s a pretty basic demand to have,” Khan said. “Students can struggle to, but are also perfectly able to, articulate the specific nuances of their life and their needs and there can be an individualized approach that is specific to what a student’s circumstances are so that this blanket sort of policy doesn’t leave them stranded.” Once students go on leave, faculty and staff must be committed to their rematriculation. The onus often falls onto the student to stay in touch with their deans and counselors. At Georgetown, students are even removed from school email lists, meaning important correspondence can fall by the wayside and students can miss information about housing, important COVID-19 updates, re-enrollment, and class registration. It is imperative that schools create a dedicated and individualized follow-up plan for each student on leave that ensures they are included in its drafting and execution. Keeping communication open is especially important considering the red tape that exists in re-enrollment processes. At many colleges, students must submit a letter—typically from a doctor, employer, or community leader—confirming they are ready to matriculate again. In the case of mental health-related leaves, many universities require students to see a therapist; only then do they have the ability to ensure your financial aid and student status are still intact. “You can’t use the free doctors service— the counseling service as well—that are included in your tuition because you’ve been forced off campus, but you have to go to a therapist so
that you can get back on campus and produce documents showing that you’ve been to a therapist or psychiatrist or someone similar,” Khan said. “So this is kind of the paradoxical nature of the policy in that it’s claiming, ‘we’re trying to do this in the best interest of the student, because we are worried about their safety,’ but then it’s also removing every existing safety net that the student may have.” At Penn, Rearick had health insurance for the first time in several years and could finally start reckoning with the mental health challenges she had been struggling with. When she went on leave and returned home to Florida, she had enough to deal with without worrying about the loss of healthcare she had only just received. “There’s always a ton of red tape, always a ton of steps and processes that you have to go through to get things done and it makes it super discouraging to try to do things. For someone with mental health issues—in my case specifically, depression—that’s a lot,” she said. It is unacceptable that a return can be conditional on pursuing treatment or being productive—especially in the midst of a pandemic. This just creates another barrier for those who can no longer use their best resources. Yamakaitis notes the catch-22 of Georgetown’s stated and outward goals of promoting diversity and ensuring that anyone can have a place on the Hilltop with the lack of resources distributed to meet their needs. “You accept all these students with all this adversity, and when you don’t expect them to need mental health care to deal with their trauma—that will always blow my mind,” he said. Universities must be committed to sustaining students beyond their initial arrival. This support can— and should—take various forms. University healthcare resources, including insurance and mental healthcare, should still be available for students not currently enrolled. Students should not be fined for enrollment changes, and after taking a medical leave, they should be given adequate time to organize housing and other basic resources. Bureaucratic, application-based reinstatement processes must be eliminated and replaced with accessible and carebased plans that emphasize the autonomy of students. The medical leave process must undergo foundational changes, but the work cannot stop there. Overhauling a single process without dedicating time and resources to marginalized groups on campus, often disproportionately impacted, would be meaningless. Campuses today still rely on outdated structures and are not built to support students dealing with mental illness. To better support these students, university administrations must interrogate current policies and commit to making timely changes. A renovated leave of absence system certainly isn’t the only answer, but it can only make things better. College students are exhausted, but they don’t have to be. G Confidential Resources: Health Education Services (HES): sarp@georgetown.edu Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS): (202) 6876985; after hours, call (833) 960-3006 to reach Fonemed, a telehealth service; individuals may ask for the on-call CAPS clinician National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
illustration by sean ye; design by allison derose
LEISURE
The Vil A cookbook BY ANNEMARIE CUCCIA
T
here’s no need to be embarrassed. I mean, sure, it’s only Wednesday and you’re heating up your fifth microwaveable Trader Joe’s curry of the week. And yeah, your “charcuterie board” lunch was just string cheese and seven grapes you gulped down as you ran out the door to your discussion section. Sure, the White Claws in your fridge have more nutritional value than the food you have for the rest of the week. But hey, it’s college. All jokes aside, this campus does not make it easy to foster healthy eating habits. Short breaks between classes force students to buy into the overbearing culture of “meal prep,” and limited campus grocery options mean if you don’t already have vegetables, you probably won’t get any until the weekend. For students on campus, who now are required to have a meal plan, days that are supposed to be respites from Leo’s can easily turn into a mad dash just to get calories in any form that’s not bread or coffee. If you have dietary restrictions, religious observations, or a challenging relationship with food, this issue is just the beginning. In college and after, it is so important to know how to prepare food that will energize and satisfy you. Coming from someone who is passionate about cooking, finding the time to do that is tough. Over the last year, I’ve developed some easy go-to recipes that are adaptable, save well (and save money), and still make you think, damn, I made that. (All recipes are probably an unintentional mix of recipes already published online somewhere).
Extra spicy southwest salad
Vegan and vegetarian. The fundamental problem with salads is that they are never quite filling enough and then you buy a snack at 3 p.m., which is exactly what you were trying to avoid by making your own lunch. The solution?
Black beans! And also tons of vegetables. This recipe is super adaptable and easy to whip up. At Trader Joe’s, the ingredients come perfectly packaged to get three meals out of one shopping trip. What you need: 3 hearts of Romaine lettuce, 3 red bell peppers, 1 avocado, frozen corn, tortilla chips, hot sauce of your choice, lime juice What you probably have: Cumin, garlic powder, butter, salt What to do: Microwave 1 cup of corn until it is soft. Heat 1 tbsp. of butter in a skillet and add the corn once it melts. Sauté it until it is slightly brown (4 min.). Take the corn out of the pan and add in the can of black beans and spices to your taste (about 1 tbsp. each). Cook until warm (10 min.). Meanwhile, wash and tear lettuce, cut 1 bell pepper, cut 1/3 of the avocado, and break up about 10 tortilla chips and put them in a bowl. Add 1/3 of the corn and 1/3 of the black beans. Top with lime juice and hot sauce, then toss. Leftovers: Two more days of salad, with corn and beans already prepared. Idea for extra ingredients (chips, corn, hot sauce): Corn nachos! Just add cheese.
Mix and match pasta salad
Vegetarian. There are about 1,000 recipes for pasta salad out there. The downside? Lots of carb options to sort through. The upside? You can make one every other week and never get tired. Plus, lots of carbs to eat. For this recipe, choose one pasta and sauce and as many mix-ins as you want every time you make it—they all go well together. What you need: 16 oz. of pasta (tortellini, or your favorite shape), sauce (pesto, sun-dried tomato pesto, balsamic vinegar, or just oil), mix-ins (1 can cannellini beans, 8 oz. cherry tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan, 2 zucchinis, olives, basil, fresh mozzarella pearls, 2 heads of broccoli, 1 bag spinach) What you probably have: Garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, herbs What to do: Prep the toppings. If using zucchini or broccoli, chop, toss with 1 tbsp. olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake (at 425 °F for about 30 min.) until cooked.
You can also do this with the cherry tomatoes, or leave them raw. Drain beans, chop olives and sun-dried tomatoes, grate cheese, wash spinach, etc. Cook the pasta. Toss with toppings and sauce. If using balsamic vinegar, mix 3:1 with olive oil. If using olive oil, mix with some of your favorite dried herbs.
them in a nonstick skillet over high heat. Flip them every few minutes, when the side on the pan gets crispy. Do this until all sides are crispy or until you get impatient. Turn heat off and add your sauce of choice.
Leftovers: Probably about 6 servings, depending on how many toppings you go for.
Black beans and rice
Ideas for extra ingredients: Balsamic, sun-dried tomatoes, and cheese can be easy toppings for a house salad with lettuce and olive oil.
The easiest tofu
Vegan and vegetarian. Don’t be intimidated by tofu. It has literally three ingredients and, like, rice if you want.
Leftovers: One block of tofu will be two/ three meals. Save leftover sauce for next time! Vegan and vegetarian. I say complex, you say protein. Complex! What you need: 2 cans of black beans, rice, 1 lime, and toppings if you so choose (avocado, sour cream, cheese, tortilla chips) What you probably have: Cumin, paprika, chili powder, garlic, olive oil
What you need: Extra firm tofu, rice, sauce of choice (I use hoisin mixed with chili garlic sauce, but bottled curry or stir fry sauce also works. Or make your own, if you have time)
What to do: Sauté 1 tsp. garlic in olive oil for two minutes. Add beans with liquid. Add 1 tsp. cumin, 1 tsp. chili powder, and ½ tsp. paprika. Make rice. Cook beans over medium high heat until they boil, then turn down to low until thick (20 min.). Taste and adjust seasoning. Squeeze in lime juice. Serve with rice.
What you probably have: A skillet
Leftovers: Three servings
What to do: Press the tofu for 30 min. (I do this by putting it on a baking dish with a cutting board and a few cookbooks on top of it). Make rice. Cut the tofu into cubes. Put
For more recipe ideas, check out @amwhatiyam, the author’s online food blog, on Instagram. G
design by alex giorno; illustrations by anela nicole ramos
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S ’ T S A F K A E R B E S E N
OF JAPA
R E N U A Z E L L E H C I M BY MAX ZHANG
M
ichelle Zauner is at a new height of her powers—and feeling complicated about it. The frontwoman of indie rock band Japanese Breakfast (an ironic moniker, as Zauner is Korean-American) is promoting a new book and album, soundtracking a video game, writing a screenplay, helming a 60-something-date cross-country tour, narrating her own audiobook, and still ( jokingly) considering a public infrastructure project in Philadelphia. How she manages is a mystery to me—and even she approaches this current apex with a bit of hesitation. “There’s all this expectation when really wonderful things happen to you, that you should feel like the peak of joy, but a lot of the time it’s more complicated than that,” she told me over the phone in July. “When things are going so well, this real fear kicks in that someday you’re going to lose it: If you love someone, you also are filled with this fear sometimes that it’s going to get destroyed by something. Or if you’re at the peak of your career, it can only go down from here.” It’s this kind of self-aware vulnerability that makes Zauner’s art so special, translating viscerally into an intimacy she sees as a consistent guiding light for her music, writing, and other endeavors. “Radical vulnerability has just felt the most natural to explore creatively,” she said. And how better to be radically vulnerable than by crying in public? Something about leaping into that visible vat of feeling, knowing there is no telling how onlookers will react, feels revolutionary and, for some, freeing. Indeed, the act of crying in the food court of an Asian supermarket defines Zauner’s sense of catharsis, so much so that it translated into the title of her new memoir Crying in H Mart, as well as
the viral New Yorker piece that catalyzed it. H Mart originally became an emotional ground zero for Zauner after she lost her mother, Chongmi, to pancreatic cancer in 2014. Trawling through the aisles of the Asian supermarket became a homecoming activity of sorts, the aisles of Korean food forming both a link to her past and a reminder of its irretrievability. The small details, like puffy ppeongtwigi, tattooed eyebrows, and QVC-brand facial creams, constitute something of an archive for her—one that unearths memories of her mother. “Even just hearing the language—hearing Korean—and just little things that remind me of my mother, I can find them there. The same type of sneaker wedge that she would wear that they only sell somewhere,” she said. “Like visors, or the smells and the mannerisms of the people.” Zauner first discovered H Mart as a personal lightning rod while craving some private time away from her in-laws during the holidays. For the uninitiated, H Mart generally contains a supermarket, a small food court selling overpriced bread and semi-authentic Asian foods, a makeup pop-up, and sometimes a sort of pharmacy. It’s altogether adopted a multi-tool philosophy, which contributes to its appeal. “I found myself going to H Mart alone for lunch around Christmas Day watching the people there—wondering what they were doing, fascinated by their interior worlds, and found myself just so overcome by emotion of just how much I missed my mother,” she said. “How watching other mothers eat lunch with their children made me feel so jealous and lonely.” The majority of Crying in H Mart is not really about the grocery, though—the superstructure of food and loss frames
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spread by deborah han and insha momin; photo courtesy of max zhang
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a deeper, more nuanced narrative about a mother and daughter, a layered relationship that is not just loving, but truly lovely (a word Chongmi adored). Zauner attempts to reconstruct the wholeness of her mother, a near-impossible task given Chongmi’s protective personal philosophy of concealing at least “10 percent” of herself from view. A great deal of the book is dedicated to cracking this enigma. As in her music, the most irreverent details become Zauner’s evocative weapons of choice. “When my mom picks a red pepper out of her teeth with a corner of a receipt, I feel like there are people who have seen their mom or someone they love do that, and it shoots you into a moment,” she said. “So much of memory is tied to those details, and ultimately what hits people the hardest.” These small details translate powerfully in passages where Zauner jockeys to be the caretaker her mother wants. The road is bumpy, though, and Zauner is almost always self-critical along her journey toward healing from such profound loss. Directing the lens at herself paints a complex, flawed, and human picture of her caretaking and grieving in the face of another’s terminal illness. Often, Zauner’s self-consciousness is tied to the racial and cultural particularities of her upbringing and grieving process. While she was emphatic that the book remains fundamentally a coming-of-age story, Zauner’s lived experience as a mixed-race Korean-American rings clear from page to page. Writing a race-neutral narrative—now, and especially for future fictive endeavors—would abdicate a responsibility to tell her truest story. This obligation created a unique kind of anxiety for Zauner in terms of how Asian audiences might receive Crying in H Mart.
“I didn’t want to pander to a white audience, and that was something that I became preoccupied with at times, but mostly tried to console myself with, How can you be pandering if this is the truth?” In fact, Zauner noted what she called an “unfair” and “divisive” criticism frequently directed at Asian authors in particular: They supposedly write too much about their mothers, especially when those maternal characters tend to be critical or tough. It’s commentary she’s seen lobbed at her own book—and something she refutes forcefully. “If we’re pushing to have more inclusivity in the arts, we should be able to write about whatever we want. I don’t understand: What else would I have written about? My mother died. So of course I was going to write about our relationship and what that meant to me,” she said. “And in moments of time I wasn’t allowed to do that, because ‘so much of the Asian-American narrative is focused on the mother,’ was really frustrating for me.” Even outside the limits of unfair cultural constraint, the process of creation is rarely frictionless and requires tolerance of flaws. “Creating exercises in forgiveness is what is really helpful for me,” she offered. “For a long time, I was writing a thousand words everyday—and a lot of times they were completely nonsensical passages that I would then mine for what was useful.” Ultimately, though, the book served a singular audience: herself. “In the case of this book, it was for me and only for me. I had some worries about how it would be perceived, but I ultimately felt like I needed to tell my story.” The construction of Crying in H Mart took Zauner roughly four years, ideating first in 2016 and emerging with a final draft in the pandemic-addled summer of 2020. Mostly written on laptops and occasionally scrawled in fragments in Moleskines, the book came to be while Zauner was on tour for her first two records. As she transited, she wrote: in the back of a 15-passenger van, in coffee shops between soundcheck and show, and in hotels in Seoul. In some ways, performing while drafting provided its own form of electricity to light the writing process. “[Touring] also gave me courage in a lot of ways—I was meeting so many mixed-race kids, so many Asian-American kids that I had impacted in a way that made me feel more confident about what I was doing and to press forward.” An Asian-American kid myself, I felt validated in hearing that there was a mutualistic relationship here—that all the joy I had pulled from her music fed her, too. So when I saw Japanese Breakfast in concert at the Fillmore Silver Spring near D.C. in late July, it was extraordinary to see she still carried this courage. Zauner charged on stage, radiant, following a neckbreaking opener by punk rock band Mannequin Pussy. Clad in white lace and knee-high black boots, she wailed the chorus of “Paprika,” the first track to their newest record Jubilee (2021). As the pilot show of her first tour since the pandemic began, the Fillmore concert opened with a marked sense of urgency, a feeling of, Let’s make the most of what we have...while we have it. It was my first concert, too, in 509 days—so I felt the same desperation, masked amongst a crowd of about a thousand (mostly vaccinated) strangers. Earplugs wormed into ear canal, clear vinyl tote bag, and a kindhearted friend in tow, I closed my eyes and shimmied in place to the sound of Zauner unwrapping Jubilee to a crowd of fans for the first time. At its core, Jubilee is a record exalting the most earnest
forms of love: a vulnerable spouse waiting for their partner to come home (“Posing in Bondage”), a naïve goodbye between teenage sweethearts (“Kokomo, IN”), a breadwinner courting a lover in the midst of apocalypse (“Savage Good Boy”). Most of the album aspires towards joy, a radical move in the landscape of indie rock songs about toxic relationships and societal anxieties. “The theme [of Jubilee] was always a very broad theme, I felt. Songs about people struggling to feel joy or relearning
signing shortly after. To see Zauner’s “pipe dreams” (as she terms them) come true in real time felt special, and most importantly, encouraging. “I came from an immigrant parent who really warned me against this lifestyle, so I was always pursuing a safe bet in addition to my creative path. I think ultimately that was what made me realize it was truly meant to be, because I kept at it even after going to college,” she said. “Even after working jobs, it was always something that I was doing.”
how to feel joy—permitting themselves to feel joy— sustaining joy,” Zauner said. “I think they all interact with joy in one way or another. That was what linked them.” Indeed, Jubilee marks a major departure from the band’s first two, grief-stricken records, Psychopomp (2016) and Soft Sounds from Another Planet (2017). They mull over wounds, fearlessly tearing the bandage off without much hoping for better. Jubilee, on the other hand, is committed to healing: When the album does acknowledge a broken body, it’s the brain wrestling for happiness (“Slide Tackle”) or the heart becoming whole (“Posing in Cars”). Hearing the album live—the saxophone so warm, the percussion so vibrant—was a distinct experience from walking alone down Wisconsin Avenue, headphones clamped on, to the woozy guitars on “Sit.” The latter makes Jubilee a soundtrack; the former transforms it into a centerpiece, a motion, a celebration. More than anything, being in a packed theatre (COVID-19 anxieties aside) and watching the crowd rave about a self-made artist pushed a small pride through my veins: Look! Somebody made it. Before mainstream success with Japanese Breakfast, Zauner spent several years taking odd jobs to pay the bills while playing basement gigs. “I had fought for that dream thanklessly for eight long years, and only after [my mother] died did things, as if magically, begin to happen,” she writes in Crying in H Mart. Psychopomp, serendipitously, gained critical and popular traction upon release in 2016, leading to an opener spot for Mitski’s tour and a Dead Oceans label
When I prodded her about the tension between traditional careerism and unfettered artistry, she was unwavering: “It is possible to pursue both in a way. If it’s persistently calling to you, you can find a way to always work at it.” Perhaps it was revealing, then, that our interview had to end abruptly, as she was pulled away for soundcheck: That night in New Haven, she opened alongside Lucy Dacus for indie rock paragons Bright Eyes, who were a show into their first tour in a decade. It was a good preview of the coming months, when Zauner will be awfully busy, even in the rest period between the American and European legs of her tour. Variety reported in early June that Crying In H Mart has been acquired by MGM label Orion Pictures to be adapted into a feature film, for which Zauner will write the screenplay and the soundtrack. That’s in addition to the medley of other projects she is attached to, some of which are likely still invisible to the public. And, among all of these undertakings, what is she dreaming of? “A day when it doesn’t always feel like we’re on the verge of the end of the world,” Zauner wrote to me late August via her publicist. “That, and a long period of time to just chill and work on my art.” In the face of this uncertain future, I am confident we will be lingering onto her every jubilant word. G
SEPTEMBER UPDATE PUB10, DATE 2021
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LEISURE
The Voice’s guide to D.C.: Lesser-known museums BY THE LEISURE STAFF
The Hillwood Estate, Museum, & Gardens
Address: 4155 Linnean Ave NW How to get there: Take the 38B to 17th & I, then transfer to the L2. Get off at Connecticut & Tilden. Admission: College students are $10, and adults are $15 Hillwood is a mansion museum near northern Rock Creek Park, showcasing the home of 20th century cereal-heiress Marjorie Post, who amassed a large personal collection of Russian imperial and 18th century French art. Post’s home is a mismatch of ideas: Fabergé eggs and portraits of European nobility reside within a 1950s house built to look like a Georgian mansion. Although Post cycled through several husbands, Hillwood retains few of their marks. This is undoubtedly Post’s personal estate. Her bedroom is a space full of comfort, all blue frills and a large vanity, and her bathroom is filled with pink tiles and pictures of her daughters and pets. She has her own hairdressing salon and several walk-in closets. Little silver boxes on the doors to bedrooms let the maids know whether the residents can be disturbed or not. Post hosted large gatherings in this home, and the size of the dining room and kitchens attest to their grandiosity. The estate also encompasses a large outdoor garden divided into several segments such as the French garden, Japanese garden, rose garden, orchid greenhouse, Russian dacha, Adirondack wood cabin, and her beloved pets’ resting place, the dog cemetery. — PANNA GATTYAN
The Holocaust Museum
Address: 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl. SW How to get there: Take the 33 bus south to Federal Triangle and get off at Pennsylvania & 14th. Walk down 14th until you reach the museum. Admission: Free! (Timed entry passes required)
The Anacostia Community Museum
Address: 1901 Fort Pl. SE How to get there: Take the GUTS bus to Rosslyn, the Blue line to L’Enfant Plaza, then transfer to the Green line and take that to Anacostia. Once off the Metro, take the W2 bus east towards United Medical Center and get off at Fort Pl. SE & #1901. Admission: Free! While certainly a hike from Georgetown, the Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) is the only Smithsonian that truly serves as a memorial and monument to this city. In particular, the ACM focuses on recognizing the legacy and collective power of the Anacostia community, one of D.C.’s historic and contemporary Black neighborhoods. The current exhibit, “Food for the People: Eating and Activism in Greater Washington,” focuses on civic engagement in urban areas, specifically the unequal distribution of food resources in and around the District. The exhibit mixes art installations, videos, and hands-on activities. Beyond art, the museum hosts many speakers—often community members who educate through their stories. The ACM is an excellent place for any resident, new or D.C.-born, to learn more about their neighboring communities and the city they have stepped into. — LUCY COOK
The Phillips Collection
Content warnings: antisemitism, discrimination, graphic depictions of violence, and sexual violence The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a somber and industrial home of living memory, chronicling the rise of antisemitism and the Nazi Party in Germany and the sickening atrocities committed as a result. It cannot be overstated that this memorial is deeply upsetting and can be highly triggering in its portrayal of the physical and ideological evils perpetrated during the Holocaust, particularly for those with connections to the targeted populations. For those who do go, the museum offers incredibly powerful documentation of the events that culminated in such a swift and horrific genocide—from detailing how indoctrination occurs to stories of resistance—and serves as a hallowed memorial to the lives lost and the populations decimated. In a world in which many understate the impact of the Holocaust, and some even deny it, the Holocaust Museum provides a constant reminder and vital source of primary information. Everyone should visit the Holocaust Museum at some point to truly witness and digest the monstrous acts that human beings can commit against one another, and join the museum’s vow that it shall never happen again.
Address: 1600 21st St. NW How to get there: Take the GUTS bus to Dupont, then walk up Massachusetts Avenue until you reach 21st Street, where you will take a right. Admission: $10 if you show a student ID, or if you’re still 18 or under you get in free At first glance, The Phillips Collection looks like just another mansion on Embassy Row. But if you take a closer look, you’ll soon realize that not only is it a massive house, it holds a massive (6,000 strong!) collection of works by renowned artists like Georgia O’Keeffe and Pablo Picasso. The museum’s interior mostly resembles a traditional gallery, with glittering white walls and a large central staircase, but visitors can also enter Duncan and Marjorie Phillips’s original home. In here, paintings flank fireplaces and wooden floors creak. Just don’t accidentally go down the wrong staircase (as my friend and I once did), because you will be stuck in the catacombs of basement offices (it took us about 15 minutes of seemingly endless searching to find our way up). And once you finally emerge upstairs, be sure you don’t miss the Rothko room, a space that showcases the work of Mark Rothko. The capacity limit due to COVID-19 restrictions means it will just be you and the art.
— LUCY COOK 10
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
spread and photo by max zhang
— OLIVIA MARTIN
Given that D.C.’s a museum town first and our nation’s capital second, it should come as no surprise to you that this list is just the tip of the iceberg! Check out our website at georgetownvoice. com for the rest of our recommendations!
SPORTS
When soccer and disaster collide BY NATALIA PORRAS
O
n March 17, 2011, a record 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that led to the biggest nuclear meltdown since Chernobyl. Months later, the unlikely World Cup run of the Japanese women’s soccer team culminated in triumph on July 17, 2011. Japan’s experience of the 2011 Women’s World Cup will always be tied to the calamity of the tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. But beyond its symbolic value, it was truly a shining moment for women in soccer and the sport in general. 2021 marks the 10-year anniversary of Fukushima and the World Cup, inspiring us to reflect on the same parallels between sport and disaster as the COVID-19 pandemic persists alongside international competitions—including this past summer’s Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo. The Japanese team (nicknamed the Nadeshiko) arrived in Germany in 2011 as underdogs to win it all, ranked fourth by FIFA. They were dealing with the weight of the Fukushima disaster, and every appearance was met with commentary on their smaller stature compared to competitors. They had superstar forward Homare Sawa, yet most counted the squad out, both because of the team’s lowly historical statistics (only once making it out of the group stages in 1995) and the toll of the situation at home. But then they started winning. First, the team made it out of the group stage with only one loss to England. In the quarterfinals, Japan and defending champions Germany held each other scoreless in regulation. In the 108th minute, in front of a German crowd, forward Karina Maruyama found the perfect angle to send the ball past the keeper and clinch a spot in the semifinal. The semifinal against Sweden was a game of catchup for Japan. Sweden’s Josefine Öqvist took advantage of an early mistake by Japanese defenders to score in just the 10th minute. Nahomi Kawasumi responded in the 19th minute to tie things up. Sawa then scored with a masterful header in the 60th minute to put her team ahead. Just four minutes later, Kawasumi launched the ball from far outside the box into the back of the net. It was undoubtedly the goal of the match and a highlight of the tournament. Their wins were partially fueled by Coach Norio Sasaki’s strategy of showing the team videos of the destruction in Japan. According to the Guardian, he played reels before the games against Germany and Sweden to remind the team that they carried the hopes of a nation ravaged by destruction. Disaster weighed on their minds as they held a banner that read, “To Our Friends Around the World Thank You for Your Support” before and after the final match. Coming into the final, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) was heavily favored, ranked
first by FIFA. The United States, which has always been seen as a major player in international women’s soccer, won the first ever women’s World Cup in 1991 but had not held the trophy since 1999. And the U.S. players were itching to reclaim that honor. Although Japan had never beaten the U.S. in any previous matchups, the team held the Americans even until substitute Alex Morgan scored in the 69th minute. Aya Miyama answered in the 81st minute after intercepting a weak clearance from the U.S. defense, leading to extra time. Many were confident the game was over when U.S. forward Abby Wambach received a perfect cross to head in a goal at the 104th minute. But, in the spectacular final minutes of overtime, captain Sawa equalized with a shot that looked like magic. The ball sailed in from the corner, and she ran to the front of the pack to deftly direct it into the goal. For the fourth time in history, the World Cup final ended in penalty kicks. The U.S. went first, but Ayumi Kaihori blocked two and Carli Lloyd’s shot sailed above the goal. Not even Wambach’s successful attempt or Hope Solo’s mental tactics could keep the Japanese from winning 3-1 in the shootout after Saki Kumagai sent her shot to the top left of the net. Instant joy and relief ensued for Japanese fans around the world. The team brought much-needed hope to a country wracked with grief. They persevered in a world that has yet to recognize women’s sports as equal to men’s. Their win held significance for female athletes worldwide, inspiring future generations of players. Plus, this Japan squad has been the only Asian team to win a major international soccer title. Though Japan has not had the same success recently, 2011 is
illustration by elyza bruce
a testament to the fact that there are no divinely ordained favorites in this sport that we all love. One year later in London, the results flipped, and the USWNT started an era of international dominance, including getting revenge on Japan at the 2015 World Cup final. The 2011 Japan team was the last team to hold the trophy that was not the United States. The impact of that 2011 tournament run and its context is long-lasting. Following the nuclear disaster, the 2020 Olympics were actually hailed as part of the country’s recovery. And while sports events push on, regions of the country are still in the process of reconstruction and nuclear cleanup. Ten years after 2011, Japan once again embarked into sport in the midst of tragedy and disaster. Just as the 2011 World Cup was connected to the tsunami, every medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics was connected to the coronavirus. (The pandemic overshadowed most fears about nuclear radiation in the J-Village, though it was yet another complication of the Games.) We should expect sports and disaster to collide more and more often. Climate change, epidemics, sociopolitical conflict, and other issues are hallmarks of our modern society. But just as we contend with these tragedies every day, so do sports. Whenever the 2011 World Cup is discussed, it is a story of disaster, underdogs, and emotional triumph. Sports are seen as the ultimate form of escapism, but in reality, many times they serve to highlight the problems currently plaguing us. The 2011 Women’s World Cup remains a historic moment for the sports fans of 2021, if not bittersweet. A shining moment for the Nadeshiko, a quadrennial goal to attain again. G SEPTEMBER 10, 2021
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SHOWSTOPPER PERFORMING ARTS GROUPS LEFT CONFUSED AND DISCOURAGED BY MARGARET HARTIGAN
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erformance is coming back to Georgetown. After a year of green screen set displays and actors talking through the borders of Zoom boxes, theatre is returning to, well, not always theaters. As actors, dancers, singers, and improvisers prepare to close their laptops and take the stage, they are met with a supporting cast of vanishing budgets and repurposed rehearsal spaces. At the start of a semester marked by all-around uncertainty, some performing arts groups on campus have found their previously-held performance and practice spaces repurposed, rendering them unusable or insufficient for accommodating new COVID-19 regulations. Student organizations are also adjusting to a new budget model and restrictions on ticket sales, leaving some groups significantly underfunded and slashing show budgets. Leadership concerns about space and funding coincide with an influx of new and returning students experiencing in-person campus arts and clubs for the first time. “It’s kind of an unfortunate time for us to be uncertain of how we can use our funds and expand our community and our outreach,” Ava Gaus (COL ’23), the business manager of nomadictheatre, said in an interview with the Voice. Although the Performing Arts Advisory Council (PAAC), which allocates funds to the groups, has a similar budget compared to pre-pandemic years, their new model for allocating funds separates performances into tiers based on size and perceived financial need. Confusion over the new model has been exacerbated by the loss of emergency funding over the course of the pandemic. Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society (M&B), for example, lost $15,000 worth of stocked-up donations. While the new model is intended to increase equity among performance-based clubs, not all performing 12
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arts groups benefit from it. Some, including the Georgetown Improv Association and M&B, have lost a significant amount of funding, mostly due to the loss of ticket revenue but also the PAAC budget cuts. “Normally we only request about $100 over what our ticket sales cover. I think everything was cut down to like about 25 percent of what we would normally spend,” Anna November (COL ’22), the business manager of the Improv Association, said. “So it has been a pretty significant cut, but it’s not only been to us, it’s to all of the performing arts programs.” M&B is also struggling to make the smaller budget work. They are expecting a budget of just $1,400 for one of their shows—a significant amount of money, but far less than a major theatrical performance often requires. “We’re not broke, but it is significantly less than we’re used to. We can do fundraising. The concern is how will we retain that money,” M&B executive producer Liz McDermott (SFS ’22) said. “So we can certainly adjust and we won’t be canceling anything, but we’re just working with a lot less wiggle room than we’re used to.” While Georgetown Event Management Services (GEMS) is in charge of assigning spaces for co-curricular organizations to meet, PAAC allocates each group’s overall budget. GUSA’s Financial Appropriations Committee (FinApp) is responsible for distributing a $1.9 million budget among the various advisory boards on campus, including PAAC.
“PAAC works just like any of the other advisory boards. We allocate funding to our groups throughout the year. And then from there we have ad hoc funding requests,” Olivia Kleier (SFS ’22), who serves as both PAAC co-chair and GUSA FinApp chair, said. The change in budget model this year aims to remedy inequalities among performance groups under the previous model. “Every club is now getting the same amount of money, and it’s equitable. And it’s fair based on the level of production they’re doing,” the Department of Performing Arts (DPA) technical advisor Toby Clark said. “Some clubs are bigger and some clubs are smaller, so some will do fewer productions. Some will do more productions, but on the whole, the way the money is distributed is much more fair than it has been in the past.” A small-scale reading, for example, would be classified under the first tier, while a large-scale, high-tech production would be classified under the third tier (or fourth, a spot reserved for high-tech musicals specifically). In addition to a more equitable distribution of funds, Clark hopes that this model will allow increased freedom for groups to use their budgets as they wish —under the previous system, PAAC would instead approve an itemized list of needs at the beginning of the academic year.
The new funding model is complicated, however, by DPA chair Derek Goldman’s decision to end ticket sales, meaning performance groups are now unable to charge student audience members for entry. This change was made after clubs requested their initial budget, so it was not factored into requests for the year, leaving many clubs in an unexpected financial hole. The goal of the new rule, according to Clark, is to increase accessibility to art and theater for all students, regardless of their ability to pay. Nevertheless, it also removes a significant source of external funding for student groups. “We’re not going to be charging for in-person tickets. Without that, we lose not the majority, but a huge portion of our funding,” Kleier said. It is possible for groups to earn revenue in other ways, like by charging audience members outside the Georgetown community for tickets, according to Clark. But without clear university policies for live Georgetown audiences during the pandemic, let alone community access to on-campus performances, the idea is unlikely to supplant traditional ticket sales. Currently, no one may attend a show that is not a Georgetown community member. “We can’t guarantee that audiences are going to be able to come, let alone pay $10 for a ticket,” Clark said. He suggested optional donations, rather than mandatory ticket fees. “The hope is that we can create a more present donation system or sort of pay-as-you-go model.” Despite these changes, much of PAAC’s funding is still distributed on an as-needed basis, according to Kleier. When groups are in need of funding for specific items, they can appeal to PAAC for more. PAAC, however, has communicated to student leaders that they have a very limited amount of money remaining. “If a group doesn’t receive enough money for a certain production or something, they can apply for more money. And we have a reserve where we try to save some of our allocated budget for those expenses that we couldn’t have predicted during the budget summit,” Kleier explained. But the appeals process also perplexes many performing arts club leaders. Club organizers must email the administrative director of the DPA, Ron Lignelli, to request more funds and hope he agrees with their need. There is no straightforward process for requesting a larger budget outside Lignelli’s discretion. Additionally, the groups collectively lost $300,000 in the PAAC emergency reserve fund, which they have maintained for years, meaning they can no longer rely on what was a constant cushion, according to club leadership.
“We have, for the most part, been told to wait a while until we see sort of how this semester goes in order to maybe hear about increasing funding for next semester,” Gaus said. Along with budgetary challenges, clubs face uncertainty regarding access to necessary practice and performance spaces and the COVID-19 regulations they will need to uphold. Even theatre clubs that will retain their previously-held spaces must socially distance actors and may be required to put on a show without audience members, though groups still lack clear guidance on this. nomadictheatre, which will put on the musical Cabaret this semester, is still figuring out how to perform the show while following COVID-19 protocols, including a current DPA rule communicated to club leaders that actors still need to maintain three feet of distance.
“WE’RE STILL GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO GOOD THEATRE. WE’RE JUST GOING TO DO IT IN A MORE RESPONSIBLE, ECONOMICAL WAY.” “That definitely faces us with some challenges, especially with Cabaret, which is such a sort of a physically intimate musical. We’re figuring out how to create a sense of intimacy being three feet apart,” Gaus, who is also working as Cabaret’s choreographer, said. For the Improv Association, their ability to rehearse and perform at all is threatened by the current use of Bulldog Alley. The Alley, a multipurpose space in the Leavey Center that once held a small group of hilarious, upbeat improvisers for their frequently sold-out performances for the Georgetown student body, today holds 45 student desk chairs. Improv has resorted to
design by dane tedder; layout by josh klein
rehearsing in classrooms, parks, and basements, none of which are ideal show locations. Clubs will also have to choose between rehearsing and performing outside, where they may have to cope with unfavorable weather, or inside, where mandatory masks would hide performers’ facial expressions. “It’s not as fun to watch when the performers are masked. So we’re hoping to do something outside where we can be unmasked. But we haven’t found a designated space yet,” November said. While Clark asserts that groups can reserve outdoor and indoor spaces for rehearsals and performances, confusion regarding how to book reservations is widespread, as the GEMS system is currently blocking many student reservations. “We tried to reserve a space outside—like the Leavey terrace and the Leavey esplanade—but there’s not an available way to reserve that yet. So there’s lots of questions about where we might end up,” November elaborated. “We’re going to reuse materials. We’re going to be more creative in our problem solving. We’re still going to be able to do good theater,” Clark said. “We’re just going to do it in a more responsible, economical way. And so from my perspective, that’s the direction that we should be heading.” One of the ways they hope to accommodate space and budget concerns is through greater collaboration across groups. Several clubs within the department already have plans in place to collaborate through joint productions between co-curricular groups and with the department. “We’re all doing things together to lessen the overall load, which has actually been really great and something that I think theatre groups have been working towards for a while,” McDermott said. The Black Theatre Ensemble (BTE) has adjusted to the decreased budget in another way. During the pandemic, they shifted much of their focus to the virtual sphere, building a website and newsletter, and conducting extensive research on the history of BTE. They hope to continue their online efforts, meaning that a reduced budget will likely not affect them to the extent that it has groups hoping to put on larger performances this year. BTE is also collaborating with other theater clubs to put on co-productions throughout the year. “The budget cuts weren’t very noticeable because we had already decided on going a different route with our events. So having the budget as a smaller portion just resonated with our ideas and what we were doing,” Iliana Diaz (COL ’23), business manager of BTE, said. Regardless of their format, performing arts organizations invite all members of the community to attend performances in any way they can—virtually, outdoors, or on the stage—at no cost. “It’s tough that we have such a strict budget to sort of rebuild a club after a year and a half of not doing a lot, because in-person is so much about the in-person experience,” November said. “But this is a time when people especially need a laugh.” nomadictheatre will be performing Cabaret on November 9-10. Mask and Bauble will be putting on Machinal on October 28-31 and November 3-6. And the Black Theater Ensemble and Mask and Bauble will be collaborating on Night of Black Musical Scenes on October 22-24. 3 SEPTEMBER 10, 2021
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NEWS
New WGST director Nadia Brown aims to cement WGST program’s future BY PAUL JAMES
Content warning: This article references sexual violence r. Nadia Brown begins her tenure as director of Georgetown’s Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST) program this semester. After accepting the position more than a year ago, Brown is taking over from You-Me Park, who joined the program in 2004. Brown’s hiring comes after years of student appeal for an established WGST department, which Georgetown lacks. An expansion of current resources and staff members, as well as course offerings and mentorship, would be essential to the program’s growth. Brown began her work on Aug. 1, laying the foundation for community outreach. “Any time you come to a new institution there’s a considerable learning curve to figure out not just the norms, but the things that are written and unwritten,” she said in an interview with the Voice. Brown, a former associate professor of political science and African American studies at Purdue, began early dialogues about her future work in the WGST program after she was extended an offer in early 2020. She accepted the tenured position and began the following year. The hiring coincided with student advocacy efforts calling for Georgetown to provide greater support for the program, invest in more comprehensive Title IX resources, and hire a WGST director for a permanent department. These priorities were among the demands of Georgetown’s student Black Survivors’ Coalition (BSC), which staged a sit-in in front of President John DeGioia’s office in the spring of 2020 calling for greater support and care for students of color and Black survivors of sexual assault. Establishing an official WGST department, in line with BSC’s goals, would put Georgetown on par with peer institutions who allocate greater institutional resources to the field. Brown, who is Black, named student activism as a major draw for her in considering the role. “I’ve been extremely outspoken about the role of sexual harassment and violence in the discipline. The students’ energy and commitment to these issues were what made me want to come to Georgetown,” she said. In her work at the #MeTooPoliSci project, which benefited from a multi-year National Science Foundation grant, Brown and colleagues study how to implement
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
Political scientist and intersectionality scholar Dr. Nadia Brown takes over as the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program.
interventions against harassment and leverage professional associations to model best practices. Her published scholarship has investigated the barriers Black women face in the political arena, particularly their perception among voters. Brown’s colleagues have spoken positively about her scholarship, noting her contribution to research on sexual assault within the academy. “Brown is nationally recognized for her work on sexual assault and specifically sexual harassment in academia which is an area that—perhaps for obvious reasons— ambitious academics have avoided,” adjunct WGST professor Sara Collina wrote in an email to the Voice. “I really can’t think of anyone better suited to deepen and broaden the scope of the Georgetown Women’s and Gender Studies program.” As she settles into her new role, Brown will focus on a range of targets for the program to achieve. “My charge from the Dean’s Office was to build the program and hopefully get more faculty buy-in and really bring some new life and energy to the program,” Brown said. WGST currently relies heavily on adjunct faculty to teach many of its courses and does not benefit from the same institutional support as recognized departments on campus. Part of Brown’s efforts to add to WGST offerings include building out fellowship and affiliate
programs to create more continuity for students and provide faculty members with a voice in long-term decision-making. Among the many issues Brown will seek to address is the uncertain status of the program’s “Title IX for a New Generation” class, which was offered twice in 2020 before its absence from the schedule for the past two semesters. Collina, who taught the popular student-designed course, and the students who have taken the class continue to emphasize its importance to the program curriculum and knowledge of Title IX on Georgetown’s campus. Georgetown’s rates of sexual violence are higher than its peer institutions, making institutional changes, robust education, and support systems essential. At the end of each semester, students proposed action plans to administrators on how best to address Title IX issues on campus. “I want the [Title IX class] to be offered,” Brown said. Prior to the beginning of her term, she also had the opportunity to visit some of the class’s final presentations, which focused on the law’s practical implications and its importance for Georgetown. “I was just floored by the quality of the student projects,” she said. Education about Title IX has implications beyond law and the classroom, according to Collina, who wrote, “I have also learned that an astonishingly large percentage of my students have never had any meaningful sex education.”
photo by connor martin
Compounding the issue of gaps in students’ sexual education is the lack of bystander training for this year’s first year and sophomore classes. The in-person, fivehour training previously instructed all new students in techniques for understanding definitions of sexual violence, effectively interveneing t0 protect peers, and being empathetic supporters of survivors. Due to COVID-19 and the staffing restrictions placed on numerous campus centers, Health Education Services was unable to complete the mandatory training virtually. Looking forward, Brown plans to conduct listening sessions and meetings with previous members of the program, current students, and new participants. One of the first opportunities to hear from the community will be a welcome event co-sponsored by the Women’s Center and LGBTQ+ Resource Center at 2 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 10 on the Leavey Esplanade. By making herself a public presence on campus, Brown hopes to draw new interested students and faculty to expand WGST’s reach. “My biggest hope is that [Brown] will grow the program into a department so Georgetown can have what all of its peer institutions already have: a Department dedicated to the important discipline of gender studies,” Collina wrote. “Students should be at the forefront of that conversation, so there has never been a better time to get involved in the WGST program!” G
VOICES
Undergraduates have embraced social media as a platform to comment on Israel and Palestine. Should we? SARAH KIRBY
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ollowing the outbreak of protests against the pending evictions of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem this past May, my Instagram feed exploded. Observers were quick to take sides on the conflict in the form of conflicting, and sometimes false, narratives. Home to several generations of Palestinian families displaced during the 1948 war, Sheikh Jarrah, which was under Jordanian jurisdiction between 1948 and 1967, has been the site of increasing tensions in recent years, with both Israeli claims and Palestinian counterclaims over ownership of the land. Today, Palestinians who face eviction have few options for relocation, many becoming refugees once again. Growing up in the D.C. area, with its 24-hour news cycle, I was not surprised to see classmates and friends turning to virtual outlets to express their opinions or share those of others. I have often done the same. In the age of social media, this is what our generation does, but that does not mean it’s advisable. There’s a risk that in the haste to be spontaneous, timely, and relevant (or so we think) our reaction is emotional rather than objective or analytical and contributes to the absolutism we may think we are confronting. Having been exposed to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through my father’s work and having both Palestinian and Israeli friends, I found myself struggling to understand how I could contribute meaningfully when positions appear rigid and immutable. Over the course of the last few months, I have come to realize the value of listening to and engaging with diverse perspectives rather than siding with one group over another. Though I consider myself an outsider, neither Palestinian nor Israeli, I would often come home to meet Arab and Palestinian colleagues and friends of my father, each of whom had their own stories to share of life in the “Holy Land.” While I thought the media attention in May could have a positive impact by bringing attention to the long standing conflict, when I discussed what I was seeing online with my father, he gave me the same
advice he has given me since I first expressed interest in the issue: Be cautious. When I was in middle and high school, I followed my father’s advice, and rather than jumping into debates for which I was not prepared, I immersed myself in the history and culture of the region, reading about the conflict, the Holocaust, colonialism, and the perspectives of both Israelis and Palestinians. When I came to college, I realized that my academic interest in peace and conflict studies was directly related to this exposure to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. So, it was surprising to neither myself nor my father when I applied this past spring to be a fellow with Embodying Peace, an NGO that pairs young peacebuilders with civil society organizations, and was then placed with Tech2Peace, a joint Palestinian-Israeli NGO that combines high-tech training with person-to-person dialogue. The internship with Tech2Peace this summer presented the opportunity to answer the question that had long been at the back of my mind. In a conversation with the organization’s co-founder, Uri Rosenberg, I asked directly, “What role can ‘internationals,’ and more specifically young internationals like myself, play in grassroots peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine?” Rosenberg began by telling me that some internationals are part of the problem, “picking a side like it’s a basketball team.” Social media activism from college students abroad was having damaging and radicalizing effects, according to Rosenberg. Both Palestinians and Israelis feel attacked, he explained, and there is a lack of moderation because both sides are instigated and supported by virtual armies of outsiders with no stakes in a meaningful outcome. Rosenberg’s comments about social media surprised me, given that he was involved in technology, but also confirmed some of my own suspicions about online activism. Although Rosenberg expressed criticism, he shared his hope that internationals and young people like myself could become the “megaphone of the moderate,” magnifying the voices of peacebuilders who remain a minority in the region.
art by amelia myre and ryan samway
Without the involvement of more moderate voices, more ideological and hardline opinions will continue to fill social media with antisemitic and Islamophobic content. In this highly polarized environment, a lack of investment in and preparation for political peace will lead to the failure of any political agreement or treaty, Rosenberg warned. At the end of our conversation, Rosenberg brought up the issue of confusion, the very feeling I have wrestled with since early May. For me, this confusion has been defined by the volume of conflicting narratives, fears of being perceived as siding with one group over another, and the question of how to support meaningful dialogue while surrounded by noise. As I try to flush out this confusion and find ways I can contribute to peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine, I have also come to the realization that while social media activism can be problematic by lending credence to absolutist viewpoints, social media is often the only tool for activism among disenfranchised and minority opinion groups. For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, social media has given their struggle international attention they have been denied time and time again. And, while change must come from inside the region, the voices of internationals can help support and echo the needs of the people. To my fellow classmates and friends wanting to be part of the solution, I urge you to be active listeners rather than passive or hyperactive posters. Think about what you’re seeing and what you want to say. Support the narratives of individuals, help disseminate factual objective information, and think about the implications of what you share, including if it encourages transformation or polarization. Taking the advice of both my father and Rosenburg, I will start with conversation and connection to learn and understand. Before commenting or tweeting on the conflict again, I would urge you to do the same. G
SEPTEMBER 10, 2021
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