November 2016 by Grant Magazine

Grant Magazine grantmagazine.com

November 2016

In the world of photography, Grant graduate Olivia Bee takes charge. Pg. 18 By Sophie Hauth and Sydney Jones

In this issue...

On the cover: Through the Lens

By Sophie Hauth and Sydney Jones â&#x20AC;˘ Cover photo by Eliza Kamerling-Brown

In our third monthly alumni profile, we talked to 2012 graduate Olivia Bee who has found fame as a photographer for renowned companies around the world.

Photo by Eliza Kamerling-Brown

Keeping it Hidden

By Isabel Lickey and Toli Tate

Due to the stigma around mental illnesses, many teens are reluctant to seek treatment for eating disorders.

Grant Magazine

Write on

Punch for Punch

Writing has helped Gene Sandall with depression, gender identity and a heart condition.

When his father was deployed to the Middle East, Ahmad Hill found a source of stability in martial arts.

By Georgia Greenblum

By Miles Rideau

twister

Impact by Inclusion

For years, Marcella Stanard pursued the same hobbies as her sister. Now, she’s taking back her life through contortion.

Gloria Trujillo has always been on the outside. Now the Grant Spanish teacher brings an inclusive lens to her classroom.

By Jessica Griepenburg

Moments: Take the mic

By Mackie Mallison

Afterthoughts

By Georgia Greenblum

A Jewish teenager is reminded of the difficulties of observing Judaism in today’s society.

Photo by Finn Hawley-Blue

By Grant Magazine Staff

Members of Grant’s theater community come together for the first annual thespian karaoke night. From Japanese pop to 70s hits, singing helped bond the group.

November 2016

Quick Mag

A condensed version of Grant Magazine that has almost nothing to do with just about anything else.

Talk Back

What is the craziest Thanksgiving dinner experience you have ever had? Luke Wilson, 16, sophomore “Every Thanksgiving... my family gets a wooden spoon, and my uncle gets a chocolate turkey. After dinner… we grab the wooden spoon, and we take turns from youngest to oldest hitting the milk chocolate turkey with a wooden spoon.”

The 3-inch Profile: Jack Plager

Rock climbing isn’t the average sport, but it’s his passion. By Ella Weeks

It was the fall of 2013 when Grant junior Jack Plager first overcame his fear of heights. He was climbing a ropes course, nearly 60 feet in the air, when his excitement for scaling walls overcame his innate fear of looking down. Now with over three years of experience under his belt, Plager competes in rock climbing competitions with the Portland Rock Gym Climbing Team nearly every week. “It shows me what I can do with my body ... (and) how I can handle things,” he says. Joining the team his sophomore year, Plager learned that climbing stands apart from ordinary sports. “There’s so much more to think about because it’s really technical,” he says. He refers to climbing as “the great equalizer” because it’s a sport for

any gender or age. The main reason Plager sticks to his sport is because of its personal effect on him. “It just makes me more adventurous as a person,” he says. Recently, Plager picked up trail running, hiking and bouldering. He plans to compete in nationals in bouldering this season, but further out, he dreams of competing in the 2020 Olympics when rock climbing will be added as an event. While his team, coaches and family are there to support him, it’s Plager who has to make it to the top of each course. He says that he motivates himself as much as his coaches do. “(Climbing) teaches me something about myself, but in a way that I don’t feel like I can explain ‘cause it’s so personal,” he says. “It’s a gradual way of getting stronger.”

No School November By Julian Wyatt

There are 30 days in November, and on 15 of those days, there is no school. Here’s how the calendar looks:

5sc0hoo%l

50ho%ol no sc

Weekends: 8 days Thanksgiving break: 3 days Parent teacher conferences: 2 days Veterans Day: 1 day Teacher planning day: 1 day

Megan Schlicker, 42, school counselor [It was a] gourmet fancy dinner hosted up by the Pittock Mansion… We had our starter salad, and I took a bite, and it was a huge piece of paper towel that [the chef] had forgotten to take out of the salad.” Jack Miller, 16, junior “We put [the turkey] in the oven inside of a glass tray … We took it out of the oven, and as the glass tray cooled down fast, it exploded, and glass got inside the turkey. We had to eat steak instead.”

FALL

BUMMERS 1. Election stress 2. never-ending sniffles 3. Pumpkin-flavored everything 4. Wet shoes (and socks) 5. Stomach aches from thanksgiving dinner 6. Black Friday mobs 7. Disappointingly mushy leaves

A Brief Review: The Bleachers By Ella Weeks

Grant’s rickety, pale green, wooden bleachers are less a place to eat lunch and watch fall sports games (if they aren’t too soggy from last night’s rain) than they are a source of shame compared to other PPS stands – practically full stadiums compared to ours.

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1986 vs. 2016

Trends now vs. 30 years ago By Stella Kondylis Breeze

Landline phones, snail mail

Communication

Texts and Snapchat

“Kiss” by Prince and The Revolution

Top Song

“One Dance” by Drake

The bigger, the better

Hairstyles

The man-bun

Nuclear War

Public Fear

Clowns

FALL SPORTS by number of athletes

Cross Country: 129 Soccer: 119 Football: 75 Volleyball: 36 Dance: 30 Cheer: 19 BY THE NUMBERS: ELECTION EDITION By Ella DeMerritt

Number of Grant students Number of Grant students who registered to vote in the who were eligible to vote in Student Leadership Event the 2016 Presidential Election

Number (in millions) of 18-29 Percent of the country’s year-olds who were eligible to eligible voters who are ages vote in the 2016 Presidential 18-29 Election

Editorial

A Safe Place?

For LGBTQ+ students and staff at Grant, we’re not there yet.

ortland has the second highest percentage per capita of LGBTQ+ residents out of all the metropolitan regions in the United States. Walk down its streets and you’ll see rainbow flags and equal marriage bumper stickers galore. It’s widely considered one of the most progressive and accepting cities in the country, and Grant High School is thought of as a pioneer of sorts when it comes to these issues. But look closely at our community and the experiences of our LGBTQ+ students, and you’ll see that we have a long way to go before we can truly deem ourselves fit for such ambitious labels. While it may be common to see a Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network “Safe Space” sticker or poster in a classroom, it’s uncommon for teachers or staff to ask students or colleagues what their preferred pronouns are. This may come from a lack of knowledge around the fact that many people identify with a different gender than the sex they were assigned at birth, and others do not identify within the gender binary of male or female at all. When a faculty member fails to ask for preferred pronouns, or addresses their class as “ladies and gentlemen” or “boys and girls,” they are failing to recognize the existence of their transgender and non-binary – those who don’t identify as a specific gender – peers. Furthermore, they are perpetuating a culture that has too long dismissed the basic rights of LGBTQ+ people. A big step for Grant happened in 2013 when administrators implemented gender-neutral bathrooms. At the time, a nationwide conversation around bathrooms for transgender and non-binary people had been percolating. Cases roiling with conflict about the use of bathrooms by transgender

youth dotted the country. A 2013 study by the Williams Institute in D.C. at the time found that 70 percent of transgender or non-binary people reported being denied access to a bathroom or being verbally and physically harassed after entering one. The gender-neutral bathrooms at Grant gave students and staff the opportunity to avoid the uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situations of choosing the bathroom assigned to the sex they were given at birth, choosing the bathroom assigned to the gender they identify with (which, in the case of non-binary people, didn’t exist) or not going to the bathroom at all. While the installation of gender-neutral bathrooms may have helped to alleviate a big issue at the school, most students now don’t even know about the bathrooms. And to this day, we only have male and female locker rooms. One year of a physical education class is required for all students going through Grant. So how many students who don’t identify with eith gender are left feeling uncomfortable and isolated because there isn’t an option for them? Oftentimes, straight and cisgender people – those who identify with the sex they were assigned at birth – disregard these issues because they don’t have to think about them. This creates the idea that aggressions toward the LGBTQ+ community do not exist, especially not in Portland. But that’s wrong. Students we interviewed say they can’t go a week without hearing the phrase, “That’s so gay,” or being called slurs like “lesbo,” “fag” or “dyke.” It’s disturbing that some students at Grant have taken to treating the concepts of triggers and safe spaces as jokes. But the reality is that LGBTQ+ students frequently

feel unsafe in school, and safe spaces are a way to help ease that. And trauma triggers are a real psychological reaction proven through multiple studies. Attention to detail is key for these issues because other disparaging traditions that exist in our culture of education take a huge toll on students. In the same way that students of color bemoan the lack of representation in curricula, the same can be said about the LGBTQ+ community. Our health classes are designed by and for straight people who identify as their given gender, rendering them nearly useless for our LGBTQ+ students. Our history classes ignore the past of LGBTQ+ people, leading many to believe that being LGBTQ+ is something new or some type of phenomenon. Our biology classes fail to explain the difference between sex and gender. Our English classes continue to choose narratives that predominantly tell a single story: one of straight, cisgendered whites. The most important thing Grant can do to make our school a better place for our LGBTQ+ students and staff is create a platform for their voices and ideas. People must be willing to have open ears, open eyes and open minds. In a society that often fails to tell the stories of LGBTQ+ people, it’s not rare that people struggle to grasp these topics. It’s time to start recognizing the impact of our current habits as a school and as individuals. We mustn’t accept the labels of “accepting” and “progressive” and call everything good. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. ◆ To hear Grant junior Hazel Sanger’s experiences with LGBTQ+ discrimination, visit grantmagazine.com/hazel November 2016

In My Opinion

Can We Talk?

In-person conversations, not social media, will help us all gain understanding when it comes to race.

s the Grant High School girls’ varsity soccer team prepared for the state playoffs in early November, the issue of cultural appropriation came up. One of the players, who is a white senior, offered to the team that the annual tradition of getting cornrows in their hair for the playoffs might be offensive to African Americans. The other seniors on the team shot down the Dylan Palmer idea and ridiculed the player for going against the tradition. Cornrows are a traditional African hairstyle of thick braids that are formed in tightly knit rows and in most cases are worn by people of African descent. When I heard about what happened, I reached out to a couple of players on the team through group text and shared an article on cultural appropriation. I suggested they consider discontinuing the tradition. I wasn’t sure if the players read the article, but their immediate response was defensive. They didn’t want to change things. This was their team, and they felt keeping up a tradition meant for bonding was important. They also said everyone on their team was racially conscious and had no malicious intent in getting the cornrows. In our texting back and forth, two things became very clear: They wanted to do cornrows, and I didn’t want them to. Soon enough, as often happens with social media, the conversation spread across Grant, especially within the senior class. People started sending me screenshots of Instagram posts in solidarity with the

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Illustration by Julian Wyatt soccer team tradition, questioning why this was an issue and why I was involved. I received several texts asking why I had a problem with cornrows. It seemed that on social media, everyone had an opinion. Social media certainly has its advantages when it comes to communication. In just moments, you can reach large numbers of people all over the world from the comfort of your couch. But at the same time, it can offer a cloak of anonymity to those who have private accounts. Social media also emboldens people to post things they normally wouldn’t say in person. In this situation, Grant seniors, including me, began posting to their private Instagram accounts and the Class of 2017 Facebook page. It was clear that social media was hurting these conversations rather than furthering them. When you’re staring into a screen, you don’t feel or respond the same way that you do when you are interacting in person with someone. You don’t feel the same level of empathy and emotion, and it doesn’t actually require you to listen. As we all know, race can be one of the most uncomfortable topics for some people to talk about. I thought that given what we’ve seen with Grant’s Race Forward events, this discussion with the girls’ soccer team would’ve gone over differently. One of the benefits of Race Forward is that whether or not you participate in sharing your own experiences, you are given the opportunity to listen to the perspectives of others. A few days after the cornrows issue spread across the school, a group of my peers on the Student Equity Team and I met with a couple of the players on the soccer team to discuss things face-to-face. The

next day was a Race Forward discussion. Two days later, at Grant’s first playoff game, none of the players showed up wearing cornrows. When I spoke to some of the players after the game about what changed their minds, they said the meeting was pivotal for them. They said they were able to really feel our emotions around the topic. The face-toface discussions helped them understand the impact of their actions, something that had not happened previously over texts, Instagram or Facebook. They also mentioned Race Forward, saying after the race talks they realized how many perspectives were out there that differed from their own. This entire situation sprouted from the rejection of a challenge on a racially unconscious belief. But through the power of human interaction and empathy, beliefs and practices shifted in a different direction. My own ideas have changed through this experience as well. I realize now that serious conversations like these should be held in person. Also, I have learned it isn’t helpful to assume the worst of people when entering a conversation in which you are trying to persuade someone. I want to encourage others to have conversations about race in person. Don’t use social media to create an echo chamber for your own beliefs. And don’t wait for a Race Forward event to talk about the issue. I urge you to go out of your way to listen and try to understand perspectives that are different than your own. It is from these conversations that we have the most to learn and the most to gain. ◆ Dylan Palmer is a senior and Grant Magazine’s editorial page editor.

Pen & Ink

Morning Ritual

Staying consistent throughout the first few months of school is easy ... until it gets hard. By Julian Wyatt

AUGUST

Wake up at

Stroll to school

a.m.

Eat a full breakfast Outfit laid out nicely In class at 8:06 a.m.

SEPTEMBER

Brisk walk to school

Wake up at

a.m.

Scarf down some cereal

Grab first clothing item in sight

In class at 8:11 a.m.

OCTOBER

*Rin

Wake up at

You forgot your backpack!

Rush to school

a.m.

Here!

Eat a Poptart Throw on cleanest clothes

NOVEMBER

Wake up at

In class at 8:15 a.m.

Sprint to school

a.m.

Why arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you up?!

Stay in pajamas

Grab some coffee In class at 8:30 a.m.

November 2016

under the radar Eating disorders are a prevalent issue among Grant students. But the stigma around them can make teens and families reluctant to talk. By Isabel Lickey and Toli Tate Photos by Finn Hawley-Blue

homas Leonhardt remembers sitting silently in the car. It was a Wednesday in December of 2015. Rain pelted against the windows. He looked outside, and a feeling of unease rushed through him. His dad, Tom Leonhardt, pulled their Honda Civic across the street from a large white building on the Providence St. Vincent Hospital campus. Thomas Leonhardt was about to enter his first day of treatment for the eating disorder he’d been struggling with for six months. He became apprehensive as negative thoughts overtook him about the next few months he’d spend at the clinic. “I’m at the stage where I don’t need to be in partial hospitalization,” he remembers thinking. “I didn’t want to go.” Like many who have eating disorders,

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Leonhardt – now a freshman at Grant – held little conviction that his issue was anything serious. “Before treatment, I was in denial about it,” he says now. “I just didn’t think I had (one).” But in reality, Leonhardt was grappling with a deadly mental illness. An article published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders estimates that roughly 30 million people suffer from across the United States. About 4.5 percent of those who have an eating disorder end up dying from the affliction – making it the mental health issue with the highest mortality rate. Like other mental illnesses, there is no single cause of an eating disorder, says Dr. Naghmeh Moshtael of the Kartini Clinic, a pediatric eating disorder treatment clinic in North Portland. She describes eating disorders as “multifactorial, which like a

lot of conditions, some of it is contributed by genetics, some of it is contributed by environment.” With a society that pressures adolescents to attain a “healthy” body, Moshtael notes the negative impact this can have. “People are advising … everyone else to go lead … healthy lives by dieting and cutting this out and cutting that out of their meal plans,” Moshtael says. Roughly two-thirds of eating disorder cases in the United States involve girls or women. Boys and men make up about 30 percent of bulimia, anorexia or binge eating disorder cases. Regardless, eating disorders are dangerous across the board. But for teens especially, not having proper nutrition during the last stages of brain development can have a detrimental effect. Leonhardt’s eating disorder caused

severe social repercussions. “I was ... isolating myself because I didn’t want to really talk to people because I just wanted to exercise and not eat,” he recalls. The issue is prevalent at Grant. Despite its relevance and the danger to students, eating disorders continue to stay hidden because people aren’t talking about the issue. The end result leads to an ingrained stigma surrounding it. Libby Costello-Gard is Grant’s SchoolBased Health Clinic’s family nurse practitioner. She says it’s typical for people to make judgments about those who have eating disorders. In effect, talking about them can prove uncomfortable for both students and adults. One Grant junior, who asked for anonymity, says she struggled with anorexia, and she doesn’t want her friends

to know. “I really didn’t want to be recognized for (my eating disorder),” she says. “I think that ... part of me was also very hidden from people.” It’s also common for those with eating disorders to deny they have a problem to begin with. In Leonhardt’s case, his unhealthy habits became the norm. “I just had this strange mindset where when I was losing weight, it wasn’t a big deal,” he says. “Like I didn’t see it as being dangerous.” During the summer before eighth grade, Leonhardt remembers making a commitment to lose weight before high school. Since the beginning of seventh grade, he says he was at a heavier weight and dissatisfied with his body. But until that point, he hadn’t done anything to change how he looked. He remembers looking at himself in the

Thomas Leonhardt tried to keep his eating disorder hidden from friends and family. “I got pretty good at not talking, kind of sweeping things under the rug,” he says. “I would try to pretend it was fine.”

mirror, as he was filled with a feeling of discontent. He couldn’t stand the thought of people seeing what he saw in the reflection, deciding to stay home so he wouldn’t have to go to the library as he had planned. “I felt like I was disgusting and like I don’t want to be seen,” he recalls. The cause of eating disorders can be a combination of multiple factors. Whether that’s relative to a poor body image or genetics, it varies from person to person. The Grant junior says growing up in November 2016

an Asian-American household held a big things to kind of get at them and like kind not eating, and so that’s what your mind influence over her body image. That’s part of get in their head. I was kind of hell to starts to get wrapped up in. Everything is of what caused her to develop an eating live with,” says Leonhardt. centered around that focus,” she says. disorder in sixth grade. “I’m like 11, 12 at The day before Thanksgiving 2015, Leonhardt was able to be quickly this time,” she remembers. “I just hop on they took him to an appointment with his diagnosed and receive treatment. But that the Internet, and I’m watching little Asian nutritionist. doesn’t always happen. dramas … I was almost bombarded by these It had been two weeks since Leonhardt “There are a lot of people outside who, images of like skinny girls. And I started to had last been there. When Leonhardt first of all, don’t understand what eating see myself like them. And I started to really was weighed, his parents saw just how disorders are to begin with,” says Moshtael get addicted to that.” much weight he had lost since the last of the Kartini Clinic. “Some are ashamed to For Leonhardt, what began as trying appointment. They knew then he needed talk about it. Sometimes parents and loved to lose weight and ridding himself of his more help. ones don’t recognize what’s going on. It’s negative body image soon spiraled out “We don’t know how to stop it. It’s first the stigma of mental health that leads of control. In an attempt to be healthier, not getting better. He’s lying about it,” to not diagnosing it on time. Then it’s the Leonhardt downloaded a calorie counting Tom Leonhardt remembers thinking. ignorance about eating disorders.” app and became more rigid about how much “So we need to find a way to make sure She notes that quick diagnoses and he ate. Exercise became a compulsion. “I everything’s supervised and get him the treatment are essential to combat nutritional would dig through the recycling just to help he needed.” deficiency. Brain development comes to know how much calories were on the box Within a week, Leonhardt’s parents a full stop when teenagers aren’t eating … because I felt like I was in control of took him to an intake meeting. There, enough, she says, though not everyone what I was eating,” says Leonhardt. Leonhardt met with a therapist who worked receives a diagnosis. Like many others with eating disorders, at St. Vincent’s Eating Disorder Clinic. The A Grant freshman, who also didn’t Leonhardt didn’t recognize he had a therapist interviewed him to see what stage want her name revealed, developed an problem. He lost his hunger cues, so he he was at with his eating disorder. They eating disorder last year, but she was never thought he was eating enough. But the side tested his cognitive ability and checked his formally diagnosed. “I didn’t want to make effects quickly became evident. Leonhardt health status. it a big deal or have people think of me became much colder, and his hair began The therapist recommended that he start differently,” she says today. She still hasn’t to thin. In order to hide his hairline, going to the clinic. Leonhardt was hesitant told family or friends. Leonhardt stopped brushing his hair back, to go into treatment, but his parents had The Grant junior who doesn’t want meticulously wearing it over his forehead. already made up their minds. He needed to her friends to find out also remains When he exercised, he developed get help. undiagnosed. She says her mother would cramps. He remembers one time on a run The doctors there told him he needed be embarrassed by her daughter having where he was trying to get 12,000 steps in, to go into partial hospitalization, where he a mental health issue. So it gets pushed getting a painful cramp in his side. But he would spend seven to eight hours a day, five aside. At the doctor’s office, her mom had 2,000 steps left, so he felt compelled to days a week in St. Vincent’s Adolescent often blames her daughter’s low weight on keep going. He slowed to a jog and didn’t Eating Disorder Treatment Program. having a fast metabolism. turn around. Grant math teacher MaLynda Wolfer “It’s almost like it’s considered Leonhardt’s parents immediately noticed knows how Leonhardt felt. She struggled embarrassing to have problems,” the junior when his eating habits changed. At first, his with anorexia during high school and says. “That embarrassment of knowing that father thought his son was being “health developed similar habits. you do have that type of problem … you conscious, and then it just kept getting … “You find a lot of ways to hide that you’re just want to deny it so bad.” more and more obsessive,” Tom Since coming to Grant, Leonhardt is more willing to share about his eating disorder. Leonhardt recalls. Time has made him less closed off about it. His stepmom, Christen Knowles, works as a behaviorist. She quickly identified that Leonhardt was suffering from an eating disorder. At first they tried managing it at home, taking him to see a nutritionist, a therapist and a doctor regularly. In September last year, he was formally diagnosed with an eating disorder. Leonhardt opposed the diagnosis. “I didn’t think I had a problem,” he says. His behavior toward his parents changed as they became more concerned with his health. “I just like said a lot of mean

10 Grant Magazine

As her undiagnosed disorder continued, the side effects “Sometimes parents and worsened. The junior remembers loved ones don’t recognize walking out of the shower feeling and dizzy at once. This wasn’t an what’s going on. It’s first uncommon side effect, but as she the stigma of mental left the bathroom this time, she health that leads to not blacked out and hit her head hard against the wall. The next thing diagnosing it on time, then she knew, her mom was hovering it’s the ignorance about over her in a panic. “My mom eating disorders.” knew why I passed out, but she didn’t want to accept it,” she remembers. Though the junior knew she Naghmeh Moshtael, was unhealthy, her lack of a medical director at the Kartini Clinic diagnosis made it feel unreal. “To me, it’s never official unless you get diagnosed,” she says. It isn’t uncommon for eating common for students to need a reduced disorders to also be misdiagnosed as other schedule in order to manage their return. health issues. Costello-Gard of the Grant Though Leonhardt came back to school, Student Health Center says she often he was heavily monitored. With a restricted receives patients coming in for depression activity level, Leonhardt was given the or anxiety. After talking with them, she school’s elevator key to avoid the stairs. He identifies some of their symptoms in wasn’t open about it, as he considered his correlation with eating disorders. eating disorder to be a “personal” issue. Leonhardt was fortunate enough to When peers asked where he had been, receive the treatment he needed. He he told them it was “medical stuff.” He attributes his partial hospitalization to a didn’t want them to judge him for having major part of his recovery. Because he was an eating disorder. so heavily monitored, Leonhardt had no Like Leonhardt right after treatment, choice but to get better. many students are reluctant to talk about St. Vincent staff were strict when it came the problem due to it being seen as to the health of their patients. Leonhardt humiliating. Costello-Gard says there are wasn’t allowed any activity at first. Even misperceptions that make people closed off grocery shopping with his parents was too about eating disorders. “People have this much movement because rapid weight loss thought that it happens to kids who don’t leads to a weak heart rate. care enough about their bodies or their Treatment at St. Vincent’s involved parents aren’t paying close attention,” she group therapy and meals. Because he says. was out of school for a long period of But now at Grant, Leonhardt has become time, Leonhardt became isolated from his less closed off about his eating disorder. If school, friends and his daily routine. He people ask about it, he’ll tell them. says simply: “It was almost like I fell off Though Leonhardt has been out of the face of the Earth.” treatment for eight months, there are still Nonetheless, he became close with other everyday struggles that accompany his patients. “It’s just nice to have that group transition back to a normal health. Without of people that actually know and not just intention, he still looks at nutrition labels feel sympathetic … who’ve actually gone and can remember how many calories are through the same thing,” he says. in a gram of fat. Though it isn’t a major Two months after he entered treatment, part of his life, it’s something he still thinks Leonhardt came back to school. For him, about. “You can recover and still have that the transition was smooth. His teachers had piece of you,” Leonhardt says. excused him from his missed schoolwork. His parents don’t monitor him as much as However, going back to school can be they did during treatment, but they are still an added stress for many patients. Social cautious when it comes to his food intake. and academic pressure can prove too much Leonhardt manages his eating disorder now for some students. Rebecca Dorn, one of by seeing a nutritionist, a therapist and a Grant’s school psychologists, says it’s psychiatrist on a regular basis.

Illustration by Julian Wyatt

Moshtael stresses that though eating disorders are considered chronic, a full recovery is plausible. “There are plenty of our kids who live full lives. They have wonderful professions. They have families. They move on with their lives,” she says. Wolfer sees herself as fully recovered. “There are definite points in my life where it becomes easier to focus on like that one track thing,” she says. “It’s not as much a struggle for me as an adult because I find ways to center myself or stay busy.” However, others don’t feel they have fully recovered. The Grant junior finds it easy to slip back into old thoughts. “It doesn’t end. It’s like a cycle,” she says. “I’m sitting there, and I’m like, ‘I want to lose a little more weight,’ and you know it’s unhealthy, but you have to do it. It’s just so addicting.” Leonhardt is determined to stay in recovery. He doesn’t want to go back to treatment. His father has his concerns, though. “I’m … worried because there’s a high relapse for these kinds of things. You have to be vigilant,” Tom Leonhardt says. The Grant junior believes that having a conversation about eating disorders is what will help the stigma to go away. She wishes she could start that conversation. “I want to have other people be able to feel like there’s more people out there that’s like them, and there’s more people that they can talk to,” the Grant junior says. But she’s reluctant to tell others. “I want people to look at me for me, not for my problems.” Costello-Gard agrees that change needs to occur in order to eliminate the stigma. “It’s not just something we can fix here in Grant,” says Costello-Gard. “It takes a huge group of people to make that stand.” ◆ November 2016

Staging it

They belted the high notes.They opened their hearts. And they left it all on stage when the Thespian Board recently hosted its first Karaoke Night in the theater room at Grant High School. For many who attended, the night stood for more than just singing.

12 Grant Magazine

Eddie Celt, 15, freshman, after singing “My Sharona” “I was really kind of nervous for that, but I did it anyways. It felt a little bit nerve wracking, but I loved it. I don’t mind being on stage if I’m doing singing or acting. I really like being on stage because I like seeing the audience facing me.

I do sing by myself. I sing like *NSYNC songs, Cypress Hill … Michael Jackson, Jackson 5 as well. If I’m honest about me … having Down syndrome is hard. I’m saying that because I don’t think it holds me back.” – Interview by Blu Midyett, photo by Momoko Baker

Pan Aalto, 14, freshman, after singing “Hallelujah” “I’ve gone through some struggles, and with having music and theater I’ve really been able to open up to others. I recently came out as being trans-male and being gay. Having music and theater is like a light that’s an opportunity for me to feel better. It was really comforting to have people tell me that it was good and that they wanted to hear me again.” – Interview by Toli Tate, photo by Finn Hawley-Blue

Aujai Webster, 17, senior, after rapping the theme to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” TV show “I liked how a lot of people weren’t afraid to get up on stage and sing a song that they liked and how people were being fearless and dancing and stuff like that. I feel like people became friends that night because they were singing together. I sung the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song – it’s one of my favorite raps, and I love that show. I had to sing it on stage.” – Interview by Momoko Baker, photo by Finn Hawley-Blue

Yuri Petty, 17, senior, after singing “Fire Meet Gasoline” “It’s fun to be in an environment where you can sing, but there isn’t that much pressure. I’m not the best singer in the world, and I’m kind of sensitive about that. The club does a good job of keeping Karaoke Night casual, and that’s how it is supposed to be.” – Interview by Toli Tate, photo by Finn Hawley-Blue November 2016

When Words Matter

Storytelling has given Gene Sandall an outlet to get through his physical and emotional struggles. Now he’s found a new platform at KBOO radio. By Georgia Greenblum

t is 6:25 p.m. on a recent Wednesday, and Grant High School junior Gene Sandall zigzags through the hallways at KBOO radio station in Southeast Portland. Wearing purple lipstick and a green leaf crown that sits atop his short reddyed hair, Sandall catches up with his peers – a group of teenagers who make up KBOO’s youth collective, “The Underground.” After meeting to go over each person’s agenda for the day, Sandall and three other members of the collective squeeze into a small room amongst stacks of CDs and records. Leaning in close to the recorder, they read lines from a radio play about ghost hunters and their dog. The collective has been a sanctuary of sorts for the 16-year-old Sandall, a place where he feels safe to express himself and tell stories. For Sandall, who was born with a severe heart condition, writing has long been a coping mechanism that opened doors of interest. From an early age, writing helped him through his depression, his struggle with gender identity and his eventual transition from female to male. Sandall’s transition wasn’t easy. He was born anatomically female but has identified for some time as male. Since then, he has worked to find acceptance and embrace who he is today. Growing up, he had a similar upbringing to most kids. His parents would read him stories all the time. “I would read anything that was around. I would read newspapers. I would read articles, even if it was above his understanding,” says his mother, Amy Sandall. “We read everything and ... eventually Gene would read himself, and he would take it from there.” Sandall was unable to get the storylines and characters out of his mind, and his imagination went wild. He began telling his parents his own stories and worked with his grandmother to publish a children’s book by the time he was 9. Now Sandall has started using his writing to enter the world of radio production. “It makes me feel accepted,” says Sandall. “When I write in KBOO, I feel like a somebody who can do anything. I feel like I matter.” In November 1999, Amy Sandall went in for an ultrasound five months into her pregnancy. During the procedure, Amy and her husband, Henry, found out their child had pulmonary atresia – a condition where the pulmonary valve of the heart doesn’t form correctly and creates a solid sheet of tissue in the lungs. The condition makes it so blood can’t pick up oxygen in its normal route to the heart. “There wasn’t really anything we could do other than wait for the birth. We were about to go into birthing classes, and we didn’t get to do that because Gene came early,” says Amy Sandall. “We really walked into it pretty blind.” On Dec. 16, 1999, Gene Sandall was born three months premature. Just minutes after the delivery, Sandall was taken to

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the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Randall Children’s Hospital until he was stable enough for doctors to operate, and they worked to restructure his heart. Six months later, he would return for another surgery, and from there, visits to the hospital became a regular occasion. “It was good for me that at that time I had a job that I could be there with Amy for the surgeries,” says his father, Henry Sandall. “We were there together the whole time, every time.” Growing up with his heart condition, Sandall wasn’t able to participate in sports or physical activity with the rest of his classmates, but he could write. From the age of 2, Sandall would come up with stories off the top of his head that ranged in topic from unicorns to orphans. His parents saw the novelty of his imagination, and they began to write the stories down. Sandall’s grandmother, Ronda Sandall, played a big part in helping him with writing. She would tell him scary stories about the “hands in her attic” that would later be featured in Sandalls’ first published children’s book, “The Hands in Nana’s Attic” in 2009. After the book was published by Tate Publishing, Sandall’s self-esteem went up. “My confidence was really boosted,” he says. “Normally, I was like the quiet kid who didn’t like to say anything.” During elementary and middle school, socializing was tough. He tried to keep up with the other kids playing tag and being active, but his health issues restrained him. “I would feel isolated because ... we would be running outside, and I would try to be running with them, and then I would just tire out and have to stop,” he recalls. By seventh grade at Mt. Tabor Middle School, he found himself at a secluded table during lunch. It was there where he found a group of friends who had similar interests and experiences. “I had found other people who were outcasts as well,” says Sandall, who felt included for the first time in his life.

Photo by Molly Metz A heart condition and dealing with gender dysphoria left Gene Sandall feeling isolated. At KBOO Community Radio, he found a place to work with others who are interested in writing. The radio station allows young people to work together on projects.

But it wasn’t enough. While family life was going along well, Sandall was still struggling and started showing signs of depression. He began harming himself and voicing suicidal thoughts. The tasks of everyday life became more challenging. “Heart patients are typically depressed – it goes along with that,” says Amy Sandall. “I knew that, but I didn’t know what it was going to look like. It terrified me.” Sandall used unhealthy habits to get through rough days. “I started doing what I do now where I would isolate and just listen to music constantly,” he says. “The only enjoyment I had was when I was home and writing.” Later, he was diagnosed with clinical depression. After numerous conversations with his parents, Sandall agreed to see a therapist. The first idea was to try medication, but they quickly

decided against it. “We didn’t just want to give all these drugs to a 12-year-old and see how that works,” recalls Henry Sandall. The diagnosis was hard for his mother to wrap her head around, in addition to the other health issues that Sandall was already facing. “I felt angry, first and foremost. I was really scared because of the suicidal talk,” says Amy Sandall. “I would check on Gene obsessively.” Gene Sandall remembers feeling down. “For me, it looked like isolation and a lot of feelings that I don’t understand a lot of the time,” he says. “I am full of energy in my body, but in my mind I don’t want to do anything.” Through it all, he continued to write. He began writing fanfiction about characters from TV shows. “Gene was really into writing back then,” says his friend, Vanessa Vu. “He would collaborate November 2016

Photo by Toli Tate On a recent day at the station, Sandall records a radio play about the gaming industry that’s written by a fellow “Youth Collective” member.

with a bunch of people and try to write a bunch of stories at once.” By his freshman year at Grant, Sandall found a new group of people who shared similar interests, and he began to move outside of his comfort zone. “I just expressed myself because my parents had always told me to express myself. I wore every single article of Dr. Who clothing, and people just noticed me,” says Sandall. “It was just easier for me to start a conversation – and that’s why I have the friends I have today.” The new group of friends helped distract him from his depression, but only to a certain extent. The stresses of high school and relationships became difficult to handle, and in December 2014, Sandall attempted suicide before being hospitalized. “It was hard to accept that was happening,” says Amy Sandall. “I think we started understanding what was happening and what was going on and that it was real, and that we couldn’t ignore it anymore.” Back at school, Sandall began to meet with Grant’s school psychologist Rebecca Dorn, who helped him explore his issues and the transition to high school. She suggested dialectical behavioral therapy – a practice where parents and children learn skills that are helpful for tackling issues within the family. Sandall, who early on identified as a girl, changed his pronouns and began identifying as male during his freshman year. This transition came about when he learned that he wasn’t alone in questioning his gender identity. At first, Sandall chose to use gender neutral pronouns. “I know I feel masculine as well, so ‘they/them’ kind of fits,” he says. Sandall changed his first name to Gene, which was his middle name. By December 2015, Sandall felt the need to come out to his

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parents. “They didn’t understand,” he says. “They thought it was just me being influenced by my friends, but it’s just something I feel inside.” Throughout his freshman year, the Sandalls attended the therapy sessions suggested by the school psychologist every week, and it prompted them to have a family meeting to discuss the changes Gene Sandall was going through. His parents say the therapy helped turn their lives around for the better. “It completely changed the way we think about stuff,” Amy Sandall recalls. “There is a way to discuss something without being in the heat of the argument.” Henry Sandall says being able to calm down and take a step back helped take stress out of the situation and allowed him to remember what’s important. Later that summer, the Sandalls stopped going to therapy after Henry was laid off from his job because the family couldn’t afford it. Shortly after, Henry Sandall heard a young girl on the radio helping with a fundraiser for the Youth Collective at KBOO – the radio’s monthly, hour-long segment run by teenagers about youth issues. The collective allows kids ages 9-18 to learn how to manage the recording studio and record pieces they write about youth issues. Henry Sandall thought it would be a great fit for his son. Before Gene Sandall knew it, he was being dropped off at KBOO. There were people running around left and right, recording studios were full and live count downs were taking place all at once. At first, it was overwhelming. “I was there by myself with all these other kids who I had no idea who they were,” says Sandall. “I was there on a radio day when they actually produced everything,

so that was probably the best way I could have been introduced where he didn’t feel comfortable wearing a dress to an occasion, to it.” he decided it was time to address the change of pronouns at home. Since Sandall’s first day in August 2015, he has produced many While his parents are open-minded about Sandall’s gender pieces, including poems about the ocean and the infamous shooting identity, it’s been difficult to adjust to different pronouns, they say. at an Orlando nightclub that left 49 people dead and 53 wounded. Sandall has been patient and forgiving through the whole process. “We are really trying with the people here, the ideas everyone Despite this, his parents see Sandall’s transition as a positive shift. has and just trying to really engage in progressive, special change,” “It is like getting to know Gene,” says his mother. “Like says Erin Yankey, the program director at KBOO. “Remembering everyday, you just leave your mind open to get to know who Gene that we really can actually talk with each other without screaming is today and try and be respectful with that.” at each other or insulting each other. We have really strong house For the past few months, life at home has been easier. “My rules.” parents are OK with it. They are transitioning through it,” says Sandall’s time at the radio station helped, but he continued to Sandall. “They bought me a new wardrobe and let me cut my hair struggle with depression. In the winter of his sophomore year, short. It’s nice to be accepted.” Sandall attempted suicide for the second time. This was a wake-up Sandall’s change over the last few years is reflected in his work. call to his family about how deep his depression had reached. “I notice now in my writing that I wrote about lonely characters “I was upset because we were doing all the things we were who were upset, characters who didn’t have friends but had super supposed to be doing. We had counseling. We started medication. powers and were making friends through that, and finding their It was like someone needs to do something because we’re back own world that they can escape to,” he says. “They are not lonely here again,” says Amy Sandall. “We just didn’t know what more and sad anymore … they are growing into something else – just we could do at this point.” like me.” It took a while for the family to recover from the experience, but Sandall continues to produce work at KBOO and is adding to after a few months, they tried to move forward and communicate over 30,000 pages of writing in his notebook and on his computer. better. With Sandall going to weekly meetings at KBOO, he He’s in the process of writing an action thriller called “Clinical was able to cope with his feelings and distract himself from his Mobs.” depression. “Writing is my future; that’s just how it’s going to be,” says KBOO became a place where each week Sandall could return Sandall. “There is no timeline in any of the universes that we’ve as if nothing had really changed. It didn’t matter what he wore or ever had where I’m not a writer. I am feeling pretty good about how he identified. He was just a teenager who loved to write. “I life. I no longer feel like I did before. I feel solid where I am, and always wanted and still do want people to read my writing,” he I am happy to be here.” ◆ says. “I want them to feel something from what I write no matter what that may be.” To see more of Sandall, The environment and mindset at KBOO is such that people visit grantmagazine.com/kboo are aware of gender and sexual identity, making Sandall feel even more comfortable. KBOO is very diverse, Yankey says of the organization. “I have never been to a place that is as diverse in terms of people, politics and content,” she says. “It is just so different all the time.” Sandall says it’s a place where he is not going to be judged for what he says or does. His parents still worry about his safety in a world that is not as accepting of all genders. “Violence is always under the surface. You love your kid so much, you want everyone to love them, too,” Amy Sandall says. In January, Sandall took the step of fully identifying as male and changed his pronouns to “he/him,” with everyone except his family. At home, Sandall was hesitant to tell his parents because he wanted to give them time to transition into using his Photo by Molly Metz preffered pronouns. But, after Sandall published a children’s book at age 9 about the hands an incident with his parents in his grantmother’s attic. Now he’s working on a thriller novel. November 2016

THE ALUMNI PROFILE:

Capturing T the light

When it comes to photography and film, Grant graduate Olivia Bee doesn’t need anyone to create standards for her work. By Sophie Hauth and Sydney Jones Photos by Eliza Kamerling-Brown

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his isn’t your typical photo shoot. Surrounded by an animal handler, documentary filmmakers and her assistant, Grant High School graduate Olivia Bee stands naked in a patch of woods at Trillium Lake, the late afternoon sun filtering through the trees. On this day, the world famous photographer is doubling as a model. Cradling a husky-wolf hybrid, she stares into her camera that’s perched atop a tripod as the shutter clicks, snapping photos. “I think it helps you feel really human … to be like naked with a wolf,” says Bee. Bee is taking a break from her commercial gigs to shoot something that hits a little closer to home. Her goal is to use art to capture her relationship with a family member who passed away before Bee was born. “It’s important to me that I make pictures about my inner emotional experience,” she says. After the filming wraps up that evening, Bee thinks ahead to her

Bee has been artistic since she was a todler, exploring many mediums. Now, she’s narrowed down her focus to photography and film. Photo by Eliza Kamerling-Brown

next steps: developing the film and writing the poems that will accompany the photos, all part of what will make the project complete. For Bee, creativity isn’t just a passion. It’s part of her core and has been for some time. Photography has been her main outlet since she was a student at daVinci Arts Middle School. “This is why I exist,” says Bee of her work. Now 22, the woman who graduated from Grant in 2012 and travels the globe to pursue her craft, is proof that artists can make it in the real world, even at an early age. Bee, who’s quick to laugh and make a joke but who can also command a room within seconds, got her professional start in the industry while still in high school. She’s walked a fine line as a young person in an adultdominated profession. “People like to question young talent. People don’t think that young people can do well,” says Bee. “When I was younger ... people thought that it was like my dad or like an older 40-year-old man who was running my Flickr and taking pictures of his daughter, and it’s like no one can fake this perspective.” She did a shoot with Converse, the shoe company, when she was 15. That was followed by photo shoots with The New York Times Magazine, Fiat and Hermès, among others. Notoriety followed as people took notice. Now, Bee is nothing short of a success. “The main thing with her is that she continues to be sought after,” says Molly Ortiz, a film and photography producer who has worked with Bee. People “are interested in what Olivia as an artist wants to do.” But for Bee, photography and film has always been far more than a job. It’s how she makes sense of the world. “I have to do it,” says Bee. “I have to. It’s my common link through all of my experiences, and it’s like how I survive and how I process my emotions and actions and things that are happening to me.” Even with all the work – she has more than 50 editorial and commercial clients – Bee always makes time for personal projects such as the one at Trillium Lake. Her style isn’t the typical commercial approach. Many of her photos center on the theme of love and are dream-like in a sense: tinted with pinks and purples and blurry or overexposed, often times depicting friends barely clothed embracing in a field or herself staring into the camera wearing a floaty dress. “I’m just showing honest magic, like it’s shit I see, with like rose-colored glasses for sure. But it’s honest underneath it,” Bee

says of her approach. “I just see it in a romantic way.” As a young woman, Bee is an anomaly in an industry that’s dominated by older men. A State of News Photography study in 2015 found that only 7 percent of women were likely to be hired by a major media company, compared to 22 percent of men. And in the film industry, there’s a 5-to-1 ratio of men versus women behind the camera. It’s something Bee’s had to navigate throughout her career, and it’s rare that she steps onto a shoot without hearing a remark about her age or her youthful appearance. By now, though, Bee knows how to dodge such comments and approaches her work with an unflinching confidence. “I think telling your stories gives them power, and when you photograph something it’s as much a picture of your subject as it is you,” she says. “Like you’re literally showing what you desire and what you love and how you see the world … Your medium is reality.”

ee was born Olivia Bolles in Southeast Portland on April 5, 1994, to her parents, Cara and Houston Bolles. Her brother, Max Bolles, came along five years later. Art is part of the family’s fabric; her mother has loved photography since high school, and she sews and knits whenever she can. Her grandfather was an illustrator. Bee’s parents made an effort to encourage their children to be independent. “We pretty much just set (Olivia) loose,” recalls Houston Bolles. And they can’t remember a time when their daughter wasn’t making art. At 2, she started coloring, drawing and painting. Her first art studio was a tiny room underneath the staircase, where Bee covered the walls in paint and drawings. She didn’t play soccer or take music lessons, unlike most of the kids her age. Instead, she took weekly classes at Pacific Northwest College of Art, where she delved into sculpture. For one of her projects, Bee made a llama, using a fork to texture cones of clay that she stuck across the body to look like real fur. Her family also still has a giraffe and monkey duo in the living room that was painted blue with clouds and grass by Bee. “She was always really pushing the boundaries in what was possible in terms of art,” remembers Cara Bolles. Bee wanted to attend daVinci Arts Middle School in Northeast Portland, the only middle school in the Portland Public Schools District with a strong focus on the arts. The school uses a lottery system to admit students, and Bee was the last student to get in in 2005. She has explained how she got into photography in middle school countless times. She signed up for a video production class, but she was switched to darkroom photography and was less than thrilled. “I hated it,” she says. “I didn’t know how to use the chemicals, and I felt like what I saw in my head was very different than what I was able to make happen in a picture.” She worked at it, shooting her stuffed animals, Christmas ornaments and other objects around her house – “stupid shit,” she says now. She continued to work in the darkroom at daVinci to November 2016

develop her photos. By seventh grade, Bee started posting her photos on Flickr, a photo sharing website. Her parents worried about the safety of using her real name online, and they suggested she change her last name for Flickr. She took the initial of her last name and made it into a word. “I think it’s kind of like stuck at this point,” says Bee now. She began taking photos of her friends and family, developing her film in the daVinci darkroom. Max Bolles remembers his sister coming into his room and taking photos of him. She’d have him pose in different parts of their house, in a burned-down building or in a nearby park. “I just kinda got used to it at a certain point,” he says. “It was just like the normal thing.” When Bee started at Grant, her Flickr account had gained a sizable following, and she described herself then as “the artsy girl.” She only went to one football game and rarely attended school dances, instead spending much of her time in the class darkroom with her friends. She took photography from sophomore through senior year. Her passion didn’t stop her from wanting to be a typical teenager in high school. “I wanted to go to parties. I wanted to have boyfriends. I wanted to do stupid things,” she recalls. “Get in trouble with the police, party, get a car, go to a high school football game, go to Greek Fest, wear mittens with my high school name on it, do my homework, carry around a textbook.” Her friend, Tuesday Faust, who went to Grant and is a year younger than Bee, remembers how she wore flared pants and bedazzled jean jackets. “She was the queen of the cool, really good artists and they all were like hilarious and dressed really well,” Faust recalls.

With so many new opportunities, Bee often had to step out of her school classrooms for work. She remembers being in an art class once when she had to participate in a conference call with Time Magazine. When her teacher told her she couldn’t leave, she did the call under the table. “I’m sure I sounded super unprofessional,” Bee remembers. “Then I learned you don’t ask, you just leave.” During her sophomore year, a project caused her to miss a significant chunk of school. Her pre-calculus teacher at the time wasn’t happy. Bee hadn’t done the homework assigned from when she was gone. “She was just yelling at me, ‘You think you can just take pictures for Nike and do that for the rest of your life?’” Bee recalls. Her parents tried to work with teachers so Bee could be excused from school. Sometimes, it took some extra convincing. “I remember the question was: ‘Well, is your daughter a student

Bee stops at her studio in Brooklyn, New York to look through photos from recent

ee got her first shot at the shoots. Photo by Eliza Kamerling-Brown big time when she was 15. Representatives at or is she a professional photographer?” Houston Bolles says now. Converse sent her an email because they were intrigued by Cara Bolles remembers thinking perhaps her daughter would’ve her work. “I thought it was fake, and so I didn’t respond,” been treated differently if she were an athlete. “Kids get out of she remembers. “And then they sent me another email, school early on a twice weekly basis to go to a game,” she says. and I still thought it was fake and didn’t respond.” “They get out of school to go to state championships … It’s a It wasn’t until Bee received yet another email that she realized double standard.” it was real. A Converse official wanted to know if she would Cristy McCarty, Bee’s photography teacher at Grant, remembers consider doing a Portland photo shoot. watching her student go through the process from the sidelines. “I While at the shoot in a Northeast Portland home, she shot feel like there’s this thing of like, ‘Oh it’s art,’” she says. secondary photographs while more experienced Los Angeles At 17, Bee was asked to shoot the cover of The New York Times photographers clicked away. Her dad checked in with her Magazine for a story called, “Teaching Good Sex.” Bee shot her periodically. Afterwards, she sat down with a DigiTech, a person friends running and holding hands for the photos that appeared in who helps edit photographs. the spread. “I just watched her tell him what the colors needed to be and Bee then spent the summer between her junior and senior year … what palette to choose,” recalls Houston Bolles. “She shot in The Netherlands, Spain and England, working for a company everything, and she knew exactly how she wanted it to look. The called &Samhoud. pink and the purples and the over-saturated stuff that she’s known As high school came to an end, Bee shifted her attention to her for, she was doing that from the very beginning.” work – “I kind of trailed off senior year,” she says. A few months later, she participated in a Nike shoot, which was That’s when she realized traditional school wasn’t for her. It when her parents booked her an agent. She later flew to Paris for a wasn’t for her brother either, who dropped out of Franklin High Converse show and shot a commercial for Fiat. School in the spring of his sophomore year.

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“School needs to be revamped big time,” Bee says now. “Some people would rather travel and learn a language instead of sitting in a classroom all day. We’re trying to put people in the same spot when people are really, really different. That’s really troubling.” Her senior year, Bee chose just one college to apply to: Cooper Union, a renowned art school in New York. For part of her application, she photographed about 20 friends painted head to toe in blue at the top of Mt. Tabor Park. Her friend, Faust, was painted pink and held an ice cream cone, as everyone else held a hamburger. The prompt was a word: aberrance, or “straying from the norm.” She didn’t get accepted. In hindsight, Bee says now, “It wouldn’t have been the right place for me.” Instead, Bee moved to Baltimore with her boyfriend, who was starting school there. Things didn’t work out as she had hoped. She acknowledges that she was depressed and felt unsafe in the city. “I definitely lost myself a bit there,” she says. Only a few months later, Bee packed up and moved again, this time to New York City. “If you wanna do photo and art and stuff, then go to New York,” she says. It was a big move to make on her own, but her parents weren’t too worried. “I think actually it’s a pretty safe place to be because of the sheer number of people,” says Cara Bolles. After some searching, she found an apartment, and jobs began trickling in. Things were still slow, and Bee had to live off mostly beans for a little while. In 2013, Bee traveled to Athens for a conference centered on innovation and creativity. She gave a Ted Talk at the conference about her budding career. “People put a lot of pressure on me because I have young success,” she said during the talk. “It has the potential to overshadow the rest of my career. People sometimes look at my age more than my photographs. But what I’m most proud of is my actual photographs and how happy it makes me to make them.” In 2014, Bee shot a fall coats collection for Vogue and spreads for a handful of indie European magazines. She shot an album cover for English singer Birdy in 2015 and later shot Birdy again for a RedxValentino campaign in Great Britain. Sexism in the industry has only become more apparent for Bee. She can recall one time in another country when, after 17 hours of shooting, a male director refused to give her a break or time to eat. After she persisted, he finally handed her a bowl of jelly, exasperated, adding: “Maybe this will make you into a man.” And sometimes, she says, people assume she’s the assistant rather than the photographer. She remembers someone handing her a walkie-talkie when she walked onto the set. “I’m like, ‘No, I’m taking the picture. I’m making all of this happen. You’re here because I’m here, actually,’” says Bee. That sort of thing used to chip away at Bee’s confidence, causing her to shut down and not speak out. In some cases, that meant not getting the shot she needed for fear of making others uncomfortable. Now, though, she makes no apologies and simply gets the job done on her terms. “I’m not gonna waste my energy on convincing people that I deserve to be there other than the fact that I’m going to be myself,” Bee says. “I’m gonna be professional, and I am gonna get the job done.” Michael Beckert was Bee’s first intern. He says his former boss, who he considers both a friend and a mentor, tends to be

upfront when it comes to photo shoots and won’t back down. “If someone’s trying to demean her, she doesn’t really let it get in her way,” Beckert says. “She’s very polite, but she also knows that she’s the boss.” Sometimes, Bee’s schedule takes a toll. Last spring, she remembers leaving her phone, her camera and her keys all in different states throughout a frenzy of photo shoots. “I was just like on the bottom of my energy,” she says. “I hope it’s not as crazy as it was again, but I’m sure it will be.” After that, Bee slowed things down. Now, she splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, and the constant travel can make it a challenge to find the balance between work and rest. When she does have time off, she likes to write in her journal, work out and catch up with friends.

Olivia Bee, Class of: 2012 Age: 22 Lives in: Brooklyn and Los Angeles Inspiration for work: “Renaissance paintings and Baroque paintings are a big part of how I look at things ... I really like the light in paintings like that, that kind of light gives something important and desire. And I like to reflect that in my photographs.” Where she hopes to travel next: “I want to go to Africa so bad. And I really want to go to Vietnam.” High school pastime: “I would go on adventures on the bus. Like we’d just be like ‘let’s go see what’s at the end of the 15 line.’”

ast March, Bee published a book of photos, called “Kids in Love.” The cover is light purple with a rainbow, and it depicts her time in high school and more recent moments. “I was just shooting pictures of my life and what was going on around me, and then once it was done, I realized, ‘Oh, it’s a book,’” says Bee. More recently, Bee shot a series of photos for Teen Vogue. It was for a story that centered around young people in LGBTQ+ relationships. “That was really special to photograph all these people who have beautiful relationships that aren’t heteronormative and put them on a huge platform like Teen Vogue,” she says. Bee hasn’t slowed down on her personal projects. Recently, she and Molly Ortiz took a road trip to Montana to shoot a project that was just for her. Now, she’s looking ahead to transforming her style by venturing more into film. As for what else is on her bucket list? Photographing Drake and Rihanna and doing a photoshoot in space. Says Bee: “I think there’s something really interesting about being human in the place that isn’t human at all.” ◆ To see a slideshow of Bee’s work, visit grantmagazine.com/bee November 2016

Kicking It Up a Notch

Martial arts kept senior Ahmad Hill centered while his father was deployed overseas. Now, it’s a way of life.

By Miles Rideau

hmad Hill takes a breath before bowing to his opponent. A wall of mirrors gives the impression that the dimly lit dojo is much more immense than the small room truly is. Padded green floors sink under the weight of the fighters. A timer goes off, and a powerful kick lands on Hill’s stomach. He grimaces but retaliates with a well-thrown right jab that lands in the center chest of his adversary. The two go punch for punch until a timer rings and they bow again. Hill, a senior at Grant High School, has made martial arts a way of life, spending much of the last decade practicing. But when his father’s U.S. Army infantry unit was deployed to the Middle East, the activity grew into a way for Hill to cope with the constant fear he had about losing his dad. “With my dad being deployed, it was like everyday, any day, at any time he could just die. And that’s scary, you know?” says Hill. His dad made it back unscathed after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from that, Hill chose to immerse himself further into karate and its cultural history. Martial arts had been Hill’s escape from reality. Now, when he steps inside his dojo, he enters his sanctuary. “Doing martial arts just centered me,” Hill says. It “gave me something to work towards and keep a calm mind.” Born July 16, 1998, in Atlanta, Georgia, Hill is the middle child of three. Early in his life, both Hill’s parents worked, so he and his sisters would spend their time in the backyard of their daycare,

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playing tag and hide-and-seek. In elementary school, Hill’s teachers often had to call home because he was too rambunctious in school. Hill describes himself as a class clown, and he often paid the price for his antics, mostly being off-task and distracting other students. Larry Hill, Ahmad Hill’s father, remembers countless parentteacher conferences when he learned about how his son continued to disrupt class. “When he was younger, he wasn’t (disciplined),” says Larry Hill. Ahmad Hill remembers his father’s looks of disappointment, but it wasn’t enough to change his behavior. It was in kindergarten when he first thought about martial arts. One day while watching TV, he stumbled upon “Enter the Dragon,” a popular martial arts movie from 1973 starring Bruce Lee. Lee’s unique skills and incredible ability as a fighter inspired Hill to want to be just like him. “Just his power. Who couldn’t be drawn into that?” Hill says now. That memory never left him. Four years later, at age 8, he started taking mixed martial arts classes once a week. But he was drawn to taekwondo. “I started doing it, and it was just something in me. It was a connection,” he recalls. Just as Hill began to thrive in his taekwondo classes, his father was deployed overseas. In 2009, Larry Hill was sent to Iraq for six months. Ahmad, who

Left: “(Martial Arts) helped me get disciplined. Disciplined for anything . . . that comes into my life.” says Hill. Photo by Blu Midyett

was 11 at the time, remembers the hole that his father’s departure left in their home. He had always counted on his father, but for that six months, he wondered if he would ever see him again. “Is he going to die?” Hill often asked himself. “Will people come to my house, knock on my door and say my father is dead? That’s what was on my mind, everyday.” While his father was away, Hill stuck with martial arts, but his motivation was still lacking. He continued to struggle and get in trouble in school. When Larry Hill returned, the family was stationed in Louisiana but later moved to Washington state, looking for a better school system for the children. Hill’s slacking tendencies in school didn’t improve. “Before, he used to play video games. I would try to tell him to go out and play a sport or something, give it a try,” says Tamara Hill, Ahmad’s mother. “He wasn’t really motivated.” After school, Hill would come home and plant himself in front of the television. But after entering sixth grade, he started to get serious about martial arts, going to more and more classes each week and practicing his moves at home. This, he says, improved all aspects of his life: his physicality, mental wellbeing and grades. “It was a realization that I had to do what I had to do to better myself and grow up,” says Hill. His father saw him make a change. “It was a big change. The older he got and the more classes and training he got, his academics went up, skyrocketed,” says Larry Hill. “That’s him maturing in age and personality, and the way he handles himself now.” In 2012, Larry Hill left again for a military tour in Afghanistan for a year. His father’s departure hit Ahmad Hill hard, but martial arts was there as his crutch this time. “Doing martial arts centered me and gave me something to work towards and keep a calm mind,” says Hill. Hill and his family were able to video chat with his father a couple times a month, but the conversations were often brief. For the Hill family however, it was key in shortening the distance between themselves and Larry Hill. For Ahmad Hill, the video chats let him know that his father was still alive. While he couldn’t control what was happening to his father, the precise movements and repetition of martial arts gave Hill control over his own life. After school, he would head directly to class. “It was a therapy for me. It took my mind off things. Just like leave it outside and focus on yourself,” says Hill. “When my father went overseas to fight … it helped me. It was always there.” When Larry Hill arrived home from Afghanistan in 2013, Hill and his family waited from morning until evening in a small military base gymnasium to greet him. When his father walked in, Ahmad’s mother cried. But to Hill the interaction was odd. A rush of pure relief ran through him. He explains the feeling as surreal. “I can’t explain it. I can’t even put it into words; a person who it (hasn’t)

happened to wouldn’t understand,” says Hill. With his father back, the Hills were once again stationed in the South, this time in Fort Benning, Georgia. The lack of dojos in the area made taking taekwondo classes nearly impossible. But when he had time, Hill practiced the moves and techniques he had learned earlier. Once again, the Hills packed up and moved, this time back to the Pacific Northwest. Hill was 16 when they settled in Portland. He started judo lessons before switching to karate. Hill was so drawn to the Japanese martial arts that he became determined to learn the language. He taught himself some words and picked up the basics of the language, and as he did so, he discovered an interest in Japanese culture as well. When Hill first came to Grant as a sophomore, his only goal was to enhance his Japanese skills. But first-year Japanese wasn’t offered at the time. So Hill went to the Japanese classroom in his free time to learn as much as he could. “It was just learning the alphabet and learning a couple words, but it wasn’t like I could understand it. That’s why I kept coming back, trying to better my Japanese skill,” says Hill. In the last year, Hill began attending karate classes at Kyokushin Dojo in Beaverton. He sacrifices nearly six hours of his free time after school almost everyday to bus to his class and stay for two sessions of practice. “To learn this you need to be really patient, so you learn about patience,” says Hill’s karate teacher, Yoshi Ito. “Also, if you get hit, it is painful. So we have to learn what pain is. If you hit other people, other people feel pain. So it means caring about other people.” Hill competed in a local tournament earlier this year. The experience was eye opening and exposed him to another side of the sport he loved. “When I go to a tournament, I … test my own skill,” he says. “I’m doing it for myself.”

oday, Hill continues to study the Japanese language. He only has been in the class for two years, but his learning far exceeds the time spent in class. That’s no surprise to his teacher, Kazuko Page. “He has passion; he has a dream of going to college in Japan. And when you have a tangible like that, the motivation is very strong,” she says. After graduation, Hill plans to join a six-month, pre–college program in Japan to introduce foreign students to the culture and expose them to new experiences with the language. He hopes to stay and attend college. “That is my next step in life, to go to Japan. And that’s like the golden ticket right there,” Hill says. But college isn’t the only reason Hill dreams of a life in Japan. He wants to train under a karate master. “I want ... to go to Japan and actually have a connection with a master. I want to truly speak to him and not just speak English,” explains Hill. Training under a master where karate originated is a necessity for Hill. In his eyes, the lessons learned through martial arts can be life changing. When he grows up, he hopes to give the same opportunities that the sport gave him to the next generation. “Why do I do it? It strengthens me, my mind, my body, and my spirit,” he says. It “gives you a path in life. It is something to always strive for and it won’t disappear.” ◆ To see a day in the life of Hill, visit grantmagazine.com/karate. November 2016

s i w T ti

in to Place E

After living life in her sister’s shadow, sophomore Marcella Stanard found a place of her own in contortion. Story and photos by Jessica Griepenburg

24 Grant Magazine

leven-year-old Marcella Stanard sits on the edge of her seat. It’s her first time seeing the traveling acrobatic show “Cavalia,” and the excitement in her eyes is apparent. The stage lights up as the horses and acrobats appear before her. Their stunts blur together as Stanard stares in amazement. Her mind jumps to the future as she pictures herself moving and twisting her body on the backs of the same galloping horses. Little did she know she would soon be making steps toward this reality. For two years, Grant sophomore Stanard has been practicing contortion, an act of twisting one’s body into unusual positions. “I think it’s really helped to have something that … no one else has,” Stanard says. “I like the artistic-ness of it … and I like pushing myself.” Her older sister, Mika Stanard, has seen how contortion has shaped her sister. “She practices at home all the time,” says the 18-year-old Mika. “You’ll always see her just doing handstands against the door or randomly stretching her side-splits on the

wall. She’s always doing something.” Marcella Stanard began practicing contortion in eighth grade and has been hooked ever since. Maisie Topping, a close friend, has known Stanard since they were in third grade. “It’s really cool to see her doing contortion because that’s crazy,” Topping says. “She’ll just casually be talking to you, and she’ll start stretching, and she’s like folding herself in half, and it’s just the weirdest thing.” Before that, Stanard says she always tried to follow in her sister’s footsteps, especially when it came to academics. “I didn’t really bother to realize that we wanted different things,” Stanard says now. She has used contortion as a way to take her life and make it her own. “She’s always been like the golden child,” she says about Mika Stanard. “It’s really nice to find your own thing that you like and are good at.” As a child, Stanard was known for her energetic behavior. Her parents remember her constantly running around outside or jumping off the arm of the couch.

Stanard recalls a close-knit relationship with her sister. Mika Stanard has Asperger syndrome, and the girls’ parents split about eight years ago, which made the girls inseparable. But given Mika’s academic talent and love for all things scientific, Stanard felt pressure to be like her. Taking after her sister, Stanard tried out for her middle school Science Bowl, a highly academic competition, even though she held little interest in the subject. She didn’t make the cut. “I think I was a little bit sad that I had never made it, but at the same time I was sort of relieved because … I don’t think I ever really cared a ton,” Stanard says. “So I didn’t have to keep doing something that I wasn’t really that into and wasn’t really that good at.” “That was like the first time that I started thinking, ‘Maybe she’s not the same as Mika. Maybe this is not where her true passion is,’” says her mother, Jill Sanders. “It took a while for Marcella to like really think that she could have another path, that

she could do something different.” Stanard yearned for a hobby of her own. Having always been unusually flexible, she started an aerial class at Echo Theater with Do Jump, a dance and acrobatics company, in the beginning of eighth grade. On the first day, her nervousness was quickly replaced with a newly found confidence. As she looked around the room, her natural talent stood out among the rest. “We, every week, would like warm up with … the splits, and everyone else was like one to two feet off the ground, and I was like a couple of inches off the ground. And I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I’m really good at this,’” Stanard recalls. She continued taking classes every Saturday for the rest of the school year. It marked a new beginning. “I just started doing it every time that I was like watching TV, and then I got better at it, and then it kind of like evolved into an obsession,” she says. Now every Tuesday night, Stanard spends two hours at her aerial class. They start with conditioning and warm-ups and November 2016

Marcella Stanard knows that her passion for contortion is completely her own. “I know that I’m good at it and I know that like if I don’t do it well the only person I let down is me,” she says. “I found my thing.”

then move on to the silks and trapeze, working to perfect the skill set planned for the day. Though every class leaves her sore, she says, “It’s only two hours, but honestly, I’d do it all the time if I could.” In any free time she can spare, her bedroom becomes her studio. She practices twisting, bending and stretching against walls, chairs and a pillar in the middle of her room. It serves as part of her everyday routine. “I stretch like an hour or two every day, not because I dedicate time. Just because I do it casually,” Stanard says. Her commitment hasn’t gone unnoticed. “I’m so proud of her for finding something and practicing it … and getting better and better at it,” says Marcia Stanard, her other mom. “I think that’s really cool. And I love it, and I love the effort and dedication she puts into it.” For Stanard, contortion goes beyond being a hobby. It’s provided her a means of coping with her anxiety. “It calms me down

26 Grant Magazine

“I just started doing it every time that I was like watching TV, and then I got better at it, and then it kind of like evolved into an obsession.” - Marcella Stanard

so much. I’m constantly just like, hyper and jittery, and I don’t want to be,” she says. Now, as she looks to the future, Stanard knows her love for contortion will follow her into the coming years. She plans to attend École Nationale de Cirque, a circus college in Montreal, Canada. “As Marcella’s kind of like coming into her own, I just really want to support (her) and encourage (her),” says Jill Sanders. “Because you know, you don’t need to make $60,000 a year when you graduate from college … You can do something else. You could travel the world or travel with the circus.” For Stanard, being able to find her own passion has proven to be a breakthrough. “What I’m doing now, I honestly just … really like doing all the time,” she says. “That’s important, that you like the process instead of just the idea of it.” ◆ To see Stanard in action, visit grantmagazine.com/contortionist

Time with...Mia Palmer

Setting Goals, Scoring Goals

The Grant senior has committed her life to soccer and kicked her way onto the global stage.

“This is actually real. This is actually happening.”

Interview by Charlotte Klein • Photo by Finn Hawley-Blue You recently went to Northern Ireland with the U-18 women’s national team. What was that like? It was kind of life changing because I never thought I would go on a trip like that, especially for the national team. Seeing the different play in Europe was super amazing. Were you competing in a tournament there? It was called the International Cup with USA, France, England and Northern Ireland. I was there for almost two weeks. We only played three games. Were you the only person from Oregon? Yes. So you’re arguably the best female soccer player in Oregon at your age level. How does that make you feel? It’s pretty exciting because I never thought that I’d be the one to represent Oregon or represent the United States in a different country. How did your team do? We lost against England. And then we played France, and we won. That was a really good game. Our last game, we played Northern Ireland and won. How did it feel competing at the international level? It’s definitely nerve-racking playing in big stadiums and having crowds. I’ve never played in a game with such a crowd before … And also just flying out there and thinking, “Oh my god, I’m going to Northern Ireland. This is actually real. This is actually happening.” When did you start playing soccer? I do remember my first game, and I really didn’t want to play. It was rainy. I didn’t want to go and get muddy, but my parents made me go. They were like, “You’ll have fun. Just go see and if you don’t like it we won’t force you to keep playing.” Finally, I went and had so much fun. I remember asking, “It’s already done? I don’t have any more games?” Age: 18 National Team jersey number: 15 Position: Left back Favorite soccer player: Meghan Klingenberg, Portland Thorns Hobbies: Painting, doodling, photography, watching crime TV shows

When did playing soccer become serious for you? As I got older, I changed clubs. I stuck with (Northeast United) for a couple of years, but my team was just not really into it. And so I changed clubs to THUSC (Tualatin Hills United Soccer Club). They were the best team in the state. I just thought I would go to their tryouts and see how it goes. I never thought I would get on. But I made it, and I’ve been with the same team ever since, although it’s not THUSC anymore, it’s Crossfire United. You fly around the country for tournaments and even for ordinary weekend games. How does soccer balance out with the rest of your life? I do miss a lot of school for soccer, especially lately. It’s hard, definitely. I have to bring schoolwork with me when I travel so that I don’t get too behind. But when I travel, it’s really hard to do homework because you are either playing soccer or are super tired from playing soccer or traveling. But I have to make myself do it because school is important. I try to get good grades. Have you ever wanted to quit? There’s been periods of time where I haven’t hung out with friends for two or three weeks in a row, and that sometimes makes me want to take a break. We have practice three to four days a week, and we have games on the weekends, and so my week is just occupied always. So what drives you then? What keeps you going? I really enjoy playing soccer. I always set goals for myself, and I love seeing myself improve and grow into those goals. When I first started with my club team, I barely had playing time and now I’m consistently a starter in every game. It feels good to see improvement. You’ve already committed to the University of Oregon, a Division I school, for soccer. Are you hoping to play professionally one day? Yes, that would be awesome, but I’ve never thought about it that much. Yes, it would be cool to continue playing soccer at high levels, but I don’t know. I’m just going to see how well I play in college. I still need to figure things out. ◆ November 2016

behind the camera

Arden Butterfield has never had a large group of friends. Now, he’s using art and film at Grant to express himself.

Story by Narain Dubey and Charlotte Klein • Photos by Finn Hawley-Blue

rden Butterfield’s hands move slowly and carefully toward the small, clay person sitting inside a cardboard box that’s been painted black and cut to look like the inside of a house. Butterfield adjusts the brightness of the light above him and positions his Canon G12 camera to point at the center of his homemade set. To create the next frame of the film, he meticulously moves the clay figure’s limbs a few millimeters and presses the shutter of his camera once. He will repeat this process more than 5,000 times before he finishes a feature stop-motion film. After drafting his plot, creating sets and characters by hand, shooting frames, editing and composing its music, Butterfield will finally finish his film, three months after he started. Butterfield, a sophomore at Grant, has found his creative niche in stop-motion videography. But for him, filmmaking isn’t just a hobby. A self-described introvert, Butterfield uses film as an outlet for expression. “Whatever ideas or feelings that I am dealing with, I can show them through film,” he says. Butterfield was born on Feb. 21, 2001, in Northeast Portland. He is the oldest of Cinnamon Bancroft and Andrew Butterfield’s two children. His younger brother, Tait, 11, attends Beverly Cleary School. Growing up, Butterfield remembers the central role art played in his childhood. His father, now a ceramics teacher at Wilson High School, always had projects for his sons. “With my dad, we would do all sorts of art stuff,” Butterfield recalls. “I’ve always had an artistic side.” Along with art, Butterfield’s parents highlighted the importance

of family. Spending time together in the outdoors became a priority, and the family camped or hiked whenever they got the opportunity. Beyond family outings, Butterfield was never very social. He was always an independent kid, his father recalls. “Arden would rather do something more individual, like exploring or hiking,” Andrew Butterfield says. Butterfield started kindergarten at his neighborhood elementary school, Beverly Cleary but soon switched to Rigler Elementary School in second grade. He was motivated to transfer there because of the unique Spanish immersion program and because Butterfield’s mother worked at the school as the third-grade Spanish immersion teacher. The small class size in the immersion program made it difficult for Butterfield to come in as an outsider. “I didn’t know anyone at Rigler,” Butterfield remembers. “So it was pretty hard.” In his early years at Rigler, Butterfield attended a film class on stop-motion video. But film didn’t click for him right away. Butterfield was more interested in doodling, filling entire sketchbooks with ideas for inventions. He also began cello lessons and got involved with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. The summer before his sixth-grade year, Butterfield decided to attend da Vinci Arts Middle School instead of following the program’s normal path to Beaumont Middle School. “I didn’t miss going to Rigler or being in the immersion program,” Butterfield says. “I think this was partly because of the amount of art that was at da Vinci … it comforted me.” For Butterfield, however, middle school life was anything but simple. The pace of the schoolwork was a lot faster than he was used to. “I wasn’t very social inside or outside of school,”

Butterfield gets the inspiration for his films from everyday experiences. “Going about the day ... I come up with lots of story snippets and ideas,” says Arden Butterfield, a Grant sophomore. “Film is kind of a way for me to put them together.”

Butterfield says. “My sixth-grade year, I ate lunch by myself in my him in class.” science teacher’s room.” Although Butterfield was now more social within school, he still In seventh grade, Butterfield was finally able to gain his footing. stayed independent outside of class and didn’t spend time with his He discovered that film combined all of the art mediums he loved peers anywhere but within Grant. That worked fine for him. and that he could incorporate it into his academics. When summer rolled around, Butterfield spent a lot of his time Shannon Wasson, Butterfield’s middle school Language Arts working as a lifeguard at Dishman and Grant pools. But it didn’t teacher, recalls how much his films had an impact on her. “He slow the time he invested in his art. He began working on an created a film that focused on the topic of order and disorder,” animated film titled “Strings,” which would take him almost the Wasson says. “I originally assumed that because of his quiet nature full three months of summer vacation to complete. and shyness, I wasn’t going to see much. I was very wrong.” Completely stop-motion, the video was a compilation of Near the end of his eighth-grade year, Butterfield attended a thousands of individual photos. The entire production was show at the Portland Art Museum and designed and created by Butterfield: was amazed by the work of John Frame, he hand-constructed the set, composed a California film artist. Butterfield says and recorded his own musical score, that seeing his work was a “formative perfected the lighting and edited the film moment” that propelled his love for himself. filmmaking. “The hardest part of the project was At da Vinci, every eighth-grade making the man in the film.” Butterfield student is required to create a “capstone” says. “I first made a small clay head project – to choose a medium of art and and painted the details, and then I had create a piece of work for it. Butterfield, to bend and sculpt a thin metal frame to inspired by the art of Frame, decided hold the cloth robes.” to emulate his work with an animated “I’d say he put in about three hours film. “I’ve always been passionate a day on it,” Butterfield’s father recalls. about academics, but I think that kind of This puppet, from Butterfield’s film “Strings,” “Whenever there was a nice and quiet, ignited combining academics with art,” had to be repositioned over a thousand times. kind of meditative time during the day, he says. he would break away from everyone. It When the time came for Butterfield to make his transition to wasn’t all the time, but he definitely kept at it. That’s how he’s Grant, the process was relatively smooth. But he felt the artistic been his whole life, you know. He always keeps at it.” options specifically regarding film were limited at Grant, and with All of Butterfield’s hard work paid off at the end of the summer mounds of homework, he struggled to find time outside of school when he entered his film into Fresh Film Northwest, a juried film to make videos. competition put on by the Northwest Film Center. Out of more than “I discovered that Grant had almost no opportunities to expand 130 submissions from teen filmmakers living in Alaska, British my skills in film,” Butterfield says. “Which made it hard for me to Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, Butterfield’s find time to keep my involvement.” film was one of 13 finalists. In a new environment without film, Butterfield found himself Now, Butterfield is determined to continue exploring his nervous at first. Freshman English teacher Dylan Leeman passion. He’s making new videos and short films for his teachers remembers when Butterfield was first in his room. “In conferences, and is creating new movies outside of school. his mother expressed a concern in Arden’s social abilities,” he Although film remains his favorite medium, Butterfield hasn’t says. “When he was first in my class, I noticed that he would move shied away from exploring new forms of art. He is a writer for the to be by himself. Sure, he would socialize when it was necessary, Young Composers Project, a group of kids that creates orchestral but he never really went beyond that.” pieces for members of the Oregon Symphony, and he plays improv At Grant, freshmen are put into communities of kids who share piano. the same core classes. As the year progressed, Butterfield valued Although Butterfield plans to continue submitting films in this environment because it allowed him to get to know a small competitions, he is unsure about his future after high school. group of people. The Grant communities mirrored the sizes of his “I don’t know if I would be able to get a job as a filmmaker,” middle school classes, which comforted him. Being able to see the Butterfield says. “It feels like kind of a risky field to go into.” same faces in each class and build relationships with the same kids On a recent day after school, Butterfield sits with his cello, softened the transition. rehearsing a new piece for the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. Once Butterfield found a way to integrate his filmmaking After finishing, he practices piano and completes his homework. talent into the classroom, he began to flourish. “I would ask the Finally, after hours of work, Butterfield gets back to his film teacher about normal projects, if I could do something film related about the Rule of 110, a mathematical system that can be used to instead,” he says. “In freshman year, I eventually made a couple simulate a computer program. It’s different than his usual stopfilms that I turned in to my teachers.” motion videos, but it expresses his ideas just the same. Leeman noticed a change in Butterfield after he was able Butterfield still doesn’t meet up with friends outside of school to include films and creativity in his learning frame. “Once he very often, but it’s not much of a concern for him. “I am an finished a couple films and podcast projects in my class, I could individual person. I always have been,” he says. see that he was really taking off,” Leeman says. “He became the His focus, instead, is on film. “It takes everything that I love kid that would always push the limits of the project, or bring in and brings it together into one thing,” Butterfield says. “It’s pretty articles contradicting what I was teaching. I really enjoyed having amazing.” ◆ November 2016

‘Soy una Persona’

Gloria Trujillo is a new Spanish teacher at Grant, but her rookie status hasn’t stopped her from challenging the status quo. Story and photos by Mackie Mallison

loria Trujillo starts her fifth-period Spanish class at 8:15 a.m. sharp. On this particular day, she is on a mission: make her class the inclusive environment she has always envisioned for the world. She positions herself at the front of the room and opens up about her personal experiences with gender identity. Tears well up in her eyes as she talks about her childhood as a tomboy and never quite fitting into gender norms. Students sit in silence, as many have never addressed anything past verb conjugations and vocabulary in a Spanish class before. Trujillo holds a confident smile, inhales and tells the class, “Soy una persona.” Translated in English: “I am a person.” She makes her message clear from the start. Gender doesn’t define who she is. Trujillo wants her classroom to be an inclusive space for her students no matter how they identify – so she’s learning to work around the gender specifics that exist within the Spanish language. While society is often restricted to male and female pronouns, Trujillo feels it’s important for students of all gender identities to have a space to listen and be heard. Even as a first-year staff member at Grant, Trujillo strives to address a range of issues in her class, from student-led discussions on police brutality to introducing alternative terminology like “Latinx” – a term used to include gender non-binary people in the Spanish language. There’s nothing Trujillo shies away from. As a child growing up in Spain, Trujillo was a self-proclaimed tomboy and struggled to be accepted by her peers. In a society that shamed those who didn’t fit specific cultural roles, Trujillo didn’t feel comfortable with her gender identity. Now at Grant, she wants to make sure that her students never experience the insecurities she grew up with by bringing a new perspective to teaching Spanish. “The classroom needs to be a safe space. They need to know that they can trust me,” says Trujillo. “What does it matter if you are born one gender, and you don’t feel like it, and then you switch? Let people experience who they are.” Trujillo was born in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 1977 shortly after her single mother, Isabel

Miller, immigrated from Colombia. Employers were hesitant to hire Miller because she was an immigrant, so she was unable to sustain herself working as a teacher. This forced Trujillo and her mother to move from town-totown during summer and Christmas, selling things like jewelry and scarves at town fairs. They made just enough money to get by. Because of the constant search for the best market to sell their products, the two moved to eight different cities while living in Spain. During their travels, they slept in their car or in tents. When her mother couldn’t bring her along, Trujillo stayed with her two aunts in Ibiza, an island off the eastern coast of Spain. Her aunts were the first lesbian couple that Trujillo knew personally, and they opened her up to a new world about gender and sexuality. “They made the most impact on me,” says Trujillo. “Their values have trickled down to me. They are so important; they in so many ways shaped who I am today.” Since the family moved so much, it was hard for Trujillo to form a strong community or make any friends. She remembers that some kids didn’t like her because she always came from a different region of Spain. She often had someone bullying her at school, usually boys. “They actually hurt me lot,” she says, recalling a time that one boy pushed her off her bike when she was leaving school. “I came home with a bloody lip and a broken front tooth.” On top of that, Trujillo grew up wanting to look like a boy, although she still identified as a girl. She was tired of the stark contrast in expectations between girls and boys. Most of her friends and family expected her to play with dolls and do house chores, while boys could go outside and play sports. “Girls were supposed to be very feminine, and boys were supposed to be very masculine,” says Trujillo. “My mom was mortified that I wanted to have and keep my hair short because she wanted to have a girly girl, and I was a tomboy from the start.” Trujillo would give her mother excuses to ensure that she wouldn’t have to go to school because she was so worried about being picked on. “I would say, ‘My hair is sore. I can’t go to school.’ That was one of my best. You have November 2016

experiences when you are very young that shape who you are and make you like school or dislike school.” Through all of the bullying, Trujillo recalls the majority of her teachers being supportive of her. “If there was anyone that made my transition from school to school better, it was them,” she says. After graduating high school, she moved to Colombia with her mother for six months to go back to her roots. While there, she noticed the same gender pressures that she was exposed to in Spain. She recalls Colombian society expecting women to wear makeup more than in Spain. “I came … dressing like a boy, so if you looked at me you could say, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’” When she returned to Spain, she worked for Gloria Trujillo feels a responsibility to shed light on topics that are often a mechanic in an office ordering parts – a rare swept under the rug. “You already have an opinion, you already have a field of work for women at the time. But after mind, you already have dreams and you are getting your wings out and she began struggling to pay rent, Trujillo felt she you are testing them … and you need to test them.” needed to make a change. She decided to move in with someone who happened to be from Ireland. Conversing with appreciate to not only create diversity but to share her lived him for the next 6 months greatly improved her English skills, a experience and perspective that’s different than the majority of contrast from when she was in high school and struggled with her the Grant staff,” Campbell says. English classes. Fellow Spanish teacher Colin Oriard believes the way Trujillo Trujillo moved to the United States in 2001. She felt welcomed interacts with students perfectly embodies the inclusivity and there. “Going to a country and feeling welcome makes you feel … education that students should receive. “A lot of the social that you belong,” she says. “It makes you feel part of the world, injustices in our country stem from ignorance,” Oriard says. “So I and I think that’s important.” think that it’s our responsibility as teachers to push that education Her mother had moved to Portland, Oregon in 1998, and piece a little bit further, and I think Gloria is conscious about that.” Trujillo decided to follow so the two could be closer together. It Grant freshman Annalise Johnson, who identifies as gender would mean learning a whole new culture, but she didn’t let that non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, quit taking Spanish class scare her. last year because the class didn’t include non-binary pronouns. “I “We live in a globalized society; it’s unavoidable to experience felt … invisible and that I shouldn’t belong in that culture because different cultures,” she says. “It’s important to have cultural I didn’t belong in the language,” says Johnson. awareness.” Johnson recently came to Trujillo to seek a way around the She attended Portland State University and earned a bachelor’s linguistic issue. “Talking with Gloria, I got to see that there (are) degree in Spanish in 2014. She then taught Spanish at PSU and opportunities to continue getting exposed to new cultures and earned a master’s at the same time, completing graduate school learning the language without having to just use binary pronouns,” last summer. Johnson says. Trujillo realized that becoming a teacher was the best way to Trujillo hopes all teachers, staff and students start to put gender empower students to be more proactive and work toward change. inclusivity at the forefront. “The second question that I hope we She started at Grant in August. all start saying after ‘How are you?’ is ‘What pronoun do you “Teaching at PSU, I realized that there’s a lot of ideology prefer?’ because we assume,” she says. “And I don’t think that it’s in language,” she says. “Working at Grant, I want my students OK anymore that we assume.” to discover what Spanish is like for themselves and make a In order to create a stronger Spanish-speaking community comfortable space for them to be themselves.” within Grant, Trujillo looks forward to helping build the weekly, She uses her experiences of feeling excluded throughout her student-run Spanish Club held in her room during lunch. She also childhood to bring an inclusive lens into her classroom. “We are plans to organize a support group at Grant for Latinx students and people of the world,” she says. “We still need to connect with staff. people, and also, we need to belong.” Trujillo believes all educators need to take their work a step “Hopefully by being here, by bringing my experiences by also further. opening up a space for conversations, (students) can start looking “Language is a community,” says Trujillo. “Not everyone has at what’s happening in our community and hopefully changing to like me. But in my classroom, I’m hoping that everybody feels our society,” she says. welcome. It’s more than just gender equality, reaching out to Trujillo is the only native speaker in the Spanish department at different minorities, enabling their voice. My vision is that it’s Grant. That’s something that principal Carol Campbell sees as a their class. It’s for them. I’m just here to try to make it easier for benefit. them if I can, using what skills they already have.” ◆ “Being a native speaker is definitely something that we

32 Grant Magazine

Afterthoughts

Different Worlds

After the Jewish New Year, an observant Jew recognizes the obstacles of keeping faith in a secular city.

By Georgia Greenblum • Illustration by Molly Metz

n a recent Friday, while my friends participate in after-school sports, hang out with friends or do homework, I run straight home to the chaos of a Jewish home. This was on full display recently when we celebrated the holy day Yom Kippur that takes place in the fall. I remember taking just five steps into my living room and smelling the roasting chicken, vegetables and cinnamon from the customary rugelach pastry. An hour later, my mom, dad, sister and I sit down to enjoy our last meal before the fast while reflecting on the past year. Everything comes to a halt at 6:31, the minute the sun has set. I change into an allwhite, long-sleeve knee-length dress, comb my hair and wash my face to emulate the ministering of angels before leaving for services. I’m one of a small number of Jews in Portland who celebrate Yom Kippur. For 25 hours, we extract ourselves from normal American society, which sometimes lacks inner reflection and instead emphasizes immediate gratification and a reliance on electronics. Recently, I have started to be more observant, and it has reminded me that being a practicing Jew is difficult. My friends don’t understand why I miss school to pray on holidays. Each time I turn down invitations to hang out, I remove myself from secular society. Generations before me have gone through a similar struggle of maintaining their Jewish identity and values. I wonder what will happen to my religion in the future when younger generations like myself are struggling to keep their faith. Portland has about 50,000 Jews, only some of whom are observant. Through my 12 years of public school in Portland, I’ve

never known many Jewish students. My secular friends aren’t always aware of the meaning behind my observance. My own observance has gone through a transition. As a kid, I went to Sunday school to learn Hebrew, went to synagogue a couple times a month and had a batmitzvah when I turned 13. But I never observed shabbat (the Jewish sabbath), and I never restrained myself from the attraction of social media or TV. But 6 years ago, I began to question why we didn’t keep kosher – a strict following of the set of Jewish dietary laws – in my house. When I was 13, I took matters into my own hands and started eating kosher. It took time before it was natural for my parents to help prepare meals for me that were kosher. Recently, I decided to observe shabbat, the day of rest when people refrain from electronics, working and driving. I wanted to participate in weekly family shabbat dinners. Restraining from late hangouts with friends and watching TV and football was a hard pill to swallow, but I was determined to do it. As I became more observant in my religion, my friends were confused that I stayed off my phone for 24 hours and wondered why I couldn’t hang out on Saturday mornings due to prayer. Through my transition, I have taken note of the difficulties observant Jews face. There’s a new wave of electronic devices and technology at hand, and it’s hard to distance ourselves from them. Friday night is a time to go out and be social, but for observant Jews, it’s the day we slow down and reflect on the past week. Other American ideals and practices veer from Jewish values that we continue to observe. In America, there’s one day out of the year where we make resolutions for the

upcoming year and only one day devoted to being thankful. My faith teaches me to look at think things differently. I wake up and say the prayer, “Modeh Ani,” which acknowledges gratitude that God has given us back our soul to live another day. During the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah, I ask myself: “What am I proud of this year? What do I want to do better this coming year?” It’s also difficult to be observant in a society that is not closely tied to my religion. About 22 percent of Jewish adults in America now identify as “Jews of no religion” – Jewish born adults who no longer practice; and there’s a new high for Jews who marry outside of the religion (58 percent). It’s clear that many Jews find it difficult to observe and practice the religion as previous generations did. It makes me question if I will someday become a “Jew of no religion.” Just a few weeks ago, I sat in my synagogue listening to the blasts of the Shofar that signal the end of the fast on Yom Kippur. My heart beat a little faster because of the anticipation for the new year. My friends were probably at home watching Netflix or writing an essay, but I sat aware of that moment, away from electronics and American customs. Our changing society makes me wonder if things will be different. I wonder where I will be on the spectrum of observance in the future. I wonder what will happen to my fellow Jews and my family. I wonder if my Hebrew name will soon be one of the past. ◆ Georgia Greenblum is a junior and a reporter for Grant Magazine. November 2016

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