Summer 2015

HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW

DANCING WITH MONSTERS

CRIME AND NO PUNISHMENT

INTERVIEW: GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL

VOLUME XLII NO. 2, SUMMER 2015 HARVARDPOLITICS.COM

ON THE MARGIN IDENTITY, POLITICS, AND DIVERSITY

THE HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW PRESENTS

LANGUAGE AND POWER LITERARY SUPPLEMENT SPRING 2015

HARVARDPOLITICS.COM

ON THE MARGIN

5

For God and Country Perry Abdulkadir

11 The Head and the Body Hana Connelly

8 Academic Diaspora Ignacio Sabaté

24 Dancing with Monsters Alvaro Valle

16 Matters of Mismatch Connor Harris

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BOOKS & ARTS

3 Keeping a Foot in Two Worlds Joe Choe

38 Antihero by Default Daniel Kenny

UNITED STATES 17 The Case against Annual Standardized Testing Quinn Mulholland 21 Minds That May Matter Advik Shreekumar

WORLD 34 Monetizing Movement Samuel Plank

INTERVIEWS 44 Gen. Stanley McChrystal Joe Choe 46 Christine Quinn Emma Kromm

ENDPAPER 48 On Harvard Liberals Daniel Backman

27 Writer’s Bloc Ali Hakim 30 Crime and No Punishment Aisha Bhoori

41 Fresh Off the Boat Antonia Chan Email: president@harvardpolitics.com. ISSN 0090-1032. Harvard Political Review. All rights reserved. Image credits: Flickr: Cover- Fuseboxradio; Table of Contents- Fuseboxradio; 5- Elvert Barnes; 8- Christina Xu; 11- Rae Allen; 14- Eric Chan; 16- Charlie Nguyen; 18- The U.S. Army; 23- U.S. Department of Agriculture; 24- Oisin Prendiville; 27- Askii; 32- Farhan Chawla; 34- Habeeb Mohammed Abu-Futtaim; 37- Dr. Colleen Morgan; 38- Phil Roeder; 40- Maryland GovPics; 44- Ben Ferenchak. Photographer: 4- Mattea Mkusic; 43- One Million Wallpapers. Wikimedia Commons: 7- Susan Lesch; 13- Kmabadir; 46- David Shankbone.

SUMMER 2015 HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW 1

FROM THE PRESIDENT

HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW A Nonpartisan Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Est. 1969—Vol. XLII, No. 2

EDITORIAL BOARD PRESIDENT: Priyanka Menon PUBLISHER: Ashley Chen MANAGING EDITOR: Matthew Disler ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR: Rachael Hanna ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR: Emily Wang STAFF DIRECTOR: Harry Hild CAMPUS SENIOR EDITOR: Joe Choe CAMPUS ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Clara McNulty-Finn COVERS SENIOR EDITOR: Pooja Podugu COVERS ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Mark Bode U.S. SENIOR EDITOR: Advik Shreekumar U.S. ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Quinn Mulholland U.S. ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Andrew O’Donahue WORLD SENIOR EDITOR: Sarani Jayawardena WORLD ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Perry Abdulkadir WORLD ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Ali Hakim B&A SENIOR EDITOR: Nancy Ko B&A ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Aisha Bhoori INTERVIEWS EDITOR: Gavin Sullivan HUMOR EDITOR: Julianna Aucoin BUSINESS MANAGER: Angela Yang DESIGN EDITOR: Alec Villalpando ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR: Celena Wang MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Mattea Mrkusic ASSOCIATE MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Solange Azor WEBMASTER: Vikram Sundar

SENIOR WRITERS John Acton, Jay Alver, Daniel Backman, Jenny Choi, Colin Criss, Colin Diersing, Avika Dua, Sam Finegold, Holly Flynn, Zeenia Framroze, Brooke Kantor, Krister Koskelo, Johanna Lee, Daniel Lynch, Taonga Leslie, Paul Lisker, Matt Shuham, Ben Shryock, Tom Silver, Gram Slattery, Kim Soffen, Ross Svenson, Rachel Wong, Olivia Zhu

STAFF Antonia Chan, Derek Choi, Jaime Cobham, Christopher Cruz, Flavia Cuervo, Tim Devine, Aidan Dewar, Henry Dornier, Kate Donahue, David Freed, Samarth Gupta, Jonah Hahn, Averill Healey, Olivia Herrington, Eric Hollenberg, Nian Hu, Aliya Itzkowitz, Alicia Juang, Samuel Kaplan, Shahrukh Khan, Gal Koplewitz, Bree Lalor, Jacob Meisel, Vincent Monti, Osaremen Okolo, Valentina Perez, Farris Peale, Samuel Plank, John Pulice, Ellen Robo, Ignacio Sabaté, Tess Saperstein, Natasha Sarna, Erin Shortell, Wright Smith, Julia Steigerwald-Schnall, Austin Tymins, Camila Victoriano, Selina Wang, Carolyn Ye

ADVISORY BOARD Jonathan Alter Richard L. Berke Carl Cannon E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Walter Isaacson Whitney Patton Maralee Schwartz

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Identity Often more than we realize, the question of personal identity is a fundamental one. How we conceive of ourselves determines our approach to the social, economic, and political spheres of our lives. It is from the answer to the question, “Who am I,” that we derive the unique aspects of our personalities. Only once each of us has established a sense of self can we begin to shape our relationships with those around us.

At the same time, however, this sense of self is always shifting. We adopt different identities at each stage of our lives. Even within a single stage, we become different “people” depending on the situation, changing the way we speak or dress to emphasize certain aspects of our personalities.

Much like the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, it is the combination of our individual identities that decides the nature of the collective.

Social and political relationships depend on this combination, arising when our conceptions of ourselves interact with others’ ideas of themselves. Such interactions alert us to the similarities and differences between individuals. On a broader scale, we term these differences “diversity.”

The dynamic nature of our personal identities in turn renders diversity consistently fluctuating. It is a concept without a static characterization, with a definition that transforms depending on the individual, community, or society that considers it. However, it is also one of utmost importance. By virtue of its significance and perpetual variation, diversity becomes a matter with which we must constantly grapple.

With this issue, the HPR confronts

topics at the intersection of diversity and the political. Perry Abdulkadir analyzes the role of Muslim politicians in mitigating Islamophobia in the United States. Turning their gaze to the academic realm, Ignacio Sabaté, Hana Connelly, and Connor Harris investigate topics tied to the university and its disciplines. Taking us close to the HPR’s home, Sabaté tracks the movement to create Latinx Studies at Harvard. Widening her aperture, Connelly ventures into universities’ literary scenes, seeking to add nuance to readings of non-Western works beyond those tied to the author’s race, gender, or ethnicity. Finally, Connor Harris interrogates the debate surrounding affirmative action, focusing on the discussion sparked by the work of University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law professor Richard Sander.

The articles in all six sections of this magazine are varied in topic, perspective, and style. Their settings span the globe, taking us from a small town in Ohio to the bustling metropolis of Karachi, Pakistan. These pieces deal with subjects ranging from migrant labor in the Middle East to Frank Underwood of Netflix’s House of Cards. They are unified, however, by their excellence. I am positive that they represent the very best in college political journalism.

Priyanka Menon President

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KEEPING A FOOT IN TWO WORLDS HARVARD’S MILITARY STUDENTS Joe Choe

T

here are students among us who have to balance the dual desire of protecting one’s country and pursuing an education.

After his tour as a UN Peacekeeper in South Sudan during his service to South Korea, Jason Kwon ’14-’16 returned to Harvard as a junior to find that his freshman year roommates had already graduated. After serving in the Israeli Army, Moriya Blumenfeld ’16 joined a class of students whose average age was five years younger than hers. After working as a sergeant leader in South Korea, Jim Kim ’14-’16 quickly learned that leading a squadron is totally different from leading a class discussion. After active military service for eight years, Logan Leslie ’16-’15 encountered the challenge of balancing his school life with caring for his wife and child.

One of the most rewarding aspects of attending a school like Harvard is meeting a diverse group of very driven and accomplished individuals. This includes students like the four mentioned above who dedicated their lives to serving their countries either before matriculating or during gap years. These former military students strive to embody the true meaning of service and loyalty to one’s country despite the difficulties that come with adjusting between two completely different lifestyles and coping with real threats to their countries.

ISOLATION AND CONNECTION These students may have experienced combat training and fighting on the ground, but none of that makes adjusting back to school life any easier. According to Kwon, “it was stressful because Harvard is a pretty competitive environment even without being gone two years. The last time I had read a textbook was two years prior, so it was definitely not easy coming back to the student mode.” Kim agrees, citing how everything was “upside down” when he came back to Harvard. It was difficult to transi-

tion from leading a squadron in South Korea to studying for exams and doing problem sets again. Serving in the military and attending college both can be stressful in their own ways, but they are totally different environments. In college, students have to balance tasks like finishing essays, organizing conferences, and rushing fraternities. However, in the military the stakes are much higher in terms of the tangible impact of their service and responsibility to protect their countries. Despite this difference, all four students said that the challenges at school should not necessarily be downplayed and that the difficulties they face in college can be equally transformative.

Additionally, the age gap between military students and their peers can compound social differences. Because these students take time off either before matriculating or in between their years at the College, they are often much older than their peers. However, students like Blumenfeld do not let this get in the way of their experiences. “Because people at Harvard have such an incredible accumulation of experiences, for me the age gap is not a big deal. Quality-wise we’re on the same page. We have all been exposed to all the amazing opportunities that this world has to offer.” Leslie agrees, saying how with a wife and two children he knows he won’t party or drink for the first time in college, but he involves himself in the community in other ways, such as directing a chapter of the Warrior Scholar Project, a program that matches student tutors with veterans as they transition from the military to college.

This integration within the student community is often one of the most difficult obstacles these students face. Leslie recounts his first year at Harvard after eight years of service in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Qatar with the United States Army Special Forces Unit. “What I found myself doing here was withdrawing. It seemed like veterans could not contribute as much as they were able. It’s a huge challenge, but the answer is to become more involved in the student community.” When these

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Harvard’s military students, like Kwon, Leslie, Blumenfeld, and Kim, bring their unique perspectives to campus.

former military students return to Harvard, the sudden change in lifestyle can cause feelings of isolation. However, they learn that engaging with other students and integrating into the community helps ease their transition.

Although the administration does not explicitly offer help, these students do not expect special treatment. According to Blumenfeld, “Harvard is self-selective because the people who get here are knowledge-seeking. They love learning and are intellectually curious. In that sense, I don’t think I’m different from anyone else here at this school.” This feeling of connection to the student body can often serve as a way in which these students can overcome their sense of isolation and truly engage within the college community.

REAL THREAT Concerns over meeting the next deadline for a problem set or interviewing for a summer internship occupy the thoughts of many Harvard students, but additional anxiety weighs on the minds of these former military students about issues that are much larger—and graver—in scope. Kwon knows that “if my country orders mobilization, I have to go. I know it’s dangerous.

The absence of news headlines doesn’t mean there isn’t any danger. I know the threat is always there.” In fact, one main reason why compulsory enlistment exists in countries like South Korea and Israel is precisely because of a constant threat of war. Not only is the risk of serving high, but also the individual contributions of each of these students are that much more important to their countries.

This certainly puts pressure on these students as they weigh the costs and benefits of choosing to study in lieu of continuing to serve. Blumenfeld describes the internal conflict she feels

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when she sees the seemingly daily news headlines recounting yet another terror attack or battle in Israel. “I really feel like I should be there with my family—with my people. In the short run it’s a sacrifice, because I’m not in Israel. But in the long run, I know that what I’m doing right now will allow me to make things better in the future. In that sense, I’m very happy to be here.” Like many at Harvard, these military students view their time here as an investment that will pay off in the future when they will be able to apply what they have learned to improve their country’s prospects.

Despite their shared background, however, all four students envision their future service differently. Blumenfeld hopes to one day run for office in Israel and effect change through public policy. Kwon plans to pursue a graduate degree in international relations to study the intersection of war and politics, while Kim would like to work in finance and gain work experience in the United States. Some students, like Leslie, try to achieve a balance between academics and service; he currently serves in the Rhode Island National Guard while finishing his undergraduate degree.

Leslie describes being able to both serve his country and pursue an education as essentially “keeping a foot in two worlds.”

The patriotism that emerges from dedicating their lives to serving their countries may help sustain these students during difficult times. As Kim explains, “I spent the first 20 years of my life in South Korea. It felt really obvious for me to serve. While serving, I learned a lot about being loyal to my country and having a clear sense of my roots. If a war occurs, I know I’ll go back.

Not because they force me, but because I really want to serve and help my country.” Though faced with unique challenges adjusting to the academic and social rigors of college life, military students bring with them a perspective that shows most clearly in their demonstrated loyalty to their countries.

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FOR GOD AND COUNTRY HOW MUSLIM POLITICIANS CAN BRING ABOUT ACCEPTANCE OF THEIR FAITH Perry Abdulkadir

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“I, Keith Ellison, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” said the soon-to-be congressman in his 2007 oath of office, “that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” The Minnesotan Democrat legislator concluded, with his right hand held high, “and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

So help me God.” It was this last word that raised eyebrows among many American citizens and congresspersons. As the first Muslim elected to Congress, Ellison’s beliefs make him a constant target of criticism. Despite the Constitution’s instructions that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” Capitol Hill echoed with indignant murmurs on the swearing-in day. Upon hearing that Ellison would pose for photos with a Qu’ran (from Thomas Jefferson’s personal library), Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) displayed discomfort with the idea, saying that “many more Muslims” like Keith Ellison would be elected without tighter immigration rules.

In an America gripped by fears of terrorism in which Muslims are the perpetual bogeymen of American politics, Muslims are rarely able to muster any sort of political clout. Islamophobia and Muslims’ relatively small numbers (they are less than two percent of the population) contribute to their political weakness.

Yet despite many Americans’ belief that Islam is antithetical to American values, a few Muslim politicians have been able to assume office. Fortunately, considering the precedent of oncediscriminated groups gaining political clout exists in American history, the increasing presence of Muslim politicians will help to slowly garner acceptance for their faith.

RACISM BY ANY OTHER NAME A 2014 Pew Research Center poll found that Islam had the lowest favorability of any major religion in the eyes of the American public. Protestors gathered in Manhattan in 2010 to prevent the construction of the supposed “Ground Zero Mosque” (which in reality was a small Muslim prayer space tucked into a building blocks away from Ground Zero). Mosques across the country are regularly attacked. People merely perceived to be Muslim are not spared; in 2012, a gunman entered a Sikh temple in Wisconsin under the belief that it was a mosque and killed six people.

This broad fear of Muslims has been forged into a powerful political weapon to attack Muslim candidates. In an interview with the HPR, Corey Saylor, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (the most prominent civil liberties advocacy group for Muslims in the United States) described Islamophobia as a tool that has two major political purposes.

“One—it gives politicians an ‘other’ to vilify. … If I were a politician and I had to choose between talking about my budget plan, which may alienate some voters, or talking about the threat of Islam, which alienates relatively few voters, some politicians opt for the latter. Two—Islamophobia can be used as a hammer to

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attack Muslim candidates directly.” Saylor directed attention to the extensive apparatus created to attack Muslims and Muslim politicians. “We discovered 37 different organizations committed to vilifying Islam with a combined revenue of $119 million. … Elected officials then recite the nonsense put out through the anti-Muslim network. Herman Cain said any Muslim in his cabinet would have to take a loyalty test. [Former senator Rick] Santorum was applauded for advocating the profiling of Muslims.” Islam now serves as one of the chief scapegoats in American politics.

ERASURE FROM AMERICAN SOCIETY Because of the terrified frenzy following September 11, 2001 the prevailing xenophobic narrative has been that all Muslims are newcomers to the United States. This is a willful ignorance of history, part of a concerted effort by certain politicians and interest groups to monger fear at the expense of Muslims. Harvard Divinity School professor Jocelyne Cesari, the director of Harvard’s Islam in the West Program, told the HPR, “There is a long presence of Muslims in U.S. history, going back to slavery.

Ten percent of slaves were Muslims. People tend to forget that Malcolm X was a part of the Nation of Islam. Mohammed Ali was Muslim.” Despite the prominent role that Islam has played in black history, racial identity often overshadows Muslim identity, especially in a media culture that tends to negatively portray Muslims. The erasure of Islam from American history makes it convenient to label candidates as being un-American by pointing to their faith. Cesari claimed that some opponents of President Obama are leery of attacking Obama “for color or race, but see it as being okay to attack him for his supposed Muslim background.”

In the long run, the eventual conclusion of the War on Terror will likely help to alleviate some of the Islamophobia faced by Muslim candidates. Because of a lack of interaction between many Americans and Muslims, Cesari believes, “the only proximity [non-Muslim Americans] tend to have is what is projected from what is happening overseas.” From the start of America’s democratic experiment, it has been a common theme that foreign events have generated targeted yet fairly short-lived xenophobia at home. As a result of the Quasi-War with France, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 allowed the government to imprison or deport aliens at will. In the hysteria of World War I, German newspapers, once commonplace in the Midwest, were driven out of business by protests. During World War II, public opinion turned sharply against German and Japanese immigrants living in the United States. This last event, of course, led to one of the most heinous abuses against immigrants in American history, as the U.S. government placed over 110,000 Japanese-Americans into internment camps.

The fear of Muslims is, in many ways, a result of September 11 and the ongoing war against Islamist terror groups. It is not so much the result of a lack of compatibility between “Muslim values” and “American values,” but rather more or less the product of on ongoing American conflict in the Middle East. Saylor

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Representative Keith Ellison was the first Muslim sworn into Congress.

laments that “most people were introduced to Islam on 9/11 with planes smashing into buildings. It takes time to introduce the faces of billions of peaceful Muslims, especially when violent extremists get the majority of the media attention.” If this is taken to be the case, then the current strain of xenophobia may abate once the War on Terror winds down. Just as Americans of German ethnicity were able to find political office after World War II, the prospects for American Muslims holding office will be brighter if and when Islamic terrorism is no longer one of the primary focuses of American foreign policy.

A TOOL TO HUMANIZE However, Muslims do not have to wait idly by until U.S. foreign policy changes in order to achieve acceptance; increasing numbers of high-profile Muslims have the capability to slowly humanize practitioners of the religion for the American public.

Keith Ellison’s 2007 election as the first Muslim in Congress burst open a floodgate to mainstream recognition. It is no coincidence that it took 231 years for the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, but only one year for the next Muslim, André Carson (D-Ind.), to join him. Muslims serving as leaders improves perceptions of the religion in a powerful way. Muslims serving as leaders in America improve perceptions of the religion in a powerful way by exhibiting a positive side of their faith to other Americans. Saylor is acutely aware of the power that prominent Muslim community leaders can have in humanizing the religion: “Society as a whole must see Islam not through the lens of violent extremism but [rather through] the regular practitioners who are interested in their communities. As a community we have a lot of doctors who are public servants. We must reach a point when people recognize doctors as Muslims, not just vio-

lent extremists.”

There are historical precedents to look to for leaders aiding public opinion about a religion. Prior to the 1960s, there were strong fears among the American population that a Catholic president would be loyal to the Pope and not the Constitution.

Although John F. Kennedy was held to a higher standard on the campaign trail, once he did take office, he turned fear of Catholicism into a thing of the past. He was particularly effective in assuaging the concerns of the public when he professed his faith in “an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” Similarly, Muslim politicians today may be held to a higher standard than their Christian peers. Saylor acknowledges that Muslim politicians “know these allegations will be hurled.

But you stand up for your country. … Muslims must be shining example of strong morality, family values. They must be shining examples of public service.”

At a 2011 hearing convened by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) to test the loyalty of the American-Muslim community to the country, Ellison broke down in tears describing the story of Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a Muslim who ran into the World Trade Center on September 11 to save others. Ellison emotionally testified that Hamdani was “an American who gave everything for his fellow Americans.” In an era that at least nominally condemns racism and discrimination, it is considered acceptable to attack 1.3 billion people for their religion. This could be a temporary phenomenon, rather than a permanent bias. Once prejudice against Muslims begins to wane because of external politics, they can follow in the path of other immigrants before them and achieve gradual acceptance. As more Muslims are elected and become more present in institutions, the nonsensical taboo against them may weaken even further, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that may allow Muslims to finally be treated as full Americans.

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ACADEMIC DIASPORA Why Harvard Should Have Latinx Studies

Ignacio Sabaté

“I

t’s ridiculous. It’s 2015. Pretty much every other college in the United States has a Latinx Studies program; at this point, it’s almost like Harvard is deliberately trying to not have one.”

As I sit at the Dunster House dining hall table over dinner, Itzel Vasquez-Rodriguez ’17 explains her dissatisfaction with the lack of a Latinx Studies program at Harvard. Vasquez-Rodriguez looks small in her chair, and her voice is calm and soothing, but her argument is part of a much larger movement here on campus. As a native of California and the daughter of two MexicanAmerican parents who are both heavily involved with Chicanx Studies at UCLA, Vasquez-Rodriguez plans on concentrating in Sociology at Harvard, although she longs to study her true passion: Latinx Studies.

“When I applied to Harvard, the College gave me the option to list three or so intended fields of study. I, of course, put down Latinx Studies because I assumed Harvard would have it.”

Latinx Studies, with the “x” in place of the traditional “o” or “a” to convey inclusivity for all genders, can very broadly be characterized as an academic discipline concerning the experiences of people of Hispanic ancestry in the United States. The field emerged in California in the 1960s as the product of student activism on college campuses. Although it initially focused on

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historical analysis of Hispanic experiences, Latinx Studies have since expanded to include the many aspects of ethnic studies, such as critical race theory, the construction of a national identity, racial identity formation, and ethnicity’s affects on studies of gender.

According to a 2013 Latinx Studies proposal directed at Harvard’s administration, Harvard is the only Ivy League school without a Latinx Studies program. Many other institutions of higher education outside the Ivy League have Latinx programs as well. Several schools even go beyond Latinx Studies programs, creating numerous subfields of specialization, such as Chicanx Studies and Intersectional Studies. Despite the prevalence of Latinx programs in colleges across the nation, though, Harvard continues to discourage their creation.

WORTHWHILE KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION At the simplest level, Latinx Studies matter because of the changing demographics of the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2012 there were 53,027,708 Latinxs living in the United States, a 592 percent increase in population size since 1970. In contrast, the overall U.S. population has grown by 56 percent over the same period. Data from the 2014

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U.S. Census indicates that by 2060, there will be almost 120 million Latinxs in the United States. The massive increase in size of the Latinx population suggests that there might be value in constructing a program of study that encourages thinking critically and academically about the country’s fastest-growing demographic group.

However, the sheer number of Latinx people in the United States is not reason enough to create a Latinx Studies program.

The impetus to create the program should be derived from the immense value in studying Latinx experiences in the United States, which are inherently intertwined with the history of this country. Like previous immigrant groups, Hispanics have infused this nation with diversity, and their experiences comprise a significant part of the broader U.S. cultural identity. The interdisciplinary characteristics of Latinx Studies allow students to explore the social, political, economic, cultural, and historical identity and experiences of Latinxs. By building bridges between various fields of study, Latinx Studies hopes to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a “Latinx” in the United States.

Ultimately, the decision-making power to establish a Latinx Studies program lies within the complicated webs of Harvard administration. For example, a Latinx Studies program could exist as its own department or as a concentration that does not belong to a particular department, like Social Studies. Yet no remarks have ever been made by the administration explaining its stance on the desirability of Latinx Studies. Harvard Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality lecturer Juli Grigsby, who received her bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Chicanx Studies from the University of California at Los Angeles, says that in the absence of an official statement, it is hard to state whether or not Harvard administration considers Latinx Studies a valuable form of knowledge construction, but adds, “When you do not have a set curriculum or disciplinary emphasis, the message that is received is that [Latinx education] has no value.”

To many students, the university’s reticence has come across this way. “We have all of the resources, and students and faculty have asked again and again,” explains Vasquez-Rodriguez. By the end of our hour-long conversation, she has chronicled a saga of frustrated students grappling with various administration members, but her tone remains calm. “But Harvard keeps on making up excuses as to why we shouldn’t have one.”

THE UNDERGROUND WAR While recent pushes for Latinx education may suggest that these movements are relatively new, Harvard has a very long history of students advocating for this field of studies. According to the second volume of the Harvard Hispanic newsletter Palabritas, the first organized attempt to bring Latinx Studies to Harvard was in 1972, and since then there have been over 25 attempts to establish the academic discipline. In general, previous efforts have at most led to the creation of bureaucratic commit-

tees set up to discuss the future of ethnic studies, with very little emerging out of the curricular draft stage. Most notably, in 2002 the College came as close as ever to creating a Latinx Studies program, until Harvard president Lawrence Summers rejected the proposal in a letter directed to its two co-presenters, stating that “there is currently a significant investment in this area” and citing the presence of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and faculty members who are “directly interested” in Latinx issues.

Summers’s dismissal of these efforts shook the Hispanic community at Harvard. As a result, there has been a movement to propose Latinx Studies to the university administration every year since. These movements for the most part have been less visible than other movements that push for inclusivity and diversity on campus. Instead of popular protests or rallies, students and faculty members have spent considerable time speaking to administrators, hosting Latinx town hall meetings and important Latinx speakers, and creating written proposals outlining what a Latinx Studies concentration would look like (the most recent of which was published in May 2013).

To say that Harvard is totally unaccommodating to students wishing to study Latinx issues would be a mischaracterization.

Founded in 1994, DRCLAS provides students with an avenue to learn about the “cultures, economies, histories, environment, and contemporary affairs of past and present Latin America.” While DRCLAS’s focus on Latin America is a very welcome recognition of the importance of politics in Hispanic countries, DRCLAS is neither interested in the study of Latinxs in the United States, nor is it a stand-alone department that provides a concentration or even a secondary.

The lack of Latinx programming is not for lack of interest.

Vasquez-Rodriguez explains that while many faculty members are interested in Latinx programming, a recruitment problem persists, whereby Harvard struggles to attract potential Latinx professors due to the lack of a stable and institutionally supported Latinx Studies program. In short, Harvard already has some professors directly involved in Latinx research and education, but it lacks the critical mass of Latinx Studies professors to pressure Harvard to create a program. The issue proves difficult to solve due to its circular nature: one reason Harvard lacks a Latinx program is because Harvard struggles to attract and retain professors of Latinx Studies, and the reason Harvard struggles to do so is because of the lack of an official Latinx program.

The second resource, along with DRCLAS, that Harvard might recommend for students interested in Latinx Studies is the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights (EMR), an academic organization established in 2009 that offers students the option to earn a secondary in Ethnic Studies. While the EMR program has shown impressive growth over the past years, it remains limited, since it does not exist as a standalone concentration. Tessa Lowinske Desmond, the EMR program administrator and academic advisor, tells the HPR that the program is far from

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One reason Harvard lacks a Latinx program is because Harvard struggles to attract and retain professors of Latinx Studies, and the reason Harvard struggles to do so is because of the lack of an official Latinx program.

being complete in itself. Rather, she views it as a project that “incubates fields so that they can grow to become their own.” EMR, therefore, can be viewed as a way for Latinx Studies to eventually grow into a concentration.

INSTITUTIONAL AMNESIA While student activism was critical to get Latinx Studies rolling in places like California and Texas in the 1960s and 1970s, students and faculty members believe that this form of student activism translates poorly to Harvard’s current situation; hence, student activism for Latinx Studies at Harvard tends to be an iron fist in a velvet glove rather than an overt display of dissatisfaction.

Lowinske Desmond observes that student activists at Harvard experience the “four year problem,” whereby student activists are on campus for four years, and then they leave. One of the things that undermines pushes for these “discrete fields” of study, she says, is that “they are short bursts [of activism] and then they turn off.”

The second problem that these student efforts face is that they are often too antagonistic towards the University. In 2013, a proposal from a group of students was sent to the administration; the proposal was aggressive and didactic in tone, sharply criticizing the meager university resources for those seeking an education in Latinx topics and outlining how Harvard should respond. According to Lowinske Desmond, this type of approach fails because it does not attempt to cooperate with current academic structures, alienating Harvard administrators and faculty from student activists.

Students and faculty at Harvard suffer from bad institutional memory. Grigsby explains that because of the “four year problem,” students forget what previous student efforts looked like and what type of efforts were successful or failed. In interviews,

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many student activists in the movement today spoke about the 2002 proposal almost as if it were a myth from a bygone era; details were rough, factual errors were common, and mischaracterizations were abundant. Of course, Latinx alumni networks have gotten stronger over the past decade, but the existence of multiple, young alumni organizations that disagree on some of the issues surrounding Latinx Studies means that the university has not yet seen an organized donation effort made towards creating a program. The first step towards correcting these challenges, says Grigsby, is to figure out a way for student organizations like Fuerza Latina, Concilio Latino, and RAZA to pass on all of their hard work to their younger generations, ensuring gains are not lost because people have graduated.

BRICK BY BRICK The creation of a Latinx Studies program is a massive undertaking. Building a program goes beyond compiling a list of classes that can count for credit. The purpose of creating a department is to generate a space where there can consistently be an intellectual and personal exchange about topics and issues that pertain to Hispanics in the United States. This means creating safe and open social and cultural spaces where students can talk to their peers and professors without feeling like intruders.

This means creating a system of academic and curricular support for students. This means paving the way for guest speakers, lecturers, and symposiums. This means accepting Latinx Studies as a critical part of academic life at the University.

It is no use trying to hide my biases when writing this article.

I am a frustrated Latino who feels ashamed that Harvard, of all universities, sidesteps such an important academic field.

The College ultimately exists to serve its students and faculty members, and we, as members of this community, have to hold Harvard accountable.

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THE HEAD AND THE BODY Balancing Our Approach to Non-Western Narratives Hana Connelly

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ntiguan-American novelist Jamaica Kincaid is often described as “angry.” Kincaid is best known for her candid and overtly critical approach to themes such as colonialism, racism, and gender. In her 1988 novel A Small Place, Kincaid condemns the colonial legacy of Antigua, extends her criticism to the modern tourist industry, and even criticizes her reader. In a polemic secondperson point of view, she asks, “Have you ever wondered why it is that all we seem to have learned from you is how to corrupt our societies and how to be tyrants?”

Later, with equal bluntness, she states, “You will have to accept that this is mostly your fault.”

However, with the publication of her novel See Now Then in 2013, after ten years of silence, Kincaid dared to stray away from a direct discussion of colonialism. Instead, she narrowed her lens to refocus on the travails of middle age and married life. Her novel is set in Bennington, Vermont and explores the fall-out

from a mismatched and ultimately unsuccessful marriage. The protagonist, Jamaica Sweet, is a novelist from the West Indies. Sweet’s husband, like Kincaid’s own, is a short, white, musical man from New York who ultimately leaves his wife for a younger woman. It may be understandable, then, that most of Kincaid’s critics focused on the autobiographical aspects of the novel. In one negative review published in the New York Times, critic Dwight Garner prefaces his discussion of the novel’s autobiographical nature with the question, “Ms. Kincaid has denied that the book is strongly autobiographical, but then what was she going to say?”

And yet, as Kincaid herself explained in an interview with Guernica, an online literary magazine, “What I was describing wasn’t my own life—I was trying to understand all sorts of things beyond that, about time, about what happens to people. … I was trying to understand the thing people call ‘the existential,’ or existentialism. And it was as if some review-

ers decided that I, a black woman, had no right to think about life in such a speculative way. That I was only entitled to write about the hardship of racism.”

Attempting to narrowly define an author’s work is especially familiar to those writers who are considered “non-Western.” This term is often used liberally to denote any writers who are not ethnically and culturally part of Western Europe or North America. Critics allege that it implies Western centrality and defines such a diverse collection of individuals under one umbrella, based on what they are not. The term underlies the problem in our treatment of literature that Kincaid pointed out in her interview with Guernica: non-Western writers are, by definition, not part of the “Western” culture that functions as a default model of the world to many Western readers. As a result, Western audiences narrow their interpretations of such works to one-dimensional exemplars of distant cultures rather than full depictions of the human experience.

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THE MECHANICS OF CULTURE When Western readers approach a non-Western narrative, they inevitably carry a certain set of preexisting assumptions about that culture that affects their interpretation of the work.

By comparison, Western readers approaching a Western work are less likely to encounter this kind of barrier. Instead, they are more easily able to take the text at face value and read it not for its commentary on a specific culture, but for the sake of its observations about life in general. Thus, as Kincaid observed earlier in her interview, Philip Roth’s heavily autobiographical novel My Life as a Man is not pigeonholed by its reflections on his personal life, but is rather appreciated on its own merit as a poignant commentary on contemporary life in general. As a white American male, Roth may seem less alien and interesting to his Western readers; he distinguishes himself not by his race, culture, or gender, but rather by his ideas. Kincaid feels that most readers do not afford her the same opportunity to matter in the realm of ideas; rather, they remain hung up on what she looks like and where she is from.

The relationship between reader and text is not one-sided; while a reader’s assumptions affect his or her interpretation of the text, the ideas contained within a text shape that reader’s future beliefs. This interplay affords literature its power to effect social change. However, when applied to a non-Western work, it may also leave room for readers to develop stereotypes that stunt their understanding of other cultures.

Cultural essentialism is difficult to pinpoint or break down into a clear chain of blame or causality. It is especially challenging to assign blame when many of our well-meaning attempts to incorporate non-Western literature into historically homogeneous arenas may actually contribute to potentially harmful stereotyping. One of the biggest offenders in the creation and promulgation of these cultural stereotypes may be the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1988, Nagib Mahfouz became the first Arab writer to win this prestigious award. The honor that the Nobel Prize brought

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to him and his work also helped bring greater recognition to Arabic literature in general. However, a curious phenomenon soon appeared: much of the fiction coming out of Mahfouz’s native Egypt began to look just like his. Western readers who thought they were consuming more of Arabic literature were really just consuming more of Mahfouz.

In an interview with the HPR, professional translator and Temple University professor Lawrence Venuti observed, “Prizegiving is important because it creates patterns.” The official recognition the Nobel Prize committee granted Mahfouz led publishers to look for other Egyptian writers like him because they knew that that style was guaranteed to sell. In turn, more Egyptian writers began to mimic Mahfouz’s style, and the market for Egyptian literature in Western countries became saturated with these imitations. This created a limited view of Egyptian literature; readers who were only exposed to Egyptian novels like those of Mahfouz understandably came to associate his style with all of Egyptian literature. A stereotype of Egyptian literature was eventually born, beginning with a prize that affected publishers’ expectations of the general public’s taste in literature.

READING MINDFULLY However, greater exposure to the literature of cultures outside the West does have the potential to greatly expand our worldview. In an interview with the HPR, Harvard professor David Damrosch observed, “This is a dynamic time in literary studies—until recently, world literature only referred to certain European literature. Now we have a vastly more open field.”

With this expansion comes the opportunity to open the minds of Western readers to the non-Western world. As Damrosch explained, all it took to spark his daughter’s passionate interest in Japanese culture and lead her to pursue extensive studies of Japan was an elementary school tea ceremony.

However, Harvard professor Karen Thornber points out that stereotypes can still abound, even in this more open atmosphere.

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Author Naguib Mahfouz receives an award from Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Although the tea ceremony may have inspired one girl in an elementary school class to expand her knowledge of Japan, what happens to the students who did not pursue any further studies? Such a limited glimpse into such a complex culture has the potential to develop into cultural essentialism. When students’ knowledge of Japan is shaped by tea ceremonies and images of cherry blossoms, they develop a specific idée fixe of Japanese culture that is both limited in scope and inaccurate in its assumption of universal applicability to all Japanese people. And when those students go on to become teachers, they pass on this limited cultural knowledge to another generation. This phenomenon is part and product of literature that presents little more than snapshots or carefully curated vignettes of complex and multifaceted cultures. To some, this might spark interest in reading further about a culture, but to most, this might be a sufficient exploration. The latter reading is harmful.

Thornber proposes a simple way of combating this trend: “We should be more mindful of how we talk about literature, and not jump to conclusions that we know everything about a given culture from having read a couple of texts.” It can be difficult to apply such mindfulness to the initial reading of any given text. “People look for what is familiar to them. That is almost inevitable, and can be a first stage of reading a work,” Damrosch acknowledges. “But in a second stage, you become self-critical and think about how the text is framed.” Getting to this second stage not only allows readers to think critically and glean more information from a text, but also pushes them to recognize what they do not know. Ideally, this recognition can spark interest in a text’s culture of origin and push readers to delve deeper into a culture other than their own. Thus, readers can actively combat stereotypes.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NON-WESTERN The power of literature to create or dispel cultural stereotypes has more practical repercussions than may be immedi-

ately apparent. For example, during China and Japan’s political battles over various small islands, the Chinese government took Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s works off of bookshelves in part because they provided a positive representation of Japan.

On the other hand, Thornber explains that Koreans and Taiwanese highly regarded Japanese literature in spite of the atrocities these countries had endured and the national animosity they harbored against Japan—cultural exchange flourished separately from political or military conflict. In many cases, this kind of interaction can help to soften attitudes and ease political tensions.

However, non-Western literature does not always strive to offer explicit cultural commentary. Reading the works of non-Western authors solely through the lens of their culture or ethnicity can create a problematic gap between our approaches to the Western and the non-Western.

In her interview with Guernica, Kincaid succinctly illustrated her personal struggles with this disparity by reflecting on her experience with a psychiatrist who asked her to draw a picture of her family. After drawing standard stick figures for her three family members, she began to draw herself, but soon gave up.

“And I gave the psychiatrist the piece of paper, and she showed it back to me and said, ‘Can you see anything wrong with this? Can you see anything missing?’ And I said ‘No, I’m sorry, I just can’t draw.’ And finally, she had to point out to me that three of the figures were complete, but the figure representing myself was only a head, that I had no body.”

Kincaid does not conceive of herself in terms of her “body,” which represents the race and gender that many of her readers cannot look past. Instead, she thinks of herself as a “head”—an author with a rich inner life that does not depend solely on her outward appearance or the experiences that her bodily characteristics—race, gender, sexuality—bring with them. Instead of regarding Kincaid as a “body,” readers must acknowledge the primacy of her head. In the same way, readers must remain cautious and vigilant about approaching non-Western literature in reductive and limiting ways.

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MATTERS OF MISMATCH THE DEBATE OVER AFFIRMATIVE ACTION’S EFFECTIVENESS

Connor Harris

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he debate over affirmative action and race preferences in university admissions is among the most bitter and intractable in American politics. In principle, affirmative action is a straightforward case of compensatory justice. Black and Hispanic students, supporters claim, suffer from structural injustices that may cause them to perform worse than they would if they were white. The unfair leg up that white students get from societal forces, supporters reason, is best overcome by

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giving minority students an advantage in university admissions.

Critics of affirmative action argue that such injustice does not exist, or that universities’ race preferences add another injustice that does not fix historical inequities. Racist laws, they claim, are more than a half-century in the past, and race preferences punish white students for a state of affairs that they had no hand in forming.

This debate, touching on fraught issues of fairness, justice,

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history, and race relations, is extraordinarily vexed. But both camps accept a tacit assumption that affirmative action actually helps minority students who are able to attend more prestigious universities with their peers from other backgrounds. Their principal argument is whether this help justifies the potential effects caused to students who do not benefit from race preferences.

A controversial theory by University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law professor Richard Sander challenges this assumption. Sander’s interest in affirmative action began in the early 1990s, when he began working on the UCLA Law admissions committee. Sander suspected that affirmative action admitted black and Hispanic students with weaker preparation than white students, but he was surprised at the size of the disparity.

Affirmative action programs at the most competitive law schools appeared to siphon off the best black and Hispanic applicants to Harvard and Yale, leaving UCLA with an entering class of black students whose LSAT scores and undergraduate grades fell far below the average of UCLA’s white students.

Would this disparity harm the black students once they matriculated at these elite schools? Yes it did, Sander argued in a provocative 117-page article published in the Stanford Law Review in 2004, “A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools.” In the article, Sander claimed that he sympathized with the moral arguments for affirmative action, not least because he had a biracial son, and “favor[ed] race-conscious strategies in principle, if they can be pragmatically justified.” Such a pragmatic justification, he concluded, was lacking; in fact, affirmative action was actively harmful to its intended beneficiaries.

THE PROBLEM WITH AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Sander’s hypothesis was simple: affirmative action admits black students (and other minorities, though his 2004 article considered only black and white students) to law schools with more rigorous programs than those for which they are equipped, in which they must compete with better-prepared peers. Instead of making up lost ground, Sander guessed, they fall to the bottom of the class ranks, and emerge more poorly prepared for a career than if they had gone to a university for which they were better qualified.

Sander’s original 2004 paper used data collected from the students who matriculated in 1991 at 163 American law schools, including several elite schools. Forty-one point four percent of the first-year black students and 42.5 percent of the graduated students fell in the lowest tenth of their classes by GPA; at elite schools, the first-year figure was 51.6 percent. This was not the result of anti-black bias in law school, Sander claimed: the statistical relationship between black students’ performance and their academic indices—weighted sums of undergraduate GPA and LSAT scores used for law school admissions—was the same as for white students. Sander found similar trends for passage of the bar exam. About 88 percent of law school graduates passed the bar exam on their first attempt, but only 61.4 percent of black graduates did so. But the bar did not seem to be racially biased, either, since its results paralleled differences in the law school GPAs of black and white students.

Sander’s most controversial finding, however, came when he compared law school graduates’ bar-passage rates to their

academic indices. Black students failed the bar far more often than white students with similar academic indices. This, Sander proposed, actually harmed their career prospects. Sander cited surveys of young black attorneys to argue that law firms considered applicants’ GPA more carefully than the selectivity of the school which they attended as undergraduates, and proposed that attending a more prestigious school at which they would receive worse grades may actually hurt law students’ careers.

Even in 2004, this “mismatch” hypothesis—that affirmative action harms students by admitting them to schools with more rigorous curricula than they are prepared for—was not altogether new, and Sander’s 2004 article cites several earlier researchers on issues of race and education who made similar arguments. Black conservative economist Thomas Sowell, for example, had expressed similar ideas in a 1974 essay. Dartmouth psychology professor Rogers Elliott had found that black Ivy League students were less likely to stick with majors in scientific fields than white and Asian students, but that this discrepancy was accounted for not by their pre-college preparation per se, but rather by their preparation relative to the other students at their college.

PUSHING BACK ON THE MISMATCH HYPOTHESIS Sander’s views have often embroiled him in controversy. In 2007, a number of black students at UCLA Law protested being assigned to his sections, claiming that they felt unwelcome and discriminated against. Sander disputes these charges, and has pointed out that black students did better on average in his classes than they did elsewhere.

His conclusions have also been challenged. For example, in a review of Sander and journalist Stuart Taylor, Jr.’s 2012 book Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It for the Los Angeles Review of Books, and in a later article cowritten with University of Iowa law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig in the Texas Law Review, William Kidder, the assistant executive vice chancellor of University of California, Riverside, criticized several of Sander’s methodological choices, including combining data on law school admissions rates from 1991 with bar-passage rates from a decade afterward. Kidder quoted several previous papers that argued against Sander’s dramatic conclusion that without affirmative action, there would be more black lawyers. Sander’s statistical analysis, Kidder claimed, ignored that many black law students under affirmative action would simply not attend law school at all without it.

Proponents of race preferences could also quite reasonably object that Sander’s theory misses one distinct benefit and purpose of affirmative action. Minorities who attend an elite college or law school, even if they do not receive a better education than they would otherwise, do receive access to elite networking opportunities and a community of academic-minded individuals who often provide validation and affirmation for the intellectual endeavors of these students. And in many cases, a diploma with a prestigious name on it does in fact open doors for post-graduate employment. Many of these benefits cannot be measured quantitatively or reduced to the discreteness of test scores and percentages.

Despite all of this, Sander has argued that the benefits of at-

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Sander first studied disparities in affirmative action at UCLA Law.

tending a prestigious law school, if not nonexistent, are at least far less than is commonly believed. Mismatch claims that top law firms draw from a much larger array of law schools than they did 50 years ago, reducing the benefit of attending Harvard or Yale over less competitive law schools. In a paper cowritten with Jane Bambauer of the law school of the University of Arizona, he argued that the effect of law schools’ rankings on their white graduates’ careers is far weaker than the effect of the students’ grades. Sander and Bambauer concluded that “there is little empirical basis for the overwhelming importance students assign to ‘eliteness’ in choosing a law school.”

AN UNDERGRADUATE MISMATCH? Understanding undergraduate education is more complicated, partly because college graduates pursue much more diverse careers than law school graduates and because of a paucity of data on graduates’ job performance. Several studies have shown that if two high-school students have the same high-school grades and SAT scores, the one who attends a more selective college can expect a more lucrative career. This suggests that moving a student from a less selective to a more selective college could improve her lifetime earnings.

A 2011 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research

by Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger, however, casts doubt on this finding. Students who want to attend very selective colleges, they reasoned, differ in other ways from students with the same grades and SAT scores with lesser ambitions. They may be more ambitious or unafraid of challenges, traits that could help them in the job market. To try to adjust for this, Dale and Krueger controlled not only for students’ high-school grades and SAT scores but also for the list of colleges to which they applied, and they

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found that the apparent financial returns to college selectivity vanished. Two high-school students with the same qualifications who both applied to Harvard and Pennsylvania State University, for example, could expect the same salary upon graduating. Just as remarkably, however, there were a few types of students for whom this did not hold. For black, Hispanic, and first-generation students, college selectivity correlated with increased earnings even after applying these statistical controls. Dale and Krueger hypothesize that this is because such students benefit more from improved networking opportunities as well as assimilation to professional-class culture.

The Dale and Krueger study is imperfect. The universities that they studied were all at least somewhat selective, and the students who apply to Harvard and Penn State and ultimately attend Harvard can differ in other unobserved characteristics.

Sander told the HPR that he finds the study interesting and well done, but emphasizes that such results on the “indirect” effects of academic mismatch on the job market do not contradict his findings on the “direct” effects on the quality of students’ education. He further hypothesizes that Dale and Krueger’s results for black and Hispanic students could still be the result of affirmative action.

Sander’s mismatch theory raises several considerations for personal decision-making. When this article goes to press, several million high-school students who have received their college acceptance letters will be deciding where to attend. Many of them, for one of many reasons not necessarily related to race, have been accepted to schools where they would be less prepared than the average student. To tell such students that they should not attend the college of their dreams, and instead attend one at which they would be better matched, may feel monstrous.

But if Sander is right, such an approach could offer better odds of academic success and a remunerative career.

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Quinn Mulholland

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awn Neely-Randall has seen many things in her 24 years teaching in Ohio schools, but 2014 was different. With the advent of the Common Core State Standards in Ohio, students had to take a pilot version of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test on top of the standard Ohio Achievement Tests. This amounted to almost eight hours of testing in a single week for Neely-Randall’s fifth graders. One student couldn’t handle the stress of all of these tests and broke down in the middle of one. “She had a complete meltdown,” Neely-Randall told the HPR. “And I could do nothing to help her, I couldn't help her with the test. I could just let her take a little break then, but then she was going to run out of time, and she was watching the clock, she knew.”

For Neely-Randall, this was a “turning point,” because she realized, “I can no longer be part of the problem in my students’ lives, and that’s when I started speaking out.” She wrote two essays for The Washington Post criticizing the number of tests her students have to take and spoke to local and state officials about the issue. But despite her protests and a growing test-resistance movement, the state still administers the PARCC assessments.

President George W. Bush’s signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 ushered in the current era of high-stakes testing. The law required states to administer math and reading tests every year to students from third to eighth grade and imposed increasingly harsh punishments on schools that failed to make “adequate yearly progress” on these tests. By 2011, according to the Center on Education Policy, almost half of schools

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President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002.

nationwide were labeled as “failing” because they could not make adequate yearly progress.

The law has come with a hefty price tag for taxpayers. A 2012 study by the Brookings Institution determined that states spend $1.7 billion per year on testing, an enormous increase over the $423 million states spent in 2001 before NCLB, according to the Pew Center on the States. All of this money has fueled a booming testing industry, with companies like Pearson racking up billions in sales. A Politico investigation published on February 10, 2015 revealed that Pearson receives tens of millions in taxpayer dollars even though there is “little proof its products and services are effective.”

Now, with politicians on the left and the right dismissing NCLB as a failure, Congress is set to rewrite the law, and there is a vigorous debate over whether to keep the annual testing mandate. From the conviction of 11 teachers in Atlanta on racketeering charges following a high-profile cheating scandal to the rapid growth of the opt-out movement, evidence is mounting that the accountability system is broken.

“TOTAL TESTING INSANITY” Because standardized tests determine which classes her students will get into in middle school, Neely-Randall realizes she has to put her objections to the side and prepare them as best she can. She tried to show them a practice PARCC exam, but when she asked her students to write down what they thought about the test, one student wrote, “I feel like we have to take all

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these tests and if I pass the tests I live and if I don’t, I die.” This was extremely alarming for Neely-Randall. “I was horrified. I mean, I really was horrified. Because they were just freaking out.”

The focus on test prep eats up time that could be spent doing hands-on projects and collaborative, interactive activities. NeelyRandall said, “In the beginning, we were doing all of these great projects and they were fluent readers and writers … and then all of a sudden, I had to stop everything to get them ready for a test.”

In fact, according to a report published in 2013 by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), students in heavily tested grades can spend over 110 hours per year doing test prep, and as many as 50 hours per year taking the tests themselves, a total of roughly 15 percent of their instructional time.

The schools that have been forced to devote the most time to test prep are those in the most disadvantaged communities, because they have to achieve the biggest increases in test scores under NCLB’s mandates. Robert Schaeffer, the public education director at the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, explained in an interview with the HPR, “In those kinds of schools, the curriculum becomes test prep: doing worksheets and practice tests and getting ready for the big test.” A report from the Center for American Progress substantiates Schaeffer’s claim, demonstrating that urban high school students spend as much as 266 percent more time taking standardized tests than their suburban counterparts do.

This increased focus on test prep has had a profoundly negative impact on the quality of education many students receive.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of

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Teachers, the second-largest teachers union in America, said in an interview with the HPR that the narrow focus on tested subjects causes students to become disengaged at school. “Most kids I know are so anxious about the high-stakes consequences of these tests right now that they hate school, but yet they can be really engaged if we engage them through music or through art or through projects.”

Because only math and reading test scores count towards a school’s “adequate yearly progress” under NCLB, schools have de-emphasized, and in some cases completely stopped, teaching things like “social studies, literature, art, music, physical education, and other important topics where test scores do not result in judgments of school quality,” writes Richard Rothstein in his 2004 book Class and Schools. A 2006 study by the Center on Education Policy supported this claim, finding that since NCLB was passed, 71 percent of school districts cut back on subjects like history and music so they could spend more time on the tested subjects.

Some experts, however, do not see this narrowing of the curriculum as a necessarily bad thing. In an interview with the HPR, Chester E. Finn, Jr., a senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank, explained, “Until you’ve got kids at least minimally proficient in reading and math, you’re really not going to have very much success teaching them anything else.” Grover Whitehurst, the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, echoed this sentiment in an interview with the HPR, saying that “kids are not well served by marching band if, in fact, they can’t read and do math.”

Yet even within the tested subjects of reading and math, an overemphasis on standardized testing hurts the quality of instruction students receive. The current system of accountability, which uses the same tests to measure trends in achievement and to evaluate teachers, necessarily promotes teaching to the test, according to Derek Neal, an economics professor at the University of Chicago. As he explained in an interview with the HPR, tracking progress “requires that these tests be designed in a way that they yield comparable scores across time. The demand for comparability … will inevitably lead to predictability, and once you have predictability, then the teachers are going to be tempted to coach, and not teach.”

GAMING THE SYSTEM: TESTING AS AN ACCOUNTABILITY MEASURE In April, hundreds of thousands of public school students from grades three through eight in New York take high-stakes tests in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Jeanette Deutermann’s son is not one of them.

Deutermann, a Long Island parent and critic of New York’s test-based accountability system, told the HPR in an interview that she witnessed her school’s relentless focus on standardized testing transform her son, who is now in sixth grade, from someone who never complained about going to school to someone who intensely dreaded it. “He would be doing homework, and

he would be sobbing, he’d be trying to wipe tears away while he’s trying to finish his homework so he could see the paper. He would constantly talk about how stupid he was, how ‘I can’t wait until I can drop out of school.’”

Deutermann knew her son was not the best test-taker, but she also knew that his teachers were excellent, and that their evaluations depended on his test scores. So, for the past two years, Deutermann has opted her son out of the state tests in ELA and math. She explained, “This was not in opposition to the school, but in support.” She created a Facebook group to provide information to Long Island parents about opting their children out of tests, which now has over 17,000 members. She also became part of the steering committee for the advocacy group New York State Allies for Public Education, which opposes excessive standardized testing.

Last year, tens of thousands of parents across the country joined Deutermann in refusing to let their children take the tests, with 60,000 in New York alone. This year, the movement has continued to gain momentum, with hundreds of students opting out of tests in New Mexico, 3,000 students in Florida, and over 40,000 in New Jersey. But the biased test outcomes resulting from high numbers of student opt-outs are just one way that standardized tests may provide an inaccurate measure for evaluating teachers, and they are by far the least insidious.

There are myriad ways that test scores can be manipulated to make a student or a school appear to be doing better than they actually are. For example, states have lowered the scores students need to pass, according to a 2009 report published in the International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership. Thus, while it is true that the number of students scoring “proficient” on state standardized tests has risen, real student achievement has not necessarily improved. Low-stakes diagnostic tests, which are not subject to this type of manipulation because they are not attached to rewards or punishments for teachers or schools, confirm this finding. Math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have improved incrementally at best, and they have actually declined on the Programme for International Student Assessment.

Schools and administrators have also pressured low-performing students to drop out or enter special education programs in order to raise overall test scores. According to a 2010 report from the civil rights organization Advancement Project, “the practice of pushing struggling students out of school to boost test scores has become quite common.” And a 2002 study from researchers at Arizona State University found a correlation between highstakes testing and “higher numbers of low performing students being suspended before testing days, expelled from school before tests, or being reclassified as exempt from testing because they are determined to be either Special Education or Limited English Proficient (LEP).”

Yet many proponents of annual high-stakes standardized testing continue to argue in its favor by framing it as a civil rights issue. In a January 2015 Senate debate over the reauthorization of NCLB, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) argued, “We know that if we don't have ways to measure students' progress, and

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if we don't hold our states accountable, the victims will invariably be the kids from poor neighborhoods, children of color, and students with disabilities.” However, there are plenty of other non-annual, low-stakes tests not mandated by NCLB, like the National Assessment of Educational Progress, that demonstrate this achievement gap without many of the harmful consequences associated with their high-stakes counterparts.

Furthermore, arguments like Murray’s assume that standardized tests are good proxies for student learning, which oftentimes is not the case. According to Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, “The tests we use, particularly the state standardized tests, are extremely narrow.

Evidence shows that they measure almost exclusively low-level skills.” A 2012 study from the RAND Corporation backs this claim, finding that only three to 10 percent of elementary and middle school students in the United States were administered tests that assessed deeper learning skills. And even the low-level skills that the tests do measure can be impacted by how much sleep the student got the night before the test and whether the room where the student took the test was too hot or cold.

One thing it seems standardized tests are exceptionally good at measuring is socioeconomic status. In Class and Schools, Rothstein argues that this is because wealthier students have parents who can spend more time with them and more money on enrichment programs for them. He also writes that wealthy students also generally have better health and more housing stability than their lower-income peers, both of which also lead to higher achievement.

Many of these shortcomings are inherent to these types of standardized tests. But some problems with the tests administered to children in many states are easily avoidable. A 2013 investigation by Heather Vogell of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that problems like poorly-worded questions, missing pages in exam booklets, and malfunctions in answer-sheet scanners were commonplace in high-stakes standardized tests administered in states across the country, and that “the vast majority of states have experienced testing problems—some repeatedly.”

Deutermann has seen these types of problems in the tests her son had to take: “[The test questions] are not age appropriate, they’re riddled with mistakes. There have been mistakes through the entire test. … There’s no accountability for the test maker.”

Neely-Randall agrees, saying the tests are “developmentally inappropriate—and actually I would go so far as to say abusive—to students.”

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TOWARD A BETTER ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM Given all of these problems with standardized testing, it seems that the civil rights issue is too much testing, not too little.

Instead of forcing low-income schools to spend millions of dollars and countless hours of class time preparing for and administering standardized tests that only serve to prove, oftentimes inaccurately, what we already know about the achievement gap, we should use those resources to expand programs in the arts and humanities, to provide incentive pay to attract teachers to areas where they are needed most, and to decrease class sizes, all things that could actually make a difference for disadvantaged students.

This is not to say that America’s accountability system should be completely dismantled. Politicians and schools can de-emphasize testing while still ensuring high achievement. Student and teacher evaluations can take multiple measures of performance into account. The amount of standardized tests students have to take can be drastically reduced. The fewer standardized tests that students do take can incorporate more open-ended questions that force students to think critically and outside the box Thirteen years after NCLB’s mandates were first set into place, the rhetoric used by politicians and pundits is sounding more and more like that which the same politicians and pundits used to endorse NCLB. Congress would be ill advised to try to use high-stakes test-based accountability to narrow the achievement gap and expect a different result than the aftermath of the 2002 law. It is time to acknowledge that putting an enormous amount of weight on standardized test scores does not work, and to move on to other solutions.

Regardless of the outcome of the current debate, grassroots activists like Deutermann will continue to fight against harmful test-based accountability systems like New York’s. “This is an epidemic,” she said. “It’s happening everywhere, with all sorts of kids, from the smartest kids to the kids that struggle the most, from Republicans to Democrats, from kids in low-income districts to kids in high-performing districts. It doesn’t matter where you are, the stories are exactly the same.”

“We may be passive when it comes to all the other things [corporate reformers] have interjected themselves into,” Deutermann warned, “but when you mess with our kids, that’s when the claws come out.”

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MINDS THAT MAY MATTER

THE ETHICS OF VIRTUAL ANIMAL RESEARCH Advik Shreekumar

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n a glass petri dish, a roundworm no bigger than a human hair squirms away from a droplet of acid. In a white coat above it, a researcher watches patiently, documenting the worm’s every move. And in a series of labs around the world, Dr. Stephen Larson and the OpenWorm team are trying to figure out how to automate the entire process.

“OpenWorm is an open science project dedicated to creating the world’s first digital organism: specifically, C. elegans” Larson told the HPR, referring to the simple roundworm that is the workhorse of much biomedical research. From tip to tip, C. elegans measures about a millimeter, and its whole body is composed of a scant 959 cells. OpenWorm has set the ambitious goal of building a wriggling, virtual model of a worm down to these cells, an unprecedented feat in biology and computer science.

In the short term, Larson explained, OpenWorm will improve our understanding of how the brain’s cells work by providing an authentic replica of the roundworm’s 302 brain cells. In the long term, he said, “the closer the model gets to reproducing what the real biology can do, the more the worm can be a virtual research animal.” The prospect of studying a virtual animal is an enticing one for scientists, as it could broaden the scope of biological research by creating an opportunity to investigate more complicated and diverse relationships between variables.

But in striving towards an accurate computer copy of a living creature—in particular, its brain—OpenWorm raises the thorny issue of whether to regulate research on simulated animals as on real ones. Coming to an answer will require settling debates

about the nature of life and the mind that have dogged philosophy and neuroscience for decades.

THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING Contemporary discussion of what makes nonhuman animals deserving of protection centers on an intuitive principle.

“I would say it’s sentience: subjective awareness of the world,” Justin Goodman, the director of the Laboratory Investigations Department at PETA, told the HPR. Kathleen Conlee, the vice president of Animal Research Issues at the Humane Society of the United States, agreed, adding that “any being who is capable of experiencing pain, distress, anxiety, [or] suffering” deserves moral consideration.

PETA and the Humane Society both oppose the use of nonhuman animals in most scientific research on the grounds that they suffer and are too different from humans to meaningfully contribute to scientists’ understanding of human biology. While virtual research would not allay the second concern, it could address the first by replacing many aspects of live animal testing.

Larson explained that, by using virtual experiments, scientists could exert pinpoint control over their tests, develop intricate new hypotheses, and study thousands of virtual animals instead of dozens of real ones.

Thus, on one hand, virtual research could avert the suffering of many lab animals and perhaps improve the quality of research. On the other, if virtual animals do suffer, the number of

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them suffering in a computer lab could easily eclipse the number of live animals researchers could experiment on, raising serious ethical concerns.

MINDS THAT MAY MATTER The crucial task is determining whether virtual animals can suffer. Under one set of assumptions, the answer is a definitive no. In an interview with the HPR, Université du Québec à Montréal professor Stevan Harnad maintained that simulated animals could never think or feel, explaining that the difference between a virtual and a real organism was “the same as the difference between a simulated waterfall and a real waterfall: a real waterfall is wet. A simulated waterfall is just squiggles.”

Harnad’s explanation, that computer programs are nothing more than lines of code—squiggles—draws a firm distinction between computers that process information and nervous systems that feel. When computers execute programs, Harnad argued, they apply a set of rules that converts inputs to outputs.

But pushing around numbers and evaluating equations the way computers do is, by definition, a mindless task. Whether those outputs are this week’s weather forecasts or a model of a roundworm, the program itself is just a set of rules for a computer to follow, not a mind capable of feeling.

In Harnad’s account, asking whether virtual animals can feel pain is like asking whether Google Translate can understand language—it’s the wrong kind of question. Even if the most convincing computer model of an animal behaved as if it felt pain, it would not truly be suffering; it would only look that way.

Though confident in his reasoning, Harnad acknowledged that there are other cognitive scientists who would reject his conclusion. “If you want somebody that will disagree with me strongly,” he said, “call Dan Dennett. We’re very good friends.

Unfortunately, we completely disagree on this.”

“Stevan and I have gone around on this for several decades— no progress,” Tufts professor Daniel Dennett told the HPR, with a warm chuckle. Taking a more serious tone, he argued that a strong indication of whether organisms feel pain is precisely how they act. “Behavior should matter,” Dennett said. “One of the reasons we’re sure that some people are congenitally insensitive to pain is [that] they don’t just say they are, [but] they [also] don’t respond to painful stimuli the way they ought to. They leave their hands on burning hot stoves.” Simply, pain hurts, and animals that can feel it try their hardest to avoid it, leading to clear and observable patterns of action.

Harvard professor Jeffrey Lichtman picked up this thread, pointing out that a focus on the feeling of pain may even be misguided, as pain is just a feature of the broader behavior of harm avoidance. Minds drum up the feeling of pain to keep the body safe, he continued, but the animal kingdom is full of self-preserving behaviors. Lichtman even suspected “that the first living

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animals that could affect their position in the world by moving very quickly developed ways to avoid putting themselves at risk, and that is equivalent to pain.” He and Dennett agreed that even microbes have incentives to sense their surroundings and avoid harm analogously to how humans avoid pain.

Lichtman then turned to the question of the complex computer programs, the same ones that Harnad rejected as sentient.

“Is that equation then the entity? Does it feel pain?” He mused briefly, before pausing and laughing, almost in disbelief of the answer he was about to give. “But I have no clear sense of why that is so fundamentally different. My gut tells me yes—even the equation in some sense feels pain because it’s behaving like it feels pain, and that’s all we’re doing: behaving like it really hurt.” Dennett concurred, concluding that a sufficiently complex model “would be not importantly different from the real thing.”

MENTAL BLOCKS The lack of consensus between Harnad, Lichtman, and Dennett—all respected cognitive scientists—points to the immense difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of determining whether simulated beings would have a meaningful sense of pain. That Harnad and Dennett’s debate has spanned decades without exhausting itself hints at the depth and breadth of arguments they have mustered. And Lichtman’s surprise at his own conclusion indicates that even thinking about artificial organisms can be highly counterintuitive.

Some reasons that the debate is hard to resolve are psychological, stemming from the difficulty of thinking about other how minds may work. But at least part of the confusion comes from the fact that Harnad, Lichtman, and Dennett all articulated clear arguments; they just made different starting assumptions.

If you grant Harnad that computers only follow instructions, then it is hard to argue that simulations can feel anything at all.

Yet if you start as Lichtman and Dennett did, from the principle that behavior is what matters, then it is just as hard to disregard simulations that are designed to behave like animals.

It seems that in thinking about virtual animals, it’s not so much the arguments we make, but where we start, that determines our conclusions. The disagreement between these thinkers, then, is on axioms, the foundations of belief. That means that debating the ethics of virtual research will require more than making strong arguments; it may require us to clearly identify our starting principles.

Harder than setting these principles is standing by them, even when they lead to difficult conclusions. Following Harnad’s reasoning, we are left with the puzzling question of what makes our brains different from computer programs. The assumption that computers do not think is intuitive since we know exactly what rules they follow. Yet in a real sense, our brains are machines as well: they get input from the senses, process it through

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Many academics believe that microbes show traits analogous to human pain.

a complex series of chemical reactions, and produce behavioral output. Where computers use binary, we use biology. To assert that computer programs don’t feel, we would have to find an aspect of our physical brains that somehow breaks from this current understanding of neurobiology.

If instead we follow Dennett and Lichtman and argue that behavior is what matters, then the world is full of things that look like they’re avoiding pain. To say that some of them deserve ethical treatment but others do not would require explaining why some harms matter but others do not. But this is another axiomatic decision! Whether we say that human pain is somehow special or that any harm-avoiding creature deserves protection, we are pointing back to our core beliefs about what matters, not making logical arguments about what should.

Animal rights activists and policymakers may have a way out without taking either side by adopting a stance similar to PETA’s current one. “Our position is we always give animals the benefit of the doubt,” Goodman explained, cautioning, “When you draw a line, you always find you’re moving that line.” The extension of this do-no-harm ethic could be to think of simulations as at risk of being sentient, and therefore harmed by experiments. However, doing so would problematize virtual research, and may simply encourage scientists to continue testing on live animals.

A DISTANT HORIZON It is easy to get caught up in the cycle of debate and miss the reality that virtual biology research is a budding field at best.

Dennett, Lichtman and Larson all stressed that modeling anything beyond the roundworm is impossible with current technologies. For example, OpenWorm has been fortunate to benefit from a complete wiring diagram of the roundworm brain. Lichtman estimated that, using current techniques, creating a similar diagram for the human brain would require millions of petabytes

of data—roughly as much digital content as humans have ever produced. Managing that much data is currently an immense challenge.

Furthermore, accurately simulating a brain requires much more than just a wiring diagram. Lichtman explained that the brain’s function also depends on the types of connections cells make and which molecules they use to communicate, among other factors, all of which would have to enter the model. “We’re maybe in first grade when it comes to that kind of modeling, even on a single piece of membrane. To do that for a whole brain is still science fiction,” he stated.

Even the fruit fly, another workhorse of biological research that is far less complex than humans, has hundreds of thousands of cells in its brain, dwarfing the roundworm’s 302. Larson guessed that, barring a massive increase in funding or some spectacular breakthrough, it would take something like two decades to draw the wiring diagram, collect the biological data, and develop the kinds of modeling techniques necessary to build a virtual fly.

This is all to say there will be plenty of time to hash out the details and choose axioms, and that time will certainly be helpful. While philosophers have been discussing the ethics of simulated minds for decades, animal rights organizations have yet to take up the discussion. Conlee told the HPR that, to her knowledge, the Humane Society has not considered the case of simulated animals, and Goodman said the same of PETA. Both were receptive to the idea of exploring the topic, but for now they plan to focus on ongoing animal testing in the real world.

And for all the questions it raises, OpenWorm will hopefully provide some answers as well. Said Larson, “The more that we can nail down the mapping between neural activity and mental behaviors as we know it, the easier it will be for us to have a really detailed discussion about this.” So as the biologist moves closer to answers as her worm wriggles through its petri dish, we too may have to wait as OpenWorm inches to completion.

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DANCING WITH MONSTERS THE U.S. RESPONSE TO THE 2009 HONDURAN COUP Alvaro Valle

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“A

coup anywhere in Latin America is a very big deal.”

Latin America has enjoyed 20 years of relatively stable governments, but Harvard professor Steven Levitsky told the HPR that the specter of coups still hangs over much of the region. “Latin America has undergone a remarkable change in the last 40 years, going from a time in which coups were commonplace—they replaced 40 percent of the governments during the Cold War—to a time where they were incredibly uncommon.” Because of this history, he explained, when a coup occurs, “alarm bells ring across the political spectrum in Latin America.”

This makes the 2009 coup in Honduras and the response of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. State Department all the more startling. Secretary Clinton’s reaction to the coup was initially ambiguous and evolved to support the replacement government much more rapidly than the United States has done in other foreign states. Her motivations appear numerous, but many are troubling. In particular, her attention to business interests in a matter of state should be concerning.

When seeking stability in Honduras, Clinton appears to have valued military and corporate interests above Honduran democratic integrity.

PRESIDENT ZELAYA AND HIS LEFTWARD DRIFT Upon winning the presidency in 2005, Manuel Zelaya, the nominee of the center-right Liberal Party of Honduras, hardly seemed likely to provoke a coup. Yet soon after entering the presidency, Zelaya’s policy began tacking to the left. Under Zelaya, Honduras raised the minimum wage by 60 percent, offered subsidies to small famers, and lowered interest rates, angering conservatives. The apprehension on the right continued to grow in 2008, when Zelaya sought membership in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a group pioneered by leftist governments of states like Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia.

These economic reforms also earned Zelaya powerful enemies outside of Honduras. Rodolfo Pastor, the Minister of Culture under President Zelaya, told the HPR that “American mining companies complained they were not being treated as they wanted [since] open pit mining had been prohibited, and petroleum companies could have complained as well, since they were losing their monopoly.” In an attempt to slow Zelaya’s drift, two Latin American business groups, the Business Council of Latin America (CEAL) and Association of Honduran Manufacturers (AHM), lobbied against him in both the United States and Honduras. Zelaya faced increasing opposition to his reforms from the conservative National Party and transnational business lobbies. He sought to continue his policy of domestic reform but found himself limited by an uncooperative legislature and the 1982 Constitution of Honduras, which decentralized power after decades of military rule.

This political deadlock, in turn, drove Zelaya to seek constitutional reform. In late 2008, Zelaya sought a non-binding referendum on a vote to convene a constitutional assembly. However, in recent years, many other leaders affiliated with ALBA had modified their respective countries’ constitutions to weaken or remove presidential term limits. This precedent caused many of

Zelaya’s political opponents to raise fears of similar action on his part.

In context, these fears could have been unfounded: Zelaya denied having any intention of changing the term limits of the presidency, and he would not have benefited from these changes, as he would have left office by the time they took effect. Still, the poll provided a perfect excuse for Zelaya’s opponents to assert that he was plotting to remain in office. The accusations against Zelaya appear even more absurd now that Juan Orlando Hernández, the current president and an architect of the subsequent coup, advocates for reforms to allow for presidential reelection.

Zelaya’s poll was illegal, as the Honduran constitution stipulates that only the Supreme Electoral Tribunal or a two-thirds congressional majority can propose a change to the constitution.

The Honduran Supreme Court warned Zelaya that carrying out this referendum would result in criminal charges, but he proceeded with it nonetheless. On June 28, 2009, the military arrested and quickly exiled him to Costa Rica without trial. The military oversaw the next election, which took place in November 2009. For this and other reasons, major international observers such as the United Nations and the Carter Center refused to monitor the vote, and many countries refused to recognize the election. Levitsky characterized the current regime in Honduras not as a democracy but as a “hybrid regime” that “meets some basic requirements for democracy but is not quite there.”

It was not until just before the election that the United States, along with some allies, reversed its decision and decided to recognize the elections. The winner was Porfirio Lobo Sosa, a large landowner from the far-right National Party. Lobo’s government continued the coup government’s policies as Honduras’s drug, violence, and corruption problems worsened. Worse still, according to University of California, Santa Cruz professor Dana Frank in an interview with the HPR, Lobo’s successor, current president Juan Orlando Hernández, “was an architect of the coup, and has continued the human rights abuses perpetuated by the Honduran government since the coup.”

Zelaya’s removal and exile has been deemed illegal by observers in and outside Honduras, including the Organization of American States’s Honduras Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The U.S. State Department’s 2009 Human Rights Report affirms that the governmental change was a coup that precipitated violence and limitations “on freedom of movement, association, expression, and assembly.” Yet following Lobo’s dubious election, the United States restored and even increased military aid, thereby demonstrating commitment to a government mired in human rights abuses.

THE U.S. RESPONSE Latin American governments immediately denounced Zelaya’s ouster as a military coup. The United States was not quite as decisive in its diction, with the initial June 28 statement from the Obama administration merely calling on “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms.” Obama did go on to denounce the coup in the following days, but Frank noted that Obama’s characterization of the government change was very important. “He very clearly failed to call it a military coup. If he had called it a military coup, the United States would

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have had to immediately suspend all police and military aid,” Frank explained. “Eventually some money sent was suspended, but the vast majority was not.”

Following the coup, President Obama eventually called repeatedly for the reinstatement of Zelaya. In contrast, Secretary of State Clinton made remarks that were far more equivocal.

When asked if the United States had any plans to alter aid to the coup government, Clinton answered, “Much of our assistance is conditioned on the integrity of the democratic system. But if we were able to get to a status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome.” Clinton seemed to prioritize having a stable regime over preserving democratic ideals.

As further evidence, Clinton wrote in her book, Hard Choices, “In the subsequent days [after the coup] … we strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot,” revealing that even as the administration publicly advocated for Zelaya’s return, Clinton was not working to ensure that it would happen.

Pastor added that Clinton had personal connections with supporters of the coup government that may have led her to soften her stance. For instance, Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s former personal lawyer and a longtime Hillary Clinton supporter, lobbied in Washington for the Honduran coup government, Honduran elites, the Business Council of Latin America, and the American companies that took issue with Zelaya’s reforms.

Bennett Ratcliff, another top Democratic campaigner with close ties to the Clintons, also worked for the Honduran coup government as a lobbyist in Washington. These personal connections to advocates for the coup government raise troubling concerns that political ties influenced Clinton’s stance.

In Clinton’s defense, these personal connections were not the only political forces supporting the coup. Levitsky noted that initial opposition to the coup in the United States may have given way because “Republicans held a couple of major U.S.-Latin America appointments: the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and the Ambassador to Brazil. They held these positions hostage to a softening of U.S. policy toward the coup government.”

Arturo Valenzuela, the candidate for Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs whose nomination was initially blocked (and later confirmed) in 2009, stressed the pragmatic considerations that took precedence in the aftermath of the coup. “When we looked at Honduras, you can say they may not have followed the [Inter-American] Democratic Charter,” Valenzuela stated in an interview with the HPR. “But from the position of the United States, we had to address the problem [of establishing a stable government] and try to normalize the democratic process.” He also emphasized that “the State Department was opposed to the coup” and that only after extensive investigation did the United States decide to recognize the elections in 2009.

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Another potential motivator that softened opposition to the coup was the U.S. desire to secure Palmerola Air Base. Palmerola is one of the United States’ most important military outposts in Central America, since it provides a platform to help train the armed forces of neighboring countries and combat drug cartels.

Palmerola is also home to the Honduran Air Force, which assisted the coup and carried out Zelaya’s exile to Costa Rica. Pastor observed that the United States may have been worried that “Honduras had aligned itself with ALBA countries mostly because it needed cheap oil and finance, and that the United States was losing a strategic struggle.” The base may have provided a strategic motivation for Clinton and the State Department to tacitly support the coup government, though Pastor said lobbying and an “entente with Republicans” played a larger role.

LATIN AMERICAN CONCERNS “Since the 1990s, coups have been virtually non-existent,” Professor Levitsky stated. “As soon as you tolerate military interventions, even interventions on governments you do not like, there’s a huge, huge risk of normalizing these interventions.” Professor Levitsky emphasized the worry that the coup caused among many Latin American states. Pastor added that Latin American states were “absolutely outraged,” with the only exceptions being very close allies of the United States.

Many Latin Americans feared a region-wide return to a system of so-called “moderated coups,” which had removed governments that acted against the interests of an established elite or the military in the mid-20th century. Levitsky explained that moderated coups often lasted until a government more in line with the military’s ideology was elected and added that they were “somewhat common and horrible for democracy.” Although no coups have occurred since 2009, many governments saw the Honduran military coup as precedent for a resurgence of military control of governments and looked poorly on the United States for not opposing the coup government more vehemently.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States incited, encouraged, and supported coups around the world, including many in Latin America. In Latin America, this approach to foreign policy was motivated by a desire to preserve the free market, protect American corporate interests, and stymie the spread of leftist regimes. The actions of the State Department in response to the 2009 coup in Honduras were nowhere near so deliberate or involved as those undertaken in the Cold War, but the indifference and eventual acceptance of the coup government by Secretary of State Clinton may have similar motivations to those earlier actions. In the words of Pastor, “the American government did not, as such, order or mount or stage the coup—it just danced along with its monsters.” Nonetheless, this dance sends a clear message to Latin American countries: the United States has priorities that supersede their governments’ independence from military influence.

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WRITER’S BLOC How Historical Narratives Frustrate the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Ali Hakim

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onflict: this was the word that came to mind when I thought of the Jewish state. As a frequent consumer of both American and Pakistani media, I have read my fair share about tensions and negotiations with the Palestinians, but I am far from an expert.

This past March, I traveled with a group of about 50 other students to Israel. A few weeks before my trip, I felt I still didn’t understand why peace has been so elusive between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I consulted a series of videos by The Atlantic titled, “Is Peace Possible?” The answer, to my surprise, was an emphatic “yes.” Of course, the project didn’t examine every single nuance to the decades-long conflict, but it clearly demonstrated that many of the terms that would largely satisfy the needs of both sides were far from unreachable. Borders, security, refugees—none of these issues seemed impossible to resolve. My question, then, became this: why have they been impossible to resolve?

I soon discovered that I had been looking at the conflict completely incorrectly.

When I first landed in Tel Aviv, two other students and I were asked to undergo extra questioning before officially entering the country. I sat across the table from an immigrations officer, not unlike I had done in several other airports across the world.

She asked me a few questions about my ethnic background and religion, before asking me this: “Why are you coming to Israel?”

“Mainly tourism, I guess,” I said nonchalantly. “Oh, and I’m also really curious about Israeli and Jewish culture,” I added.

The first portion of my response didn’t elicit much of a reaction, but when I expressed an interest in the nation’s culture and history, a look of puzzlement and skepticism appeared on her face. It was quickly replaced by her normal, stoic stare, but I received the message. It didn’t make sense to her that I, a Muslim man of Pakistani origin, would travel all the way to Israel—a land holy to adherents of my faith—largely out of interest in the Jewish state and people.

She wasn’t angry or upset, just simply confused. I didn’t fit the narrative.

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In many ways, my brief experience in Ben Gurion International Airport was emblematic of a dimension of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict that is commonly glanced over by outside observers. A collective narrative, based on historical events and the emotions associated with them, often colors the way in which Israelis see themselves and their Palestinian neighbors, as well as they way in which they see the ongoing peace process. Meanwhile, Palestinians have their own narratives, which frequently contradict the Israeli perspective. These historicallyand emotionally-rooted views do not show up explicitly when one examines the more practical, policy-oriented aspects of the conflict—how to address Palestinian refugees, how to assure Israeli security, et cetera—which is why, on paper, a deal might seem tenable. But as Daniel Shapiro, associate director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, told the HPR, “One could look at this problem very narrowly as a complication over the distribution of land, but that would completely belittle the nature of the conflict … One needs to understand each side’s traumas; each side’s pride.”

AN ANCIENT STORY One of the many people we heard from during our travels was Miri Maoz-Ovadia, a spokesperson for the Binyamin Regional Council, which represents 42 Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Often seen as illegal under international law and an encroachment on Palestinian land, these settlements are a complication to the peace process. However, that’s not how Miri views them. “We see this as our homeland,” she told us. “We just want to live peacefully here.”

Miri was alluding to the presence of the Jewish people in the region for the past 3,500 years. More specifically, she may have been referencing the period from 1250 to 587 BCE, during which the ancient Israelites ruled over the area. Although there is no shortage of land of similar quality in Israeli territory, the symbolic act of continuing a historical narrative, for people like Miri, carries immeasurable importance, even though it creates challenges for negotiations. To her, her family’s settlement in the West Bank is completely reasonable—she is simply executing a historical right.

Gary Rendsburg, a professor of Jewish history at Rutgers University, spoke with the HPR about the historical importance of this idea of a homeland. “Even when you have various diaspora communities flourishing economically and culturally at different points in time, the yearning for a return is always there,” he explained. “It’s built into the liturgy. It’s built into the prayers—prayers asking God to return [the Jews] to Zion.”

This connection between modern-day Jews and the ancient Israelites is also reinforced institutionally. Yoav Schaefer ’15-’16, a Harvard College student and former Israeli Defense Force operative, told the HPR about an experience he had with his former reconnaissance unit. “After finishing our training, we had a long march to Masada.” Masada is an ancient Jewish fortress located atop a mountain in the Judean desert. Over 2,000 years ago, when Roman troops laid siege to the stronghold, its Jewish inhabitants committed mass suicide in order to avoid capture.

The site now serves as a source of pride for the Jewish people and a symbol of Jewish bravery. “You reach to the top of Masada,

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incredibly exhausted,” Schaefer continued, “and then what you scream is, ‘Masada will never fall again!’” Current IDF troops are taught to see themselves as the heirs to a historical tradition dating back thousands of years.

The Palestinian narrative tells a different story with regard to the expansion of settlements. They see it as further Israeli encroachment upon their land. To many Palestinians, it is a violation of the very spirit of the Oslo Accords, a series of agreements signed in the 1990s by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, specifying that facts on the ground shouldn’t be changed unilaterally without prior talks. To others, it constitutes theft. In a 2010 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, over 80 percent of Palestinians said they would oppose peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority if settlement construction continued. Mohamed Oweidah, a resident of East Jerusalem and director of the Palestinian side of the Jersualem-based NGO Combatants for Peace, voiced the sentiment most clearly when a member in our travel group asked him about settlements in his home city. “If I’m being honest with you,” he said, “sometimes I feel like I have no rights … no freedom.”

The contradiction here is clear. Many Jews—especially those living in settlements, in my brief experience—see themselves as having a historic right or even duty to settle in the land of their ancestors. Many Palestinians, however, see the settlements as neglecting their own rights, more recently outlined by a 2013 UN investigative panel and the Oslo Accords. Neither side’s claim is without justification, but the two narratives are irreconcilable.

A TRAGIC PAST Looking at the more recent past, the Holocaust is perhaps the single most salient event in Jewish collective memory and has understandably taken a massive psychological toll on the Jewish people. Although the Zionist movement dates back decades before the Holocaust, in which an estimated six million Jews were murdered by Hitler’s Nazi regime, many Israelis and historians see the foundation of the state of Israel as a response to the devastation of that period. The Jewish people needed a state of their own, where they could live protected from the anti-Semitism that had plagued their European existence.

Unsurprisingly, the Holocaust is no stranger to political dialogue in Israel. As we exited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, our guide left us with a few telling words. “Barack Obama,” she said, “once said here that it was not because of the Holocaust that Israel exists. Rather, he said, ‘It is because of Israel that the Holocaust will never happen again.’

Let’s hope and pray,” she continued, “that he remembers those words.” She was referencing President Obama’s increasingly strained relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting that American support for and cooperation with Israel was of existential importance for the Jewish state.

Before that point, I had never heard the Holocaust referenced in anything but a historical context. In Israel, though, the memory of the Holocaust motivates a preoccupation with security and defense readily apparent to any casual observer of Israeli politics. As Schaefer told me, “Objectively, Israel has the most powerful military in the region. It’s not even close. But af-

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Whether rooted in ancient history or the recent past, Israeli and Palestinian narratives surrounding the conflict are often at odds and can lead to mutual mistrust and misunderstanding. ter something like the Holocaust, which actually happened very recently … people are still scared.” He also highlighted the role of contemporary factors—an unstable Middle East and a series of hostile neighbors—in shaping this subjective sense of fear and vulnerability, despite the country’s objective military strength.

Derived in part from the Holocaust, but also largely from immediate strategic considerations, Israel’s obsession with defense causes the country to place high priority on considerations of its own military security during negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Israel, very conscious of the fact that it is the lone Jewish state in an often-hostile Arab region, holds protecting its people from a repetition of the European experience as one of its primary goals. Fears about the safety of the Jewish people have only been renewed by Iranian leaders’ repeated calls to destroy the state of Israel.

Many Palestinians, meanwhile, have a different narrative surrounding the Holocaust. Israeli military campaigns in Palestinian territories, as well as the occupation itself, have often been likened to the Nazi campaign against the Jews. This comparison, of course, is dubious, as most recent Israeli incursions into the West Bank and Gaza have been motivated by security concerns as opposed to an ideology of ethnic cleansing. Nevertheless, the identification of Israel as a new Third Reich demonstrates how both sides have established irreconcilable clashing accounts surrounding the conflict. Both Israelis and Palestinians see themselves in a position of historical victimhood.

Additionally, memories of the Holocaust and the emotions they elicit illustrate a pattern of mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians. Israelis, passionately concerned with their own security, are often skeptical of the intentions of their Palestinian neighbors, especially after renewed rocket launches by Hamas this past summer. Palestinians, having been occupied and occasionally attacked by Israel for decades, also see themselves as having few reasons to trust the Jewish people. Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk cited this mistrust as the primary obstacle in peace negotiations. “It’s the distrust between the leaders and between the people that holds us up and makes it difficult,” he told the New York Times last year.

RECENT MEMORY The Second Intifada of the early 2000s only exacerbated this deep-seated mistrust. During this period of heighted IsraeliPalestinian violence, which roughly occurred from 2000 to 2005 and peaked in 2002, over 1,000 Israelis were killed, primarily in terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. About 5,000 Palestin-

ians lost their lives in retaliatory Israeli military operations in the occupied territories.

Schaefer discussed how the Second Intifada affected his life and the Israeli psyche. “As I child … I remember having great relationships with Palestinian children. I remember going on buses to the West Bank to go shopping. There was a lot of hope— a lot of optimism—across Israeli society.”

Much of that, however, came crashing down with the Intifada. “It was terrible. The Second Intifada had an incredibly traumatic effect on the Israeli psyche. The streets were running with blood, and I don’t think the Israeli public has ever been able to recover.” Schaefer, who once worked on the staff of a representative to Israel’s Knesset, mentioned in particular that the large-scale attack on Israeli soil served to undermine the Israeli left. An emphasis on security and a fear of Palestinian intentions have conversely bolstered the more conservative elements of the country’s polity. This was on display in the final days leading up to this year’s March 17 elections, when the incumbent, rightwing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that “Arabs [were] voting in droves” in an effort to draw conservatives to ballot boxes. Netanyahu’s Likud Party subsequently won a plurality of seats, illustrating how scare tactics like this can still be effective political tools.

Unfortunately, the region may not be far away from another escalation on conflict. In a visit to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the West Bank, we heard from Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an organization that investigates public opinion among Palestinians. He said that young Palestinians were increasingly in favor of the use of violence as a means to political ends. In focus groups, he found that the rationale behind this trend didn’t stem from anger or hatred toward Israelis. Rather, young Palestinians were beginning to feel that violence was that only way they could make Israel acknowledge their demands.

From the Jewish perspective, Palestinian violence will only turn the public off to cooperation with their Arab neighbors. But from the Palestinian point of view, violence is the only reliable method to force what they see as an apathetic Israel to make concessions.

Whether rooted in ancient history or the recent past, Israeli and Palestinian narratives surrounding the conflict are often at odds and can lead to mutual mistrust and misunderstanding.

This is not to undermine the importance of the more concrete, policy-oriented aspects of the peace process. It is simply to say that a resolution will be elusive unless history and emotion can be reconciled with practicality and strategy.

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CRIME AND NO PUNISHMENT Aisha Bhoori March 3, 2013 A Black Prado, windows tinted, waits outside of the elite Dolmen Mall. Inside, a group of men scan the female shoppers exiting. Each night for the past few months, they have been kidnapping and gang-raping women and young girls in the city’s affluent areas: Clifton, Defense, and Zamzama. The streak does not endure: their sting leader returns, empty-handed and frenzied. The driver slams his foot on the accelerator as mall security guard Ghulam Din runs, feet slamming the pavement, after the mysterious car. That night, Facebook posts warn that the “Black Prado Gang” travels in vehicles with government license plates.

March 13, 2013 A car emblazoned with an Orangi Pilot Project bumper sticker stops at a traffic intersection. Inside, Parveen Rehman, the project’s director, considers fundraising for sanitation facilities in the Orangi squatter community. Assassins pull their trigger, however, before she can accelerate, and the social worker’s head slams against her dashboard. The assassins belong to the city’s land mafia, indignant at Rehman for revealing their maltreatment of impoverished communities. That night, there is a candlelight vigil: “May God honor the Mother of Karachi,” one banner reads.

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January 17, 2014 A news van, engine humming, is parked outside of the Express News Live television network building. Inside, three employees have just been shot at point-blank range. The Taliban, in response to the network’s anti- fundamentalist tone, claims responsibility. That night, Aslam Khan, the network’s Karachi bureau chief, announces that station employees will now seek permission to carry weapons.

September 10, 2014 A car blaring recitations of Qu’ranic verses travels along a highway towards Nazimabad. Inside, Sunni cleric Maulana Masood Baig prepares for an upcoming sermon at a local mosque. He never arrives to the sermon, however: three bullets strike him in the head and chest as he falls against the windshield to the chorus of screeching, shattering glass. Four armed men on motorcycles trail Baig’s car. They have successfully avenged the slain son of their beloved Shia leader Allama Kumaili. ***

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A bustling metropolis of 18 million on the Arabian Sea, Karachi is Pakistan’s economic stronghold, with exports submerging the Port of Bin Qasim and glib bankers jostling to buy shares in factory stocks. It is also, however, the nation’s hub of crime. According to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Karachi is the most violent city in the world, with 2,000 murders per year. Though this crime reflects pervasive dissidence, it is in some ways unifying: almost every prominent group commits some form of it. The Shias and Sunnis engaging in a tit-for-tat sectarian quarrel. The Taliban espousing a vision of Islam that is incompatible with Western notions of a free press. Corrupt property-owners silencing humanitarian activists. The gang network instilling fear in the wealthy through sexual assault.

Understanding criminality in Karachi, then, requires an understanding of the intersection of the sectarian, class, extremist, and gang forces that underlie the city’s politics—an intersection that dates back to the city’s founding as Pakistan’s capital some 60 years ago.

PARTITIONING LAWLESSNESS Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, commissioned Constantinos Doxiadis with no easy task. A Greek architect with activist inclinations, Doxiadis envisioned the city as a community that would provide inexpensive access to public utilities. A single mistake in plotting a longitudinal coordinate, in distributing land amongst Karachi’s neighborhoods, and Karachi would lose both a city plan and planner. If infrastructure did not match municipal agendas—if one political faction disagreed with his strategic construction of army headquarters—Doxiadis could, in fact, be dead.

This possibility of death was rooted in national political phenomena: a series of assassinations and betrayals in the executive branch had, it seemed, established a trend of criminality. At a 1951 political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, had collapsed on the cobbled pavements with a bloody thud. Afghan nationalist Sa’ad Babrak was later convicted for the murder. Seven years later, Pakistan’s first president, Iskander Mirza, exited his palace with his head bowed and ego deflated; he was deposed in a 1958 coup d’état by the general he had previously appointed. By the time Constantinos finished marking his master grid, Karachi, in many ways, reflected its motherland; its population was rapidly growing, its unity rapidly shrinking. Constantinos, one could argue, foresaw Karachi’s tragic development. “Cities everywhere,” he cautioned Jinnah, “are becoming dystopias.”

Karachi’s dystopian history, though, began prior to its construction. It began in the partition of India—in Jinnah’s decision to establish an Islamic Republic. By the time the British had officially demarcated India and Pakistan in August of 1947, the largest mass relocation in human history had occurred; 14.5 million people in total crossed borders to join their respective religious majorities, which had convened on either side of the subconti-

nent. Of those individuals, 7.2 million migrated from anti-Muslim violence in India to Pakistan. Mohajirs, the Arabic title for such Muslims, ended their flight from carnage by entering Karachi’s Nazimabad neighborhood. The remainder—presumably Hindus—migrated from Pakistan to India. “There was a mass exodus of people who found themselves on the wrong side of the dividing lines,” Steven Inskeep, host of NPR’s Morning Edition and author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi, told the HPR. “You would think that [this relocation] would make [Pakistan] more stable. It actually became less stable over time.”

This instability initially arose in part because Karachi’s early Muslim settlers came from different Indian towns and accordingly brought their own mother tongues and loyalties. Bohra, Chhipa, Khoja, Memon: these were the city’s first major ethnic groups—all hailing from the Indian state of Gujarat. Karachi, in its early stages, essentially functioned as a collection of autonomous territories. Within the city there existed multiple enclaves, each of which was ethnically homogenous.

Karachi’s current instability is an extension of such heterogeneity. While Karachi still remains an enclave for immigrants, it now attracts internally displaced persons rather than persecuted Indians. More specifically, Karachi’s recent Muslim settlers come from Pakistan’s own provinces. The result is what Brookings Institute fellow Teresita Schaffer described to the HPR as “an ethnic cocktail.” Though Karachi is located in the province of Sindh, it is home to a relatively small percentage of Sindhis. By contrast, it houses close to seven million Pashtuns and Balochis—more than the Federally Administered Tribal Areas from where both clans descend. “They came in trickles,” Dawn reporter Zia Ur Rehman wrote of these seven million Muslims, “fleeing insurgencies and operations in their homes … But along with the tormented, came their tormentors, the very Taliban the refugees were fleeing from.”

MUSLIM BROTHER AGAINST MUSLIM BROTHER When 28-year-old commander Muhammad Usman came to Karachi from the Swat valley in 2009, he brought with him a backpack stuffed with explosives, dried fruit, and instructions to “eliminate[e] rivals.” Usman is officially a member of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or the TTP, a party that originated in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in the country’s north and fashioned an urban stronghold in the grime-streaked slums of Karachi. An alliance of scattered Islamist militant groups wanting to dismantle Pakistan’s national government and its perceived Western bias, the TTP has a notoriously criminal past.

In May 2010, one of its trainees tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City’s crowded Times Square. In October 2012, 10 of its ideologues claimed responsibility for shooting teen activist Malala Yousufzai as she rode home from school. And most recently, in December 2014, a gunman affiliate burst into an auditorium where children were taking an exam and commit-

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Violent crime and weak law enforcement threaten many residents of Karachi.

ted Pakistan’s deadliest terror attack since 2007: 132 students, 10 staff members, and three soldiers died in a massacre at the Army Public School and Degree College in Peshawar.

Yet “the TTP in Karachi is a different phenomenon than the TTP in tribal areas of [Pakistan],” maintained Nazia Hussain, a research scholar at George Mason University’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center. They are “politically savvy,” she explained to the HPR, and have “violently edged out the secular ANP.” The Awami National Party, better known as the ANP, is a relatively young political faction—founded in 1986—holding only a single seat in Pakistan’s Parliament.

Comprised mostly of uncompromising Pashtuns, the ANP has surprisingly far-reaching influence. Abiding by its platform of democratic socialism and economic egalitarianism, it attracts many who share these same ideals: in this case, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The MQM is certainly controversial—its founder and leader, Altaf Hussain, has been exiled to the United Kingdom and charged numerous times with extortion—but it is also powerful. As Sindh’s second-largest and Pakistan’s fourthlargest party, its signature flags adorn Karachi’s stone buildings.

These flag-waving, Urdu-speaking urban dwellers—perennially engaged in an on-again-off-again camaraderie with the ANP—are the rivals that Usman seeks to eliminate. The TTP derives its political savvy from a two-pronged strategy. The first aspect is simple; draw strength in numbers. As a Sunni coalition, the TTP benefits from Pakistan’s sectarian paradigm. Followers of Shi’a Islam constitute only 15 to 25 percent of Pakistan’s population, while the remaining 75 to 85 percent are, like the

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TTP, followers of Sunni Islam. It’s no surprise that TTP leaders issue such antagonistic statements as “whom so ever [sic] leads a campaign against Islam and Shariah is ordered to be killed by Shariah.” In broadcasting a stringent ideology, the TTP associates minority Muslims—Shias included—as opponents of Shariah and, in turn, reiterates an “us versus them” dichotomy.

So while TTP leaders themselves conduct major attacks—such as the 2009 bombing at a Karachi march commemorating a Shi’a holy day, Ashura—riled their constituents, avenging personal grievances under the guise of an Islamist campaign, perpetuate sectarianism through individual murders.

“We are now seeing sectarian tensions triggered not only by terrorism incidents,” Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies director Muhammad Amir Rana remarked to the HPR, “but average clashes within the sectarian communities.” With each “average clash”, the TTP gains another vote from the Sunni majority. But these clashes are also born from categories other than religion, namely, class.

TALIBAN JUSTICE On a humid March 2013 afternoon, outside a Karachi suburb, smoke clouds billow from towering factories. Acting as opaque curtains, the clouds shroud a decrepit house and the more than 20 people gathered around it from sight.

The house is a court and the people want prosecution.

They have come to the TTP, who offer mobile justice, to settle a property dispute. A small business owner’s plot of land, they

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insist, was usurped by mafia. The Taliban deliberate for a grueling two hours before adjourning the hearing; the people will have to voice their grievances once more—on a different date and at a different house—for a chance at retribution.

This appeal to the TTP indicates the second part of the Taliban’s strategy: serve as Karachi’s de facto judicial system. Residents—especially more impoverished ones—have, at an alarming rate, become satisfied with this de facto justice. After a man reported a theft in January 2013, for instance, the TTP returned the goods and publicly lashed the alleged thief. Compared to a 28 percent conviction rate in regular Karachi courts, the TTP offers responsive dependability. Subverting legal hierarchies, the party has become, in many ways, Pakistan’s Robin Hood. “It is not a reign that has been accepted with open hearts,” Nazia Hussain explains. “It is a reign justified by necessity and fear. There is a need that is being fulfilled for those who are completely marginalized.”

And Karachi’s police are ill-equipped to meet this need.

Mostly because they, too, have become marginalized, operating under the motto of “kill or be killed.” Sixteen officers have already been murdered by TTP militia in 2015, a grim total on track to reach last year’s number of 142. The numbers indicate that, like the inhabitants of Karachi whom they strive to serve, the police lack adequate resources. With one officer for every 830 individuals—a third of the ratio in Delhi— their limited manpower is rendered worse by government neglect. Despite the police’s two-year long counterinsurgency mission against the TTP, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif refuses to institute a federally funded plan to safeguard officers who are often the targets of Taliban shootings. In a meeting on January 30, 2015, Sharif deflected complaints that armored cars, bulletproof vests, and helmets were given only to elite units and that other units required money to acquire such defensive measures. In one of the most dangerous areas of the city, a police station staffed by 27 officers is responsible for protecting 400,000.

“WHEN THE NIGHT FALLS” On the eve of Election Day in November 2012, a Karachi shopkeeper handed authorities a seven-line handwritten note

with a bullet casing slapped to the bottom. “If you don’t deliver us one million rupees,” it read, “we’ll cut you into pieces and kill your entire family.” The death threat was from a gang—one of many that prowl the streets in search of wealth.

In an environment where the Taliban manipulate vulnerable enthusiasts to assume power and where disgruntled police can neither protect citizens nor themselves, gangs have capitalized on political volatility for socioeconomic gains. This is, however, no new phenomenon in Karachi. Serving as a transit point in the illegal drug trade from India to China during the pre-colonial era, Karachi once again became submerged in transactions when the route reopened after the Afghan-Soviet war. “Small-time gangs,” Hussain explained, “became transnational drug syndicates [because] the passage of opium and heroin … was grown in Afghanistan and transited through Karachi.” Such smuggling has since become politicized with the rise of organized crime, and Karachi remains at the center of slick dealings.

Dawood Ibrahim—pudgy, mustached, and, more often than not, wearing shades that tint ash puffed from his cigarettes—is Karachi’s paragon crime lord. A confidant of Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence, the 59-year-old is India’s worst nightmare. Infamous for orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai grenade attacks, Ibrahim does not shy away from harming his birth nation through the D-Company, his massive crime collective, with headquarters in Dubai and Karachi. Ibrahim’s most recent alleged mission to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonstrates this well. Yet more importantly, perhaps, his amity with the Pakistani government points to motivations other than cash for covert operations—motivations that could land gangs like the one that used the Karachi shopkeeper into positions of political authority. “[Some] gangs nurture political ambitions and also want a seat at the table,” Hussain notes.

The ANP and MQM have noticed. And they are fighting to keep their seats. In a joint petition issued last month, both parties announced their anti-Talibanization and gang program.

Staging a walkout, ANP Senator Shahi Syed demanded Sindh’s provincial government combat “genocide” against Pashtuns.

“Launch a military operation in Karachi to clean it of filth,” he cried. “Don’t force us to pick up weapons.” While it appears that weapons have become a commodity of choice in Karachi, so too have words—they are all politicians have left.

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MONETIZING MOVEMENT MIGRANTS OF THE KAFALA SYSTEM Samuel Plank

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I

n 2022, hundreds of thousands of fans from every corner of the world will descend upon the tiny Gulf state of Qatar to rambunctiously cheer on their favorite soccer teams.

Before the festivities of the FIFA World Cup begin, however, a migration in the opposite direction will take place—a movement of thousands of dead migrant laborers, returning to their native countries in body bags.

The International Trade Union Confederation estimates that over 4,000 workers will die building infrastructure for Qatar’s World Cup by 2022. This staggering figure, however, only reflects the deaths of migrants from India and Nepal, not taking into account the multitude of other Asian nationals laboring in Qatar and the Middle East. Currently, over 600,000 migrants from throughout South and Southeast Asia are at work in the region.

In fact, the plight of South and Southeast Asian workers in Qatar is only one manifestation of the problems generated by the extensive network of migrant labor linking Asia and the Gulf states known as the kafala system. Under the kafala, millions of men and women are contracted in their home countries to work in the Middle East. Migrants are paired with a kafeel, a sponsor who is responsible for bringing the foreigners into the Gulf country and employing them. For the duration of their stay, the workers are legally bound to their sponsor. They cannot change employers or return home without permission.

This system of indentured servitude has led to innumerable

instances of abuse, both in countries that send migrants and those that receive them. Workers are often charged exorbitant recruitment fees, have their pay withheld, and cannot leave the Gulf when they want to return home. In 2014, the United Nations called on Qatar to abolish the kafala. Human Rights Watch has extensively publicized human rights violations in the country as well. However, outcries by foreign states have been largely absent, and without the threat of economic sanctions, most Gulf States have been able to resist significant change.

Intransigent Gulf governments certainly play a central role in perpetuating the injustices that are occurring, but they are not the entirety of the problem. Following the path of migration from villages in Asia to the vast construction projects in the Middle East reveals that abuse of migrants begins at home. At every step of the journey from home countries to the Gulf, private actors profit from the exploitative system of moving workers.

Deceitful contracts, exorbitant recruitment fees, and crippling debt leave migrants in a vulnerable position before they even arrive in the Middle East.

A TREACHEROUS OPERATION To trace the processes of migration under the kafala system, consider the case of a hypothetical Javanese migrant, Bambang.

Bambang lives in a small village in rural Indonesia. There are few employment opportunities around him and he has a family

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to support. Without a good job or much money, he is intrigued when he hears about the opportunity to work in the Gulf. To Bambang, it sounds like the chance to fund his children’s education and to support his elderly parents.

Like any prospective migrant travelling to the Gulf, Bambang must first find a sponsor who will award him a visa. This process is not easy, and either requires a connection to someone already working in the Middle East or the use of a private company that facilitates migration. Dovelyn Agunias, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, spoke with the HPR about the variations in this process. “The trajectory depends on what country you are looking at. For South Asia, most migrants leave on their own through visas that were provided by friends or relatives,” she said. Personal connections can either put migrants in contact with Middle Eastern sponsors or illegally sell them visas directly.

On the other hand, adds Agunias, “for Filipinos, for Indonesians, most of them leave through recruitment agencies, where they apply in the country of origin and the recruitment agent has the visa.” These licensed recruitment agencies take a variety of forms. Some are controlled by Asian nationals, while others are branches of multinational corporations. They make money by connecting migrants with visas to work in the Gulf. Usually, recruitment agencies distribute visas to fill work orders that they have received from a Gulf company. In other cases, they sell visas to migrants for jobs that do not actually exist.

Bambang, lacking the resources to travel, hears about an agent that is coming to his village looking for workers. Seizing the chance, he talks to the agent who describes the glittering towers that are being built in the Gulf and the wealth to be made working on them. Bambang is recruited, and he pays the agent a fee to connect him to a larger agency in Jakarta.

Bambang has dealt with one of the many middlemen that profit from moving prospective migrants to the next phase of their journey. Known as subagents, these middlemen roam the countryside, recruiting in small villages. According to a source with familiarity of the situation who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the subject, recruitment agencies and subagents “target low skilled workers that basically are ignorant and that can be exploited easily.” Because of the fees that migrants must pay to the subagents for helping them find work, high volume recruitment of unskilled laborers is a lucrative business.

Formally, private recruitment agencies should not charge migrants. The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, established in the 1997 Private Employment Agencies Convention that “private employment agencies shall not charge directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, any fees or costs to workers.” The cost should be absorbed by the companies based out of the Gulf that contract workers. In reality however, this is not the case.

Instead of assuming the cost of visas and travel, contracting firms and recruitment agencies shift it onto migrants. Boston

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University international relations professor Noora Lori told the HPR that “even though legally the sponsor is supposed to pay all of the visa fees, what actually happens in practice is that people who are recruiting from that side are already charging migrant workers to pay for these visas.” Migrant laborers who desire to work in the Gulf rarely have the resources to pay these costs up front, and must resort to taking on heavy debt in order to complete the journey.

In some cases, origin-country governments are complicit in the exploitation of migrants. According to the HPR’s anonymous informant, “There is a huge machinery at the source, and many high-level officials are involved in making money through the political economy of recruitment.” Licensed recruitment agencies often have close ties to government figures, or in certain cases are owned by them. Officials also profit off of kickbacks received from agencies.

Beyond these nefarious sources of income, governments benefit from sending migrants abroad because of the sums of money that workers send home to their families. These remittances contribute considerably to the economies of many Asian countries—in Nepal, for example, remittances account for 28.8 percent of the GDP. In the Philippines, the figure is 10 percent. In Pakistan, it’s over six percent. Because of the financial benefits, governments are intricately linked with the network of labor movement that systematically disadvantages so many Gulfbound migrants.

DECEIT UPON ARRIVAL When Bambang finally arrives in Jakarta at the recruitment agency, he is presented with a contract that says he will earn $400 per month. Bambang must take a loan to cover the recruitment and travel costs, but on his new salary, he will be able to afford to make payments and to send money home to his family.

He signs and travels to Qatar.

Once in the Gulf, he is told he will be paid $250 per month.

Bambang tells his sponsor that he had signed a different deal back home. His sponsor tells him that these are the new terms and says he can either work or go back to Indonesia. Heavily indebted, with no knowledge of Arabic or the Qatari legal system, Bambang accepts the new terms and goes to work.

To Bambang, the terms of the contract seemed so lucrative that he was willing to indebt himself so that he could begin working and sending money back to his family. The contracts that migrants sign in their home countries, however, are not always honored once migrants reach the Gulf. Lori observed that frequently, “we’re talking about people who are illiterate, so already there is this barrier, but they’re agreeing upon a certain set of conditions. When they come to the Gulf, they’re dealing with a whole new contract. It’s in Arabic, and the wages are different.”

In the Middle East, workers operating under the kafala have few practical channels for redress. Legally, it is extremely dif-

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Migrants under the kafala system have flocked to Gulf states like Qatar to aid in construction and manual labor.

ficult for workers to bring a suit against their employers because they are constrained by language barriers and the financial realities of a prolonged court battle. Additionally, the system constrains workers from improving their situation outside of the courtroom because of restrictions on collective action such as unionizing and striking. Workers’ passports are often confiscated by sponsor companies, and exit visas are seldom issued, leaving the migrants stranded in the Gulf.

EFFORTS AT REFORM Since international pressure to reform the kafala system has not resulted in substantial economic threats to the Arab countries, these Gulf states have few incentives to offer increased protection to the migrant laborers fueling their economies.

However, countries in South and Southeast Asia, despite the motivations to ship labor abroad, could work more deliberately to protect their citizens’ rights.

Some governments have actively begun work to protect their migrants from exploitation. Notably, the Philippines has succeeded in bargaining for fairer worker treatment overseas by cultivating a skilled workforce and adopting innovative regulations. By sending more nurses and engineers, the Philippines has increased the desirability of its migrants and raised their wages. To protect migrants once they arrive, the Philippines

passed joint liability laws that hold Filipino recruitment agencies accountable for contract violations by a foreign employer. A worker that has been mistreated in the Gulf can sue the agency that arranged their contract in the Philippines.

Reformers have proposed that origin countries require all recruitment agencies and middlemen to be licensed with the governments of the states in which they operate. This would greatly increase the transparency of the migration process and allow government officials to more easily track and hold accountable potential exploiters. Others have suggested that origin countries should negotiate with Gulf states to allow workers to change employers once they have arrived in the Middle East. This, they say, would incentivize sponsor companies to offer better working conditions and higher salaries in efforts to attract labor.

Nevertheless, while bright spots like the programs in the Philippines do exist, the kafala system remains rife with abuse.

Some would suggest doing away with the kafala for all the pain it causes. For many Asians, however, working under the kafala is the best economic opportunity available. As Agunias, a onetime Filipino migrant herself, pointed out, “It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that for many migrant workers, they’re leaving to better their lives.” But while on this path to a better life, laborers are systematically exploited and deceived; not just in the Gulf but also in their home countries, and at virtually every point in between.

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ANTIHERO

by DEFAULT

A CONDEMNATION OF FRANK UNDERWOOD Daniel Kenny [Editor’s Note: This article discusses numerous aspects of seasons one and two of House of Cards and key plot points of Breaking Bad.] “Some people say there’s too much pork in this town. I could not agree more.”

So says Frank Underwolf, Sesame Street’s parody of Frank Underwood from Netflix’s wildly popular political drama House of Cards. Frank Underwolf wants to live in the White Brick House, but first he must huff, puff, and blow down two houses made of straw and sticks. He succeeds, and the three little pigs of this common fable willingly let Underwolf overtake their brick house. The pigs, however, have a plan. They work together to dismantle the brick house, and Underwolf concedes, “Well, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. And this time, the cards were stacked against me.”

But in the real House of Cards, there are no pigs. There is only Frank Underwood.

IT’S UNDERWOOD’S WORLD Underwood weaves a complex web of allies and enemies as he climbs Washington’s political power structure from House Majority Whip, to Vice President, and finally to President of the United States. Through blackmail and deception he manipu-

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BOOKS & ARTS

House of Cards manufactures drama for its own sake: it is like a desperate soap opera that continues, but refuses to develop.

lates an education reform bill, sabotages a trade deal between the United States and China, and uses FEMA money to fund his entitlement reform plan. But some moments are less political and less complex. In the season three opening scene of House of Cards, now-President Frank Underwood urinates on his father’s gravestone. Three episodes later, Underwood spits in the face of a statue of Jesus that hangs on a church cross. Although House of Cards has spent three seasons unfolding a complicated plot dotted with corrupt, unrelenting characters, these two instances tell us all we need to know about the series and its protagonist: they are vile.

Underwood’s house rests upon a tenuous foundation: the cards, it increasingly seems, will topple. Absent of nuance, creator and showrunner Beau Willimon routinely slaps us across the face with heavy-handed symbolism and manufactured melodrama. The show seeks respite in Kevin Spacey’s and Robin Wright’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated portrayals of Frank and Claire Underwood, but they cannot redeem characters steeped in self-indulgence. A character as ridiculous as Frank Underwood can only exist in an equally ridiculous world of mindless treachery—a world Underwood has come to rule.

Congressman Frank Underwood’s slow march to the Oval Office has left some bloody footprints. He murdered innocent Congressman Peter Russo. He pushed reporter—and one of the show’s most developed characters—Zoe Barnes in front of a train. Executive Producer David Fincher is cynical, but surely he must believe in consequences. Instead of experiencing negative repercussions for his villainy, Underwood receives not one but two promotions. And even in Willimon’s twisted conception of Washington, Underwood’s antics amount to just that—villainy. But for some reason, Netflix viewers and political junkies obsess over Underwood. Eric Deggans of NPR rightly proclaims Underwood a villain. “But the scariest revelation of all,” writes Deggans, “is that we're so excited by this antihero turned villain in the first place.” This revelation is less scary than it is telling of the show’s contrived antihero.

ROOTING FOR A VILLAIN Walter White, the central character of AMC’s drama Breaking Bad, might clue us in to the antihero’s appeal. In Vince Gilligan’s popular series, Walter White is the antiheroic protagonist, and

we clearly understand why. At first, the high school chemistry teacher turns to cooking meth in order to pay for his cancer treatment. Although his motives evolve, Walter White’s antiheroic nature is never contrived because he gradually breaks bad and faces genuinely evil protagonists. We have no reason to consider meth distributor Gus Fring or drug kingpin Tuco Salamanca, for example, in sympathetic lights; both torture Walt and threaten his and his family’s lives. Although Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law Hank acts as a primary antagonist to Walt throughout the series, by the time Hank faces his reckoning, we are expected to know that Walt has descended into abject villainy.

But in House of Cards, we have no choice but to root for Frank Underwood, because he always wins. Although Walter White kills for his family, Underwood kills for himself. The only reason we want to see Underwood climb Washington’s power structure is because repeated viewing drives our enjoyment. There is no reason for us to root for Underwood besides our familiarity with him. That’s what makes Walter White an antihero with an impetus, but Underwood an antihero by default.

Antiheroes with impetus warrant sympathy due to the nature of television viewership. Entertainment scholars often cite affective disposition theory (ADT) to explain why audiences identify with a character. According to ADT, we enjoy narratives based on characters’ likeability, their successes or failures, and our reconciliation of the narrative outcome with our own sense of morality. In a 2012 article in the Journal of Communication, scholars Daniel Shafer and Arthur Raney argue that we must have a righteous and defensible reason to root for a character, or else we will experience cognitive dissonance. We are relieved when we watch morality unfold before us; we want the bad to be punished and the good rewarded. But like Walter White and Frank Underwood, not all characters are moral. Antiheroes are protagonists that do not conform to the traditional idea of the morally righteous hero. We know Walter White cooks meth to protect his family, and even though an element of selfishness motivates his drive for money and power, we have seen life trample all over Walt in his early characterization. He is, by all means, a pathetic man at the show’s start.

But Underwood is never pathetic. He always lies, cheats, and murders from a position of power and for purely selfish reasons, yet we return to House of Cards without reservation to

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BOOKS & ARTS

Kevin Spacey tours the House of Cards set with then-Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

binge-watch the latest batch of episodes because we adapt to the psuedo-antihero narrative over time. Moral disengagement allows us to disregard moral standards in light of our own imperfect morality, according to psychologist Albert Bandura. This, in combination with continual viewing, develops an antihero narrative schema. We desperately want to like Frank Underwood because he dominates screen time, so for the duration of the program we discard our unwarranted moral righteousness and delve into an hour or so of delightful but devilish affairs.

Here’s the problem: although moral disengagement explains why we root for antiheroes, both theories presuppose the antihero is one of impetus. However, the seemingly antiheroic Frank Underwood plays protagonist only by default, and an antihero by default can only be a villain. Antagonists in the series exist only relative to Underwood, and they are often more complex, compelling characters.

Consider Congressman Peter Russo. Underwood orchestrates Russo’s campaign for Pennsylvania Governor, and then he topples the campaign by exploiting Russo’s alcoholism and relationship with a prostitute. Underwood convinces Vice President Jim Matthews to run in Russo’s stead, opening a Frank-sized hole in the Office of the Vice President. Perceiving Russo as too much of a liability to his merciless quest for power, Underwood accordingly kills Russo. From any first-time viewer’s perspective, a villain has killed an innocent man. In another context, Russo, Barnes, and, in season three, Heather Dunbar and Jackie Sharp could each be the show’s protagonist. But through the warped House of Cards reality, the opposite has happened. Underwood’s character creates a blurred line between antagonist and protagonist that does not offer the show sophistication; rather, it is evidence of a show—and a character—without clear direction. With this in mind, Underwood seems to wander instead of walk, and his deviousness allows Willimon to drive the narrative continuously forward to no particular destination. Underwood’s motive—a search for power—is vague enough for Willimon to lead us on a march to nowhere.

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THE MARCH TO NOWHERE Our fascination with House of Cards is the result of a baitand-switch. Willimon familiarizes us with Underwood, and Underwood often acknowledges us with one of his signature asides.

We must either tolerate Underwood’s crimes or abandon the show altogether. We are taken with the conniving Frank Underwood, but this does not reveal some great truth about morality in the 21st century. Antiheroes are different, and we like them— just ask any college freshman who hangs a Breaking Bad “I Am The Danger” quote poster in their dorm. Antiheroes like Walter White can challenge and have challenged television convention.

The serial nature of television is prone to reliance on tropes, and antiheroes have helped the medium mature and overcome this reliance. But Frank Underwood serves only to parody these complex characters, and ultimately we will reject this antihero by default. Underwood’s show has dictated its own demise.

“Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose,” says Frank Underwolf, imparting a basic life lesson to child viewers. If the real Frank Underwood wins at the series’ end, House of Cards will collapse in on its glorification of an antihero by default—a villain.

And its ending will suffer from the same contrived nature as Underwood’s antihero status because, throughout the series, no amount of power could satiate him. It would then end because it had to end, just as it continued because it had to continue. If Frank Underwood loses, House of Cards will struggle to explain how a villain so powerful could collapse. If an even greater act of debauchery than his previous two murders brings him down, then Underwood’s invincibility was always a shadow, and this would contradict the show’s premise. But if Underwood simply loses to something greater than him, then what is greater than him? Frank Underwood is God—or so he believes. Who could humble the man who pisses on his father’s grave and spits in the face of Providence? House of Cards manufactures drama for its own sake: it is like a desperate soap opera that continues, but refuses to develop.

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FRESH OFF THE BOAT AND ASIAN-AMERICAN REPRESENTATION Antonia Chan

I

n the opening moments of Ang Lee’s film Eat Drink Man Woman, Chef Chu (Sihung Lung) slits a fish, scales it, slices the fatty pink filets into strips, coats them with flour, and drops them into a sizzling pan of oil, all with the exquisite control of a master musician. Crisp chopping sounds intersperse the upbeat tune of a guqin plucking throughout the background of the scene, and we watch with satisfaction as Chef Chu slices a daikon radish into wafer-thin, perfect white moons.

Maybe “we” is a bit of an overstatement here.

This scene fish-hooked me with childhood nostalgia, for I had grown up hearing the clatter of chopsticks against bowls of sunny egg custard, mapo tofu swimming in fiery oil and sichuan peppercorns. But to the general American audience that first viewed Eat Drink in 1994, it might have seemed charming.

Quaint.

Eat Drink certainly would have seemed less accessible than celebrity chef Eddie Huang’s new show on ABC, Fresh Off the Boat. Adapted from Huang’s 2013 memoir of the same title, the sitcom tells the story of his experience growing up ChineseAmerican in hard-core suburban Florida. Yet in comparison, Eat Drink Man Woman challenges the popular consensus that Fresh Off the Boat sprang out of a vacuum for Asian and Asian-American narratives in American media.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT There are compelling reasons to compare Eat Drink Man Woman and Fresh Off the Boat. They share several basic plot points: both chronicle generation gaps between parents and

children, both feature Chinese protagonists, and both are driven by issues of food (Chef Chu has dysfunctional taste buds; Eddie Huang’s father moves the family from Washington, D.C. to Orlando to open a restaurant called Cattleman’s Ranch). Moreover, the creators of Eat Drink and Fresh Off the Boat have a common occupation: cooking. After Ang Lee graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, he spent six years unemployed as a full-time househusband, preparing elaborate meals in addition to cleaning, child rearing, and scriptwriting.

Eddie Huang opened a successful Taiwanese bun shop called BaoHaus in Manhattan and hosts the competitive cooking show Snack-Off on MTV. The idea of food as both identity and cultural conflict thus saturates Eat Drink and Fresh Off the Boat. The former serves up an obvious metaphor in the form of Chef Chu’s failing sense of taste, which parallels his struggle to understand the romantic and professional entanglements of his adult daughters. Fresh Off the Boat’s first episode subverts stereotypes with Eddie Huang’s father, Louis, as the new owner of a steakhouse rather than a Chinese restaurant. At the same time, Eddie gets ridiculed for bringing noodles instead of the ubiquitous Lunchables box to school. Food’s politics—at once divisive and culturally fluid— make Eat Drink and Fresh Off the Boat a unique pair of lenses through which to analyze American media’s response to AsianAmerican narratives.

The comparison is not a perfect one: Fresh Off the Boat is a TV show funded by a major broadcasting company, while Eat Drink Man Woman was Ang Lee’s personal artistic project. The former is set in 1990s Florida, while the latter takes place in

SUMMER 2015 HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW 41

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1990s Taipei, Taiwan. So why compare apples with oranges?

The two works adapt “minority culture” for general viewing in completely divergent ways. Fresh Off the Boat seeks to make the Asian-American experience appealing and relatable to a mainstream audience. In contrast, Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman seeks (in part) to make American viewers reflect on their understanding of modern Chinese culture. This difference in intent mirrors one in popularity that ultimately silences an older generation’s experiences and stories.

AN ACQUIRED TASTE “Our parents worked in restaurants, laundromats, and onehour photo shops thinking it was impossible to have a voice in this country, so they never said a word,” wrote Eddie Huang in an article in New York magazine on February 4. “This is our ground zero. Network television never offered the epic tale highlighting Asian America’s coming of age; they offered to put orange chicken on TV for 22 minutes a week instead of Salisbury steak ... and I’ll eat it; I’ll even thank them, because if you’re high enough, orange chicken ain’t so bad.”

Fresh Off the Boat undeniably breaks new ground as the first successful show on a major television network with an Asian protagonist. All-American Girl, a previous flop by ABC, starred stand-up comic Margaret Cho and strove to portray cultural clashes within a Korean-American family. Entertainment Weekly panned the comedy for “endorsing ethnic myths” and allowing “stereotypes [to take] the place of humor.” In contrast, Fresh Off the Boat remains one of Tuesday’s top comedies on ABC, with 6.0 million viewers watching its March 3 episode. If the clumsy, sweet, slapstick writing falls short of the “epic” bildungsroman Huang envisioned, Fresh Off the Boat at least succeeds in breaking out of the niche phenomenon category and becoming a mainstream hit.

However, the show’s mass appeal speaks to more than just a preference for sitcoms over foreign art films. The episodes follow a reliable recipe that caters to both general viewers and younger Asian-Americans: culture clash, commentary, and vindication. The culture clash takes place between Eddie Huang and his parents or various members of his mostly-white neighborhood; it serves to amp up the humor and set the stage for commentary. Eddie faces various trials and misadventures that mock

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the explicit and implicit racism in his community, and then he receives vindication. Sometimes we see Eddie get a video game he wants or outwit his nemesis, a cartoonishly egotistical white classmate named Brock. Sometimes we see Eddie gain street cred among his male peers by groping the next-door trophy wife during a block party. The vindication ties up the episode’s moral threads into a neat little bow, and makes Eddie the obvious champion of each conflict he encounters.

Missing from this formula is an exploration of Asian-American parents’ stories. Huang’s interview with New York magazine reflects Fresh Off the Boat’s focus on second-generation immigrants, who can tune in for a reliably familiar plot every week: the stress of report card day; a lecture on the importance of hard work; not being allowed to sleep over at other people’s houses “because,” as Eddie’s mother puts it, “pedophiles.” Yet the adults in Eddie’s family are often reduced to simply issuing witty oneliners or overlooked completely. The series continues to underutilize Grandma Huang, in spite of the fact that in 2013 nearly 28 percent of Asian-American families lived with at least two adult generations under the same roof and grandparents often help with childcare.

Huang himself has criticized Fresh Off the Boat’s “neutered” and “exoticized” depictions of his father and mother, respectively. Although the characters of Louis and Jessica Huang subvert stereotypes and humanize Asian-American immigrant parents, their characterization feels Disneyfied and subordinate to Eddie’s story. Louis Huang’s role seems to be to dispense father-son advice, while Jessica Huang continually bemoans Eddie’s inability to behave like a “good Chinese boy.”

Given Fresh Off the Boat’s 22-minute episodes, this hierarchy of narratives ostensibly makes sense. Eat Drink, in contrast, can support nuanced portrayals of parents and children coming to grips with a brave new world of cultural change, because it has time to meander. The camera lingers over slice-of-life details like the bubbling of crepes on a griddle, traces the elaborate ordeal of dicing and stewing and kneading and plating that Chef Chu goes through each Sunday to prepare the family dinner.

The subplot of his failing taste buds intertwines with his three daughters’ romantic entanglements and growing impatience to leave the family home. From Chef Chu’s denial of his health problems in front of his daughters to a secondary character whose wife and children live in the United States, Eat Drink por-

BOOKS & ARTS

Fresh Off the Boat and Eat Drink Man Woman approach the Asian-American narrative from opposite ends of the age spectrum.

trays a complex and multifaceted view of modern Chinese society to American audiences. Huang’s statement that Fresh Off the Boat’s storyline starts at “ground zero” thus silences filmmakers like Lee, who gave a nuanced voice to an older generation faced with the dual challenge of understanding a new culture and their own children.

The slow-cooking nature of Lee’s films—and others like it— creates a major obstacle to gaining as much media attention as Fresh Off the Boat has. As a result, stories like Huang’s can seem to come out of a vacuum for Asian-American narratives. Broadcasting companies also have incentive to favor young minority television watchers over older ones. University of California, Los Angeles’s Bunche Center for African American Studies found that shows with a 40-50 percent minority cast had the highest median ratings, while shows with less than a 10 percent minority cast received the lowest median ratings. ABC’s release of three such “diverse” family sitcoms in the past year (Fresh Off the Boat, Black-ish, and Cristela) suggests that minority and immigrant children’s stories are here by popular demand—even if their parents’ stories aren’t.

MAKING RACE KOSHER To its credit, Fresh Off the Boat does an excellent job of cheerfully lambasting casual racism against the Asian-American community. Scenes that poke fun at a white neighbor who

“compliments” Eddie on his English, or the group of chirpy, rollerblading suburban mothers that titter at Jessica Huang’s non“exotic” name, would have been controversial prior to shows like Scandal, Modern Family, and now Fresh Off the Boat, which helped normalize conversations about race in popular culture.

But Fresh Off the Boat also shies away from less low-hanging fruit: the privileges Chinese-American children have compared to their immigrant parents, the double pressure of being culturally estranged from both your neighbors and your children.

This contributes to the misperception that there was a lack of nuanced, successful Asian-American stories in American media prior to Huang’s semi-autobiographical sitcom.

Fresh Off the Boat captures the essence of why diversity in media matters—we, like young Eddie, all want to see ourselves as worthy of being protagonists, whether in stories or in real life.

However, lost in translation are the stories of parents and grandparents, who also have claim to labels like the “Asian-American experience.” Including artists like Ang Lee in the conversation around Fresh Off the Boat would not mean sacrificing comedy for commentary. Rather, it would expand the show’s scope beyond seeing Eddie Huang do all the things white protagonists do; it would challenge the audience instead of just having them laugh along; and it would give a more truthful voice to those who are still preparing Sunday dinner in the kitchen, listening to sizzle of fish and the clatter of chopsticks.

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INTERVIEWS

INTERVIEW: GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL with Joe Choe

General Stanley McChrystal served as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008 and became the top commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2009. He resigned from that position in 2010 and is now a member of the Yale University faculty.

What do you believe has been most responsible for your success?

Anything you become or do is a product of the experiences and the people you interact with. I came from a very good family with two parents who were very interested in their six kids. I went to good public schools in Virginia and then had four years at the U.S. Military Academy. But I was also lucky because I was given a good foundation of values. I was especially lucky to be able to work with leaders whose personal example and willingness to spend time guiding me turned out to be so important. And once in a while, some leaders are better than others, but if you’re observant, you learn from all of them. I didn’t come to any brilliant conclusions of my own. I think I was very much an experiential product.

When you hear news about what is going on currently in the Middle East, how do you react? Based on your past experiences, what do you think will happen?

What we are seeing is a product of decades of issues that are coming to some sort of a climax now. What we’ve had is a historical progression of challenges in different types of government, all of which are struggling to maintain legitimacy with the people. And then layered on top of that are economic problems for much of the population and a lack of political and social opportunities. This creates an environment in which there is a significant level of frustration and fear like [is present among] the Sunnis in Western Iraq. When you put all these things together, suddenly other issues rise and become really bad.

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INTERVIEWS

Do you have any specific policy recommendations in order to enact these changes?

Engagement is critical. There’s going to be a temptation to look at places like Yemen, which is undergoing terrific problems right now, and to just simply say, “The stove was hot when I touched it, so I’m going to walk away and wait until my hand cools off.” There is a danger if we back away from the region.

We won’t make it better if we ignore it. We have to stay engaged.

I’m not giving a prescription for military intervention. Engagement is a [combination] of diplomacy and various economic and cultural factors that allow us to have a better understanding of what is happening.

You are known for being very honest in what you say and think. How has this guided you in the military?

Candor is essential. If you ask somebody what time it is, you expect fully that they’re going to give you the accurate time.

If you ask somebody what he thinks about something more complex than that, and you think that he’s giving you an incomplete or deceptive answer, then you have to discount it. If you can’t achieve a level of transparency between individuals and organizations, then you’re almost necessarily going to be far less effective. One of the biggest problems organizations—particularly the U.S. government—have to address is the inability to have effective interactions. Having these interactions is a foundational requirement to problem solving in a group with different perspectives.

You currently teach a seminar called “Leadership” at Yale University. If there is one thing you want your students to take away from this class, what would it be?

I start out the course by saying two plus two does not equal four. This doesn’t represent my weakness in math. What I tell my students is that two plus two equals what the people in the room decide it equals. That was actually my experience throughout my whole career. You can have the best policy recommendation and have a brilliant solution. But when you begin interacting with other people involved and you can’t articulate it, if you can’t convince people, if you haven’t built up trust, they are not going to follow you. I have found a lot of people in my career who would be terrifically frustrated asking why won’t more people understand their solutions. This comes back to the importance of interactions, which is really the essence of leadership—how do you influence people in groups to do things? What we do in my course is look at case studies like the financial crisis of 2008 and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we analyze what were the interactions that actually shaped the outcomes.

What are your thoughts on the rise of ISIS? I describe ISIS as somewhat akin to what happens when somebody gets HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS doesn’t kill you by itself.

Rather, it weakens your immune system so that little diseases that wouldn’t bother an otherwise healthy person suddenly become life-2threatening. ISIS is a proponent of a politically and socially unacceptable level of extremism to almost everyone in the world, but it is having this outsized effect in that region right now. As a consequence, I try to remind people that ISIS is not the problem; ISIS is a symptom of the problem. The real problems are wider and deeper. It’s going to take a decades-long approach to making changes in the Middle East. There has to be cultural, political, and economic changes. That’s going to take a long patient engagement by the entire world.

Do you have any advice for students who may be considering a career serving in the military?

Any time you can get leadership experience, particularly when you’re young, it will be valuable for the rest of your life. Almost everyone I know who served in the military might not like parts of it. They don’t like to be cold, wet, and tired, but almost all walk away saying they are better off having had the chance to lead people. It can shape you. I would tell young people that you don’t have to do it for a career, but in the military you will go in and meet people not from your zip code and not from your economic or religious background. You’ll be put together in an environment and organization where you have to have a common purpose. And you will find that as much as you think you are a leader shaping others, it will actually be you who is shaped by the experience.

You are currently the director of the Franklin Project at the Aspen Institute. Could you describe the work you are doing?

The biggest thing I am pushing now is the concept of citizenship and the importance of all young Americans doing a year of service. It does not have to necessarily be in the military. It could be anything from conservation to Teach For America to healthcare. But I believe that it is not the service you do that matters; it is the effect on the individuals when you serve. If people do a year of service, they come out differently. For example, statistics show that these people vote [at] three times the rate of people who haven’t served. It starts with the idea that if I have invested my time and effort in society, I’m going to be a better citizen for the rest of my life. I find that very true, so I am really urging all young people to take that course. We will become a better country because of this.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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INTERVIEWS

INTERVIEW: CHRISTINE QUINN with Emma Kromm that than there used to be.

Now I think the affirmative consent [policy] comes out of all the work that everyone has done. … This is, I think, moving us forward on the societal march that sexual violence is not acceptable, we won’t tolerate it, and actually having “yes means yes” is critical in moving forward to a place where we end sexual violence.

Harvard has implemented a new sexual assault policy this year after being under investigation by the Department of Education for Title IX violations. Professors from Harvard Law School have said publicly that the policy goes beyond the stipulations of Title IX. They say that it’s stacked against the accused because it doesn’t give the accused the right to learn charges, and it doesn’t provide adequate representation for the accused, and they don’t have the chance to provide a defense at a hearing.

Christine Quinn is a special advisor to New York governor Andrew Cuomo in charge of developing a statewide policy for sexual assault on university campuses. She previously served as the first female and first openly gay Speaker of the New York City Council.

She is currently a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics.

The law that you’re working on with Governor Cuomo includes an affirmative consent clause.

Do you think that this provision is necessary to have an effective sexual assault policy?

I think an affirmative consent, kind of a “yes means yes [clause],” is critical. And I think part of how we as a society deal with, tolerate, accept, don’t accept, reject the idea of sexual violence has changed over time. I don’t like to use the word “evolve,” because that makes it sound like there haven’t been a lot of people fighting and pushing, which there have been, but it [has] changed. And it’s not perfect, it’s not where it should be, but on the issue of victim blaming there’s less of

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Look, I can’t speak to the specifics of the Harvard policy.

That said, in the work I’ve been doing, I think there is a real confusion—and I’m not surprised to hear this from the Law School. … People who are victims have the right to go to criminal court if they want to, and I support that and I would urge as many as possible to do that. But when Harvard University or the State University of New York takes actions, that’s not a criminal setting. So even [regarding] the kind of concept of defense attorneys being provided, this is not a criminal setting. …

This is not a criminal law, this is not what that is. Victims have that right, but this is not what that is.

Two, we’re talking about a policy here, or, we’re talking about a system here, which for God knows how long has denied that [sexual assault] has even happened, and where the victims had no voice, no standing. I find it so curious that there’s this movement of sorts on behalf of alleged perpetrators. I don’t really understand it, honestly. They have held all of the cards, the victims have been presumed to be liars, in my opinion.

So I can’t speak to the specifics here, but look: there are a lot of smart people at Harvard Law School, I’m sure. And if they are really interested in the nuts and bolts of this, then [they sould] tweak the policy. Propose solutions. Get at the table with the president of the College and Our Harvard Can Do Better [a Harvard student-run anti-sexual violence organization], and try to find something. Nobody’s looking to do anything unfair to any student. But we’re talking about people here who are committing a horrible act that will forever—

INTERVIEWS

notwithstanding that people make unbelievable recoveries in their lives—will forever change that victim, let’s make no doubt about it. And for decades and decades and decades those perpetrators have gotten off scot-free, and that has to come to an end.

What are some misconceptions that you think people have about sexual assault at colleges?

Well, I think a misconception people have about sexual assault generally, which you really see played out in colleges, is that it’s about sex. That it’s just a sexual encounter that went a little too far and one person was confused. Sexual violence is not actually about sex. It’s about power and control. And that’s a critical thing we have to understand.

Two, I think there’s a bit of an attitude at colleges that everything can be written off by people having drank too much.

People who are not sexual assaulters can be three sheets to the wind, and they’re not going to sexually assault anybody.

And you can have a sexual encounter when you drank too much that isn’t sexual assault. But everything gets written off as “they just had too much to drink.” That’s not a defense, that’s not accurate. …

And I also think there is this idea [that] “kids will be kids.”

This isn’t a childlike act. This is not sexual experimentation; we are talking about sexual violence here.

cannot lead this.” But I think when other people speak out, there’s also the opportunity for other people to come out and be—I don’t like the word “bystander,” I like to use the word “upstander”—so I think there’s an opportunity for people to be upstanders, to take their skill set, whether it’s research or it’s writing or art, to move the issue forward.

How do you think the situation will change in the next decade?

Well, I think you’re going to see more and more state university systems, and more and more states, take the kind of action that we’ve taken at the State University of New York and we will take in the next few months at the New York state legislature. I also think that we will see the federal government, in the Senate and in Congress, take more action as well, but I think you probably first will see more [individual] colleges and universities be forced to do it, then more state universities doing it, then more states, and eventually the federal government after that.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Why do you think that sexual assault on college campuses has gained so much attention recently?

Why do you think students have been protesting it so much more?

Well, I think society for a while now has been working on the issue of sexual violence, and advocates and survivors and elected officials and others have done good work in bringing this issue out of the shadows and working against victim blaming and victim shaming. And we’ve made progress in that area and I like to think that [this] progress has been helpful for college students to feel like they can start to come out of the shadows. …

And perhaps most significantly, there have been brave people, particularly very brave women, who have stepped out and taken an enormous risk. And we know from history that when one person does that, it creates the opportunity and the ability for other people to do that.

And also, I think with something like this, people think, “Well, I was not a victim or survivor of sexual assault, so I

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ENDPAPER

ON HARVARD LIBERALS Daniel Backman

H

arvard occupies a peculiar place in the American political spectrum. Browsing the conservative media and blogosphere, it takes almost no time at all to come across an article berating elite American universities as bastions of unchecked, militant liberalism. For many, this criticism extends to all (non-religious) colleges, or as surprisingly durable Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called them, “indoctrination mills.”

In this view, liberal arts degrees, like those that Harvard College confers, encourage an unthinking rejection of tradition, religion, and the norms that hold a moral society together. Cadres of leftist professors preach radical identity politics and shelter students from opposing viewpoints. And they produce, the story goes, hyper-politicized progressives with diploma, hammer, and sickle in hand. President Nixon liked to call Harvard the “Kremlin on the Charles,” and many conservative Harvard students, alumni, and professors are quick to offer up some version of this critique.

Spend some time reading or talking to folks on the left, and you get a very different, though often no less critical, stance on these elite institutions, and Harvard in particular. To them, Harvard is the epitome of tradition and the establishment. An obscenely wealthy institution built by slaves, which inordinately profits off of fossil fuels and holds the dubious distinction of graduating the most future billionaires of any university, Harvard clings tightly to the status quo and molds its students to do the same.

If anything, these critics say, Harvard students are far too apolitical: even though most identify as liberal and vote Democrat, their version of politics is sitting in air-conditioned, wood-paneled classrooms, endlessly playing devil’s advocate as if nothing more than a grade were at stake. Far from revolutionaries or even activists, Harvard graduates file into the top ranks of institutions that perpetuate social inequities—be they on Wall Street, in the corporate world, or in government or nonprofits— and leave whatever “critical theory” they learned for cocktail party banter.

Perhaps it’s unremarkable that the left and right wings differ on, well, anything. But as a politically engaged Harvard student and, frighteningly soon, alumnus, I have come to see both of these viewpoints as useful for thinking about my own politics and the political ethos of this place.

Now, I’m rarely one to take a split-the-difference approach to politics, and I sympathize much more with the latter perspective than the former. Most Harvard students, myself included, arrive on campus with significant privilege. We are, on average, much wealthier than the typical American, and we grew up surrounded by others with similarly comfortable circumstances. Though I can’t speak for my classmates, I know I arrived on campus wholly ignorant of how much of the world works and how most people experience it. Were it not for the diverse, nontraditional

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perspectives of my “liberal” courses and peers, I could easily have graduated even more sheltered and myopic than when I arrived. Privileged perspectives are limited ones, and any college that does not compel its students to question them fails in its most basic social duty.

Left critics of Harvard students’ political inaction are also right that too many of us stop there. We can write convincing essays on the injustices of the world around us, yet we recoil at the notion of taking steps to change them. Despite my own activist involvements, I still find myself instinctively uncomfortable with loud protest. To a large degree, this reflects my stake in the status quo as a Harvard student, with achievements that our society rewards immensely. Yet for all my efforts to eschew privileged ideologies and empathize with others, I cannot separate my support for social justice from the constant critique, skepticism, and humility that brought me to it. Over my four years here, I have found that to be the case for most students: we support living wages and union rights, but the research on potential unemployment effects incites just enough doubt to keep us quiet. We recognize the crisis of climate change and have a great deal of sympathy for divestment, yet something in the back of our minds always says, “What if this will not work? What if there’s a better way?”

For most of us, the question is not just whether we care enough or are willing to take risks for others—though that is surely part of the story. Rather, our discomfort with the unrelenting insistence on a particular position springs from the intellectual humility to know that social change is complex and can have unintended, even harmful consequences. And though this may sound like rank, status-quo conservatism, it is in fact what distinguishes us liberals from the closed-mindedness that we criticize on the right. More than that, it reflects an awareness that chances for true social change come all too rarely, and thus that we should ensure that the changes we advocate can actually accomplish the goals we have set out. At its best, this caution is not a call for inaction or incrementalism, but rather an insistence on effectiveness.

Ultimately, the far right is wrong to characterize college liberalism a project of unthinking, brainwashed youth. On the contrary, I have rarely met an activist at Harvard unwilling to engage in critical dialogue or acknowledge the imperfections in their strategies. Social activism at its finest constantly asks questions, seeks new perspectives, and changes course when the facts so require. We Harvard liberals, myself included, must be more willing to join this debate on the ground rather than merely pontificate from the sidelines.

Yet the conservative hype does offer a reminder, if only by counterexample, to never abandon that skepticism that liberalism and effective social justice require. We must continue to build an activism that conflicts not with intellectualism but only with injustice, not because little is at stake, but because everything is.

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