Debt

360 Magazine

The Debt Issue Issue 6 Fall 2011

The Debt Issue STAFF MEMBERS Editors-in-Chief Carolyn Cutrone, Sam McCann

Managing Editor Natalie King

General Editors

Isabel Galupo, Cady Lang, Kristin Leffler

Design Editors Julia Cicale, Samantha Mason

Contributing Artists/ Designers Clara Goldman, Stephanie Sang, Dana Rivera, Abbey Lind

Contributing Photographers Jessica Santos, Amanda Reffsin, Gena Mangiaratti, Pete Blanchard, Katie Lannan

Cover Artist Lauren DeCicca

Advisor

Todd Schack

Disclaimer:

The ideas and opinions of the articles in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the entire 360 staff or Ithaca College.

Special thanks to: The Student Government Association, for funding the magazine.

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MISSION STATEMENT

The goal of 360 Magazine is to tell stories. Whole stories. Stories told journalistically and creatively, inside and out, up and down. If a hot story walks into our bar, 360 isn’t up for a one-night stand, honey ... we’re in it for the long haul. Let’s buy a house and make babies.

The idea of storytelling is one too often oversimplified. We believe that no story can be told fully from the standpoint of one writer or one perspective.

As such, our staff chooses only one story to be told and retold and retold from a chorus of perspectives, bringing shade and depth to the way we communicate the vast and gorgeously diverse around us.

To that end, this issue we’ve “settled down” with one of the most pressing stories of the last few months: debt. Since the Occupy movement took hold in September, interest in the concept has picked up considerably, with people in all corners of the globe lamenting the current financial system.

New Yorkers “occupy,” Greeks resist the increasing pressure to succumb to more austerity cuts and debt, and even Ithacans pitch into the global struggle. This fall, students staged their own general assemblies, walked out of class in protest, and discussed their own student loan debt in public settings.

It wasn’t always like this. When we tossed around story ideas over the summer, we eventually settled on debt because of the contrived “debt ceiling” crisis dominating the news in late July. We expected the topic to be contained pretty easily to the political; after all, at the time discussion of the financial was removed from the public discourse, limited to the brinksmanship in the halls of Congress.

But the last few months have seen the American public engage in earnest discussions. Sure, the Occupy movement may not have yielded any “demands” or produced any reform; right now, it’s an expression of anger, and that’s okay. The anger is where we need to start: an earnest expression of feeling. And perhaps it’s the sorts of discussions born out of anger that yield change.

We hope this issue can contribute to that discussion, and perhaps even broaden it a bit. We’ve got plenty on the financial end, such as Natalie King’s account of her own personal student debt, but we also hope to emphasize the debt that pervades daily life. Take, for instance, Drew Kellogg’s look at his struggle with anxiety and debt to help himself, Sam McCann’s examination of the obligation to honesty in advertising colleges to minority students, or Carolyn Cutrone’s piece on an ex-German soldier’s debt to his own past. People are submerged in debt constantly, and it’s not just financial.

Many of us are angry, and the global discussion produced by this anger is all we have right now. If we’ve done our job, this issue will fuel our collective anger-- and discussion-- as we take a more critical look at the structures that create all sorts of debt.

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? LOVE LETTERS? VIOLENT DISAGREEMENTS? EMAIL US: ic360magazine@gmail.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS All Eyes on Zuccotti Park.....................4

By Pete Blanchard

Chained Up.......................................6

By Cady Lang

Free for All........................................8

By Natalie King

Open Your Eyes and Sleep.................10

By Isabel Galupo

Nurseries of Life...............................12

By Stephanie Feely

Through the Cracks...........................15

By Jessica Santos

In a Different Light...........................18

By Carolyn Cutrone

Underneath the Mask........................20

By Gena Mangiaratti

Up In Smoke....................................22

By Natalie King

Be Careful What You Drink For...........24

By Patti Morin

Color Me In......................................26

Breaking the 9 to 5..........................29

By Katherine Alexander

Pour Some Sugar on Me..................30

By Kayla Dudden

Keeping it in the Family....................32

By Allie Healy

Without a Compass.........................34

By Timothy Bidon

My Father’s Keeper...........................36

By Megan Devlin

Ready: To Feel Like a Minority?.........39

By Sam McCann

Keeping the Family Hull....................42

By Kristin Leffler

A Savage Fiction..............................45

By Brittany Smith

Beyond the Bars.............................48

By Cain Azar

Upstate..........................................50

By Ben Litoff

By Drew Kellogg

“Victim of Debt” by Stephanie Sang 3

ALL EYES ON

ZUCCOTTI PARK

How Zuccotti Park became the epicenter of a global movement Article and Photography

By Pete Blanchard Occupy Wall Street Crowd

We are the 99 percent.

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If there’s one slogan that can be tied to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, this is it. For the most part, it’s a jubilant scene at New York City’s Zuccotti Park, a small space that was first occupied by protestors on September 17th and has only gained momentum since.

It was an exceptionally windy October night when I arrived at the plaza. Thankfully, I was not alone.

I came to the movement with two friends from Ithaca College, one who had already camped out at the protest on two different occasions, the other a curious freshman. A general assembly meeting was taking place at the southwestern corner of the park, where I first witnessed the implementation of the “human mic.” The human mic is public speaking method by which one person states a few words, which are then repeated by a group of people so that everyone can hear the message without sound amplification.

It’s a very effective and creative way of getting around laws against noise violations, but it can also be repetitive and, quite frankly, terribly annoying.

Nevertheless, it’s an essential way of communicating to protestors, and you get used to it.

After taking a walk through the

park, we found a sufficient spot to build a makeshift fort. My friend began rolling up pieces of cardboard to create a support column, and I followed suit. While reaching for a piece of cardboard, I inadvertently grabbed a grease-soaked plastic sack that appeared to have rotting chicken inside.

Disgusted, I haphazardly tossed the bag onto the sidewalk, leaving it for someone else to clean up. Having seen that I was the culprit, a passerby picked up the bag and handed it back to me. I couldn’t help but feel ashamed. The selfishness of my act forced me to reflect on what I had just done. I had been in the park for no more than 15 minutes and already I had committed the indecent act of littering. It also made me realize the key element that keeps this movement together: organization.

If you decide to go to Zuccotti Park, you’ll be surprised to find that it’s a relatively small plaza to accommodate such a large and growing movement.

Formerly known as Liberty Plaza, the 33,000 square foot of space in New York City’s financial district has become the headquarters for a growing global movement against unchecked corporate greed. For a movement that’s been compared to Woodstock, the occupation is well-organized

enough to meet basic necessities of the protestors. There is a different working group for just about anything you can imagine: food is prepared at an off-site kitchen and brought to the center of the park throughout the day; medical assistance is available to those who are injured or fall ill; sanitation is vital to maintaining the space; security personnel are present to mediate any conflict. There’s even a free library full of mostly politically-driven literature, including books by journalist Amy Goodman, liberal thinker Noam Chomsky, and seemingly endless copies of “Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport: The Ultimate Volunteer Handbook,” by Arthur Blaustein.

Some people sat on a Greyhound bus for 20 hours just to get here, like 22-year-old Eddie Jarrett-Clark.

“I came here because I’ve heard all my life about what a beautiful country America is, and what kind of opportunities there are to be had, but I’ve never really seen anything in my lifetime to convince me of that,” JarrettClark says. “I’m here trying to find confirmation that beauty still exists in this country. And I think that’s what is happening right here is an extraordinarily beautiful thing.”

For Jarrett-Clark, student debt is not an issue. He made a conscious

decision after graduating high school that he would not go on to higher education.

“I never wanted to pay out the ass or be eye-balls deep in debt for the rest of my life to have somebody teach me things that I could more effectively teach myself.”

To educate himself, he watches the news (when he’s not living in a park) or he reads (when he’s not working).

In a way, the movement itself is an educational playground, or as JarrettClark calls it, a “Socratic seminar, all day every day.”

Jonathan Smucker is a small business owner from Rhode Island.

As an organizer here, Smucker works for media facilitation, which connects journalists that come to the protests with well-informed representatives of the movement.

Part of his job is to make sure that mainstream media outlets are talking to the right people.

“News outlets have cut their budgets for investigative reporting.

Reporters aren’t really set up to do the job that they want to do,” Smucker says.

“It’s really important to get our message out by talking to reporters.”

Smucker thinks that mainstream media coverage of the protest could be improved.

“Some reporters are doing a fair job. But in general, the media is consolidated. They’re part of this process of the consolidation of wealth and power in this country.”

The biggest criticism of this movement has been the lack of cohesive demands. This has been a strategic effort on the part of organizers. Once you make an official demand, you immediately isolate some people, and the movement cannot be as strong.

But the openness of the movement also invites its own problems. The topic of discussion for general assemblies can turn from to tax loopholes to toilet paper very quickly. I grind my teeth at the sight of dancing hippies.

Maybe a five-hour continuous drum circle isn’t the most effective method to solve America’s financial crisis. For every articulate, passionate person that I spoke with, there was someone who was there just to have a place to sleep.

I couldn’t help but wonder how these protests would fare one month or two months from now, when tem-

peratures drop to below freezing. The comfort working group is tasked with providing protestors blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, band-aids, and basic medications like Tylenol and aspirin.

Sparrow Kennedy, a New Orleans native who has been an organizer for comfort since week one, says she is optimistic that the protestors will make it through the winter.

“We have been testing various products for the winter for the past three weeks, and we’ve come up with some products that are going to be beneficial for the community during the winter,” Kennedy said.

OccupyWallSt.org, the unofficial

organization representing the movement, has received over half a million dollars in monetary donations, not to mention contributions in the form of nutrition, comfort, and shelter.

“We got all kinds of support. We’re going to withstand a whole lot more than cold,” Kennedy says.

For Jarrett-Clark, the tipping point that made him join the movement was watching the arrest of 700 protestors on the Brooklyn Bridge on the eve of October.

“That was when I said to myself, ‘I need to be there.’”

And he doesn’t plan on returning home anytime soon.

“I’ve always wanted to live in New York City. And the fact that this is going on, if I left having been here a little over a week, it just wouldn’t feel right. I would really regret it.”

As I walked away from Zuccotti Park, unsure of when I would ever return, I felt a familiar sense of guilt, as if I was abandoning this movement altogether. I would return to a privileged life, studying at a private institution. I thought of Jarrett-Clark, someone my age who left everything he had in Indiana to join a cause he believed in. Why should I feel glad when others have it so bad? My inspiration after having seen so many passionate people was also accompanied by a sense of despair, that I could never do enough. I walked away still feeling indebted to a society that has given me so much, to a family that has offered me nothing but comfort and support, to a country that I can call home. After watching hundreds of protestors working together to initiate the changes that I would like to see in America, I felt forever indebted to contribute all of my energy to a cause in which I could believe.

Note: Story was written before the police raid on Zuccotti Park on the early morning of November 15th.

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Chained Up:

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Sarah Mason emerges from a small tent pitched in downtown Los Angeles at 7 AM. The early morning air is surprisingly crisp for a city known for its smoggy disposition. While the area is far from silent, the relative early morning quiet is a departure from the cacophony of urban sounds that will soon develop as Los Angeles wakes up. A smattering of tents, varying domes of gray nylon, punctuated by royal blues, oranges and reds band together to form a village in the middle of Los Angeles.

The tent that Sarah leaves looks like any other gray nylon camping tent from the outside, of a nondescript size and description; however a quick peek inside reveals a bohemian paradise, complete with tapestries, blankets and pillows in rich earthy tones, candles and picture frames. It’s a cozy haven where one can hide from the chaos of a bustling day in downtown Los Angeles.

But the day must begin. Mason tidies her tent and cleans her area. She pushes her inky dark hair and bluntly cut bangs off of her face as she helps her fellow tent-dwellers greet the day by cleaning the area they occupy.

The hot, bright sun chases away the morning and begins to beat down on the pavement and the palm trees that dot this west coast metropolis. By 10 AM she’s answering questions from inquisitive passers-by, offering lucid explanations for the movement that’s sweeping the United States from coast to coast. These tent dwellers are on the forefront of a revolution, pitching their nylon tents in one of the most glossy, materialistic cities in the nation. But for Mason, in this moment, the grandiose significance of the movement is out of her sight. Today is merely another day as an active participant of Occupy Los Angeles.

A nearby tent bears a bedraggled piece of white computer paper held tenuously by masking tape that reads: “Why can we afford wars and Wall

Sarah Mason accumulated thousands of dollars in credit card debt and has no intention of paying it back

Street bailouts but our education system is broken?” This aptly sums up Mason’s own involvement in the Occupy Los Angeles movement. Her passion for debt activism stems from her own personal struggle with debt, which she incurred while attending Northern Arizona University.

“I think the Occupy Wall Street Movement has shown that a lot of attention has been going to the fact that students have made an investment in their educations, then they come to the real world and they realize that that investment is essentially worthless,” she states emphatically.

Mason’s straightforward attitude is apparent when she speaks, articulating strongly about student debt and debt in general, easily tossing in terms like “neo-liberal capitalism” and “restifying and disparifying wealth” while waxing about private loans and public education.

Her strong belief in this cause is also what motivated her to move downtown and camp in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

“I saw this as a unique opportunity to organize and collaborate with people who had a very broad sense of the activist work that needs to be done. People recognize that it’s going to take more than nominating a particular candidate, it’s going to take more than just passing a law, it’s actually going to be a long term struggle against a system and an ideology and that’s what inspired me to go and move down to the front lines of Occupy LA,” she said. And for Mason, living on the front lines of Occupy Los Angeles is key to actively contributing to the movement.

By Cady Lang However, Mason’s debt experience differs from many of those that are occupying across the nation.

While she is still paying her student loans, she adamantly refuses to pay her credit card debt.

“I still have debt and I’m not paying it back because I feel like at this point, I have an obligation to try and disrupt and upset the financial industry, the credit industry. This industry is built off of the belief that it is okay to exploit poor people in order to make a profit,” she said. “Just like any other service or product that you disagree with or have an issue with, you have the right to boycott it or use your power or your capital to speak out or take action against such industries,” she included determinedly.

Her unabashed attitude falters slightly, however, when asked about how she incurred significant personal debt. What began as an overspending problem became more severe, beyond rationality and bordering on addiction.

“Each paycheck that I would get, I would overspend. I got a credit card

Photography courtesy of Sarah Mason

because I had no money and I needed a credit card to buy things that were essential to my life during this time.

I had already spent all this money on clothes, make-up, accessories, and I got the credit card because I needed to pay my electric bill. Bank of America offered it to me, so I was like, ‘Yeah, of course – I’ll pay my electric bill with it.’ And then of course, I just started using it recklessly, thinking initially I would be able to pay it back.”

Mason’s voice lowers and loses its emphatic quality as she considers the different factors in her life that may have contributed to her spending problem. Insecurity, social messages, an eating disorder – the various influences pour out of her mouth, hesitantly at first before gaining momentum. She concedes that her problem stems from consumption, making sure to note that the capitalistic system in American society encouraged that attitude. As she speaks, her voice gains timber and shakes off the vulnerability of the previous statement. She regains focus and her strong activist spirit is once more apparent.

“The reality is that, of course, what compelled me to buy clothes and make-up and all of these things was insecurity and a feeling of being inadequate. It was how I wanted to present myself a certain way, While some of that was a part of having an eating disorder, it was ultimately about being insecure and I think at the bottom of that, I think that some of it – most of it was feeling inadequate and insecure and feeling pressure to look a certain way. It was also that you’re just surrounded by these messages telling you to buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume.”

Mason is quick to assess that weakness though, noting that she still struggles now with spending. Her current job is at an art gallery in Santa Monica, where she’s felt the pressure to keep up appearances.

“I frequently find myself walking around stores in the mall, ready to make big purchases, and buy impulsively just because I feel insecure. In line, I make myself reflect, and then I’m like, ‘no,’” she explains.

The issue of her deliberately unpaid debt, however, is not at rest. Her parents and her girlfriend all disagree

with her unpaid credit card bills. Still, she maintains that refusing to pay her debt is the right decision.

“Why would I miss this opportunity to directly damage the people who are taking advantage of those of us in society who don’t have access to financial capital? Why would I miss this beautiful opportunity to say, ‘no, you don’t get your money back.’?”

And like that, she’s off, listing reason after reason in a rapid-fire manner of why she can stay in debt.

With an incredulous laugh, Mason exclaims, “It’s easy not to pay your debt! Nothing can happen; I really don’t know what the system is because if you accumulate billions of dollars in debt like Washington Mutual or the Greek or Irish government, apparently you just get a clean break...

If you have assets, people can seize them, but if you don’t have assets, what are they going to take? Your college degree? If you take out a loan to buy a car, they can take your car and sell it for money,,, but really, what are they going to take?”

Her voice builds in intensity as she considers the possible ramifications of ignoring her debt.

“When these private credit cards lend you money, they are taking a risk.

They make money off this bad shit, so why am I going to walk around and feel like this moral obligation to pay them back? I refuse to participate in that,” she says. “The reality is that people in this country live like this everyday, whether it’s because they haven’t had a stable address or they’re undocumented, there are millions of people in this country without access to liquid capital. It’s really the

last thing that I should be concerned about. There are far bigger issues to worry about than access to money.”

However, for better or for worse, Mason lives in American society, a capitalistic society. Her dreams for the future, which include getting her graduate degree and working as a college professor will only be possible, debt-free, with the help of a fellowship or scholarship. She realizes that this may not be possible, going so far as to say, “I don’t want to have any more student loan debt at all, so if I can’t get those things, I will not go to graduate school. I don’t want to pretend like I’m 100% confident in my decision, but these are the things that I’ve been thinking about while I’ve been faced with the decision to pay off these debts.”

Mason has made her decision.

Today, she will attend the general assembly meeting for Occupy Los Angeles after she returns from a long day of working at the art gallery. She’ll continue to live in Los Angeles as long as the Occupy movement is going strong. She’ll continue this routine, working and educating others about debt and the Occupy movement.

She’ll continue to refuse to pay her credit card debt, a personal decision that she has made and continues to stand by.

“Whether it’s refusing to pay back debt or going out and lobbying Congress, people need to make a personal decision themselves about this and they need to make it thoughtfully because people like me and you and other students are literally chained to their debt.”

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Free For All

Never have I ever stared at a blanket for so long in my life. It was laid out perfectly, crisp and taut with no frayed edges. Tall blades of grass towered over it on all four sides, as if to protect it from any disruption.

It took me about four minutes to realize that, underneath the piles of science fiction DVDs, rotary telephones and shrunken T-shirts, the blanket was wool. On that unbearably blistering day, that blanket – like most everything else in the park, myself included- was completely out of place.

The blanket and the abandoned belongings it cradled were at one of many stations featured at the Allston Do It Yourself Festival, a celebration of free culture. Prepared to face a sweltering Saturday afternoon of art, music, and hipsters galore, I trekked across Boston in my grungiest dress, carrying hardcover books to contribute to the free market. I spent a lot of time staring at the blanket, puzzled not only by the fact that my copy of The Lacuna paled against the Spanish language romance novels, but because the blanket was completely covered in stuff that was all free. Literally.

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I had seen piles like these before at the end of spring semester when the air hangs undecidedly between crisp and heavy mid-May, and the dorms empty out like tumbled Jenga towers.

All of the fun memories out, and everyone’s unwanted mess left behind in “take it or leave it” piles for someone else to organize. Unlike those piles, this blanket was covered in original crafts and vintage items. Definitely not somebody’s unwanted seconds.

Originating in Europe, the DIY movement celebrates the open exchange of ideas, materials, and services without commodity. Egalitarian reciprocity at its most basic, a bustling art movement at its finest, the DIY movement aims to free individuals of the shackles of capitalism. And it’s catching on in America like wildfire. It is like layaway based on the spirit of trust.

Unlike the arts and crafts activities of the nineties, the DIY movement

By Natalie King has become more political, an act of severing reliance on mass production and consumerism. The organizer of the Allston Festival, Liz Pelly, sees it as a new motivation.

“It’s informal – there are no leaders.

Everyone has an equal opportunity to act and create, to provide opportunities for others without expectations.”

Pelly decided to organize the event after studying abroad in Dublin, Ireland the previous summer. Free music and art shows coupled with a network of artists in the community provided her with many opportunities to pursue creative endeavors, such as DJ-ing sets before concerts or at local clubs.

These opportunities, she says, were invaluable because they came with no expectations –just people genuinely interested in supporting arts and culture.

Across the park, more blankets lay out in the hot sun. On it, bodies were sprawled–cross-legged, laid out, hunched over with chins in hands.

Soft strums of an acoustic guitar gently fill the air, hums and words following faintly. In the center of the circle is a woman by the name of Amy and her one-woman show. To get to the acoustic circle – one of two musical stages – you climb a rocky hill overgrown with weeds that scratch your legs at the faintest brush. Except at the top, the trees are shady, the grass

is cushion enough, and the air is hazy with relaxation and weed.

“That one was by and for all of you,” Amy says to the mingling crowd.

It might seem like an airy comment, save for the fact that the group snapped, clapped, and swayed to a tempo all their own. Such unspoken collaboration is integral to the movement, whether in an impromptu song or a daylong festival.

Pelly and several friends proposed a free festival after a successful showing of a DIY documentary early in the summer. The group decided to secure a spot and see what manifested thereafter.

“We secured a park permit for the day, which was about $150,” Pelly murmured while passing out free hand-drawn maps of the event she printed herself. “Once we got the permit, we posted an event on Facebook and like most events, it spread.”

Messages and wall posts poured in from friends and strangers alike, offering tips and services to build the event.

“People kept saying they were going to do this and that, and bring whatever they had. And we just didn’t respond, for the sake of wanting to see what would actually happen.”

Though the trees were plentiful, proper shade was not. To find a place to cool down, one had to venture to the adjacent elementary school, where more free culture awaited along the walls. Sakas, a local artist, worked in focus and silence, painting masks one by one for a wall mural he mounted for the day.

I stood there and watched, as I had done most of the day, as passersby walked up and touched the masks, occasionally taking one or several.

Slowly, the mural was deconstructed, random gaps filling in for lost faces.

And just as slowly, they were replaced.

Right next to the mural, cases of ice-cold water bottles were stacked, free for the taking. While the temperature eclipsed the nineties, there was no rush for hydration. Just calm yet interested individuals taking their

respective turns.

Back in the center of the park, lines were orderly just the same, this time for salvaged food from local restaurants. Like each person in the line, each plate of food was completely unique, a grab-bag of sorts for the strong-stomached.

“This is the most impressive [part],” Pelly said. This time she’s hula hooping on the sidewalk, the toys also free.

“I mean, when you’ve got free food for people, you know you’re successful.”

As the afternoon fades into evening, the music grows louder. This time, humming is replaced with auto-tune; screams are favored over claps. The energy snowballs until audience members are pulled to the makeshift stages for a round of popcorn microphone. Two bicycles pedaled by volunteers provide power for Christmas lights strung through trees. Most of the attendees will clear in the next two hours, and while real jobs and real responsibilities will greet them in the morning, the ideas promoted by the festival are far from lost.

Photography by Katie Lannan

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Open Your Eyes and Sleep

By Isabel Galupo

As I walk into The Ithacan office on a Tuesday afternoon, a surprisingly tranquil scene greets me. Aaron Edwards, the Editor-in-Chief of Ithaca College’s award-winning newspaper, lightly rests the side of his head against his palm, which has made its home on the surface of his desk. He is editing proofs for The Ithacan, which is due to go to print at 10 P.M. the next night.

At first glance, he is all business: red editing pen in hand, blue and red tie knotted around the collar of his crisp, white shirt. But there are small idiosyncrasies that distinguish Edwards from the stereotypical newspaper editor-in-chief featured in movies and on TV. In between edits, he sips Snapple Fruit Punch from a plastic bottle, not a steaming cup of coffee from an over-used travel mug. A loose and casual cream-colored cardigan offsets his pristine white button-up and tie. As I walk to the side of his desk to introduce myself, I see that his Facebook page is pulled up on his laptop. Later, we will chat about Halloween costumes and he will pull up the tagged photos of himself from his profile, mouth stretched into a wide smile. It is this instance that I realize; while undeniably accomplished, Edwards is clearly a college student, through and through. A journalism major with a minor in theatre, he somehow balances a full-time course load with his work at The Ithacan and a thriving social life.

Over the course of an hour, I sit by Edwards’ side as he patiently combs proofs of the sports pages for errors.

Occasionally, I interject to ask him questions about his sleep schedule; How many hours of sleep do you get

a night? Do you wish you slept more?

What are your strategies for managing your hectic schedule? If he is irritated at my constant questioning, he does not show it; he calmly places his pen down on his desk and looks me in the eye while constructing thoughtful answers.

As we talk, other editors walk in and out of the room, sometimes bearing stressful news. At one point during our conversation, the managing editor, Whitney Faber, walks in and exclaims, “Craaaazzy stuff, maaan!” Immediately, my mind jumps the gun; what’s wrong? I start to get excited, thinking that I am going to witness a live newspaper room meltdown. However, I am almost disappointed by Edwards’ reaction. The whole time that Faber explains the difficulties that one of her writers is encountering while writing an article, Edwards sits calmly, looking her in the eyes and giving sound, soothing advice.

Perhaps I expected him to be a little more flustered. To perform his newspaper tasks with more of a hysterical edge, an edge brought about by a habit of meager shut-eye. A living, breathing example of the dangers of lack of sleep. But he’s not; he is calm and collected, and constantly handles himself in a laid-back yet professional manner. He never indicates that he is tired; he does not even sport deep under-eye circles. I start to get nervous: maybe I am approaching my article from the wrong angle, maybe I am over-exaggerating this whole lackof-sleep thing. Maybe sleep deprivation isn’t really that harmful.

And then, the “Aha!” moment: When I ask Edwards, How late do you plan on being in the office tonight?, he

consults Faber. “Oh, we’re on schedule, we’ll have an early night tonight,” she says. I prompt: Well, what exactly constitutes an early night? Edwards and Faber look at each other and respond, in unison, “1 A.M.!”

This “early” 1 A.M. trudge back home after a day of hard work probably sounds familiar to most students, not just to those who juggle the responsibilities of an award-winning publication. College seems to create a culture of sleeplessness that normalizes sleep deprivation in a way that characterizes a 1 A.M. bedtime as “early” for many students. Sleep deprivation is a major issue, leading to a myriad of negative health effects.

However, students tend to rationalize their habits of sleeplessness for a variety of reasons.

Three factors seem to determine the average college student’s nightly shut-eye: the sleep schedule of your peers, internal pressure to make the grade, and the promise of time to catch up on sleep during vacation.

In college, it is easy to feel like everyone is awake and busy all of the time. Students may rationalize a lack of sleep if they see their peers staying up late; competition and comparison thrive on a college campus like bacteria on the gray tiles of dorm showers. With virtually no supervision or external regulation, students are able to socialize late into the night, waking up with new memories made but also fuzzy heads and droopy lids. Occasionally, sleep deprivation is glorified and even celebrated in campus-wide events, such as the 50-Hour radio marathon, hosted by Ithaca College’s online radio station, VIC. This event challenges four VIC DJ’s to stay

awake for fifty hours straight in order to raise money for a local nonprofit organization. While this charity-focused event is undoubtedly backed by good intentions, the casual dismissal of sleep that lies at the heart of the event is worrisome.

In addition to external normalization of sleeplessness, many students struggle with self-administered pressures that convince them to forfeit sleep in exchange for good grades, packed resumes and, ultimately, a competitive edge in the job market. Edwards believes that there is extreme pressure in college to do whatever it takes to diversify and bulk up your resume because “there’s this clock that’s ticking that reminds you that graduation is approaching.” And if getting ahead of that ticking clock means losing sleep, then many students, including Edwards, are willing to comply on a regular basis.

Dr. Lawrence J. Epstein, regional medical director of the Harvardaffiliated Sleep Health Centers, claims that sleep debt can be repaid. Epstein suggests paying off short-term sleep debt by intentionally scheduling in extra hours on the weekend. In order to alleviate a long-term deficit, he advises planning a relaxing vacation relatively free of scheduled activities; a perfect solution for college students who have built-in vacation time throughout the school year.

However, this could prove problematic if students start to take advantage of this information and begin holding out for vacations as their only time to catch up on missed hours of sleep.

Excess sleep during vacations can result in less time to catch up with friends and family. Edwards describes his typical sleep schedule while on vacation from school, saying that, at the beginning of breaks, “I’ll be in bed for almost an entire day.” He feels as though he has to explain himself to his mother, who sometimes does not understand the stressful demands he feels within the school environment. Thus, the dangers of sleep debt can perhaps be best understood in an outside context, once a student leaves the college bubble and returns to the “real” world on breaks.

The dissonance between expecta-

tions for sleep within and outside of college campuses points to a warped mindset, wide-spread among college students, when it comes to gauging healthy sleeping patterns.

Though, really, who am I to judge what is healthy or not? While I admittedly do not have to balance as many responsibilities as, say, the Editor-inChief of The Ithacan, I still find myself sitting in the lounge of my college dorm room, the 2 A.M. moon throwing light across my computer screen filled with statistics about the dangers of sleep deprivation. People are awake all around me, chatting loudly in the hallways, microwaving leftovers in the kitchen, and completing homework in the study lounge. The dorm room is amphitheater of activity, alive with

sound through all hours of the night.

While these noises should probably irk me, they are oddly comforting.

They remind me that I’m not alone, that I’m not the only one sacrificing sleep in order to stay on top of my various responsibilities. Of course, no one forced me to stay up this late. I could have gone to bed three hours ago when my eyelids started to feel heavy and my yawns started to interrupt every other thought.

But with the pressures of deadlines and finals sitting ominously upon my horizon, I simply shrugged and continued with my work, all the while thinking: at least I have a whole week of Thanksgiving Break to catch up.

Illustration by Clara Goldman

11

Nurseries of Life

By Stephanie Feely

The mud squished beneath my boots as I followed the path through the forest, blanketed in a canopy of green reminiscent of granny smith apples. I stepped carefully over fallen logs dotted with mushrooms; some large, flat and white, others orange and bulbous, and even some tiny and oddly pink-hued. I splashed through murky puddles and slid on leaves damp with the night’s rainfall and the drops falling from the still-wet trees that towered above. The contrast between the mud speckled with yellow and brown leaves on the forest floor, the rain-darkened trunks of trees, and

the bright green leaves still attached to the trees, took away my breath.

The voices of my classmates echoed around me, but I was silent, absorbed in the complexity of my surroundings.

After trekking through the woods for a while, following the barely-there path left by several semesters of students, we reached a gravel road, which led us to the four man-made cells of the artificial wetlands, each cell a separate and individual attempt to create a new habitat. Large, loose stones lined the way to the cells, each of which was more of a pond than traditional wetlands.

Wetlands, often called “nurseries of life,” are unique ecosystems characterized by transition and a variety of terrestrial and aquatic species. Although known for being wet, some of the most important wetland ecosystems are only seasonally wet.

They are areas where soil, flow of water, and the cycle of nutrients and energy from the sun meet to produce a habitat teeming with life. In addition to providing a home for thousands of species, wetlands act as a buffer, absorbing excess water to reduce flood damage, as well as pollution before it can reach nearby bodies of water.

Photography by A.J. Reffsin

Artificial wetlands like these, created on IC property, look more like ponds than their natural counterparts at this stage in their development.

Ithaca College destroyed natural wetlands like this one in order to build the new Athletic and Events Center and are trying to recreate them artificially.

In the artificial wetlands, each cell or pond was hidden by the last, and all but the first were overtaken by a horde of cattails. The first cell was surrounded by cattails on all but one side, which was open, allowing a clear view into the still, greenish brown water. The bright sun began to peak through an uncertain sky of steel gray clouds, and its rays reflected off of the pond’s surface. A multitude of marigold and clover were scattered around the circumference of the cell, dancing slightly in the passing breeze, and bees buzzed from bud to bud, drunk with the plethora of pollen provided by the masses of blossoming flowers.

Despite the natural beauty of these cells, they were not innately natural.

Instead, they were carefully crafted by a remunerated group, artificially produced to replace destruction elsewhere. When Ithaca College decided that a new Athletics and Events center

would be built on campus, the plans required that a new road be established behind the building in order to ensure that access could be easily granted in case of an emergency. Unfortunately, the only available land for a road also happened to be a wetland, which is protected under the EPA’s Clean Water Act. An agreement formed with the Finger Lakes Land Trust and the Town of Ithaca in conjunction with the EPA decreed that development of the area would be allowed on the condition that a new wetland would be created to offset the loss of the destroyed area. To ensure that the wetlands were created properly, Ithaca College was required to hire the Army Corps of Engineers and an expert on wetlands to design them. In 2009, several artificial wetlands were created next to existing wetlands in hopes that the artificial would begin to mimic

the intact. The planners believed that seeds would be spread from the intact to the artificial, thereby increasing the authenticity of the newly created wetlands.

Vine Deloria Jr., a Native American member of the Standing Rock Sioux, said that Western society is a “rights” society rather than a “responsibility” society. Westerners do things because they believe they have a right to, no matter the consequences of their actions. They feel no connection, no responsibility to the land the way Native Americans do, despite the fact that it is nature that takes care of them. This lack of responsibility and respect leads to the exploitation of nature. Much of this destruction stems from the idea that we as a species are superior to all others, simply because we say it is so. According to Lynn White Jr., this is largely due to the dominant religious belief systems

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of Christianity and Judaism, both of which teach their followers that God created the world and everything in it for man, which evolution has disproved. Now, garish buildings and cookie-cutter modular houses replace forests of ancient oaks, maples, dogwoods; rolling hills dotted with wildflowers; and wetlands swarming with wildlife.

At first glance, the artificial wetlands seemed incredibly diverse and full of life. To get to my lab group’s transect, it was necessary to step around and over prickly branches and vibrant flowers. Our first square plot was laden with a multitude of species: tiny white asters, spiky tearthumb, sun-drenched marigold and goldenrod, purple healall and vervain, and a variety of grasses. Beyond that, my view of the transect was blocked entirely by a wall of cattails, standing shoulder to shoulder like an army defending their territory. As I pushed through to get to the required ten meters in order to measure the next transect I was submerged in water up to my calf and my feet sunk into the sludge with each step. The cattail’s sharp, thick leaves sliced at my arms as though I was an enemy they were trying to defeat.

The next four transect’s surprised me the most, revealing my first glance to be wrong. Here, in the middle of what should have been a wetland teeming with the existence of plant life, was nothing besides almost kneedeep muddy water, angry cattails, and a bit of moss beneath the surface.

Standing too long in any one place proved to be a bad idea. With few to no roots in the mud to strengthen the surface, my feet sunk rapidly. Twice, I fell on to my knees into the water, hands flying out just barely in time to support my upper body.

The next week, we made the journey to the wetlands once again, this time to measure the diversity of the intact wetlands. Waders were not necessary, as there was no standing water present, but the wet ground squished beneath my rainboots and by the time we finished, a layer of brown muck disguised their blue color. Each transect was overflowing with a plethora of species. Armed with picture guides, we began our 14

identification of the flora. Inkberry bushes fought silky soft ferns for space, overshadowing the gentle daisy fleabane, white-purple clover and baby rose. Various grasses tangled with goldenrod, sedges, foxtails, and tearthumb scratched and pricked our hands and fingers as we dug through the mess. Meanwhile milkwort, a deceivingly pretty, lilaccolored flower, watched from beneath monstrous, painfully thorny wild rose bushes speckled with tiny, blood red rose hips. A few trees, red maples and shagbark hickories, both alive and beginning to die, dotted the area.

The remnants of the once living were strewn about haphazardly, slowly rotting away, only providing nutrients to the soil beneath them.

As I rambled through the native undergrowth of the natural wetlands, I couldn’t help but compare what I was

“Western society is a ‘rights’ society rather than a ‘responsibility’ society.” seeing, smelling, feeling to my experience in the artificial wetlands—the difference was jarring. They were two entirely different ecosystems. I began to question the justification of obliterating an entire habitat for a shiny new building. It would have been preferable for Ithaca College to build the A&E center without destroying the natural wetlands. The effort being made to compensate for the loss of such an important ecosystem is a step in the right direction, though not nearly enough. Each year, 60,000 acres of wetlands are lost, from both natural and anthropogenic causes. It will take a lot more than a simple step in the right direction to protect what natural ecosystems are left undestroyed thus far.

After our counting in the natural wetlands was complete, we trekked back out of the flora. A wayward branch caught my rain boot as I

passed, slicing into the outer layer of rubber and causing me to stumble slightly. I made my way to the path of large pebbles, following the rest of the class to the gravel road, where we detoured onto a path through the woods leading us back to campus. The emerald leaves on the trees whispered as a breeze blew through them, and two deer pranced deeper into the forest. We finally emerged from the woods onto South Hill, making our way through the upper quads and across the fitness center quad, eventually reaching CNS, our time at the wetlands complete.

Despite the effort made by Ithaca College, the wetlands specialist, and the Army Corps of Engineers, the artificial wetlands have not been established, as they should be. Currently, they more closely resemble ponds than wetlands but efforts are slowly being made, like the creation of a drainage system, to reduce the water levels. The hordes of cattails are out-competing other species for resources, which is doubly bad because there should not be any cattails present at all in the wetlands. And according to the research from my class, the major species present in the natural wetlands are lacking in its artificial counterpart.

All of this is problematic. It is hard for me to believe that five years would be a sufficient amount of time to produce an entire, fully formed and naturally functioning wetland ecosystem from a wholly different environment.

It is my hope, however, that with a bit of help and some time, the artificial wetland will be able to develop correctly and flourish. In this way, the acres of forest that were sacrificed for the creation of the wetlands were not done so in vain, and an ecosystem of imperative importance is reestablished.

Through the Cracks Article and Photography

By Jessica Santos

On the South Hill of Ithaca, New York sits a desolate, empty factory. Its architecture is unimpressively boring (a square) and its color just as unmemorable (gray). There is a guard center near the entrance, but otherwise it is entirely abandoned. There is nothing inside the factory except dimly glowing exit signs and evenly spaced pillars that once marked work stations.

Outside, a few of the factory’s windows are broken. The building has been ravaged by nature, ivy crawling up its sides, overgrown weeds stalking its fences. Slowly, nature is suffocating the factory that once brought it harm. Animals – squirrels, foxes – call the surrounding area its home, as does the Ithaca community.

Considering its current condition, it’s hard to believe that the building used to be the home to a prosperous factory. But, that’s exactly what it was: an industrial plant to create power transmission products from the company called Morse Chain, owned by the Borg-Warner Corporation. In 1983, Morse Chain sold the building to Emerson, where it became their main site for Emerson Power Transmission.

Under Morse Chain, the factory created a variety of automotive parts, such as drive chains, sprockets, and gears. These required an array of processes to create the parts,

stopped using TCE in the late 1970’s, but before then were reported to be using up to 1,200 gallons of the chemical per week.

“Because of the times they were working in there were no strict environmental regulations on TCE,” said Svante Myrick, the mayor elect of Ithaca. “Lord knows how much of the chemical leaked out of the factory and into the soil surrounding the factory.”

The community began to grow concerned about oil disposed into the sewers and runoff from the factory.

Morse Chain began to limit their use as they started to understand the consequences of their actions, but it was too late: the chemicals had already leaked into the ground and water supply, thereby dangerously polluting the area. In 1987, Emerson Power Transmission first discovered TCE in oil taken from the surface of the water in the large fire reservoir on the

but most involved the use of “cutting oils,” or removing oils from the pieces at the end of the process. Doing this required several chemicals, one of which is a carcinogenic called TCE, or trichloroethylene. Morse Chain

plant site – basically, a giant concrete tank that held water in case of a fire.

It was determined that the pollution had leaked into the local groundwater as well. A year later, the plant site was added to the New York State Registry

of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites.

Since then, the factory has been the center of investigations that aim to understand the extent of the pollution and how that pollution can be rectified. *** The Emerson/Morse Chain case has been a long, arduous battle for every party involved: Emerson and Morse Chain, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Ithaca community. Each has various stakes in the issue and all desire for the strongest remediation possible for the site.

The reasons why each party desires remediation is the crux of the issue, though. Emerson is looking to sell the factory and will be unlikely to find a buyer with the plant in its current state. The NYSDEC, like all government departments, needs to appeal to its political interests in order to continually secure funding for their work. If they cannot guarantee that their actions will benefit them in the long-term, it is less likely that they will not pursue these actions – in this case, the cleanup of South Hill and the Emerson Power Transmission site.

So where does this leave the community? It has a company and government that, in some community members’ eyes, are not doing enough to remove the on-site pollution of the plant, with no foreseeable end to the struggle. Residents of Ithaca are 15

seemingly left to wonder why – why is it so hard to achieve the environmental justice that they are owed?

Why has Emerson, a major, multinational company, not done more to help their community? And, possibly most importantly, why hasn’t the government held the company responsible for the actions that occurred on their site nearly 30 years ago? *** There are multiple perspectives in the case. The NYSDEC believes that it is holding Emerson fully accountable for the pollution, and is doing all that they can to adequately mitigate the effects of the pollution. However, community members feel differently: they want the pollution to be fully removed from the environment.

The tension between the government, company, and the community has been brewing for years, finally resulting in the local Common Council voting down Emerson’s request for permission to build a NYSDEC-proposed remedy on city land.

The company and government see the community’s opposition as standing in the way of what they perceive to be the best possible solution, although admittedly not a perfect one. The community sees no reason to let Emerson off the hook with a partial solution, a mitigation, if they’ll be dealing with the consequences of the pollution for years. All three sides remain locked in this standoff today. *** “You cannot dig up the pollution,” says Karen Cahill of the NYSDEC, the Project Manager for the Emerson/ Morse Chain case. “We don’t know exactly where it is.”

The problem is microfractures. Sitting under South Hill is pure bedrock, and in that bedrock, are infinitesimally small cracks. Because they are so minute – in some cases as thin as a hairline – and because they’re under-

ground, they’re incredibly hard to find.

It’s even harder to trace how deep the fractures delve into the earth. It is in these fractures that the TCE hides, a highly carcinogenic chemical that is microscopically buried under the ground.

“We had a sample core of rock that Emerson took that looked solid,” said Cahill. “We put it in a bowl, let it sit, took it out, and there were two or three lines where the water had seeped into the microfractures. This is exactly what the solvent does over time, and this is over years and years and years of use.”

Because the NYSDEC feels that it is too difficult to remove the pollution directly, the NYSDEC and Emerson’s main strategy has been to control it so that it doesn’t affect the surrounding homes.

“Emerson decided that full scale remediation is not possible because the chemical is in the soil,” said Myrick.

“So what they chose to focus on is mitigation, or mitigating the impact of the chemical.”

To remove the pollution, Emerson would have to dig out the chemical – an alternative that would be incredibly difficult and impracticable in a small community.

“There is no physical way to remove the hillside,” said Cahill. “You’d have to remove all of the homes. If this was a highway project, you could just blast straight through a large area, but this is a residential neighborhood.”

Regardless, despite these explanations, some residents are still unsatisfied with the efforts that the NYSDEC and Emerson have made to mitigate the pollution. *** “That’s not true. That is fundamentally not true.”

Walter Hang is the president of Ithaca’s Toxics Targeting, and he has been one of the most vocally active community members in the Emerson/ Morse Chain case.

Hang is referring to the idea that it is too difficult to dig out the pollution when it is below residential homes.

“It’s not in the community,” he said.

“It’s at the factory site. … the oil is in the rock and the subsurface area around the reservoir, and it’s intruding under pressure into the reservoir.

But it’s also migrating down the hill.

So, they haven’t retrieved the oil in 28 years, and the reality is that unless they dig it out of the environment, it’s still going to be there another 28 years

from now!”

Hang, like many of other local citizens, believe that the current remediation efforts are not enough because they do not physically remove the pollution.

“People, particularly in this area, are digging through fractured shale every dang day. It is just not that hard. The bottom line is, this happens all the time. You have a tank that leaked. You have a line that failed. And the toxic chemicals are now in the subsurface environment. So they go to the site, and either they delineate the area of contamination with subsurface monitoring, or they start digging.”

According to Hang, it is entirely possible for companies to dig out the pollution: they just need a big enough excavator. The machine burrows into the soil and rock until all of the polluted areas are removed; then, they test the soil, see if they’re in the clear, and move onto the next section.

“So Karen Cahill and Mary Jane Peachy [also of the NYSDEC] make this sound like it’s just on the edge of technical impossibility,” Hang said, “and it’s just not. I checked with numerous consultants because my company helps the biggest environmental consulting firms, and I said, ‘Can you dig through fractured rock like shale?’ and they said, ‘Yeah, no problem!’ and I said, ‘What happens if you have to dig really deep?’ and they said, ‘We get a bigger excavator!’”

As for the pollution that has migrated down the hill, that is another problem altogether. As Cahill said, the area is a residential neighborhood, so it cannot simply be excavated to find the oil.

Hang admitted that it would be difficult to find the pollution in the community, but he suggested that at least some of it could be removed by digging far into the ground and effec-

tively creating a reservoir into which the pollution could go. After that, the oil could be pumped out safely.

However, Hang and many other residents of Ithaca believe that the most important issue at hand is how to effectively remove the oil from under the ground. This is the core of the problem, and in solving this main issue, other solutions to the smaller problems – the pollution in the community – will be easier to manage.

“The first and foremost challenge is to remove the source of the pollution,” said Hang. “And then the second challenge is basically to figure out how to keep this contamination from impacting public health and the environment.” *** Perhaps the biggest problem with the pollution is the possibility of soil vapor intrusion. Basically, this is when there are chemicals in the soil, and the chemicals’ gas seeps into the indoor air of buildings that rest over the pollution. In 2004, the NYSDEC required Emerson to test the area surrounding the plant for soil vapor intrusion of TCE. The test worked in five phases: beginning with the homes closest to the pollution, and working outward from there. They tested a total of about 108 buildings, 103 of which were homes. The results were concerning, and showed levels that were above what one would expect to find there naturally. The company responded by offering its treatment of the vapor levels to all the significantly affected homes, and more than 50 took them up on the offer.

The NYSDEC also required Emerson to take additional steps, demanding the installation of a vapor recovery traction—essentially a pipe that would collect vapors from the sewerline and emit them elsewhere. The community disagreed with the proposed plan,

worrying that it didn’t do enough to remove the pollution, but just put a band-aid on a larger problem. “It has virtually no removal whatsoever,” said Hang. “If you moved into a house and it caught on fire, you’d need to remove all pieces of burned wood and timber or else the house would collapse.”

The Common Council voted down Emerson’s request to build on city land; they needed a majority of 6 out of 10, and the plan lost 5 to 3.

“I think it’s a shame that this remedy wasn’t implemented this summer,” said Cahill. “We alleviated the resident’s concerns with the construction and operation of the remedy. It certainly wouldn’t have made anything worse, although there are some people who might argue that but I think we addressed those concerns. … This goes above me at this point. I don’t know what happens from here. I’ve never had this happen in my career.” *** As of now, the Emerson/Morse Chain case has hit a dead end.

Emerson is looking to sell their plant but cannot complete the NYSDEC’s orders without acting against the Common Council’s decision; the NYSDEC believes that this is an effective remedy that goes beyond what they are called to provide; and the South Hill community believes that they are owed more: a complete remediation of the site with plans that will also provide for the safety of residents.

Maybe the case will take a new direction under the leadership of the new city administration, in light of the recent election. Until then, however, nothing will change without the resilient, continued commitment of the community to demand what is properly theirs.

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In a Different Light

By Carolyn Cutrone Herman Moratz stares straight forward. His eyes slide from one reality to another as he slips into perfect rhythm, feet moving in step. “We were first hiding in the mountains to see what was developing,” he says.

“We had an inkling of the war being finished but we didn’t know for sure what was happening around us.”

The mountains surrounded him and he had no form of communication with superiors who might have known what was happening on the field. No radios, no TV, and certainly no cell phone. Days passed before Herman saw a soul. He waited patiently on a mountaintop looking for an answer, a signal, something. Finally a handful of German soldiers walking below passed with white arm bands and no weapons. They were walking east.

Herman and the other soldiers knew what this meant—they had surrendered the war. They saw no choice but to follow their example. One by one the soldiers destroyed their weapons and prepared to walk.

“Believe it or not, we all cried because we did not know if we would get shot the next day or not. We did not know. We saw a lot of dead German soldiers lying around.”

After the third day marching across the German countryside, Herman came to a bend in the road. Right in front of him was a column of German prisoners of war.

“They looked like they had spent already the last three years in Siberia.

They were completely gone,” he whispered. “Hungry, thirsty, weak; [they] could hardly walk anymore.”

Herman looked into the distance but his big round eyes seemed to know his fate all too well. They glazed over now in a seemingly numb state at the sight before him—his comrades, fellow Germans, imprisoned. The Russians shouted, “Come on! Join the 18

crowd.”

Together with only one other soldier, Arthur Asman, Herman said nothing and moved into the crowd.

POUST! The Russians screamed.

Rest. Herman was in the first column now. He made his way up to the front of the line. Arthur stole a glance at his friend, and Herman shot one right back. Somehow they had the same thought—stumble forward but never look back or dare speak a word. Herman’s feet lifted off the ground slowly but in perfect rhythm with the prisoners around him. Left, right, left, right.

“Step after step after step,” he said, the motions running through his body and lips nearly 70 years later.

Before any more time could pass, he came around the curved road and his eyes shifted in circular motion—no one was in sight. He and Arthur, steps ahead of everyone, somehow found themselves alone. Without a second thought, they jumped into the brush.

“Without having time to rationalize it, everything was happening by intuition, instantly.

I wanted to keep free as long as possible, that was it,” he said.

Herman arrived up the hill pressing his ear to the

ground to check if any soldiers had found him.

“Nothing.” he whispered in a sharp conclusion. “It was quite a risk. The other option was to join them [the prisoners] and I knew immediately that was death.”

Herman Moratz does not crack a smile when he first pulls open his apartment door in Ithaca, New York to let me in. He is willing to talk to me, a 21-year-old journalism student, but I soon realize that his willingness does not mean complete transparency. I take a step in and am greeted by the friendly hand of Anna, Herman’s wife.

Photography courtesy of Longview Residential Community

Her short hair and bouncy step are an encouraging start to an interview I assume may be tougher than others I’ve conducted. She leaves the room quickly, telling me she does not want to disturb my time with Herman.

Herman moves slowly but gracefully over to the couch. A dim lamp on his right side makes artificial light clash with the gleaming sunshine that pours in through the nearby sliding glass doors.

“Where do you want to sit?” he asks, his tone unwavering and deep.

I can’t believe how good he looks for almost 90 years old. He doesn’t seem a day over 75.

I choose a spot too far away for the conversation I am striving to have. I don’t want to crowd him sitting side by side on his couch, but my couch is perpendicular and an awkward length away. I am just close enough for my recorder to pick up his waves but too distant for him to pick up on my eager-to-listen body language.

The interview begins and I listen closely to his tales of war. After a little while though, I decide I should direct my questions towards some kind of focus. I want to dig deeper, so I ask him whether he was ever angered by the Nazi propaganda in Germany.

Would he have changed his decision to enlist in the air force—the Luftwaffe—had he been better informed?

His answer is rigid, almost rehearsed as he tells me there was a complete disconnect to both his government and media, no awareness that changing it would even be possible. His words, although simplistic in conclusion, become slightly fiery in their higher pitched tone. I wonder if I am crossing a line.

“We knew that the news was absolutely controlled. We knew that the ministry controlled the media, any media. We knew all that. But we didn’t have any idea that we wanted to change that because we saw that everything was controlled by the authorities.”

His eyes widen as I blurt out my confusion with his lack of anger. Sitting on my awkwardly distant couch I feel like there is something he isn’t revealing, something he does not want me to see. He tells me his anger

could not exist; it wasn’t an option. I nod vigorously trying to send him the message that I am listening, I wanted to understand.

“If you wanted to go against it, you wound up in the concentration camp,” he said.

His blunt answer makes me take a step back. I decide to veer in a new direction to see if he had any personal connection to Jewish people in his town. Hoping for an intimate anecdote or less straight-forward diction, I am let down again.

“Visibly I didn’t see it in my suburb of Berlin, there were very few Jewish people. They were mostly concentrated in the northeast of the city and of the oldest Jewish family I knew of was a classmate and his father [who] made furs. After school I lost complete sight of him, my classmate, never saw him again, and after the war I realized well the business was there but there was another name on it. That was my direct experience with it [the Jewish holocaust.]”

As Herman continues to speak, pulling strands of memories from his days as a schoolboy, over 75 years ago, his face hints no sign of emotion. He barely knew his classmate and that was the only Jewish person he could think of. He tells me what he can remember, but what it was barely means anything because he simply had no connection to the genocide.

I understand this. I cannot expect something that isn’t there to begin with. As I sit in this man’s living room I have every opportunity to get to know him. He opened his home to me, allowed me to talk to him for hours and even lent me his 500 page memoir.

I have all the resources but am only able only go as far as he was willing to take me. Herman continues to speak, voice ringing strong beats in amplification with one simple message: his choices were limited.

“You know if you oppose [the Nazis] you don’t win. And then again the German people… didn’t have any education as to what to expect, the relationship between themselves and the government, absolutely nothing.

And how a government should act in an ideal way. Nothing written down about it, absolutely nothing. People didn’t have any concept of how a

government should function to be successful.”

His words finally sink in. I begin to realize even with an open mind it is impossible to comprehend exactly how it was to grow up with no conception of the ability to change the government or the media. As an eager young writer, I believe certain issues are fixable, even if it’s just through discussion. But with each glance over at the man next to me, I realize the world he speaks of and the one in which I live will never be one.

“You think you have your rights and everybody has their rights. I didn’t have any. I only had to find out how I would be getting through life,” he said. Thoughts of addressing structural problems never entered his mind.

My distant couch stayed where it was and so did our discussion of the war. Herman said I was asking my questions from an American point of view. Of course I was, and my background was something no alteration in journalistic approach could change.

After the war Herman saw no other option but to leave Germany. He was intent on bettering himself and knew that his country had nothing to offer him.

“In 1945 I came to the conclusion that I should try hardest in other countries because I didn’t know it for sure but from the information I had after the war I could tell that they operate differently.”

Our conversation takes a new turn as he asks me what I plan on doing after graduation. I tell him I’m unsure where I’m headed but that I love to travel and if given the opportunity I would pursue journalism somewhere abroad. I told him my curiosity in understanding people is what drives me to continue reporting. As Herman reflects on his decision to leave Germany at about the same age as I am now, it finally seems amidst our separate worlds we may have at least one step in common.

“We [German veterans] had to make full dimensional decisions.

Leave your family, your country. I just wanted to find out how other people do it. And, I’m still doing that now,” he said.

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Underneath Article and Photography

By Gena Mangiaratti

the mask

When Ronnie Reitter, a site interpreter at the Ganondagan historic site in Victor, just south of Rochester, visited an elementary school to give a talk, a second grade teacher showed her the decorative masks her students had created, and hung up for everyone to see. At that moment, Ronnie was faced with having to teach her first lesson of the day about the Haudenosaunee people.

Masks of the Haudenosaunee are sacred objects that are not meant to be used for anything other than for their intended purpose. The public display or interpretation of these masks by those other than for whom it was intended is forbidden. This can be seen not as an awareness raising tool, but as an exploitation of Haudenosaunee culture, according to documents of the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee.

The Haudenosaunee, who the French called the Iroquois, are Native Americans whose ancestors inhabited the North American woodlands during the early seventeenth century, according to the Ganondagan website.

Among the Haudenosaunee people are the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora na-

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tions, together called the “Six Nations” by the English. The nations themselves, though, just called themselves the Haudenosaunee.

Ganondagan, Town of Peace, had been a thriving community for the Seneca people in the seventeenth century until it was destroyed by an army from New France (Canada) in 1687. The site currently consists of vast fields, several walking trails and a replica of a Seneca Bark Longhouse.

Interpreters at the historic site are of various nations of the Haudenosaunee, as well as of other Native backgrounds.

It was freezing out on October 29, the last day the site was open as an information center. Interpreter Michael Galban raked leaves and hay into a fire with Jordan, another interpreter at the site, who is Mohawk. They were trying to reduce the amount of materials available that squirrels and mice could use to make nests in the longhouse.

“Not that we don’t like squirrels or mice,” Galban said. “They are just so destructive to our stuff.” He added that back when the Seneca lived in longhouses, there were people as well

as dogs around to discourage mice from settling in.

The glow from the fire provided a small area of relief from the low temperatures.

Galban, who is of Northern PaiuteWashoe heritage, talked about how he has maintained his cultural heritage in his own life. He is married to a Mohawk woman, and his children are Mohawk. His personal goal, he said, is that his three children, as they move forward, are in the best understanding of what he has learned form Haudenosaunee elders.

Galban acknowledged that there might be a spectrum of how people of Native heritage do this. Being Native American, he said, is genetic, but it is also cultural, and while some may be Native American by blood, the cultural link may have been broken somewhere in their past. As a result, some Native Americans may not practice their culture to the same extent as others.

Galban, who was raised knowing he was Native American, noted the perception of money as one significant difference from American culture.

“In America, money is what everybody’s after, and the accumulation of money is sort of the goal in a lot of ways,” he said. “That kind of thinking is contrary to how we teach our children about being traditional.”

He applied this to his family’s use of natural medicines.

“When we gather natural medicines, our custom is not to select very first patch but to go to the next so you’re ensuring it will be there for others,” Galban said.

In a similar vein, he explained that they don’t view the medicine they obtain as a commodity. If someone finds an exclusively good plant medicine,

depends on behavior more so than awareness.

“In the end human, beings depend on the water. We depend on the animals and the plants. We depend on all those things for our survival. We can’t extract ourselves from that yet,” he said. “We have to be more mindful of what it is we’re leaving for our children than what it is we can get today for ourselves.”

they will make it available to others without cost. Selling it, he said, would in their minds be contrary to the purpose of the medicines.

Some scholars and others who are culturally aware feel there is a debt to be repaid to people of Native American heritage, to if anything, become educated about their culture.

At a Native American identity panel at Ithaca College on November 1, a student who is part Seminole said that people have reacted to him by humming the music associated with the Florida State Seminoles.

He said he literally had nothing to say, taken aback that the only knowledge they had of this part of his heritage was as a team mascot.

The experience at the elementary school was not the first time Ronnie, who is Seneca, was faced with misunderstanding of the masks. She said when her son was in the fourth grade his class was given a similar art assignment to create masks that were meant to look Native American.

When her son approached the teacher on the inappropriate nature of this

assignment, Ronnie said she was upset to hear that his viewpoint was dismissed as that of a child. It wasn’t until after Ronnie herself addressed the teacher that the assignment was revoked and a new project assigned for the entire class.

Debt, however, is not a concept to the Haudenosaunee people, said Galban, as debt implies that something has been given that must be given back.

“Native people don’t give gifts so they can give gifts back,” Galban said.

It would be better put, he said, that Americans learn from the lessons of the Haudenosaunee, who have been living here and making it work for the last 25,000 years.

“It probably is an American thing to say you would owe a debt,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know if it’s a debt in as much as it should be a recognition.”

An overarching point to recognize seems to be consideration for the future, which, Galban said, ultimately

Up in Smoke Natalie King went $45,892 into debt for an Ithaca College education. Was it worth it?

Article and Photography

By Natalie King

7:48 A.M., and I’m sitting on the floor of my bathtub, arms folded around my legs as if I am on the brink of hypothermia. The baby puddles that remain from my shower an hour ago seep through the envelope I’ve placed before me, blotting the ink of unbearable news.

“It’s 7:50, you need to leave now or you’ll be late! Hurry up!”

Lies. I had 40 minutes until school began for the day, and I couldn’t have cared less.

It takes me a couple of tries, but I finally flick the lighter on and let it meet the edge of the letter. Almost instantly, the envelope is engulfed.

I watch it burn, from one end to the other, trying not to inhale the sorry excuse for smoke. I watch until just embers remain, until they form a trail to the drain and dry up leaving ugly, gray streaks.

Ten minutes later, I’m in my car, driving routinely around the block. My phone vibrates; my mother is calling.

She has seen the bathtub. She is pissed. *** There is no time in your life when you feel more invincible than when you are 17 years old. Ideally, you work hard during your four years of high school, and you play even harder. You 22

make the right friends, join the right clubs, and when the time is right, you’re told that everything will be okay because you’ve done everything right. You’ve plugged yourself into the formula for success.

Except sometimes, they lie. My first encounter with Ithaca College was stumbling upon its Wikipedia page. My best friend was interested in Cornell. Living in Honolulu, Hawai’i, nothing about the east coast was real except for Harvard, Yale, and whatever lived in New York City.

I wanted to be a journalist, so sure of myself that I made the conscious effort to seek out the best communications schools to send my applications. Two stumbles later, and I discovered the Park Scholar Award, which awards select incoming freshmen and rising juniors the full cost of attendance, plus more. Ithaca had become the only school that mattered.

In March of my senior year, I became a finalist for the award. Needless to say, I didn’t get it – helpful tip: when asked the importance of community service, the recitation and praise of the First Amendment is not the correct answer – but it didn’t matter, because I was sold on IC. I had to come here.

Except for the fact that I needed to

pay for the amazing experience I knew I was going to have once I stepped foot on campus again.

When you’re 17 years old, putting a flame to anything seems to solve many problems, if not make you feel better when you face them. We build and burn bonfires at Homecoming to initiate the process of growing up and letting go, and we hold candles in our hands seven months later at Baccalaureate. Some of us choose to light a joint or a bowl to numb ourselves for fun. At 17, I burned my Park Scholar rejection letter. Sure, it was immature, but it was literally the only way I could ensure that I didn’t dwell on it and was able to move on.

In life, we learn you can’t always get what you want. If you’re at least the age of 17, are at least a half-time student, and have a willing co-signer with a decent credit history, however, that notion goes out the window. My Ithaca experience was made possible in that exact way. Thanks to the kindness of my grandmother, I was able to get the private loans I needed that my parents did not want to co-sign.

Which was fair, of course. They had already taken out a $20,000 loan for my freshman year, and told me to figure out the rest. My mother is a teller at a local credit union; my father is

an officer in the United States Coast Guard. As much as I didn’t want to face forging my own way, their own sacrifices to support a family were more than enough to respect their decision. That struggle, to figure out the rest, has dictated every move in my collegiate career, from taking out more money, to transferring to a school that was a better fit, to freaking out at the end of every semester, always asking myself if all of this stress was worth it.

And at a certain point, it wasn’t.

Many factors went into my transfer from Ithaca, my student loan debt being a major one. I had learned that student loan debt was good debt, an investment.

But the lessons you learn never really prepare you until you actually face this decision. $45,892.00. That’s the amount which, at this time next year, I will begin to repay for my undergraduate education. With that amount of money, I could have purchased a new car, pursued both an undergradu-

ate and graduate degree in anthropology at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, or provided a down payment on a house for my family.

This spring, I will graduate with my Bachelor’s degree after 3 ½ years of study, but it won’t be from Ithaca College. And I’m okay with that. As the years creep upon you, you really begin to evaluate every move.

Aside from the constant reminders that will bombard you via mail, e-mail, and phone, every decision you make will be under the extreme influence of your student loan debt.

I will be the first to tell you I wouldn’t change a thing. But each month, when I enter my payment information to pay off some interest, I can’t help but ponder what I would be doing and where I would be in that moment if I had decided to attend a different school.

For me, my student loan debt is much more than a way to cover the

“I wouldn’t change a thing. But each month, when I enter my payment information ...

I can’t help but ponder what I would be doing and where I would be in that moment if I decided to attend a different school.”

costs of my degree. It’s the cost of growing up, of branching out and learning how to become an adult.

It has allowed me certain freedoms to explore possibilities that I would never have been able to had I stayed at home. At the same time, it is my avenue of class mobility. I will be the first in my family to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree, and student loans (plus working extremely hard in my classes and my off-campus job) have made this possible. Sure, it’s easy to sign some papers and borrow money at extremely high rates, but what about people like my parents?

Two individuals who, for my entire life and beyond, have worked tirelessly at their jobs to save money, support a family, and ensure that our basic needs are always taken care of. It’s hard to believe that two individuals who have been so smart with their money, who receive benefits and save their money wisely, are faced with choosing to buy a family home or put their daughters through college, while ensuring a comfortable and healthy life for themselves long after their careers are finished.

As twisted as it sounds, my student loans - the debt that will follow me for most of my lifetime – are just the first step in repaying my family of the comfort and security they have always provided me.

What’s a college education worth, anyway?

The cost of a college education has gone up, and the job market is increasingly saturated with college graduates.

Here’s a numerical look at the state of student loans:

14.6%

of workers age 20-24 are unemployed

Since 1999, student loan debt has risen by

511%

Experts project that, by the end of the year, student loan debt will top

$1 Trillion The average amount of student loan debt is

$24,000 23

floor sticky with wastefully spilled alcohol and people can barely move. After the customary “hi”s are spoken to a few friends, she squeezes in between a woman sporting the shortest skirt imaginable and a townie in a trucker hat. Both are aiming for the bar. Money in hand, she stands at the bar attempting to attract the attention of one of the few bartenders frantically running around, dealing with the eclectic group of hipsters and bros shouting orders of vodka shots and beers.

While waiting, a good looking man with wavy brown hair and hipster glasses also approaches the bar.

They make eye contact and exchange frustrated smiles at the difficulty of acquiring drinks on a crowded Saturday night. Encouraged by the

Be Careful What You Drink For

By Patti Morin

A pretty young woman walks past the bouncer into the bar, flashing him nothing but a smile. She sashays further into the bar, looking around at the crowd of people that decided to brave the cold and spend a night out socializing. It’s the go-to place on a Saturday night, the lights dimmed,

mutual acknowledgment, the man approaches the woman. With no need for a cheesy pick up line, he is able to simply lead with “Yeah, they should really hire some better bartenders here, huh?” With nothing else to do while patiently waiting and since the woman is generally a friendly person, she laughs and nods to the conversation. She looks closer at him, noting his standard going-out-attire: a button down shirt and jeans ensemble, clean appearance, and easy smile. By the time they finally gather the attention of the bartender, the two are well on their way to becoming friends. As she orders her cranberry vodka, the man leans in and offers: “Can I buy you your drink?”

The woman pauses. Her natural response is yes… it’s free alcohol. She feels pretty comfortable assessing this “stranger,” feeling that she is able to tell whether another person is a creep or not on a basic level at least. Even when “Can I buy you a drink?” is the opening line, a quick judgment call based on appearance will often lead to a yes as long as she can watch the drink being made. What’s less clear is what to expect after accepting the drink. It’s after the drink is accepted when some haziness sets in. The woman is likely to wonder: “What exactly do I owe this man for purchasing

Photo by Melody.loves.you, “tall drinks”, April 29, 2008 , via Flickr. Creative Commons Attribution.

l 29, on.

this drink for me? Or, what does he think I owe him for this?”

People do not expect to get something for nothing. Normally, money is exchanged for the drink. In the absence of a monetary exchange, then something else must be given up. In today’s society, a thin line exists in determining what debt must be paid when receiving a free drink from another.

The woman knows that for some women, accepting a drink is promising nothing. But on the other hand, a man might think that when a woman accepts a drink, it’s a signal that, “Yes I want to go home and sleep with you tonight!” She considers this may be perhaps because women are seen as being able and allowed to use their femininity for whatever gains possible without having to repay some cost.

Or perhaps because men are typically depicted as having one objective: to get women in bed.

For the sake of this article, and my own curiosity, I asked different 21-year-old men and women their views on the debt-owed in receiving a free drink. And, unsurprisingly, the “debt owed” to a drink-buyer is something in between nothing and everything, though men and women have different views on exactly what that exchange should be.

Most women feel like they owe a least something to the man. The most common belief expressed was that a woman owes the man some of their time and conversation after accepting the free drink. One young woman said that when a man buys a woman a drink, she needs to “talk to him. You can’t just take the drink and peace, talk to him while you’re drinking the drink” (female, 21.) This way of thinking most likely comes from the recognition that spending money on someone, especially on a tight, college-student budget, requires an effort to at least try and get to know the man behind the free drink. When a man offers to buy you a drink and you accept, by accepting, some feel that you owe him a chance. Out of the ten women I talked to about this, not one felt that by accepting a drink

they were making any sort of promise for physical rendezvous later, or even hinting at the potential for a hookup later. The most physical act I heard women think they were agreeing to by accepting a drink is a dance.

Over half the women I spoke with also feel like the man who buys the drink doesn’t expect anything from it.

There may be hope that something more may come later, but expectations are not set high. The real difference isn’t what should happen immediately after the drink is bought, but how much weight is placed on that single beverage. Women tend to see the drink- buying and subsequent conversation as a singular event that they have the ability to walk away

from if they are not inclined to continue the interaction. They feel walking away guilt-free is no problem at all.

Men tend to view it as a starting point in a series of events, getting them anything from a phone number to sex.

I spoke with five 21 year old males about this issue and the majority said they buy drinks as a “door opener” of sorts. One man said clearly, “I know a drink doesn’t equal sex, but a drink opens doors” (male, 21). Men see buying a drink as a move that will hopefully lead to something more in the future.

A woman perceives that a man expects, at most, a short-term conversation to feel out whether or not there is something between them.

But actually, a man has often already decided he’s interested.

One 21-year-old male told me men are “definitely trying to pursue. There is always some sexual component involved.”

Beyond that, men also tend to hold onto hope that a drink will lead them down a profitable road no matter what reality reflects. Men will tell you that they are optimistic, tending to continually “get their hopes up” (male, 21.) This makes this interaction a good thing that men are the ones buying the drinks; if women were, there would probably be a lot less drinks bought and bartenders everywhere would lament.

Buying drinks and where the potential gain lies, seems like a bartering system with negotiable prices. Both people go into the situation knowing what they are willing to give up, and it’s up to an individual to figure out.

In some cases, you may feel like you gave up more than you got, but who knows: in other situations you may come out winning. The nice-looking man at the bar? Maybe he had a great conversation with the woman, maybe he got a dance floor make-out. Maybe later in the night, he got laid.

Or, maybe she just kindly thanked him and walked away from the bar, half-finished cranberry vodka in hand.

Illustration by Clara Goldman

25

Color Me In

By Drew Kellog

Photography by Cady Lang

Drew Kellogg overcomes his fear of seeking help.

26

I woke up on November 8th, 2010 in a completely different world. Sure, I was in my usual bed; the same uncomfortably hard mattress supporting me, a navy down comforter wrapped awkwardly around my frame. I awoke in such a different state of mind that I had previously recognized as my “normal” state that I really felt as though these two scenarios existed in completely different worlds.

It’s six thirty in the morning, well before I needed to get up for my 8 o’clock Spanish class. I feel a familiar pit in my stomach, roughly the size of a grapefruit. Thoughts racing, I roll over and slam my eyes shut, trying to ignore the anxious, painful ulcer and fall back asleep. No luck. I roll back over to check the clock. “6:34 AM” reads in bright green font on my alarm. The pit in my stomach throbs.

I toss and turn for another hour, until my alarm goes off at its set time.

I hit the snooze button, the sudden movement jerking me out of my anxious slumber, to avoid waking my roommate, but I don’t get up. I lie strung out in my loft for another few minutes, hoping to harness the energy to get down and start what feels like the impossible task of going to class.

The clock ticks on, but I’m no closer to getting out of bed than I was an hour ago.

The next time I look at the alarm, it reads “9:29 AM”. Although I’ve missed my Spanish class, there’s still plenty of time for me to make it to my class at 10 o’clock. I don’t know where the time has gone; perhaps I actually managed to fall asleep for a bit, but that seems unlikely, as I feel no more rested than I did the last time I checked my clock. I try to motivate myself to get up and go to class, but I do nothing; the knot in my stomach feels too large, and the weight of it is dragging me down, leaving me stuck in this uncomfortable bed in my cold, bright dorm. I end up skipping my 10 o’clock class too.

I finally get out of bed around eleven thirty, when my girlfriend Carrie texts me and asks if we’re getting

lunch. I tap out a response before tossing it back on the teak shelf. I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm my overactive mind and settle my racing heart. But even my usual quick fix isn’t enough to jolt me out of my funk.

Eating lunch with Carrie and her roommate Shannon is usually one of my favorite parts of my day, but today the knot in my stomach has taken both my appetite and my interest. I can’t focus on conversation. I can’t eat my food. I feel nauseous. Carrie asks me several times if I’m feeling okay, and I can feel the confidence in my responses waning. “Yeah I’m good,” I say with a half-hearted smile.

But there’s nothing convincing in my tone, and my will to pretend as though I’m holding up all right is deteriorating by the minute.

Since I’m done with classes for today, I relax in Carrie’s room with her for a while; walking to my dorm, typically a minor inconvenience, now feels like an insurmountable task.

After Shannon leaves, Carrie asks me what’s wrong.; she knows that I’ve had anxiety before and can recognize it easily. I tell her that I can’t really describe what’s going on inside my head. “I don’t know honestly. I just don’t feel like myself. I’m so anxious, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I just feel like I’m existing and not living.” She nods, understanding the feeling well, and suggests that maybe I go to the counseling center.

My immediate reaction is familiar; “No, I don’t need counseling, I’m just in a rut. Not a big deal.” I say in my head, as if this stand against counseling represents my stand against the anxiety. But as she tells me about her experience at the Counseling Center, I try to relate it to myself. The numbness feels overpowering at this point. I can’t deny that I need someone to talk to, someone to throw me a lifesaver and drag me from this horrible river that I’m drowning in.

So I call the health center. The woman on the end of the line greets me cheerfully, “counseling and wellness center, this is Cathy!” and asks

what she can do for me. Cathy’s voice is so bright, so full of excitement that it actually strikes me in a way. The pure happiness that is this woman is a stark contrast to how I’m feeling now—it’s a bit too much to handle.

I stumble over my words, speaking low so the sneaky neighbor girls next door to Carrie’s room couldn’t hear me. “Yes, hi, I’m Drew, uh, Drew Kellogg, and I was wondering about the emergency counseling sessions?” The sessions were called “emergency” because they took priority over typical appointments, which you can usually only book two weeks in advance. I may have been in a shitty place, but I still never thought of myself needing “emergency” attention. For God’s sake, I’ve lived with these kinds of panic episodes for my entire life.

I’ve struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until that chilly November day that I knew to call it anxiety. For some periods of my life, I thought it was depression; in others, I just felt sad or worried. My grandmother was always an anxious person, so I knew that anxiety existed; yet I never applied the term to myself. I was just a worrier. Worrying was what I did best.

I worried before birthday parties (“what if I don’t like it?”), before hiking trips (“what if it rains?”), before the first day of school, and probably every subsequent day of school throughout my elementary school career. Most of the time the worrying subsided as soon as I was distracted enough from my own mind to realize that the world wasn’t as big and scary as I thought it was. But then something would change (I am not a fan of change) and the anxiety would shift to something else once again. That same anxiety lingered throughout middle school too.

When high school rolled around, I believed that my anxiety had finally subsided. But sophomore year, I had a few setbacks that really shook my anxiety up, allowing it to roam through me like a shaken soda ready to foam 27

over.

There were days that I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t like the ten minutes I spent every day in the shower because it was ten minutes that I was alone, where my mind could roam free and create more and more things to worry about. The anxiety tired me out; I didn’t want to do anything. I wasn’t fun at parties anymore.

My grades slipped, I lost interest in everything.

Every day was a new challenge for me; and while I met some with great success, others really did crush me.

It was over a year before I really felt completely happy again; over the course of the year I had managed to work out the knots in my head and it finally felt as though the strings had been untangled.

Lost in the recollection of my own past, my ears ring as Cathy’s voice explodes through the phone.

“Can you come in at 2 o’clock today?” Cathy asks. Shaken, I answer, “Yeah, 2 works. See you then,” I click the phone off as Cathy bids me farewell from the other line. I end up feeling guilty that I didn’t really listen to her goodbye. The next hour goes by in what feels like several excruciatingly long days, but a comfort is present that was noticeably absent before.

I feel warmer; my face flushes and I feel alive again. Even though I still feel the tightness of the knot, in my stomach I can feel it slowly loosening up.

When I get to the health center, I see Cathy at the front desk. She has the widest smile I’ve ever seen it my life; I couldn’t help but smile a bit back. She hands me a clipboard with various forms, asking for information, personal history, etc.

As I fill in the paperwork, I begin to realize how little I have to be anxious or depressed about. My parents have never hit me. I’ve never had to deal with severe addiction problems or dangerously low self-esteem. I’ve been very fortunate in my life to have the incredible support system that I do, and I forget that so often because I get in my own head so much.

28

I start to think that maybe I shouldn’t even be here; there are obviously people who need these services more than I do, so I should give up my spot with a counselor for someone who has a real problem that they need help with. I’ll be fine. After a noticeable pause, I quickly stand up, clutching the strap of my backpack and holding on tightly. I’m turn to exit through the front door, when I suddenly see a tall, dark haired woman emerging from a room at the end of the long hallway. I freeze in her sight like a deer in the headlights. Suddenly, she calls out to the waiting room in a calm, comforting voice.

“Drew?”

I turn without hesitation and walk towards he. She greets me, and introduces herself as Suki. Her handshake is cool, but has meaning behind it; before I’ve even really spoken to her, I feel like I trust Suki’s judgment.

I walk into her office, the sea green walls covered in exotic art and diplomas, two large, comfortable looking chairs sit in two corners of the room, face one another.

“Sit wherever you like”, Suki says with a smile. I pick the chair facing the windows; looking out of windows has always helped calm me down. I sink into the armchairs heavy down as Suki takes a seat in the vacant armchair.

She makes direct eye contact, but there’s nothing intimidating about it; it’s friendly. My trust has been solidified before she even has the time to say something profound. The profound statement, does, however, happen immediately after. In her calm, genuinely concerned voice, she asks me the question that turns the tides.

“So what’s going on?”

I break down. Immediately the floodgates are open and the tears are pouring from my eyes as if they had been waiting on the edge for almost a week. My nose immediately plugs, my head pounds in recoil from the release of pressure. I stutter, then take a few deep, jolted breaths as I try to get the words out.

“I guess I’m just feeling over-

whelmed” is all I can get out before I relapse back into panicked breaths and heavy tears. Suki nods knowingly, a look of pure sympathy and understanding on her face. From that moment on, I pour out my stresses, my fears, my constant worries, my hopes, what I want out of life, everything onto the table. I talk about my family, my friends, my schoolwork, my history with anxiety. Suki tells me that I’m definitely being too hard on myself, and that I need to learn to how give myself a break, because I “deserve it.”

I deserve it. There’s a thought I haven’t even considered this whole time. I deserve to be happy, don’t I? I’m a good person, I mean well and I never intentionally hurt anyone. And yet I’m still coming down so hard on myself all the time, beating my own self into submission.

I owe this debt to myself. Seeking help for my anxiety was one of the greatest decisions I have ever made.

I’ve since met with Suki multiple times in the last year. Sure, my first meeting didn’t “cure” my anxiety, but I didn’t expect it to. I just wanted to get out of my rut and get going again. Not only did the meeting help springboard me out of the rut I was in; I’ve also learned so much about my anxiety and myself in the last year. I owed myself happiness, and I wasn’t thinking of it that way.

To some, monetary woes may be more prominent debts to be paid than personal dilemmas. But to me, paying a debt to myself by taking steps towards happiness was the best choice I could have ever made. I have finally paid the debt that plagued me for years. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t still get to me from time to time, but I’ve learned how to push through the hard times and enjoy the good ones even more. My two separate worlds are finally coming back together, the colors of which are slowly seeping back into reality.

Breaking the 9 to 5 Tucked away in the Commons, above Autumn Leaves Used Books, rests the Tompkins County Workers’ Center office. For all it does around the city, it isn’t as big as one would think. The workspace is in the corner of a large room above the bookstore, partitioned off from the coffee shop rather haphazardly. Brightly colored papers and bulletins cover the scattered desks and tables in the small space, and colorful posters cover brightly painted walls. The space is crowded, but somehow manages to seem comfortably cozy rather than cramped. The rest of the room is partitioned off for the several non-profit organizations that sublet the space from the Workers’ Center, with a table in the center of the room used as a meeting space.

The center, originally known as the Tompkins County Living Wage Coalition, is dedicated to helping workers. The problems Pete Meyers and his two coworkers see seem endless at times. People walk into the office with stories of sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions and missing paychecks.

“I feel like it’s a calling,” said Meyers. “We have two other people working here now, and we’re actually considering regionalizing, expanding what we do.”

Meyers’ calling emerged nearly fourteen years ago while living in Indiana, directing a program at his local library.

While looking to hire for an open position, he felt that a black candidate was better qualified than a white candidate. He advocated for the black candidate and got fired because of it.

His case went all the way to federal court, but took time to do so.

“It took three years to get to federal court, and that was a defining moment in my life,” said Meyers. “That was what led me to get involved in the workers’ rights part of what we do.”

For a long time, Meyers was the only one addressing problems at the Workers’ Center. Because of his deep passion for the center’s ideals, he never minded the commitment, but realized there was a small cost to other areas in his life. Taking on many of the day-to-day tasks at the office, Meyers dealt with the financial aspects of the Center, the workers’ rights cases, and daily operational tasks of an office since he was the only employee.

With all that the Workers’ Center does, it comes as no surprise that Meyers sometimes finds it difficult to step back from the job.

“I’m learning to shift what I do from being directly involved to being more

of an executive advisor,” Meyers said.

“I used to handle the people walking in through the door with problems, but I’m not doing that so much anymore because I have two other staff people to do that.”

Pete shares the Workers’ Center’s allotted space with two part-time employees, Linda Holzbaur and Carlos Guiterrez. Additionally, two interns work with the staff to help accomplish much of the work that the center does, like organizing events and raising awareness about the center.

According to Holzbaur, with two part time workers and Meyers working full time, the center has reached the equivalent of two full-time workers.

“We have to prioritize with what gets

By Katherine Alexander done,” she said.

Because Meyers has two other employees to help him with the many emails, phone calls, meetings and other daily tasks, he doesn’t find himself taking his job home with him much any more. This wasn’t always the case, though.

“I used to take my work home with me more before,” he said. “I’ve learned that I can’t do that. It’s not that I never do, but I don’t as much as I used to. Having more people working makes it easier to let go.”

Today, Meyers’ work hasn’t diminished; it has simply changed.

“Back then, we were a $40,000 a year organization,” said Meyers. “Now we’re a $125,000 a year organization.

There are different things, like fundraising and making executive decisions, that I do now that I wasn’t doing then.”

But all of this work is completely worth it, according to Pete.

His voice rises with enthusiasm when he tells about the various cases that he has dealt with in the past few years.

“One of our first big cases was this pizzeria in Collegetown,” said Meyers. “Workers from Central and South America were sleeping in the basement, being paid four dollars an hour and working 70 hours a week with no overtime.”

Meyers said that now the personal is still intertwined with the professional, but there is a balance. He said it has been easier to separate work from life now that he knows there are other people he can rely on.

“My girlfriend is involved [in the center] too, so in some ways that separation isn’t there because of that,” Meyers said. “But I do meditate and I have other things that I do outside work, so it’s all good. It’s been part of my personal growth that has helped me to separate work from my personal life.”

Photography by Sam McCann

Sugar High: Inside a Sugar Daddy Social By Kayla Dudden Network A soft face defined by brilliant green eyes peeks from behind long, golden-blonde hair. They are the color of fresh, new leaves—bold and impossible to navigate. A coy smile is framed by soft curls that start at the chin and cascade down the back.

Petite in frame, flirtatious in posture, she is absolutely stunning There’s just one thing: she isn’t real.

Meet Caina. She is a young, happy female coed who enjoys athletic activities and making new friends. To the men of sugar daddy relationship websites, she’s an ideal match. To me, she’s bait that allows me to explore their endgame.

For many, college is four years of rigorous classes, crazy weekends, and infallible friendships that shape the best memories of life. It is a time when they capitalize upon their beauty, intellect, and path to success.

For some though, it’s an experience that comes with a hefty price tag that is reason enough to pursue a sugar daddy relationship.

Many associate the word companionship with a simple and innocent friend, someone who offers support and guidance and perhaps a cure for occasional bouts of loneliness. In the sugar baby-daddy realm, it revolves around sex, money, and secrecy.

Thanks to popular culture, this is the type of companionship that is the foundation for most sugar daddy and

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sugar baby relationships. There are obvious scenarios in today’s society that glamorize the idea of a sugar baby/sugar daddy relationship. From reading about Ashton and Demi’s romance in tabloids to reruns of MTV’s “True Life: I’m A Sugar Baby,” sugar babydaddy relationships are a form of entertainment—if not an afterthought altogether—in today’s society. Instead of blindly accepting this stereotype, I set off to make my own conclusions about sugar babies, Caina’s fake profile pulled up on my laptop screen guiding my way.

Curious and compelled, I uploaded Caina’s completely fabricated personal information and photograph onto multiple websites tailored to matching potential sugar babies to sugar daddies. Some, like the website SeekingArrangement, provide a simple interface presumably meant to evoke classy companionship. Others, like SugarDaddyForMe, allow users to share their wildest fantasies and desires. No matter the look or feel, pursuing a sugar daddy relationship through these websites share one fluid endgame: sex.

Exploring the world of sugar baby-

daddy (or mommy) relationships is not for the faint of heart. As per the rules of these sites, one must wait 24 hours before interacting with other users, as each profile must be vetted. While the measure seems reassuring, my stock photo was approved, making the experience even sketchier. It isn’t long before emails come pouring in. Some messages seem innocent at first, but most are inappropriate enough to send shivers down a spine. The faces on the profiles staring through the screen at me are those of local professors, established doctors, and fathers of children who are also in college.

These are sugar daddies and I have just become an available sugar baby.

I was not alone and wanted to see what my fellow sugar babies were like. SugarDaddyForMe provided pages upon pages of profiles of young and available sugar babies to scroll through. I was bombarded by images of scantily clothed girls, most between the ages of 18 and 25, all posing sexily for their profile pictures. They are other college students, sending out cyber pleas to typically older, wealthy benefactors to help ease personal

financial burden. In the face of bank statements and extensive loan summaries, contracting a sugar daddy can certainly seem tempting. Someone who offers to pay a student’s way through school and dole out additional “allowances” in exchange for a little companionship could be harmless enough. But what exactly does this companionship entail?

For a recent graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology, it entailed weekly drives to Syracuse for a $3,000 booty call with her sugar daddy. Making $12,000 each month during her senior year, the young woman was able to pay off the entirety of her student loan debt before ever receiving her degree. Her story, like many others, were shared by potential sugar daddies who communicated similar offers to Caina, convinced their previous sugar baby relationships would net them new ones.

Some of the men, varying in age from late 30’s to early 60’s, were

brief and blunt when describing their desires. A 34-year-old man going by the name “Smokescreen” emailed me looking for “a submissive girl who would take his punishments.” I responded to his email, asking him to elaborate on what he meant, and he simply replied that he would pay for my complete college tuition if I would agree to not only have sex with him, but also to indulge in bondage and other “fetishes.” This had to be one of the more disturbing emails that I encountered throughout this process.

My roommate observed my new daily afternoon habit and would continuously inquire as to what I was reading whenever she heard me gasp or mutter a whispered “ew” at one of the messages. I would read them aloud to her, the various sexual advances these men old enough to be my father, or in some cases my grandfather, were making. We were both particularly taken aback when one of the men who emailed me claiming to

be a professor at local university. Yet here he was, asking me to agree to a sexual and discreet relationship with him in exchange for never having to worry about my college bills again.

One night I asked my roommate just how far she would have to be pushed to enter into a relationship such as this. Despite beings tens of thousands of dollars in debt, she said she would never consider it.

“It’s crazy that I could be with one of the men for just a few months and have all my debt be taken care of… but it’s gross,” she pondered.

I was curious as to whether a male opinion would differ, so I went and spoke to the gentlemen on my floor about just how desperate they would have to be in order to get a sugar mommy. I explained to them the basic concept, companionship in exchange for financial support, and most agreed it would be something they would look into. However, when I mentioned how important sex turned out to be in these relationships, the answers changed.

“That’s nasty; I can’t have sex with someone that old. It’s like sleeping with my mom,” one of them stated.

On the surface, becoming a sugar baby seems like an easy decision.

It’s an easy way to get rid of any and all debt, and perhaps even pocket a little money for your own use. They are usually discreet so no one would have to know. It all seems so perfect and harmless. Beneath the surface, the secrecy, sex, and obligation lead to huge personal decisions, and aren’t always so easy to get out of. Expecting simple companionship is silly—sex is expected. College loans can seem extreme and overwhelming, but so were all those emails my fake persona received. There’s a line between feeling stressed about finding a solution to your finances and selling your body in sweet desperation. And yet, it is surprising just how many young students are crossing that line in order to make ends meet.

31 Screenshot by Kayla Dudden

Keeping it in the Family

By Allie Healy

Streetlights illuminate the ice crystals that delicately cascade from the gutters and roofs that line our street. The closely packed Syracuse neighborhood is silent, save for short, occasional outbursts of laughter and hums of crowded conversations coming from warm, cozy living rooms. White flakes fall from the sky, covering lawns lined by a procession of parked sedans and mid-sized SUVs that litter the street. I walk up the salt-crusted driveway, pass the small brick patio, and inhale the sweet, musty air of the garage. The house glows as if it had outstretched arms, beckoning me to come inside.

“No shoes allowed indoors!” my father yells. Same reminder, different year.

Pairs of leather dress shoes in sizes ranging from miniature children’s to monstrous adults’ occupy the runner carpets laid out. I try not to trip. Voices seep through the door: ”Are the shrimp defrosted yet?”

“When are the weenies going to be ready?”

“Jack, that’s enough root beer!”

It’s December 24th. The day has come again.

Brace yourself and push open the forest green door.

Enter the world of the Healy family on Christmas Eve. My family. We are one grandmother, nine uncles, six aunts, 20 cousins, and two newborns.

The volume instantly increases, filling the air with sounds of welcomes, talk of Christmas plans, memories, and when it comes to me, how my fall semester at college went. The kitchen walls always beam a cozy goldenrod as the oven opens and closes with rusty Photography courtesy of Allie Healy

creaks. My mother whisks hot hors d’oeuvres out and slips in pans of frozen ones for the next round of finger food. Family members litter the first floor of my house - there will be at least five people in each room exchanging stories between bites of their roast beef and horseradish sandwiches.

As the plastic plates begin to empty and stomachs fill with assorted cheeses, fresh bruschetta and homemade macaroni and cheese, the time comes for the coveted exchange of presents. The younger boys know what is to come - this year’s collector, a green and white Hess truck. By the time all are unwrapped a chorus of sirens crescendos throughout my living room, tiny red lights flashing in unison. I find my godparents, Aunt Aimee and Uncle Scott, to exchange our gifts together on the chocolate leather couch. When I was a toddler, Aunt Aimee tried to convince me that Santa was only going to put coal in my stocking. I retorted back angrily: “No! He will bring toys!”

In contest, we would take pictures together, she making a C for coal and me a T for toys with our hands. To this day, she taunts me every year with that same remark.

Soon after the wrapping paper shreds are balled up and stuffed into a giant plastic bag, the entire family gathers into the family room and connected dining room for the commencement of the annual talent show. Ever since we moved from the city to our bigger house in the suburb of DeWitt, we proudly host this post-dinner entertainment. My mom rolls the podium into the family room where she sets my Bichon Frise, Emmet, outfitted in a small Christmas sweater, on top to get the attention of the rooms. She yells above the babbling crowd that the first act will be my cousins Emily and Colleen doing a duet with their clarinets. Past acts have included opera singing of “Sk8er Boi,” by Avril Lavigne, poetry

readings, Nerf gun stunt shows, and Christmas-themed raps. I used to play my clarinet and guitar when I was younger for my family but as I grew older, I drifted towards the audience and squeezed with my older cousins on the sectional couch. My mom starts scooping up the candy cane ice cream she made that morning and slicing the cheesecake for the adults. Cookies were banned from our festivities ever since my cousin James was caught ice-skating on two cookies around the hardwoods by Mr. Spick-and-Span himself, my father.

The goodbyes start circulating around the house and cousins begin to trade their church wear for their brand new jammies. Sleepy eyed and ready for Santa’s surprises, a train of family member pass through the garage and out into the frigid night.

I look forward to the holidays because of the traditions my family and I hold. They occupy a special place in my heart - in all our hearts. Though I know what to expect every year, I cannot wait for the tree to sparkle through my living room window. For my cousins to scurry up and down my stairs. For the inevitable laughter and joy we share to happen over and over again. The holiday season brings the same traditions every year, but always a different show. I find myself wondering: What questions will be asked during the family trivia game? Which cousin will inhale the most pigs in a blanket? What will be the dance party theme this year?

My family, immediate and extended, is situated in the suburbs of Syracuse. My father, and all his brothers and sisters, attended the same high

school as me, marking me as Healy number thirteen upon my graduation.

We are a tight knit crew, us Healys, and we seize any opportunity to throw a party. Though we have typically spent a lot of time reminiscing about the past, our celebrations have begun shifting focus to our futures as more and more cousins are marrying and bearing another generation. We are growing older and moving on from our nest in Central New York to college, to jobs, to our adult lives. Raised as homebodies, this move has proven to be extremely tough. The oldest of the clan of younger Healy cousins, I led the way to college and life outside of our comfortable bubbles. Though I am only an hour away from home, my family always looks forward to visits or my momentary homecoming at the holidays.

As I begin my steady departure for the “real world”, I find myself somewhat stuck in the past. Stuck in my family’s memories and in our traditions. I have seen older cousins move from home, an inevitable challenge I know I will face in my future. Their success has motivated them to move farther away from their past lives to the point of oblivion. Like my cousin, Justin, who is so wrapped up in his new life in Detroit that he forgot about the date of our annual Christmas Eve celebration.

I see my cousin’s forgetfulness and I know that I don’t want to do the same. But I do have fantasies of my own success. Of becoming a thriving journalist living in a sprawling city - cozying up in endless multicultural restaurants to lift fork by fork of mouthwatering food into my mouth

only to return home and relive the experience in my written reviews. Or even traveling from country to country, immersing myself in these unknown, uncharted worlds. But as all of us cousins grow older and have families of our own, I owe it to my family to keep our traditions alive.

As captivating and ambitious as my dreams are, what I desire more than anything is to have a family of my own some day. A family that I can initiate into the same quirky traditions that I grew up with. A family that feels the same love and compassion that I feel in the embrace I have with my father. In the goodnight kisses from my mother. While I experience the day-today rush of deadlines and weight of workloads, I cannot fathom any more demands in my life. Week upon week scampers past me with a rushed hello and goodbye.

Before I know it, it’s time for me to drive through the curvy, tree-bordered highways, making my way back home again. Each time fidgeting in my seat, anticipating the last swooping turn to reveal the billowing, white hood of the Carrier Dome and the downtown buildings protruding from the lush surroundings. I close my eyes in the car, lean back, and inhale the lingering sweetness in the air, coffee cake and sugar cookies made the night before. Evergreen tickles my nose as I examine the luminescent tree. Garland laces the family room doorframe; nutcrackers guard the way up to my room. My eyes flutter open and the car comes to a stop in front of the wreath-bearing house I’ve missed so dearly. I am home for the holidays.

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Without A Compass

By Timothy Bidon

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“Occupying” has become the new trendy thing to do, and with all the rhetoric being thrown around about national debt, student debt and every other type of grievance imaginable, sometimes it’s difficult for me as a college student to collect my thoughts and see where I fit into this complex issue.

As a journalism major, I find myself constantly bombarded with messages telling me that we’re about to hit the debt ceiling, and that many American families can no longer afford to send their kids to college. Furthermore, being a student on a college campus, it sometimes appears as if I’ve been thrown into a steam cooker of student debt. Among my handful of friends, it is easy to pick up on the debt pressures each one of us is experiencing—debt is a constant presence. With all these issues building up, I rarely get the chance to sit down and take a step back to even begin to

contemplate where I stand in this vast sea of debt.

Growing up was never difficult for

me financially. I felt I always had what I needed and, most of the time, what I wanted. I grew up an only child in a

standard middle-class slice of suburbia with a working-class dad and a “professional” middle-class mother who worked her tail off to always provide me with what I needed. I never felt any sort of financial pressure in the slightest until the time came to apply for college. At first it seemed very stressful; my parents placed all sorts of scholarship applications in front of me and guidance counselors were throwing all kinds of emails my way telling me to apply for this loan or that grant.

Throughout my senior year of high school I began to feel the pressure of money and, for a while, I felt as if financial restraints were going to prevent me from pursuing the college education I wanted for myself.

Little did I know something was working behind the scenes in my favor.

The first time my grandfather uttered the words “collegefund” to me I was taken aback. It was as if all the weight of the world was lifted off my back. Apparently, he and my mother had arranged a system to pay for my first two years of college since I began high school. What a marvelous thing! Of course, I would still apply for those scholarships—I certainly Photography by Sam McCann

didn’t want to seem ungrateful for the incredible gift I had been given— but I had never felt as lucky as I did at the moment I realized I would be going to college at a minimal price.

But it didn’t stop there.

Apparently two years wasn’t enough for my grandfather, as he decided to put the cherry on the cake by topping off my college fund with enough to get me through all four years, thus bypassing any need I might ever have for a student loan.

Talking about my financial debt is not something I do quite often. I recognize that I am extremely privileged and never want my friends who manage their financial debt to think I take my situation for granted. After all, I have relatively none in a financial sense, but I am surrounded by those who do, and it would be a vast understatement for me to say I sympathize with them. These are my peers and my friends and I wish they could all be in the same situation I am in, but unfortunately the world we live in is not that kind.

But, individually, I have a very difficult time articulating how I feel about student debt. In a financial sense, my debt has been completely alleviated but in a moral sense it has just increased tenfold. After all, paying for my entire college career has not been a simple task for my grandfather. In order to make it so that my parents avoided severe sacrifices for my education, he has made severe sacrifices for my education. It pains me to visit my grandparents whenever I’m home and see my grandmother’s deteriorating health and my grandfather’s reduced financial means to accommodate her.

Sure, she has a home attendant, but she doesn’t come nearly as often as she should. My grandmother suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and it has

been a huge strain on the entire family. She requires full time care, which my grandfather can no longer afford to provide. Instead, she is forced to sit in front of the television for hours on end

as she slowly slips further from the rest of us. My grandmother was a huge role model my entire life and played an important part in raising me. Sometimes I can’t help but turn around and feel a sense of disgust at myself because in her time of need, I am absent and using all the resources that could have been put towards her care. Certainly, my grandmother isn’t being abused, but I feel as if in some bizarre sense, I have become the priority over my grandmother and with that there is an enormous amount of moral debt attached

to my “debt-free” college experience.

The “debt-free” college experience has its perks, but it certainly also has its downfalls. Aside from my grandmother, I also feel an enormous disparity between my parents and I. Sometimes it feels as if there is disconnect, as if my parents feel that I don’t need them because my grandfather has taken on the task of funding my education. Naturally, this is not true, but how do I make them feel otherwise? Sometimes it feels as if I’m walking on eggshells at home, as if I am no longer entitled to express my discontent with any situation because I have nothing viable to complain about. I see this side of the argument, but I don’t want my parents to think I feel entitled to anything different. I still appreciate all the work they have done for me, but the issue of expressing my gratitude has become all the more complex.

So here I am, sailing this sea of debt with no compass. While all my friends can crowd onto the boat of student loans and find something that’s concrete to scream about, I feel as if I’ve drifted further away from them, for my debt issues aren’t as clean-cut. I can’t turn to anyone or sit in a protest to express my discontent. All my conflict remains internal and I find day by day that I have to bury it further to keep any inter-family conflict at bay.

But it is ever present, boiling under the surface. I sail this sea of moral debt, knowing that any wrong maneuver could send my boat sinking to the ocean floor; it might have been a good idea to bring along a life vest, but does such a life vest exist?

Poster courtesy of LIPS

My Father's Keeper

By Megan Devlin Minutes before class begins, the dimmed screen of my Blackberry illuminates to a piercing blue. As the words “Unknown Caller” capture my full attention, a hint of uncertainty hides beneath my curiosity of who it could be.

“Hello. Is this Megan Devlin?”

“Uhh, yes. Who is this calling?”

“I’m Philippe, your father’s boss.

Do you know where he is today?”

Those last few words echoed inside my head as panic rushed over me. I was his emergency contact.

In the few minutes I had to spare between the click of the phone and the strike of the clock, I incessantly called my father’s cell phone, our home phone and even my siblings — though it was wishful of me to think any of them would pick up, especially since I’m the only one in the family who keeps my phone at the hip.

In desperation, I called the one person who would help me find out whether or not my father was alive.

“Mrs. Cote? It’s Meg. My Dad’s boss called me today. My Dad hasn’t reported into work, and that’s not like him. I can’t get a hold of him and I have to go to class. I don’t know if he’s okay…”

Over the years, Mrs. Cote has been more than just a high school guidance counselor to me. She’s been there for every struggle I’ve been through; she’s been my guardian angel.

Three hours and a half-drained battery later, I desperately glanced at my phone again, checking as if I were texting my pre-teen obsession. Just when I placed it on the countertop, the screen flashed.

INCOMING CALL: MRS. COTE “Hey Meg. Your Dad’s ok,” she said, lingering on the last syllable before releasing the catch. “Don’t get mad at me, though: I had the police go to your house.”

My shoulders collapsed and a discordant clash of relief and guilt 36

overcame me. Dad was alive; in fact, he was just recharging after being run down from a combination of work, online masters’ courses and single fatherhood. But it took a cop rapping on my front door to find that out.

“Dad! You had me so worried: your boss called me this morning. And no one was answering my calls! Are you okay?”

The roles have been reversed: the 19-year-old daughter gets worked up over her father not returning phone calls, not knowing where he is, fearing for his safety and resorting to desperation.

For years, I’ve been the second set of hands at home: making weekly groceries trips, picking the kids up from sports’ practices or running a few loads of laundry.

But I’m no longer there to keep the little things from piling up. No longer can I prevent Dad from crashing down. Though my ability to help wanes, my sense of responsibility stays and makes my fear grow.

“I’m fine,” Dad said, weakly muttering into the phone’s speaker. “I’m just tired.”

My spine crawled at the sound of those last three words, the ones Grandma used to say each time I called. Impulsively, I feared the worst: having this unbearable cycle repeat once more. *** ONE YEAR EARLIER, FALL 2010 The cool autumn breeze whirls beneath my already wind-chapped chin as I poke my head out the car door.

An all-too-familiar chill welcomes me back to Connecticut — my first homecoming since college move-in on that sticky summer day months before.

A smile creeps onto my face as childhood memories of making croissant rolls and baking pumpkin pie absorb my thoughts, but only momentarily.

I snap back to reality as the frail body draped in fleece blanks before me can barely lift itself from the recliner. My stomach knots as I say hello, but I fear my touch will make it worse.

“Hi Grandma.”

Her tired eyes slowly open and ease upward to meet mine. They widen and a smile stretches across her slightly sunken and wrinkled cheeks.

“Megan!”

As usual, I lean over and plant a kiss upon her cheek, though gently this time. I’m expecting a warm embrace and a meaningful peck in return, but she does not turn her cheek. The cancer is getting worse.

She makes it to the Thanksgiving table, assuming her traditional seat, but needing a more cushioned chair this year.

Dad carries over the oven-cooked dish as a scent of warm spices follows his movement and hovers in midair.

It didn’t look so bad — not for only 15 minutes of prep, and 45 to cook.

Grandma wanted to pre-order dinner this year. It was easier.

“Get the one we like,” she gently requested while sliding Dad the credit card and giving him leeway to fill up his gas tank and pick up a few groceries of his own while out.

We all fold our hands. Grandma says a quick grace, then lifts her head and asks for a few green beans and one of the warm rolls. She’s not very hungry. *** WINTER 2010 The Ithaca winds are getting worse.

The chill is unbearable; the snow doesn’t stop. Hiding behind the cloud of grey is the sun, though it never breaks through.

“Hi Grandma, it’s Megan. Just checking in with you today. How are you feeling?”

Grandma started chemo just be-

Photography courtesy of Megan Devlin

fore I left. I took her once, right after Christmas. But she recently missed one. Dad couldn’t make time to take her. He was too busy with work.

Dad wakes up early each morning, brews a pot of coffee and guzzles it before having to drive halfway across the state. He fills up movie boxes and stocks shelves at grocery stores and pharmacies. He tries to hit as many as he can along one route. If he doesn’t stop, he can make a few extra dollars. The work is hard, but fine for now while he still looks for a real job — one with benefits.

I’m worried she’ll get worse. Dad

can’t be there for Grandma like I was, day after day for the six long and bleak weeks. I opened her mail, I helped her pay bills, I clipped her coupons, I bought her groceries, I washed her laundry. I even cleaned up the clumps of her hair before she asked me to shave it all off.

She worries too, but more about Dad. Grandma says he’s still spending too much money. She didn’t expect his help with a few trips to the gas station to turn into endorsement for a new Apple computer, an electric drum set, a few dSLR cameras and audio equipment that comprised the

tech lab now taking over our living room.

That’s why Grandma called her lawyer before I left. She wanted to make changes; she wants to leave me in charge. I’m not supposed to tell Dad though. *** SPRING 2011 Papers are strewn across the table: a few scattered on the floor, just the way she left them. A teary fog blurs my vision as I brush my palm across her neatly folded blanket atop her rocker. I pull away, and the chair 37

swings freely, back and forth without the weight of a body to slow its motion.

It’s only a matter of seconds before a loud gasp erupts from my vocal chords, echoing in the lifeless condo while I try to fight back tears.

I stare at the unopened stack of thin envelopes concealing overdue bills and credit card statements. A few grievances cards from old friends extending their condolences are likely shuffled in the stack.

One by one, I tear at each seal, the same way I did in January. Not surprisingly, the church wants its weekly collection, the department stores want to reinforce customer loyalty. The gas bill is higher, but I suppose it was an especially cold winter for Grandma. I save the thickest for last and methodically pull out the wad of folded paper.

My eyes expand. I can feel my blood starting to boil. A twinge fear shoots up my spine, triggering rapid perspiration from my pores and erratic inflation of my lungs as I uneasily grip the statement with a bold five-figure combination stamped in the top right corner.

The numbers blend, my head spins.

I feel myself falling into a dreamy haze, but only until a hot splash awakens me. Panic kicks in and drives my eyes to furiously scan over the bill. I skim over the few hundred-dollar Stop & Shop and Mobil listings to scrutinize the full page’s detail of thousand-dollar film and audio purchases.

Never did I expect his spending to be this wild. Never did I expect my father to destroy more than 75-years of savings in one month. But never did I expect to inherit a lifetime worth of debt accumulated from pure selfishness. *** SUMMER 2011 My temples pulse as the Monday morning caffeine kicks in. I stare at the loading computer screen, wishing it too had a morning lift to fix its slow wake up.

The red blinking light on my Blackberry catches my peripherals and momentarily snaps me out of the digital drone — it’s another message

38

from Dad. I sigh.

At this point, I should probably stop assuming Dad will catch on and realize that I’m already in the office by 9:15. It’s not like I’ve had the internship for more than one month or anything…

I drag the phone across the desk and press the power key to dismiss the persistent flash and read his message.

“Can you call me when you get a chance? I need a favor.”

I already know what’s coming. I put down the phone and grab the mouse, calling up the Internet browser so I can check my bank statement.

I hope it’s only groceries for the week; more than $100 would be tight — I splurged on heirloom tomatoes from the DuPont Circle farmers’ market this weekend. And I still haven’t received the reimbursement check for my first month’s transportation.

Networking gets expensive.

“Hi Dad.” “Hey Meg. Did you get my message?”

“Yeah. How much do you need?”

“My check didn’t clear on Friday and I used up all my gas this weekend. I could really use your help. I need money for gas to get to work. I was going to pick up groceries for the kids on the way home tonight too.”

No, I think to myself. This isn’t fair.

I work a 40-hour week and don’t even get paid, yet I’m still responsible for rent, groceries and even my father.

But Grandma would have never said no; she couldn’t deny her own son. While her over-generosity may have been a blessing, it has now become a burden. Those magnetic pieces of plastic have done more harm than good. They have forever kept Dad a child who gets what he wants.

But can I truly deny my own father?

I hit the “Transfer” button and mutter a quick “I love you too” into the phone before hanging up.

I guess not. *** Those crisp familiar winds blow in again as I walk out my dorm building and look onto the spotted red-andorange hills. I breathe in the fresh

air and exhale a soft smile. Life has slowed down and I’ve finally caught up.

I’ve settled into a routine now: wake up early, breakfast, into the office by 9 a.m., make some phone calls and pay some bills, then put on my invisible student suit and go to class.

I call my Dad often, at least twice a week.

“Have you been following the Occupy Wall Street movement, Dad?” Our conversations usually bounce around. I usually ask him a question related to Grandma’s lake house or the JVC cameras I’m using in class.

He tells me about my brother’s latest football injury or my sister’s recent sleepover with friends; they don’t know how well Dad keeps track of them.

We share our ideas about capitalism, now that it has become part of everyday conversation. I tell him about the progressive and political action happening right here in Ithaca, and my wish to spark a similar flame back home. Dad isn’t surprised.

Two hours pass by and the white screen of my blank Word Document has not progressed beyond my name in the top left corner.

“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to my daughter this long.”

Though I’m now more than 300 miles away from home, my roots with my father have grown deeper and stretch beyond just our genetics. We’re now bonded by more than just family. We’re bound by a cycle that allows for fathers to be eternally indebted to their own daughters.

Even after I pay off every last penny owed to my Grandma’s name, the sadness, frustration and pain that have come from this experience will never fade. But I’ve discovered that from death, there comes a light; one that has illuminated my hidden family truths, but has guided me in understanding my role in this reality. Though my grandma’s money and debts will slowly chip away, her soul will forever live in me. But as I embody all that she was, her financial burden will survive along with this emotional one.

Ready: To Feel Like A Minority?

Senior DeAsia Gilmer first visited Ithaca College nearly four years ago as part of Inside Look, a program aimed at attracting African-American, Latino, Asian-American and Native American students to the school. As a black high school student from Baltimore, Maryland who had barely heard of IC before applying, Gilmer soaked in the details of her new environment—the cold weather, the classes, and of course the people. She met with hundreds of different ALANA students, both enrolled and prospective. She went to classes, participated in game nights and made friends with the other students, all while learning about the minority culture on campus.

The weekend sold her, and Gilmer decided to enroll.

But when fall came around and Gilmer moved into her Terrace dorm room, she couldn’t help but ask: “Well, where are all those people now?”

By Sam McCann

Gilmer found herself stranded in a drastically different culture, alien not just to Baltimore, but also to what she experienced during her first weekend in Ithaca. Rather than the sea of students of color she saw that spring, she met the reality of Ithaca College: a school that, when Gilmer arrived, had a freshman class comprised of just 13.4 percent ALANA students.

“Freshman year I wanted to transfer. It was just so different, I didn’t know if I could handle the college being so different than what I was used to,” Gilmer explained. “It wasn’t only culture shock, it was being uncomfortable with who I felt that I could talk to because, at least psychologically, people gravitate initially to people who they can relate to and who look like them. So it was like, ‘I don’t know if I can relate to any of these people.’”

Gilmer’s qualms ran the gamut, from feeling as though she was ex-

pected to speak for her entire race in classrooms, to being unable to relate to the people she passed in the halls.

However, she managed to find a comfortable niche through programs like the African Latino Society, where she was able to express herself comfortably.

“Even if it was hard throughout the week, I knew on this night I could just go and relax for an hour, talk to people, and be myself,” she said.

In the three years since Gilmer considered transferring, the school has seen a growth its minority population; On October 5, The Ithacan ran a story headlined “College Reports Most Diverse Freshman Class in IC History,” trumpeting the fact that “the 2011 freshman class is made up of 18.2 percent ALANA students, compared to 15.1 percent in 2010, 14.9 percent in 2009 and 13.4 percent in 2008.”

However, the real story was buried Photography by Jessica Santos

in the article’s seventh paragraph: despite the college’s ballyhooed “progress,” its minority population lags significantly behind the national average of 27 percent ALANA students—even this, its “best” class, falls approximately a third below the national average.

“I guess in the administration’s mind it makes them feel better…I think from an administration view it’s like, ‘At least we’re not decreasing, or at least we’re not stagnant.’ It’s all about numbers,” Gilmer said.

But of course it’s not all about the numbers, and minority students on campus don’t function simply to make administrators feel better. The fact remains: students like Gilmer do sometimes wind up with a slanted perception of the school. How does that happen? And is there an ALS—somewhere people of different cultures can feel at ease—for everyone? *** This past September IC’s marketing department reached out to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholars, a group of high-achieving ALANA students awarded merit-based scholarships.

They were searching for volunteers to be photographed for the college’s promotional materials, specifically the brochures sent out to accepted applicants.

Gilmer, an MLK Scholar herself, bristled at the email and other attempts to highlight the relatively few ALANA students the school does have.

“If this was an email they sent out to the entire campus community saying ‘We want to get pictures of people doing X, Y and Z,’ that’s different,” she said. “But I just feel like they’re kind of putting students of color on a display…It’s kind of like, not that zoo feel, but kind of being examined, being looked at, just for simply the color of your skin.”

Other students echo Gilmer’s sentiments. Lawrence Moten, a senior MLK scholar, explained that he feels the college will, at times, intentionally play up aspects of its ALANA community in order to attract a larger population of those students.

“I think every advertising company lies. I think Ithaca College is no different,” Moten said. “I think that they

want people to think that they are culturally diverse. And they’re trying, and not necessarily successful.”

It would appear that even President Tom Rochon agrees with at least part of that statement: the college does seek to create a perception that it is diverse. In 2009, as part of an article on the college’s marketing efforts, he told Buzzsaw Magazine’s Julissa Treviño that: “We do everything to present our campus as a diverse campus.”

Treviño’s article examined an ad campaign called “i Am Diverse,” which was scrapped in March 2009.

The campaign involved a series of posters in which students and faculty listed what set them apart, to occasionally comic effect— among the phrases used to indicate “diversity” on campus included “Caucasian,” “Christian,” “born and raised on Long Island,” “student” and “nerd.”

While that campaign may have fallen flat in its efforts to achieve the impossible and to present Ithaca as an actual diverse campus, the intention behind it illustrates a larger point, which Treviño broached in her report: the desire to show the school as diverse is inherently manipulative if it doesn’t address the underlying fact that the student population is overwhelmingly white.

And it doesn’t matter if the fact is glossed over in an attempt to “fix” a homogenous campus by attracting more ALANA students, because simply accumulating more minority students fails to “fix” anything at all. Ithaca College isn’t entitled to a certain number of minority students, nor is it bound to adhere to the national average. What it does owe to the community is honesty, and if the actual number of minority students isn’t placed alongside highlights of what little diversity is present within the marketing materials themselves, the college has failed in that obligation.

While it would be great if minority students gravitated to our campus in large numbers, the fact that they don’t doesn’t mean we “present our campus as a diverse campus” when that isn’t necessarily true.

The negative effects of that failure manifest themselves in the students themselves when they arrive on campus under such a pretense. They’re apparent in Moten’s suspicion and Gilmer’s alienation. As Moten says: “That should be in their advertising. Yes, we do have a low minority student population but we are working in these ways to improve that, and it’s growing’ and they should show that track of growth.”

But Moten, for his part, would actually be willing to participate in the college’s advertising despite his reservations.

“I would do it for Ithaca because I love Ithaca and I love showing people how much I love Ithaca and trying to show them how great Ithaca can be, and for that reason I’d be a part of that,” he said. However, he is aware of how the school could use his ethnicity in marketing itself. “I don’t think I’d ever consider that as simply because I’m black, that I identify as African-American and Asian-American, but I know that those would be things that the college is using to its benefit.”

And while Gilmer might be unwilling to be in ads for the college, she nevertheless overcame her initial alienation by connecting with the ALANA community on campus, finding the relatable people she was looking for.

In fact, she continued to participate in

Inside Look as an IC student because she sees the program as important despite her reservations. So if the college fosters a culture of inclusion, the negative effects of misleading advertising are lessened.

But, if the school’s minority population is indeed growing at the rate the school insists, it stands to reason that the programming catered to fostering conversations about that diversity must also grow. If the school fails to do that, it increases the risk that students like Gilmer face similar alienation when they get to campus and experience life on the other side of the advertising. And, in at least one prominent instance, the school does indeed appear to be failing. *** “The Asian-American Studies program… has been promised for the last ten years [since the creation of the Center for Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity], but has been put on hold for ten years,” Kristy Zhen explains, her voice rising to a crescendo as she details the latest resistance she’s met in her efforts to install an academic program examining the issues facing Asian Americans on campus.

The most recent push began in the spring of 2010, born out of a student identity panel hosted by the Asian American Alliance. That event invited students to share their experiences as Asians and Americans; a common thread running through the discussion was a desire for academic programming to explore their identity.

Zhen took it upon herself to push for the expansion of the curriculum, beginning with a survey gauging interest in an Asian American Studies Program on campus. It garnered roughly 100 responses, most of which favored the creation of such a series of courses.

Zhen acknowledges that the survey may not have been entirely representative, largely because of its population and sample size, but the apparent interest in such a program became a stepping-stone for her work the following spring. Zhen began compiling a documentary, “Missing in History,” examining identity and education in the context of a potential Asian American Studies Program.

“From the documentary and our

research we found that students who are able to learn about their own history and the history of people of color in this country get a better understanding of who they are and their place in society.

You also become more politically active because you realize how oppressed and marginalized your people are,” Zhen said.

In the course of her work on “Missing in History,” Zhen engaged Asma Barlas, director of the CSCRE, who helped draft a proposal for an Asian American Studies Program. She then helped gather 413 signatures on a petition supporting its implementation, presenting it to the dean of Humanities and Sciences.

But over the summer the administration decided on faculty lines, and Asian American Studies was not included in the plan. Zhen was disappointed, because she believed that the proposal was flatly rejected—she never received any notification from the administration that anything was on hold. However, when The Ithacan asked the administration about it this October, Marisa Kelly, provost and vice president of academic affairs, told them that the Asian American Studies program was simply “put on hold temporarily” in favor of other efforts, like a potential China program.

“That’s the first time we’ve ever heard that statement, or anything about being ‘put on hold,’ as opposed to just rejected or denied,” Zhen said.

Since then, Zhen has held a meeting to discuss the need for the program open to the school that attracted roughly 100 students. She extended invitations to both the provost and the president, but they did not attend. *** Zhen’s fight for an Asian-American

Studies program is closely related to Gilmer’s struggle to find a comfort zone in a predominately white campus and Moten’s critique of college

advertising. They all believe that if the higher education is going to reach out to students of color, it has to do so in an honest way or risk them leaving.

“I think the school does a lot of advertising and marketing to make Ithaca seem diverse and that it’s really accepting and open to students of color,” Zhen said. “In some ways it is, but in a lot of ways it’s hypocritical.

A lot of things are unsaid and a lot of things are emphasized. For example, the emphasis this year is that they have the most color enrolling into the college...[but] enrollment and retention are two very different things.”

And to Moten, that retention is directly related to programs like the CSCRE, ALS and the Asian American Studies Program. “The biggest thing for retention [of minority students] in a college is that they need to be able to see themselves in the community and they need to be able to see themselves in the rhetoric of the community.”

That rhetoric, though, needs to extend itself beyond the campus community and into the college’s advertising as well. The ethos of college marketing toward minority students— “We won’t say anything, we won’t lie, but we won’t tell the truth either,” as Gilmer put it—needs to change if students are ever to feel comfortable within the “diverse” community they’re allegedly joining.

41

Keeping the Family Hull

A family’s commitment to a house and all it holds

By Kristin Leffler

In one hand he held a drill, in the other a measuring tape. His tool belt sagged beneath his hips; his shirt was stained with dirt, dust and streaks of paint. He was busy, but he stopped to hug me anyway.

“Hi sweetheart, how are you?”

42

He asked in his usual genuine way.

The exhausted growl of a drill behind us drowned out my response. Uncle Richie released me from his embrace and returned to repair the door hinge that screamed with each opening. The porch was covered in the remnants of

hard work: dust clinging to brooms, nails sprawled across the floor, paintbrushes dripping on tarp. I grabbed a cloth and started removing the sand-filled windows and screens. My mother painted the trim in the kitchen, and my dad strained his neck to fix

the aging light fixtures. My little cousins jumped on the rolled up carpets and followed my aunt with a dustpan.

It was Memorial Day Weekend and we were all preparing the Hull House for the summer ahead.

There were only ten of us cleaning this Memorial Day, and I sensed my relatives’ frustration with the lack of help in every tensely hammered nail and trimmed hedge. Each paintbrush swipe and broom swish nurtured the house out of months of neglect. I wondered if it enjoyed being left alone in the winter after a summer full of pounding feet, late night talks, and sporadic bursts of laughter. I wondered if it realized it would fall apart without us, just like we would fall apart without it.

The busiest day for the house comes on the Fourth of July each year when every close and distant family member of mine invades the Hull House for beach competitions at Family Olympics. Each summer, I watch as the sand falls from running feet and settles comfortably into the grooves of the house’s hardwood floors. I listen as lips smack against cheeks, and the harshness of Boston accents smack against air. Spoons clank three times against boiling pots, sauce splatters, the seventh stair squeaks. It is all so familiar, all so soothing. The creaky stairs and stubborn windows of the house are just as much as part of my family as the seventy people that gather within its walls each summer. I know that if I let the sounds of the Hull House wash over me long enough, they will soon sound just like the ocean rhythmically pulsing a few yards away.

“Enjoy it this year, because it could be the last,” I was told repeatedly this past summer, because they figured I’m old enough to hear it. The implications of the sentence settled briefly.

Did they mean the last time we gather at the Hull House, gather at all, or the last time we would be exactly like this? I was watching life unfold as it never would again. We lived knowing exact moments could never be replicated yet we yearned for that redundancy. The house was familiar, and familiarity was family.

My own memory is supplemented by the stories I hear of the years

before. I piece together the past with faded photographs of the young faces of the old, grainy footage of my greatgrandfather in a rocking chair on the porch, and videos of my young, fearless self, tap dancing barefoot on the splintering porch. I’ve heard the same stories over and over again. The time my mother was sixteen and almost got swept out to sea. She always says, “Thank God for the backstroke and cousin John who ran to the house to get help.” And the other time when Damien slept all night with a dead crow in his bed. “We ran downstairs and woke up the whole house screaming.” In the grainy footage, I watch as my Aunt Ruth competes in family Olympics and waddles with a balloon between her legs to victory. I see my great-grandfather reach for his wallet until everyone reminds him it’s his own birthday, 92nd to be exact. I see all of these moments that I never saw. I can feel them in the cracked walls and chipping tile of the Hull House. It’s what makes the house alive, and it’s what keeps us coming back.

If we let numbers and practicality control us, we would find that the

logistics of co-owning a summer home and stressed bank accounts are enough of a reason to let the house go. To passersby, the house was the “ghost house” for years, seemingly deserted. The old appliances groaned in need of repair, the grass needed mowing when no one was home, and the sand needed to be swept from every corner of every room and closet.

Sweep and fix. My Uncle Richie took the lead in what he called a labor of love until the porch stood upright, the siding was resistant to the ocean wind and the stubborn windows were replaced with submissive ones. He worked simply “because it’s for the family”.

Things got really complicated with the passing of my great aunt and uncle, and the subsequent shifting of financial responsibility. We had swept the uncertainty of the future behind the couch for years and here it was again, clinging onto the soles of our feet and leaving prints everywhere we looked, reminding us to acknowledge what was up ahead. As the family grew, branches were tangling and sagging with the pressure of paying for a house that has kept the family

together for years. The recession had made us either more hesitant to pay or just plain unable to come up with the money. Family dinners became financial consulting meetings. In an unsaid election, my younger cousins chose me to be their representative.

To us, getting rid of the house meant weakening family ties. There would be no one place for us to gather with such ideal proximity to the beach, the bagel store and the dock at the bay. We would have to say goodbye to the secret messages we had left engrained and painted in the inside of closets. It sounded naïve and selfish-it was a beach house after all, a symbol of excessiveness. We were not, however, keeping the house out of materialistic desires. In fact, it was the complete opposite. We saw the house not as just another object to satisfy us, but rather as an irreplaceable appendage to our family. Amputate it and we would survive, but not without feeling like something substantial was missing. We didn’t want more, we wanted just what we had.

“We don’t want to sell it,” I voiced to the adults as they drowned in numbers and responsibility. I knew it was irrational, really. They were right when 44

they said selling the Hull House would mean having more money to vacation beyond the less- than-tropical Massachusetts shore, that the family was just getting too big to organize and that the house’s upkeep was laborious. They said the house was just a house, a pile of wood and glass. But they said it without conviction; they didn’t even seem to be convincing themselves. If the house was just a house, then we could have sold it long ago. We would have already grown tired of using our Memorial Day Weekend to hammer nails, paint trim and wash windows. The house was just a house to passersby and strangers, but not to us. We were indebted to a house that held our collective memory because we feared wasting all the work those before us had invested. We return to it because its walls hold everything we fear losing.

In the rationality of the adults, I saw a small spark of desire to allow the indebtedness to the house overpower the monetary debt it may cause.

The calculations prove the financial hardships that keeping the house would accrue; any outside accountant would shake their head in disgust at the cost-benefit analysis. But to

anyone who has spent summers playing cards on the front porch to all hours of the night or walking through the flashing beam of the lighthouse on the naked night sand, they would know differently. The rocking chairs that eavesdropped on forty years of conversation between grandchildren and their grandparents, and the hose that has washed the sand off of countless feet would know differently.

We can invest and we will invest in the Hull House because it’s part of us. We hold onto it for my great-grandfather who placed the first down payment, and for the future children who will be numbed by the coldness and powerfulness of the ocean that makes them stop and listen. And after a few years of summers at the Hull House pass, they will realize that in the pulsing ocean waves they can hear the bellowing of their Papa’s laughter, the bubbling of their aunt’s homemade tomato sauce and the smacking of lips against sand-crusted cheeks. They will close their eyes, entangled in the moment, and realize they never want to let it go.

Photography courtesy of Kristin Leffler

A Savage Fiction

By Brittany Smith

Sinewed muscles protrude under their russet-colored skin, the product of laborious hunting under a heavy, tangerine sun. Hands are large and leathered from experience, battered from toil; grooves and lines appear etched into their palms like rivers weaving through fields, calluses breaking through in peaking slopes.

Jaw lines defined, noses angular and eyes steady yet piercing. Women’s bodies are lean and capable. Jetblack hair, hung straight and long, accentuating the grace and stealth with which they move ¾ a lingering semblance of a feline’s saunter, intuitive yet deliberate. Turquoise and ivory beads, silver adornments and jeweltoned feather headdresses juxtapose

their bronzed complexions, while tan and cream colored animal skins complement the shade.

These stereotypical images, which first danced across the lines of our books and the screens in our theaters as a stand-in for Native American life, now occupy our national consciousness at the mere mention of native culture. We paint them as something completely alien to us, something distinctly “other” and “savage.” We need to in order to preserve our collective righteousness. The images have poisoned our perception to the point that even when we recognize them as false representations and consciously reject them, they echo in our minds — this is Native American life, we’ve at

least partially internalized it However, that internalization is our own, and does not speak to what Native American culture once was, much less how it exists today. Their story is a myriad of injustices intentionally glossed over to preserve the myth of America’s cultural purity.

Native American history reads more like fairy-tale on the pristine pages of textbooks — and that’s because, in large part, it is. Not their fairy-tale, but instead our own, one which is designed to preserve some exceptionalism that lies at the core of the American psyche. Schools have done little to accurately depict Native Americans’ struggle. Instead, giggling kids stage battles and mimic war

Photography by Samantha Mason

cries. High-pitched shrieks and howls escape their mouths as they cup their palms over their lips in quick, jolted motions. Such reenactments, however, can be insolent towards Native Americans who have fought for so long to hold onto their culture and customs.

Typecasts are prevalent in many forms of today’s society. According to Associate Professor and Native American Studies Coordinator Brooke Hansen, “All you have to do is look at a sitcom, an Indian mascot or just look down the street at the anti-Indian movement, and you’ll see that the stereotypes are rampant.”

Figurines and children toys, John Wayne movies, and cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Pocahontas all feed into the “quintessential stereotypical” characteristics of Native Americans.

In these descriptions, they all live in teepees and wear headdresses, but these traits have been left in the past.

Hansen said many are “shocked to find out native people are still here today. They have voices and cultures, 46

political struggles to fight and treaties that have not been honored.

So it’s media and our whitewashed school systems that don’t teach real history lead to massive misinformation.”

Ignorance feeds the hostile perceptions of these peoples, when in reality they are the ones who should have negative feelings towards us.

The injustices began with the momentum of westward expansion and the greed from colonial powers vying over the native’s land.

But that is not all we have taken from Native Americans. We have stolen their lives through mass genocide sparked by warfare, and our introduction of diseases that have trickled down for generations. Perhaps most insidious of all, we decimated their culture, and then caricatured parts of it for our own entertainment and justification. The gradual destruction of these peoples and their culture came from our blatant encroachment and disregard for their well-being which continues today.

We have even gone as far as to take their physical bodies and voices.

Hansen said, “Pieces of their bodies were taken for scientific research. In

“We paint them as something completely alien to us, something distinctly ‘other’ and ‘savage.’” the 1970s when Indians marched on Washington to demand treaty rights, they sacked the Indian affairs building and found documented evidence of

tens of thousands of sterilizations of native women without their consent.”

These women were under anesthesia, undergoing surgery for illnesses such as appendicitis, when doctors would tie their tubes. It was in hopes of eradicating them as a people and eliminating the need to adhere to treaties — not that the treaties were ever successful in holding the government accountable.

Although the Federal government has given natives food donations and a portion of their land back in the form of reserves, it is by no means sufficient. The food consisted (when did they give them food?) of white flour, sugar, lard and canned fruit loaded with sugar, which has been toxic to their health. Hansen asserted, “Their bodies were colonized by western food,” causing diabetes, heart disease and obesity to become a raging epidemic. Nothing could be said against the government, though, because it was technically adhering to the treaty, even if it was entirely unsubstantial.

They gave them blandly inadequate ingredients and called it food and gave them slivers of land instead of granting them their original homelands.

Hansen and her colleague, Jack Rossen, bought a farm in 2001 and repatriated it to the Cayuga Nation as means of reparation and atonement.

But the anti-Indian movement posted signs saying, “Who will win, the farmer’s heartbeat or the Indian’s drumbeat?” and “Scalp the land claim, go NRA! (National Rifle Association)” Any attempts at moving forward or coming close to making amends are thwarted by people’s ignorance. Their rights are written explicitly in the Constitution: Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 states, “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... excluding Indians not taxed.” This would seem to be irrefutable, yet people do not want to hear this or even entertain the idea of allowing it. Regardless of what people believe, this is the Native American’s homeland. They have won land claims and there are treaties exist to ensure their rights.

Hansen remembered going to an anti-Indian conference and being booed at for giving a voice to the

native peoples and a man trying to punch her colleague, Rossen, in the face for his opinions on the issue.

People stood up and gave every stereotypical reason for disliking Native Americans. Her voice rose with adamancy as she recalled them saying “I don’t want to live next door to Indians because they’re drunk and they have lice…they’re going to change our way of life.” She shook her head. This nation’s ignorance hindered any chance of reaching equality for Native Americans.

Local Ithaca is no exception. Tribe members have been refused service at restaurants and a Seneca Indian was turned away from a gas stations because they “didn’t want his kind there.” This cycle of intolerance is being perpetuated through generations of people and is feeding into the disillusionment. Those who have returned to Cayuga have faced this

intolerance. Even children display this cruelty. Hansen said Native American mothers confessed their uncertainties to her. They wondered if coming back to their homeland was a mistake, because their kids were spit on by other students in school and discriminated against. Despite the hostility, the natives keep fighting for the equality they deserve.

Land claims and education need to be on the forefront of reparations.

Hansen mused, “Boarding schools brought native culture to its knees and almost destroyed it. I am astounded at the resilience of native people that they can go through generations of these boarding schools where their culture was beaten from them, and yet they are still fighting for their land.”

If people knew of the injustices that have plagued these peoples, perhaps they would feel differently. According to Hansen, “Around 70 or 80% of all little boys were sodomized and almost 100% of all girls were raped in this system [boarding schools], this is what they were taught.

And then we see native peoples trying to go back to their communities, but then we see alcohol and substance abuse and the replication of abuse happening because of what happened to them.” The United States must give an official apology since the Anglican Church in

Canada has already done so. Also, acknowledgement of their struggles and the encouragement of local healing programs will commence atonement for Native Americans.

We need to transition the education system so children learn about more than just the Trail of Tears and their perceptions are shaped from something more substantial than fiction. Likewise educating the youth will hopefully stop the seed of racism from spreading to the minds of children.

In this sense of reparations, it is difficult to pinpoint one remedy for the problem. In a perfect world the rightful land of the natives would be returned, but that is entirely unrealistic. A suggestion has been an apology to show Native Americans that the United States recognizes their wrongdoings and is genuinely repentant, but this doesn’t hold much weight and is ultimately shallow. Other proposals are to give sums of money to native peoples in order to compensate for all that has been taken from them, but again there are implications. This can be seen as dirty money as it is being given to prevent natives from saying that the United States hasn’t done anything to atone the inhumanity. It can also sweep the issue under the rug so all of the cruelty is left in the dark to be forgotten. However if money is given to Native Americans, they can collectively put it towards educating the masses, something Jewish and Japanese victims have done.

We cannot change what we did in the past and we cannot fix what we did because we are currently enjoying the spoils of our theft. In a sense, we want reparation for the injustice suffered by Native Americans, but we also want it for the same reason the cultural myth of the “savage Indian” emerged: to clear our own consciences and to wash the blood off of our hands. This is why disillusionment is still so prevalent. We long to hold onto the myth of American purity and exceptionalism and thus turn a blind eye to our pillage, rape and murder of Native Americans; the horrific acts upon which our country was founded.

But we cannot hide from the truth. We have a debt to Native Americans and it’s time people start to recognize it.

47

Beyond the Bars

By Cain Azar I never thought twice about the men in the orange jumpsuits. I’d see them a lot, especially when the gravel crackled beneath the tires of our car in the field parking lot. I’d be tossed around in the back seat, gripping the arm rest and watching the men with wide eyes. My soccer ball would be rolling around beside me, persistently crashing into my shin guards and dirty cleats in a way that would suggest that it was fighting to pull my attention away from the scary-looking men. Despite the repeated bumping, I was far too distracted to shift my gaze from the crummy-looking building.

My Mom always used to warn me before my away games with Soderton.

“Now Cain,” she’d tell me, “your team is playing at the field near the prison today.”

My pupils would dilate at her words because it would be something simultaneously intriguing and terrifying. Looking wide-eyed out of my window, I’d imagine that our minivan was a tank. A feeling of nerves and fear would intertwine with wonder when I’d step out of the protective shell of my mother’s van. I could always see the men from the sidelines as they trudged across the macadam with their heads hung low. Their neon orange shirts were impossible to miss because the orange was the only other color in the gray blur of concrete that comprised their basketball courts.

The barbed wire on the tall fence was intimidating to me, especially as a little boy. But at the same time, it soothed me because it allowed me to detach myself from them and their grim realities. It allowed me to stay safe and tucked away in my own judgments about them. For the most part, their imprisonment felt justifiable. They were bad men. They belonged there.

48

As I grew older, my views became more complicated and ambiguous.

The nightly news scared me - it really did. There’d always be pictures of men with bushy mustaches and sunken eyes. The crime scenes looked grim and foreboding, littered with that eerie yellow tape marking the splatters and bullets. Despite these frightening images and everything that my friends and teachers told me, I could never hate the prisoners. I could never feel angry because I always looked at them as victims too. They were more than just criminals; they were frightening products of our generation.

Something went “wrong” somewhere.

Someone wasn’t there for them someday, somewhere, and it must’ve really made a difference. They’re our monsters. They’re the monsters that we created. Once again, I was overcome with a feeling of wonder, but this time, it didn’t come from curiosity.

I’ve come to understand that our U.S. Justice System revolves around the notion that prisoners are indebted to a society that they have wronged. It’s a society that oppresses and stigmatizes them long after they serve their sentences and leave their cells behind. Their prison sentences are meant to try to balance out the wrongs. Maybe, we think, just maybe they’ll get what they deserve in prison.

We gloss over the fact that over half of all criminals released from prison return later in life. The broken system seems to match the broken smiles that I saw on the news.

Tom Kerr, a professor at Ithaca College and editor of Dead to Deliverance: A Death Row Memoir, has experience with this broken system. Dead to Deliverance is a memoir written

by Steve Champion, a man currently sitting on death row after being con-

victed of murder. Kerr has spent years working and speaking with Champion after agreeing to publish his work.

They first met while Champion was on death row at San Quentin. Lucky for me, I could contact him in search for some insight. I asked Kerr: is society equally indebted to these criminals?

Shouldn’t we repay the criminals with mental rehabilitation? Kerr startled me, initially, because he told me that prisons are, “85% punishment and 15% treatment and rehabilitation.”

The theme of debt continued to return to me. This debt, although not even remotely tangible, is something that has been driving court decisions for decades. Kerr explains the idea behind it, and I cannot help but feel oddly ignorant. “They [the criminals] are forced to ‘repay’ their debt with their freedom, their time, and, too often, their life (in death penalty cases),” he says. “What do kids say? ‘You’re going to pay!’ I think it is retaliatory, retribution masked as an economic exchange: quid pro quo. They hit us; we hit them back, as hard as we can, and figure ‘that’ll teach ‘em.’ The problem with the metaphor is that human life and human relationships can’t be reduced to a clean, tidy equation.

We’re making Steve pay in all three ways, but what do we do with his freedom, his time, and his life? Where do we deposit those things?”

The word “rehabilitation” sets my mind in motion. My memory returns to those orange-suited men on the basketball courts, and while it does, I can’t help feeling like I misjudged them. I can’t help feeling like we all misjudged them. They’re somebody’s son or father. They’re cousins.

They’re husbands. Kerr echoes my thought when he says: “Society produces individuals, individuals do not

produce society.”

It’s something that many do not understand. We’re all products of our generation- every last one of us.

“Our society already failed these people somewhere,” he says.

“Is it fair to stick them into a cell, lock the door and leave them there to rot? I used to be afraid of them, but now I realize that they must be equally afraid tooof the justice system, society, and even themselves,” Kerr says.

They’d watch us a lot from behind their chain fences. I could never really make out their faces, but I’d always picture them to be staring angrily at us with dirt smudged across their faces and with hateful eyes. I’d always picture them to be brutal and unforgiving because I didn’t know how else to imagine someone in jail. I guess most people see them that way. It’s really easy to see the worst in the people of whom we’re afraid. Now, however, I’m trying to find some good.

“Society has to work hard to fix itself,” Kerr tells me, “to reduce the kinds of social and economic injustice that create the conditions for all kinds of crime. Individuals need to be held responsible for their actions, but we all need to hold society responsible for its actions. Ultimately, we need to shift away from ‘retributive justice’ premised on punishment to ‘restorative justice’ premised on restoring, in some fashion, damaged relationships.

Pure punishment is a black hole.’”

History shows us just how ineffective our justice system is with cases similar to Troy Davis’, a man who received the death sentence on September 21, 2011 despite thousands of people vying for clemency. These cases should speak for our hurting generation and reinforce the need for

Courtesy of Ben Litoff reform.

To find out more, I contacted Officer Hudson, a friend who has been working in law enforcement for over 20 years. Like Kerr, Hudson highlights the fact that criminals need rehabilitation. They want to change. Imprisonment is defeating the purpose of our justice system.

“There are just some bad people who do deserve to be in prison. But a guy who’s a drug addict, who has a problem, I’m not so sure if he belongs in prison. There are a lot of people who are on drugs, and I don’t know if that’s the best place for them. Rehab would be a better place.”

At that moment, I can’t help feeling slightly uneasy. I imagine all the men that I saw, clothed in scummy jumpsuits with an equally scummy look across their faces. I wonder how many of them actually “deserve” to be there. How many of their problems could just be fixed with help rather than force? I whole-heartedly believe that reform is necessary. Thousands of men and women are stumbling through trials across the nation. While judges are quick to sentence these men and women to years in prison, it is equally disturbing that they do so

with the public’s consent. Instead of taking these crimes as the final straw, we should take them as the first step in psychological rehabilitation.

“Prison is supposed to be a place for rehabilitation, “ Officer Hudson explains, “but if you knew what really went on in prisons, it isn’t about rehabilitation.” At the conclusion of his words, my stomach shifts uncomfortably.

As I wrap up the interviews, I realize that I’ll always remember those men. I’ll always remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when the car came rolling across the gravel lot, kicking up dust into the cloudless sky. But now, however, those men I passed seem to have faces; instead of a blurred silhouette from afar, I can picture them differently. They aren’t so threatening anymore. They’re just people too, threading their scabby fingers through a chain fence.

I still see the orange jumpsuits, but now, I see that sad little boy in the corner, too, scared of something he can’t even understand. As I think back to those sunny days beside the dank prison, I can’t help wondering who the real victims are.

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Comics by Ben Litoff, Illustrated by Stephanie Sang, Logo Design by Dana Rivera

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Ben Litoff is a senior sociology major at Ithaca College and molded Upstate around some of his experiences from the last four years at the college. The characters are fictional but represent some archetypes present on campus. It raises issues concerning race, gender, politics, media representation, and critiques privilege, humanitarian aid, volunteer work and their roles in both college and American culture. Stephanie Sang illustrated these six strips.

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