the home 1
Issue number eight April 21, 2015 Washington University in St. Louis 2
letter from
THE EDITOR
president
WHAT MAKES A
HOME?
Keaton Wetzel
editor-in-chief Victoria Sgarro
design chief Libby Perold
senior editors Anna Bernard Emma LaPlante Carrick Reddin
visual editor Leora Baum
social media director Laken Sylvander
Whether you’re about to leave Wash. U. for a few months or forever, the end of a school year often brings about feelings of self-reflection. With graduation fast approaching, we find ourselves contemplating our own sense of place at Wash. U. Although a transitory experience, Wash. U. has become our “home away from home” over the past four years — both when we wanted it to be and when we didn’t. Faced with the prospect of moving to a new home in less than a month, we may look back at our time here with nostalgia. But has Wash. U. and St. Louis truly been a home to us? The answer, as is evident in the pages that follow, differs for everyone. In a year particularly replete with turmoil and tension on campus, Wash. U. has served as less than a proper home for some. We open our Home Issue with a critical essay by Jordan Victorian, exploring both the apathy of our peers and the resulting feelings of alienation that permeate our own campus. A closing essay by Emma LaPlante deals with similar issues in the Latino community, but reveals how some students succeeded in finding a home through the cultural show, Carnaval. Ultimately, what is it about our experience at Wash. U. and in St. Louis that makes us feel or not feel at home? Is it the people, the campus’ physical landmarks, the location, a particular group or community carved out from the larger student body? Whether your summer will take you to a big city or to the opposite corner of the world, these questions are universal to any kind of home. We hope you enjoy our contributors’ thoughts on what “home” means to them. They have explored an impressive range of mediums and topics to engage with this question.
- VICTORIA SGARRO & KEATON WETZEL
Front & Back Cover Illustration by Yuwei Qiu Inside Cover Illustration by Sara Wong
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Contents 8
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Complaint or Crisis by Jordan Victorian
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To Build a Home
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A Walk On Delmar
by Miranda Hines
Writing Home by Saja Chodosh
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Homesickness by Leora Baum
by Keaton Wetzel
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Happy Cities by Victoria Sgarro
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The Amateur’s Globetrotting Syndrome by Emma LaPlante
Opening The Door
by Anna Bernard
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Carnaval
by Emma LaPlante
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Complaint
OR CRISIS Written by Jordan Victorian Illustration by Laken Sylvander
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“
I wondered what it was like to feel at home on your own college campus.
S
o are you liking Wash. U.?” To make things simpler for myself I just answer Yes. Truthfully, the answer is something much more complicated, something like, I’ve really grown a lot here and found communities that have helped me discover possibilities I never would have believed I could aspire to...but no, no I don’t like Wash. U. very much. Or perhaps, the school is alright, I have a lot of issues with it, but there are a lot of resources available to me. Or maybe the answer is indeed “Yes” and I simply think too much. Regardless, the difficultly of the answer lies in the reality that on most days when I walk around the Washington University campus I do not feel at home. “Home” is a place you came from, a place you feel connected to, where you heritage lies, your heritage itself, a group of people who allow you to thrive, a group of people who are not looking out for your best interests, the friends that accept you, a battlefield of lies and intolerance; for better or worse, home can mean a lot of these things and more, and none of them are mutually exclusive. 1. How far must I crawl to get to that place where I can finally stay free? How much do I have to carve into the world around me, scoop blade into my flesh? How many bones must I whittle thin, bore hollow, drill holes into their sides until my insides are hollow woodwind? My body is an instrument of yearning, but will I ever learn to play this strange flute?
”
I attempt to tame my heartbeat into four downbeats per measure. My personal connotation of the word home is warmth. It is that place where you can thrive and whose inhabitants wish for you to do so. Beyond wishing for the best for you, the people at home work to make this your reality. They respect you, listen to your decisions, seek to understand your differences, and celebrate those differences while giving loving feedback when those differences become harmful. To me, home is not a place where everything is easy. Home will push back against your misgivings, but it will never aspire to hurt you in the process. Home is a place where harm and confrontation are made in the interest of the community; where feedback is loving and loving is actively practiced; where when things go too far and you are hurt too much, there is restoration. Home aspires to justice on a personal level and aspires to healing. 2. I stand stock still begging for an answer I cry, cry out to the white child to unhand me But the white child's mouth drips oil until the tile floor bleeds slick The hallways catch fire and the house becomes a deathtrap My body burns; my mind unborn from its ashes This all happens in a classroom And as the wind scatters my readings around the room, my classmates talk and talk. 5
No one bats an eye, no one shrieks; no one notices that I am disappearing in the corner. No one hears my screams, or my sobs. No one is here with me. A few weeks ago, as I walked to my first class of the day, I felt unsafe on my own campus. It was the Monday after my fellow students had responded incredibly negatively to this year’s Black Anthology production. These students criticized B.A. for a supposedly “anti-White” joke and in the process ignored the artful and honest retelling of a school year filled with stress, pain, activism and a deep yearning for justice and understanding. It was the Monday after students anonymously posted racist and inflammatory statements to Yik Yak; these posts came after a school year filled with anonymous posts disrespectfully complaining about how “rioters” were being stupid and were “monkeys,” and arguing that Michael Brown essentially deserved to be killed, that there was no need to get worked up over anything. “So where we are now is that a whole country of people believe I’m a ‘nigger,’ and I don’t, and the battle’s on” – James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers” Reading some of the posts on Yik Yak, I began to feel as if everything I was seeing was a joke. It almost felt like everything I was studying about racism and oppression of various forms was all one carefully orchestrated conspiracy. I wondered how I had never realized the gulfs in understanding that exist between people who go to classes together, share dorm rooms together. 5. How are you supposed to walk to class when your classmates have hits out on your body? You did not ask for this. You will not get any credits for this. You cannot write this on your resume. “Managed to stay strong have minimal breakdowns this semester”
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I wondered what it was like to feel at home on your own college campus. How it must feel to navigate the typical stresses and transition of college life without constantly being reminded of your differences any time you walk into a classroom. What is it like to always have a professor with a similar racial or ethnic background, or even skin color as you? Who holds similar identities to you? Who understands that not every American’s experiences are similar to those of the limited few who get into Wash. U., who can afford to pay more than the median American household income each year that full tuition, room and board cost. I am over the problem sets. How can I ever get full points when the answers are beyond my reach and the directions are filled with the names of bloodied bodies? It is snowing again. My feet grip and slide through the white-gray slush, my nose runs and I am sick, and I am sick of this. “Because if I am not what I’ve been told I am, then it means that you’re not what you thought you were either! And that is the crisis.” – James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers” I wondered if I could ever truly be at home in a campus community that is both surrounded by and permeated with the racial crises that have built this nation, but that often deems the naming of such a crisis as mere complaint. I wondered how loud, how painful a scream would need to be let out to get some of my peers to finally listen, to understand. Immobilized, I watch the audience walk around me. Do they not see what is happening onstage? Can they not hear our screams echoing until the stale air bursts at its seams, lashing at my eyes like whips? I can’t cry. I can’t show weakness or strength. Because sticks and stones; my ribs have already caved in.
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WRITING HOME Poetry by Saja Chodosh Photography by Libby Perold
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n many ways, I started writing this collection before I formally started writing home. I have been obsessed with place and space for some time. I can’t quite explain this preoccupation. Maybe this is why I write about it so often — trying to find the words for what home is, what home means. Maybe it is because of all the movement, all the addresses, all the past houses that I have rebuilt in my memory — constructed out of stories, photographs, and little pieces of conversation. It is this rebuilding which I cling to. It seems home is constructed in its very reconstruction. Homes become every more homey once you have left them, once you are left to find comfort and warmth in the living rooms of the past, within the corners of nostalgia, in the presence of another who shared those rooms with you. Maybe this is why, as Gaston Bachelard argues in The Poetics of Space, poetry and home are inherently and undeniably intertwined. Both exist within the fragmentation of memory, the breathe of love, the drive for entirety.
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Yet these abstractions of home cannot be separated from the concreteness of the house — the brick walls, the yellow swing, the narrow rusted mirror. How do we translate the house into home? The home into house? What happens when home is not a house, but a mere person? Some homes have addresses. Others do not. Can home be as vividly realized in the mere movement between spaces? This collection is a translation of home — of all the zip codes, cities, houses, books, humans, beds, windows, which I have called home, which have become home, which I have created home out of, and thus recreated in this very rewriting. I hope you find home within these words. *** The following excerpts are poems that circle around the Midwest. These poems are taken from the larger collection, Writing Home.
LAKE EFFECTS I would like to write this house wide as a page with no words— a sand swept steppe, deserted cacti and dusty lungs where poems snag in the flat ridge expanse. We soot our eyes and weep home. But this house is parched miles from desert. The lake is not salt but goose grit, and I can’t now hold the bone bite of lake snow, heart deep cold. We move closer to the lake for a new glass school. We park our blue Volvo in the black tar drive. We backyard swim on Labor Day, and in February we break apart our kitchen and eat lo mein in grandma’s clay bowls, stack our dishes in the upstairs bathtub. We are raw and sinkless. The squirrels have edged their way into our walls. We are swinging on oak trees, sidewalk slanted, Shaker Lake circle-bound. We tandem bike for raisin bread. We paint the house a milk coffee color, deep rhubarb shutters. We plant tulips in front. We camp the backyard in fall. We dance the living room. We play house in the attic. We crash in the blue Volvo and ghost home with a broken wrist along the lake trail. This Midwest brick is canal chained. This city is dream color fragments. This house is January icicles. It all melts. Some homes are caught beneath the wet roof of words, wake in the room we page make. It has been ten years. This is all I have to house.
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UNDER THE ARCH I want the moon the night we lay in the grass—moonlight spilling across your skin, the twilight of your body breaking. The stars were splitting—opening like petals in damp air. A sliver missing from the moon’s right edge, crumbling as your hand slipped from the crease of my back to the fold of my hip. I felt my spine shatter, as if stepping on a pile of crisp, fall leaves. Light muted, eyes opened, your lips grazed mine. It felt like dawn, but it was night. The dark grass felt wet. The light offered its mystery to us—one last apple stem in Eden. I could tear. I could dangle here. Angled in the sky’s folding canopy. I could break its black film, touch it, feel its weight in the palm of my hand, squeeze it softly, let you brush it, fingering its light in the space between my five knuckles, let it settle on the downward curve between my ribs and waist. Let’s lie here forever, your words trickling onto my soft ear lobe. I wish. You knew I broke wishes. Wish bones were bones for a reason. In these wishes, it’s always you—under the stars, tossing soft apples—half bitten, split by teeth, flushed red, caught. It’s so easy to wish flushed things.
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A MIDWEST GAP I called too many times last night. I could hear your voice sleeping across the distance —the Missouri River (all the numb, crushed catfish), The Illinois Dunes (red sand on red earth coughed up into our lungs, red lungs), the science museum near Bloomington with the bubbles (kids blow and blow and blow)—light caught between the sphere of air and gas. I could burst. I could call a million times just to say silence to you. This gap
is too big
to fill with silence. Can love make us full? Like the November evening : we walked home in empty snow-lit streets (boundless as the briny Utah flats) and when the hush took our breaths, we snuck between the smashed gate latch, into the kitchen at 2 am— made love and popcorn, twisted salt on the light, bursting kernels (glinting crystals) and squeezed honey on top. Vowing over and over with lips sticky— this will be the final crunched kernel, the last grind of salt on flushed tongue. Will we always want more like this?
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ODE TO EURYDICE Tonight is one of those nights when I feel like buying a bus ticket to Ohio. It’s only that I’ve always roamed away from the center— stray retina lost nucleus fringe sleep I hold my head at a tilt, and so Burrow St. remains a grey sky night dream left to ebb under tight lids like a milky foam sip salty river tide. (This must be how Eurydice felt.) Roads have a human memory for all the sun times we have left them (black grit deep curve). In this version of the night he travels back to this center city— seedling willow bank jade arch grass. His gaze loves me from afar and I sing: Baby, you don’t need to lull me back.
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SUN ROOM I live in a room of sun and wake with the light and when rain hits green in the night, I call the rain song in my head—between the pause of fetching words and turning on the wheels of a torn bike seat. Today, I ate figs with honey and let the honey settle in the ridges of my mouth while I tapped my fingers against the hardwood floors of my bedroom, scattered with photographs and black words I have collected on white torn sheets (put a little bird house in your soul). And you should know I like that scattered feeling, and really, I am not one to stay still, and maybe this is why I string the libra sign around my neck: balance is a teetering act and falling is an art of love, and dreams drip when life strews in and out like steam through a humming coffee pot. I think I think too much about the air and when the moon will swell through my window panes and the thumps of honey crisp apples toppling off the orchard branches at midnight in the fall and what he was thinking when he saw my pink flower dress and my hair soft and curly. I could flock the page full, because words are like this. I am like this, dangled between them.
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“Homesickness” by Leora Baum
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To Build a Home Written by Miranda Hines
Illustration by Francesca Maida
T
he high population density in urban areas often highlights the issues of access to, possession of, and maintenance of housing. Living conditions tend to be poor when too many people live in a restricted area, however solving the problem of unsafe and unsanitary housing historically has and will continue to result in unexpected social consequences. A now infamous wouldbe solution to the problem was the creation of housing projects: St. Louis built the housing complex Pruitt-Igoe, which is one of the most well-known housing projects in the U.S. both because of the socioeconomic issues highlighted by the experiences of the tenants and because of the highly publicized demolition of the buildings less than two decades after their construction. Pruitt-Igoe’s legacy “has existed as a cautionary tale to architects, urbanists, and the public,”1 according to the website of Pruitt-Igoe Now, an organization seeking for
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new ways to utilize the still-abandoned space the housing project once occupied. The St. Louis Housing Authority and architect Minoru Yamasaki built Pruitt-Igoe in 1954; the compound featured 33 buildings — anticipated as a welcome replacement to the crumbling half-century-old houses many of the poor lived in. As the city changed, however, the project evolved into a nightmare rather
Both the creation and failure of Pruitt-Igoe were products of the underlying social and economic problems that still permeate the city.
than a solution. The Pruitt-Igoe’s failure to become a successful and exemplary means of housing a community is not unique; the story of housing projects across the nation is a complex and often horrifying one. The legacy of Pruitt-Igoe tends to focus on the architectural design problems, for example, the fact that the elevators stopped at specific floors to facilitate mingling but instead created easy opportunities for robbery.2 However, the focus of the discussion should be on the issues which are more relevant today, especially in the city of St. Louis: both the creation and failure of Pruitt-Igoe were products of the underlying social and economic problems that still permeate the city. A home cannot be studied independently from its community. The St. Louis housing project was unsuccessful because Pruitt-Igoe experienced the same social and economic changes that the city did as a whole: the economy of St. Louis declined and much of the white population moved to the suburbs, removing roughly half of the city’s population, creating a vicious cycle of poverty for those who remained in the city. Harvard University urban historian Alexander von Hoffman writes, “even if
it had been built as proposed, Pruitt-Igoe, the child of a grandiose vision that failed, probably would have failed anyway.”3 Creating what was originally a safe, modern, and clean place for many to call home did nothing to contend with the city’s other problems, which then spilled into and corrupted the housing project. The difficulty with creating safe and affordable housing for a large population is that simply creating the housing does not guarantee it will fulfill its purpose. Pruitt-Igoe and other housing projects around the nation are key examples of this; external factors cause the character of communities to change, sometimes for better but in this case for worse. Sources: 1. “About Pruitt-Igoe.” Pruitt-Igoe Now. Web. 2. “Why the Pruitt-Igoe housing project failed.” The Economist. October 15th 2011. Web. 3. Alexander von Hoffman, “Why They Built Pruitt-Igoe.” Taubman Center Publications. Web.
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A WALK ON DELMAR O n L o u i s W i r t h ’s E n d u r i n g Observations of City Life Written by Keaton Wetzel Photography by Victoria Sgarro
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L
ouis Wirth’s seminal 1938 essay “Urbanism as a Way of Life” is an illuminating text to read even in 2015. An early example of urban sociology, it still accurately describes the peculiar ways that humans associate with one another in cities. College campuses in big cities, like the Danforth campus of Washington University, are unique in that they offer a reprieve from the urban realm in which they are situated. Wash. U. students eat, sleep, study and play in close quarters, lending the leafy and enclosed space the feeling of a small town. Passersby greet one another on the sidewalk, recognizing many of the passing faces and stopping to chat for a few minutes on their way to classes or the library. This familiar and personal space sits in stark contrast to the busy commercial corridors just outside its boundaries. My recent walk from campus to the Delmar Loop reminded me of these intimate qualities of the Wash. U. campus — beginning with a conversation with a close friend I ran into on his way to a meeting with a professor, and ending with a silent walk among strangers doing their shopping on the Loop. I had decided to make stops in two different establishments on the Loop during this trip: Phoenix Rising to purchase a “thank you” card, and Subterranean Books to buy some course texts. During my walk to Phoenix Rising I passed an art gallery, a middle eastern restaurant and a head shop, three completely different businesses likely frequented by completely different people. Here, Wirth’s assertion about the effects of large and dense populations rings true; highly differentiated stores have emerged to serve the equally diverse community of University City and its surrounding neighborhoods. And when I entered Phoenix Rising to browse its card selection, making brief but courteous eye contact with the store manager but seeing no recognition in her eyes, I was reminded of Wirth’s observation that the urban realm “is characterized by secondary rather than primary
contacts…we see the uniform which denotes the role of the functionaries and are oblivious to the personal eccentricities that are hidden behind the uniform.” For all intents and purposes, the woman
For all intents and purposes, the woman behind the counter had no name or background, just the purpose of ‘Cashier.’ behind the counter had no name or background, just the purpose of “Cashier.” I then left Phoenix Rising to head to Subterranean Books, this time paying close attention to the people on the street. During this one block walk, I passed by an immigrant couple pushing their children in a stroller, a single woman weighed down with shopping bags at the bus stop, people eating and dining outside, and a homeless man asking for change. Wirth reminds us that we can find this contrast of cultures, incomes and heritage only in the city. While I would definitely enjoy the discovery of the full personality behind every expressionless face, the sheer number of people forces me into tolerance and indifference. One assertion that Wirth made in 1938, that the majority of city dwellers are “in large measure recruited from the countryside,” can no longer be argued as America has since become an established urban nation. But the varying degrees of urbanity — the suburb, college campus, the commercial strip — still remain, along with the peculiar characteristics of human association that have emerged in order for us to exist in these spaces together.
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When a City Feels Like Home:
Building Happier Cities Written by Victoria Sgarro
W
hen it comes to designing our cities, urban planners have long tackled the big questions — wealth, efficiency, beauty. But even the best of planners can fail to consider the one thing their clients want most: happiness. Can the design of cities truly prioritize residents’ sense of well-being and belonging? The implications of this question are ubiquitous in our everyday lives, for only when cities are planned for happiness can they truly feel like home. In Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Peñalosa saw the logic behind this approach to planning. Before Peñalosa took office as mayor in 1998, the city was extremely car-centric — despite the fact that only one-fifth of families owned a car. Streets and public spaces were mostly empty of pedestrians due to the dangers of traffic. Peñalosa decided to do something radical: he abandoned the city’s expensive highway expansion plan, funneling the surplus money into new cycling paths, parks, pedestrian plazas, and the city’s first bus rapid transit system, the TransMilenio. “We’re living an experiment,” Peñalosa told Charles Montgomery, author of “Happy City.” “We might not be able to fix the economy. But we can design the city to give people dignity, to make them feel rich. The city can make them happier.” Peñalosa’s policies work against the entire last century of car-oriented planning in the western and developing world. Urban planning has long operated under the assumption that material wealth and urban sprawl are the
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Illustration by Sara Wong
main ingredients for good cities. Yet, if this assumption is true, why are rates of mental illness and unhappiness growing alongside globally rising wealth and sprawl? While it may seem unlikely that the design of cities can have such a strong influence on residents’ mental health, city planning might just be the solution for creating happier communities. In the U.S., the percentage of people who report being “very happy” was at its highest during the 1950s, dropping off into a steady decline ever since. By 1993, less than one-third of Americans reported being “very happy.” In 2008, a study by Italian economists investigated this discrepancy between increasing wealth and decreasing happiness in the U.S. The group found that the country’s declining social capital (social networks and interactions) presented the greatest barrier to American’s happiness, even more than income inequality between rich and poor. Moreover, social isolation from family, friends and community leads to increased risk for physical ailments such as heart attack, stroke, cancer and depression. In contrast, people who feel connected to those around them tend to live longer and report being happier. These studies go to show that our sense of community influences our happiness and well-being. And what can stimulate or hinder our sense of community more than the architecture of where we live? In a 2005 study called “Suburban Blues” published in Psychology Today, researchers found a troubling
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1 hour
Trading a commute for a short walk to work has the same effect on happiness as a single person finding a new love
Moving to a place with more green space increases happiness for at least
2 years
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correlation between suburban living and incidence of mental health problems. The study found that children in affluent U.S. suburbs are far more likely to suffer from depression than other demographics — even when compared to children living in urban poverty. Again, these results reinforce our understanding of the consequences of social isolation. In American suburbs, parents tend to work many hours and make long commutes, residents don’t need to know their neighbors, and people ultimately focus more on displaying individual wealth than on coming together as a community. As Bill McKibben points out in his book “Deep Economy,” we have become so selfsufficient that we don’t feel like we need anyone else. He says this Anglo-Saxon concept of “hyper-individualism” provides the foundation on which we currently design our cities’ architecture and economies. The cost of such an ideology is decreased life satisfaction and increased anxiety and depression. Consider southern Europe and Latin America — areas with high levels of unemployment and less material wealth, yet their depression and suicide rates are comparatively low. Moreover, in America, studies show that after $75,000 in annual income, happiness remains static, and after a certain point, it even begins to decrease. So why do we insist on thinking that money, success and individualism will make us happier, when we have seen time and again that this is not the case? People often believe that a big house, a fancy car, new technology and more overall material wealth will make up for the inconveniences and feelings of isolation that come with living in the suburbs. However, a 2008 study by University of Zurich economists postulated that something as seemingly trivial as a long commute to work can make a significant difference in happiness levels. They found that the longer an individual’s commute, the less happy that person was. Perhaps even more revealing, someone who had an hour-long commute had to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to work. On the other hand, the study showed that trading a long commute for a short walk to work has the same effect on happiness as a single person finding a new love. The reason for this “commuting paradox” is that people are built to adapt. The problem is that we adapt to a big house or a higher salary more quickly, soon returning to our previous level of happiness. But we never quite adapt to a longer commute because its trials change slightly each day. Thus, a lifestyle change like moving to a place with more green space actually has more of a long-term
effect on happiness than even an event like marriage has because it increases an individual’s baseline happiness permanently — or at least for the two years researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School followed participants in a 2014 study. The “commuting paradox” is based on the fallacy that things matter more than experiences. For Peñalosa, recognizing this fallacy played a significant role in his new plan for Bogotá: “Most things that people buy in stores give them a lot of satisfaction the moment they buy them, but after a few days, that satisfaction decreases…But a great public space is a kind of magical good. It never ceases to build happiness.” On February 24, 2000, Peñalosa took a leap of faith to prove his radical ideology of how a city should function. He conducted an unprecedented experiment: he banned private cars in the city for a day. The effects of this temporary policy were remarkable. It was the first day in four years that no one was killed in traffic. Hospital admissions declined by more than a third. Even in just one day, pollution levels fell, and residents reported feeling more optimistic about city life than they had in years. Studies in the U.K., Brazil and China show that there are lower rates of depression and suicide in city dwellers than in rural people. Despite how much we complain about overcrowding and long for the allure of the quiet suburbs, well-designed cities have the capacity to exponentiate our happiness. In compact and intelligently designed cities, we are more likely to run into a familiar face, meet like-minded people and build larger social networks. At the most fundamental level, cities lead to more social interaction, which leads to happiness. So what does a city designed for happiness entail exactly? The happy city has a dense and compact layout that encourages people to walk or cycle rather than drive. Its many green areas and public spaces elevate mental health and a sense of well-being. Its design is less wealthoriented and more focused on bringing people together. Community activities and a vibrant cultural life increase social capital among residents. These are not expensive or drastic changes to the architecture of a city. Rather they are logical steps that place our greatest desire first: happiness. “So the happy city, the low-carbon city, the green city, the city that will save us — they’re all the same place,” writes Montgomery. I would add to his list, “the city that feels like home.”
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The Amateur Globetrotter’s
Syndrome Written by Emma LaPlante
Illustrated by Steph Waldo
A
s a lifelong travel enthusiast and amateur globetrotter, I have been falling in love with places as long as I can remember. Most recently, I fell head over heels for Rome, a city bursting with its classical past, impeccable street fashion, and melt-in-your-mouth gelato. But every once in a while, I am shaken by an unsettling thought: can a foreign city ever truly feel like home? Humans are nothing if not remarkably adaptable, and I believe that “home” is not restricted to the place where one grew up. Nevertheless, I still wonder if I could ever fully embrace a culture that is not inherently mine. Even as I walked the streets of Rome, I felt inevitably, and painfully, like a tourist. I winced every time a street vendor called out to me in English — one told my friend, “You look Italian, I like your eyes” — because was my Americanness really that obvious? (Yes. Yes it was.)
As a young American, I am supremely and almost incomprehensibly privileged, especially when traveling. Having traveled to Costa Rica and several countries in Europe, I have found that most foreigners make every effort to accommodate people like me. Almost everyone in the hospitality and tourism industry speaks English. Every street and museum sign is translated into English. I sensed the unspoken rule that, to be a successful businessperson, one must cater to Americans. You would think this would make a foreign city feel more like home, but it doesn’t. I wholeheartedly appreciate that people want to help me, but I wish I could kindly say that I do not want the extra help. How can I hope to experience a place’s authenticity if I am always treated differently? Well, not always. When I was in Paris, after seven years of French instruction, I served as the quasi-capable guide and translator for my friends as we bumbled our way through the city. I ordered us escargot, found our way to Shakespeare & Co. (the beautiful bookstore that 20thcentury expatriates liked to frequent), and unsuccessfully
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tried to haggle down the price of a painting in the artist neighborhood, Montmartre. Except in the case of a delightful conversation I had about the weather with the owner of an umbrella store, my conversations went something like this:
Me (in earnest French): “Bonjour, Madame/ Monsieur! Comment ça va?” Storeowner (in flawless English): “Good day miss, how may I help you?”
Headstrong as always, I would usually insist on continuing in French, no matter how many times they responded in English. This is partly why not nearly enough Americans are studying foreign languages — we think that everyone will default to English, and when we think that, it comes true. The English-speakers’ superiority complex is largely rooted in British imperialism, and it continues to manifest itself even (and especially) in Americans, where there is a false impression that nothing is worth seeing that cannot be understood through our English-speaking lens. And, yes, most of the things on the average person’s bucket list will be fully accessible without stepping outside of one’s American shoes — the Eiffel Tower, for example, or the Trevi Fountain. Always a tourist, never a traveler. But there is a beauty to every city that cannot be experienced unless you try to see it like a native. A slice of Florentine pizza is extraordinary not just for its scrumptious flavor, but also for the centuries old culinary
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traditions it represents. A Vespa scooter is not just a mode of transportation; it is the most visible manifestation of a wine drinking, cigarette smoking, and casually courageous way of life. These are the sorts of things I long to discover. I recognize the superficiality of many of my travels, so I cannot in good conscience reject the term “tourist.” Nevertheless, I try to do more than just tour a city. I try to live there, seeking out local restaurants and public parks that aren’t necessarily on the tourist’s beaten path. I am proud of my American identity, and I feel nothing but gratitude for the undeserved blessings I have received from it. But I’m not just an American. I’m a citizen of the world, too, and I want the whole world to be my home. I want to reach out and connect with locals, to be one of those people with friends all around the world. I have hitherto been inhibited from achieving this by my age, my limited polylingualism, and my red, white and blue blood. But I refuse to stop trying. I speak almost no Italian, besides a few phrases (io sono una ragazza — “I am a girl”) and some vocabulary words that turned out to be surprisingly unhelpful (pinguino — “penguin,” and balena — “whale”). But in Rome one day, we were in a café with a patient-looking barista, and I decided to order my lunch in Italian. “Biongornio! Un panino, una tazza frutta, e una bottiglia l’acqua,” I said, in what I’m sure was very broken and mispronounced Italian. “Per favore.” The barista smiled, charmed by either my effort or my ineptitude, and responded in Italian. I beamed back.
“
There is a beauty to every city that cannot be experienced unless you try to see it like a native. A slice of Florentine pizza is extraordinary not just for its scrumptious flavor, but also for the centuries old culinary traditions it represents. A Vespa scooter is not just a mode of transportation; it is the most visible manifestation of a wine drinking, cigarette smoking, and casually courageous way of life.
“
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Opening the door:
How exclusionary language harms U.S. residents
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H
ome is where the heart is. Make yourself at home. Home away from home. Home free. Our idiomatic use of the word “home” is an attempt to replicate a highly personal and subjective feeling into a universal sentiment. These phrases all evoke a sense of security and comfort without needing to reference the culture of our families and of our homes. Everyone is welcome, they seem to say. However, our language also creates cultural and institutional barriers for people who should be able to consider their country of residence a home. Who we consider an “immigrant” versus who we consider a “citizen” is much more complicated than simply requiring a resident to take a test. Mawuna Remarque Koutonin discusses the words we use to describe noncitizens in an article in The Guardian entitled “Why are white people expats when the rest of us are immigrants?” “[E]xpat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad,” Koutonin said, citing examples from Hong Kong, Africa and Europe. Despite what some critics have argued, we do not use the words “expat” and “immigrant” to delineate a resident’s qualifications or professional status; Koutonin quotes an African migrant worker, whose resume lists a variety of international organizations, but is only ever referred to as a “highly qualified immigrant.” The word “expatriate” grants a person two homes; “immigrant” turns a person into a perpetual visitor, even if he or she has been living in the same country for decades. In fact, who we consider to be an “immigrant” is so warped that the word is often used when its definition does not apply. On an episode of “Last Week Tonight,” John Oliver played a variety of news clips that identified Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor as a child of “Puerto Rican immigrants” and a “first-generation American” — blatantly incorrect, since Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory whose residents are American citizens. “She’s the daughter of Americans who moved from Puerto Rico,” Oliver said in the episode. “If Puerto Ricans are immigrants, anyone who moves anywhere is an immigrant.” Oliver also noted similar uses of exclusive language
in American legal code. Several 1901 Supreme Court decisions called “The Insular Cases” justified preventing residents of U.S. territories (like the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam) from voting by calling them “alien races... differing from us in...customs...and modes of thought.” The continued use of the word “alien” others people born on American soil and people who hope to make America their home. Residents of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam are now considered U.S. citizens, although they still do not have the same voting rights as those citizens who live stateside.
The word ‘expatriate’ grants a person two homes; ‘immigrant’ turns a person into a perpetual visitor. Perhaps the worst example of language that keeps racial and ethnic minorities from calling America “home” is in American Samoa. American Samoans are considered U.S. “nationals” — their passports, emblazoned with “The United States of America” and a bald eagle, expressly state on the back page, “The bearer...is not a United States citizen.” Oliver called this “off-brand citizen[ship].” “You can pretend it’s the same thing,” he said. “Everyone knows its way worse.” When five American Samoans sued the government to change this standard, the Obama Administration cited the Insular Cases as precedent — you know, the ones that talked about U.S. territory residents’ “alien races.” The language we use to categorize U.S. residents has real, legal consequences. American Samoans living in a U.S. state cannot apply for many government jobs and benefits, cannot serve on juries and in many states, cannot own firearms. Aside from legal discrimination, language shapes our attitudes towards people who live in U.S. territories, many of whom have served in the U.S. military but are still considered outsiders. The way we use language both implicitly and explicitly alienates people who consider themselves Americans. There’s no place like home, but for 4 million people in the U.S. territories, our language has created an impenetrable barrier where there should be an open door.
Written by Anna Bernard Illustration by Chanel Luu Hai
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Carnaval Is Where The Heart Is:
Why Carnival Is More Than A Cultural Show Written by Emma LaPlante
‘Carnaval did a good job this year of saying, “you know what, talk about what you want to talk about.” It doesn’t need to be fun all the time.’
Re-I Chin Photography
W
hen this year’s Carnaval skit writing team sat down at its earliest meeting, one question, posed by Co-Chair Cecilia Joy Pérez, hung in the air. “If you had a platform to say something to the entire school about Latino issues, what would you say to them?” the Washington University senior asked her fellow executive board members. With this crucial question, a show was born — one that swayed significantly away from the precedents set by the past few years. “I really wanted to reinvigorate the skit writing process, kind of come up with a more substantial show, that I think would speak to the experiences that more of the Latinos have on campus,” said Joy Pérez. “Last year’s skit dealt with Brazil and World Cup spending…I was like, ‘Yes, this is an issue, but I know we can go further,’” agreed sophomore Alejandro Martinez, Joy Pérez’s Carnaval Co-Chair. While this year’s show still dealt with globally relevant political issues, they were addressed in a more personal and intimate way. The skit, which followed the lives of several Latino and Latina Wash. U. students, tackled important new realities, such as generational divides between parents and children in the Latino community over LGBT issues and dating, machismo in Latino culture, detainment of undocumented immigrants, and the intersectionality of complex identities — represented most explicitly by a character who identified as sometimes Black, sometimes Latino, and sometimes both. “[With] everything that’s been happening on campus, I figured intersectionality and identity issues are what are prominent right now,” Martinez said. “[I thought] it would be perfect to include that in Carnaval somehow.” A New Philosophy Carnaval has always been dedicated to celebrating Latino culture, which has traditionally meant sexy dances, flashy costumes, and
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lighthearted humor. This year’s show did not disappoint on this front, featuring dances like Belly Dancing, West African, Samba and Cha-Cha. But the show did not only highlight these performances because they’re fun. Rather, Carnaval, a show run primarily by the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), needs to appeal to Wash. U.’s mainstream population. For Carnaval to be the major campus event that it is, it needs to attract both a wide audience and dozens of dancers and performers, Latino and non-Latino. “In the past, [Carnaval has] been very focused on making [the show] fun and making it entertaining, especially for a wider Wash. U. audience,” said Ana Paula Shelley, a senior who choreographed this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion dance. There has always been a need for the Carnaval planners, especially the skit-writers, to make sacrifices, and a careful balance has been struck between ideals and practicality. “In the past, I think — and this is my personal opinion — we sacrificed a lot of our more strong feelings,
Shelley’s choreography evolved into a political outcry against corruption and state violence. because we were afraid that they won’t relate to the Wash. U. audience.” This year’s show threw caution to the wind. “We don’t care, essentially,” Shelley said. “We don’t care if some our stories don’t relate to everyone, because that’s not really the point…Carnaval did a good job this year of saying, ‘you know what, talk about what you want to talk about.’ It doesn’t need to be fun all the time.” Ayotzinapa and Lyrical Latin Fusion Perhaps this newly embraced philosophy was most obvious in this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion, a relatively new dance that combines traditional Latin styles with
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ballet. When Shelley was asked in the fall to be the new Lyrical Latin Fusion choreographer, she thought she would simply follow the example set by the dance’s choreographers in years past, when Lyrical Latin Fusion was an upbeat and graceful dance that fit in well with Carnaval’s other exciting dances. However, as she considered what she would do for this year’s performance, she became increasingly involved with a budding student activist group called AltaVoz, which was coalescing in the aftermath of the mass kidnapping of students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico. Last September, 43 teaching students from a teaching college in Ayotzinapa went missing in Iguala, Mexico. While they were riding buses to a protest in Mexico City, the students were abducted and presumably killed. The mayor of Iguala and his wife are widely suspected of arranging the students’ disappearance, most likely because they wrongfully assumed the students were planning to disrupt an event held by the mayor’s wife. The tragedy inspired an international outcry against police brutality, corruption and suppression of free speech. In September, Wash. U.’s AltaVoz, including Shelley, held a vigil for the missing students. Then, over winter break, while visiting her family in Mexico, something clicked for Shelley. “During December, when I went home to Mexico, my godmother actually had gone to Ayotzinapa and had gone to the school and helped students. She came back to me with these experiences, and she basically made me feel a lot closer to the events than just hearing about it on the news in the United States,” Shelley said. Meanwhile, the writers of the Carnaval skit knew about the Ayotzinapa tragedy, and they considered putting it in their script. However, the entire scandal was still shrouded in mystery, and most of the details were unknown (and still are today), so they decided against including the issue in the show’s skit. But after returning from Mexico, the tragedy felt too real for Shelley to ignore. She decided to address the Ayotzinapa kidnapping in her dance. “I was like, ‘I have an opportunity to talk about these things that the skit isn’t covering,’” Shelley said. Still unsure of exactly how she wanted to approach the issue, Shelley turned rehearsals into a collaborative process
with her dancers, bringing in her own choreography but continually tweaking it to make it as powerful as possible. By the time the Lyrical Latin Fusion dance was performance-ready, Shelley’s choreography had evolved into a political outcry against corruption and state violence. Eleven dancers began onstage, but halfway through their second song veiled individuals dressed in black ran onstage and violently dragged the dancers off the stage, one by one. After the final dancer (Shelley) was snatched, the curtain fell on an empty stage, giving way to intermission. The dance, which brought many viewers to tears, represented a serious departure from the previous way of doing things in Wash. U.’s Carnaval. Although this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion dance was certainly the most dramatic example, other moments in the show demonstrated the show’s newfound boldness, including a subtle critique of Wash. U.’s disproportionately small Latino population. “We, as Latinos, have to fight for our recognition in a place where there are so few of us,” said a skit character at the end of the show. In Their Own Voices For many Latino students, this statement was all too relatable, partly because the notion of a minority group (in this sense of a coherent and unified bloc of people) does not really exist. Although small, the community of Latinos at Wash. U. includes incredible diversity, with ties to countries all over Africa and Central and South America. It is impossible to fit all of Wash. U.’s Latinos into one generalized narrative. “The proximity to the country, or the generation that you’re from, changes the way that you self-identify. And all these identities are valid — it’s not like saying, ‘having Latinos means diversity,’ there’s diversity within that. There are some experiences that, as a Latino on campus, will resonate with you, and some that won’t. That’s why the low amount of Latinos here makes it difficult to satisfy all those needs,” said Joy Pérez. But that didn’t stop this year’s Carnaval’s scriptwriters
from trying. “We didn’t want one long story — we wanted segments and different stories because we felt there wasn’t just one issue, there isn’t just one identity, one experience. It was really interesting to see, as the script
‘The proximity to the country or the generation that you’re from changes the way that you self-identify.’ was written, how all these different experiences and stories interwove with each other, and how everything connected still,” said Martinez. Figuring out these diverse and complicated characters wasn’t easy. The scriptwriters wanted to explore different cultural heritages and address real experiences without reiterating stereotypes or confirming people’s prejudices about Latinos. “I didn’t want it to be taken as like, ‘Oh, we’re either super fun and pretty and colorful, or we’re super violent,’ because those are two very big stereotypes that are shown about Latinos,” said Shelley. Joy Pérez said that, when collaborating on the script, she was “trying to highlight what attitudes among Latinos I think are problematic.” The storyline about a female student and her mother that represented the effects of machismo on Latina women, for example, revealed a more multifaceted approach than initial appearances would suggest. With these characters, the writers wanted to deal with machismo (male chauvinism within Latino cultures) and its real influence on Latino family dynamics. But at the same time, Joy Pérez stressed their desire to not place the mother character into the stereotype that all Latinos are chauvinistic. To capitalize on their insights into the nuances of the Latino experience, Joy Pérez and the other writers decided to set the skit at Wash. U. and to derive storylines from their own personal experiences. Joy Pérez explained that she felt the machismo in Puerto Rican culture at her
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own family dinner table, where she has been told that her intelligence can be intimidating toward men. This is primarily what inspired the relationship between the mother and daughter in Carnaval’s skit. “We focused it a lot more on our personal experiences as students on a campus like Wash. U.’s,” Shelley said. “This year, it was very related to ourselves.” In the end, the care and personal investment that the writers put into the script paid off. The characters felt authentic and relatable, not just embodiments of Latino stereotypes. Home Finding a home at college is difficult for every student, but it is often immensely harder for members of marginalized minority groups. Latinos at Wash. U. understand this more than anyone because their community is so small. Although programs like the Annika Rodriguez Scholars Program are actively recruiting Latino and Latina students to increase the size of Wash. U.’s Latino community, Latinos are possibly the most marginalized and disproportionately underrepresented minority “group” on campus. Because of this unique status, Carnaval offers something different from other studentrun cultural shows like the Lunar New Year Festival and Diwali. Since Asian Americans and Indian Americans have a significantly larger presence on Wash. U.’s campus than Latinos, Latino issues are more often overlooked. In fact, ALAS and Carnaval are some of the only places on campus that give these students a platform to speak where a large audience will actually listen, and Carnaval is the only time that thousands of people in the Wash. U. community come out to listen to Latino voices.
“There is a void, or rather a lack thereof, [of Latino] presence on campus,” said Joy Pérez. “So I think a show like this is important, because it is one way in which thousands of people show that, ‘Hey, we care about Carnaval, we care enough to come,’ and that’s an important function on this campus.” Part of feeling at home means finding a place to express your feelings and needs, a place where your voice is listened to and deemed important. For many students, Carnaval can become this new “home,” a place where Latino voices are spoken from center stage. “I think Carnaval, for a lot of people, offers a chance to share with people what ‘home’ means to you,” Shelley said. “For a lot of people, it feels like home not just because they’re interacting with other people who share similar experiences, but because they get a chance to say, ‘Hey, this is my identity. Look at it. Appreciate it.’ That’s a good feeling to be able to do that at Wash. U.” In a society where systemic prejudice as well as threats of alienation and deportation continually silence Latinos (and a society that usually ignore Latino voices when they do choose to speak), Carnaval is a singularly beautiful thing. When thousands of students show up to see what ALAS has created, the student body is saying, however implicitly, “I see you.” And when Carnaval uses its visibility to highlight complex Latino realities, the student body sees that, too.
Carnaval is a singularly beautiful thing. When thousands of students show up to see what the Association of Latin American Students has created, the student body is saying, ‘I see you.’
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Contributors ANNA BERNARD
EMMA LaPLANTE is a freshman studying English and Political Science, in the hopes of one day becoming Sam Seaborn from “The West Wing.” She’d love to hear from you at emmalaplante@wustl.edu.
VICTORIA SGARRO
is a senior studying English and Political Science. Contact her at a.bernard@wustl.edu.
is a senior studying Comparative Literature, Communication Design and Chinese Language & Culture. She is editor-in-chief of ISSUES Magazine. Contact her at vrsgarro@wustl.edu.
is a junior majoring in Communication Design. She can be reached at duyen.luuhai@gmail.com.
CARRICK REDDIN
KEATON WETZEL LAKEN SYLVANDER is a sophomore studying French and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Contact her at l.sylvander@wustl.edu.
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is president of ISSUES. He will graduate in May with a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies and Political Science. In the fall he will begin a graduate program in city planning at Cornell University. Contact him at kwetzel@wustl.edu
DUYEN (CHANEL) LUU HAI
LEORA BAUM is the Visual Editor for ISSUES. She is a junior majoring in the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities and Spanish, and minoring in Art. Contact her at leora.i.baum@wustl.edu.
is a junior studying Architecture and International Development Studies. Contact him at creddin@wustl.edu.
YUWEI QIU JORDAN VICTORIAN
is a junior majoring in Communication Design and Economics. Contact her at qiuyuwei1993@gmail.com.
SARA WONG
is a sophomore exploring American intimacies, gender and sexuality, and writing. Contact them at victorian@wustl.edu.
is a junior studying Communication Design.
LIBBY PEROLD
SAJA (SAGE) CHODOSH
is a junior studying Comparative Arts and Design. She is the Design Chief for ISSUES Magazine.
STEPH WALDO
is a senior majoring in English Literature, and minoring in Writing and Marketing. Feel free to contact her at saja.chodosh@gmail.com.
MIRANDA HINES is a sophomore studying English Literature and Political Science. She can be contacted at mirandahines@wustl.edu.
FRANCESCA MAIDA
is a junior studying Communication Design and Film and Media Studies. Feel free to shoot her a message anytime at steph.waldo@gmail.com.
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