Maleka Issue1 by Maleka

Maleka Issue No. 1

What is a Woman?

Maleka is a Hunter College student publication and paid for from student activity fees. All works published herein are copyright of the authors/artists and are published here with their permission. Maleka supports all forms of expression and thus statements expressed in our magazine are opinions and do not necessarily reflect the position of Maleka as a whole. Neither we nor our authors are responsible for any actions taken in reliance on the information presented within Maleka. Maleka is printed by Shweiki Media Printing Company www.shweiki.com/ 3

Maleka Cora Yi From the sway of my hips, To the curve of my lips Your dirty looks won’t shake me. By calling me easy, A bitch or a broad Your vulgar words won’t phase me. Picture me as a vixen, Or belittle my existence Your opinion won’t ever change me. For there once was a time, When the world was mine Our fortunes were shared equally. They called me an angel They called me their queen And all my women lived freely. Lest not forget our struggles, And fall back on our knees We have not come this far To give up so easily; the history that lives, the songs that sing, the blood that rings, within us. Where your heart resides, An ancient soul lies My Maleka rise, rise, rise!

Contents POETRY Maleka Cora Yi............... 1

FICTION Zaya Victoria Pavlov....... 28

EDITOR’S NOTE Notes from the Queen Bee Shairi Turner................. 4

FICTION A Quick Lunch at the Waterloo Club Rose Rushing........... 35

CONTRIBUTORS......................... 5

OPINION On Women in Video Games Pawel Dziurawiec........................... 40

EVENTS........................................ 6 FASHION Dime Girls #1: Leggings, a retrospective Miranda Hardy........... 8

OPINION Novelas Angely Mercado 42 RANT What It Means To Be A Woman Hunter Stone...................................47

DIY Rhinestone Princess Shairi Turner 10 RANT Lugubrious Stephanie Sengwe 48 MOVIE REVIEW: Whores’ Glory Great Feit....................................... 12 POETRY Little Girls Angely Mercado 49 MUSIC REVIEW: Love in Flying ART GALLERY............................ 50 Colors by The Foreign Exchange Shairi Turner............................................ 13 NON FICTION The Shakedown Maryam Abdul-Kareem.................. 14 NON FICTION An Interview with Shamanic Healer Olivia Olkowski Nicole Saenz................................... 18 POETRY What’s in A Woman? Maryam Abdul-Kareem.................. 23 NON FICTION An African Epiphany Aissatou Diallo............................... 24 POETRY She Is…Kameeka Burke.. 27

Notes from the Queen Bee

intended to write a long, soliloquy about what Maleka is, how it got started, and where we want to go with this. Then, I was going to talk about how womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s magazines are failing us, how they do not begin to capture the complexity and diversity of their target audience and how Maleka is different. Usually, this is the space for that, but to be honest, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m exhausted. Maleka is a labor of love. The creation of it is riddled with trials and tribulations, setbacks, rejection and failures. It is also filled with comebacks, new starts, patience, determination finally paying off, and the sweet smell of success! Thus far, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been so lucky to have team of reliable, talented and brilliant indivduals with clear voices and dedication to this vision.

The cream always rises to the top, even if it takes a little while to get there.

Shairi Turner Queen Bee Like what you see? Interested in joining the team? Contact us at Malekamag@gmail.com Like us on facebook

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Contributors Shairi Turner

is creator, President and graphic designer of Maleka. She is a theatre major with dreams of being the next Martha Stewart. She lives in the Bronx with her mother and her cat. You’ll be able to purchase her wares in 2014 at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheSugarGoddess

Pawel Dziurawi

ec is an English major, currently editor/contributor at Maleka, past Secretary of the Hunter Fighting Games Association and future Vice President of the English Majors Club. He also hopes to write for Destructoid one day.

Victoria Pavlov

is a

Neuroscience and Women’s Studies double major and hopes to become an obstetric surgeon in the future. She is currently trying to learn Zulu and Swahili so that she can go to Kenya and assist with women’s sexual health clinics.

Kameeka Burke

a Psychology major, poet, and jewelry designer. She is interested in becoming a youth counselor and hopes to open her own youth development center in the future. Her jewelry line is Afro State of Mine (ASOM) Designs. You can purchase/ request custom orders at www.etsy.com/shop/ ASOMDesigns.

Rose Rushing

is a Political Science major at Hunter. She is currently an intern at the National Organization for Women and has worked as a community organizer for Human Rights Campaign, Environment California, and CALPIRG. She hopes to go to law school.

Angely Mercado

is an English and Journalism major, currently an editor/

contributor at Maleka. She was a reporter for the Hunts Point Express and Mott Haven Herald during the summer of 2013. Angely hopes to one day become a freelance journalist, novelist, traveler, and catlady.

Nicole Saenz

is a local NYC artist and a candidate for the BFA program at Hunter. Drawing unleashes a side of Nicole that makes her question her perceptions and go beyond the obvious. You will notice in her work that the raw emotion is overwhelming in such a beautiful and sensual way. She will be having her next exhibition for Artlove(H)er at the Living Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Contact her at Nicolesaenz7@gmail.com and view her art at: www.saatchionline.com/nicolesaenz

Greta Feit

is a junior at Hunter College. She is majoring in Fine Art and minoring in Dance. Her work can be found on: www.etsy.com/shop/ prettiestrailroad

Aissatou Diallo

undeclared in regards to her major(s) and minor(s), but is considering economics, international relations, media and creative writing. She is currently an editor, contributor and the social media coordinator for Maleka. In the past, she was a reporter for Our Time Press, a local Brooklyn newspaper. In the future, she hopes to continue writing and also to start her own business.

Additional Contributors: Shanti Doobay

(editor), Cora Yi (Author), Maryam Abdul-Kareem (Author), Miranda Hardy (Author, Editor), Stephanie Sengwe (Author, Editor), Hunter Stone (Author, Artist), The Fempire Of Hunter College (Supporters), Hunted Hero Comics (Supporters)

Events ATHENA FILM FESTIVAL Date: Feb 6-9 2014 Time: All Day Place: Barnard University - 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

and performance arts and other artistic expressions by women. It is one of only two festivals in the southeastern United States specifically dedicated to women. Http://www.Womensfilmfest.Com/

Now in its fourth year, the Athena Film Festival - a celebration of women and leadership - is an engaging weekend of feature films, documentaries and shorts that highlight women’s leadership in real life and the fictional world. The four-day festival, which includes conversations with directors, producers, and actors as well as activities for filmmakers, will be held Feb 6-9, 2014 in the heart of New York - at Barnard, the most sought-after women’s college in the nation. Http://athenafilmfestival.com/

PORTLAND OREGON WOMEN’S FILM FESTIVAL Date: March 6-9 2014 Time: All Day Place: Hollywood Theatre- 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97212

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2014 Date: March 8 Time: All Day Place: Worldwide Inspiring Change is the 2014 theme for our internationalwomensday.com global hub and encourages advocacy for women’s advancement everywhere in every way. It calls for challenging the status quo for women’s equality and vigilance inspiring positive change. Each year International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8. The first International Women’s Day was held in 1911. Thousands of events occur to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. Organisations, governments, charities, educational institutions, women’s groups, corporations and the media celebrate the day. http://www.internationalwomensday.com/ WOMEN INTERNATIONAL FILM & ARTS FESTIVAL Date: March 5-9 Time: All Day Place: To Be Annonced, Florida The Women International Film & Arts Festival (wiff) is a unique, cultural event featuring films, visual 6

The Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival (powfest) places a spotlight on women directors by showcasing their work and strengthening the community of women in film. Powfest empowers women to find their voice and to share their stories through innovative and quality filmmaking. We feature the work of today’s top women directors, honoring the true pioneers while providing support and recognition for the next generation of leading women filmmakers. http://powfest.com/ THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT CONFERENCE Date: March 28 - 29, 2014 Time: 12:00 pm Place: Boston University - One Silber Way Boston, MA 02215 The 2014 Women’s Liberation Movement Conference that will be held on March 28 - 29, 2014 at Boston University. The conference will bring together activists, scholars, artists, writers, and filmmakers to reflect on the movement: its accomplishments in so many domains, its unfinished business, and its relevance to contemporary work that is advancing women. Have an event your would like to submit? Email us at Malekamag@gmail.com

NO BOYS ALLOWED

Just kidding! Although MALEKA is a magazine focused on being and interacting with WOMEN, we want to hear all voices. Maleka is MALE and LGBTQ friendly and we want you to join our team. We want your art, short stories, poetry, interviews, reviews, articles, rants, opinions and more. If you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t give us any of that, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll gladly accept your time.

Dime Girls #1

Leggings, a Retrospective Miranda Hardy

inter in New York City is a special time. The leaves on the trees have all gone, bringing attention to the ornate decoration of the city’s architecture. The daylight hours are fewer, allowing the city to light itself up. People bustle about in good cheer (sort of!), and there’s nothing quite like walking out of the subway and seeing snow falling lightly to the cement. However, it’s also effing cold. During the these months, one of the ways we ladies like to protect our precious gams from the cruel bite of winter is by wearing sensible clothing leggings. Leggings are tricky because while they are comfortable, warm, and effectively allow us to go from bed to the public sphere without walking around in pajama pants, there are several strategies, or rules, that must be adhered to when wearing them in order to make the distinction between sloppy and comfy dressing. Here are a few of the ways you can fool people into thinking that you have your life together while strutting your stuff in the glorious halfpants that are leggings.

Make sure your butt is covered at all times. The other day, I was walking down the street when suddenly I came face to face with a pair of green music note briefstyle panties. You may ask how it is at all possible for a pair of panties to stare me directly in the eye, as they are both inanimate, and eyeless, but I am unable to answer any questions at the moment because of the shock of having seen a pair of leggings so transparent that I was able to discern the color and pattern of the underwear beneath them. When putting on leggings, it is important to keep in mind that they are not always opaque, and that even if they seem opaque, anything from an unreliable fabric stretch to an incorrect size may cause your leggings to become somewhat seethrough. Luckily, there are several ways to protect your pretty undies from being peeped through your pants. One foolproof way is to wear a sweater or shirt that falls below your butt. Everyone loves a baggy man sweater, and what better way to hide your assets and be hella warm at the same time? Or, you can find athletic or microfiberlined leggings whose thicker fabrics

are designed specifically so that you can expose your tush without exposing your tush. If that still isn’t working for you though, try putting a black pair of panty hose beneath your leggings for an extra layer of warmth and protection. But please do something, because I really can’t handle seeing any more butts in public.

Don’t use your leggings as an excuse to be sloppy. Leggings are a really interesting article of clothing because no one knows exactly what type of clothing they are. Ever heard the “leggings are not pants” argument? It’s basically the argument that leggings are inappropriate streetwear because they aren’t actually pants and weren’t intended to be worn on their own. However, I haven’t heard one person give an actual explanation of what they might be considered, if not pants (although I did see someone liken them to long John’sfair enough). Since it’s unclear what kind of clothing they are (underwear?

athleticwear? pajamas?), it can be easy to cross the line from laid back to lazy. If you choose to wear leggings, make sure that you treat them as a piece of clothing, and not as a license to skip brushing your teeth before you leave the house. Try wearing them with garments that could actually be considered clothes. I’m not talking about your significant other’s oversized hoodie or that massive tshirt you got on your family beach trip that you love to wear to bed. If you want to be taken seriously in a pair of leggings, you have to look like you take yourself seriously. Ask yourself if you could pull off the outfit with a pair of pants instead, and if the answer is yes, you’re probably on the right track.

Be original. The first time I ever saw someone wearing leggings, I was in middle school, and I reacted in much the same way as Dorothy when she walked out of her house that had been carried across Kansas by a tornado and saw color for the first time. However, that was almost a decade ago, and

leggings have since become much less cool. They’ve pretty much been figured out. Sometimes I feel like everyone wears leggings in the exact same way and there’s nothing less interesting than seeing one million people all wearing slight variations of the same outfit, especially on a college campus. So if you’re going to wear leggings, show the world that you have a handle on your own creative expression, and that you know who you are. I don’t want to see that you understand that Uggs + leggings = warm or that Converse + leggings = fun and edgy version of Uggs + leggings. Anyone can do that! Get creative with your leggings. The other day I saw someone wearing a dress with galaxy leggings and yellow wooden clogs and at first I thought “wut” and then I thought “that woman is a dream.” She took what is arguably the most boring article of clothing and made it memorable just by expressing herself and having fun with her clothes. So have a good time getting dressed.

Everyone knows that leggings are for comfort and warmth in the winter months, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be cool! 9

Rhinestone Princess Be broke. Stay Fly By Shairi Turner

So you’re a broke college student, but you absolutely must keep it cute? Don’t worry! I, the magnificent, stupendous Rhinestone Princess have you covered. Every issue I will bring you a brand new do-it-yourself project that you can make with little money and meager skills.In this issue we will take a pair of old, broken eyeglass frames and transform them into a stylin’ necklace. You so classy!

MATERIALS: Glasses frames, chain, jump rings*, a closure (I’m using a lobster claw), pliers, an eyeglass repair kit or a tiny screw driver , wire cutter, beads (optional).

Listen, unscrew the hinges of the glasses in order to isolate the frames.

If you wish, pop the lenses out by firmly pushing on them until they give. Take it easy. If the lenses are in good condition you can fashion them into other pieces of jewelry.

Now use a wire cutter to cut your chain to length or reuse a chain from another broken piece of jewelry. I won’t judge you.

Then use a pair of needle nose pliers to open the jump rings. You can also use your fingers if you’re in a pinch (haha getit?).

Use the jump rings to attach your closures to the end of your necklace. If you want to let a little chain hang in the back, you can use a bead to add a decorative element. I mean, you don’t have to, it’s your life. You can add beads, gems, wire or anything you want to decorate the frames. Keep it cute.

After that, loop the jump rings through the hinges of the glasses. Place one side of the chain in the jump ring then close the ring. The rings are secure when you hear a tiny little snap as they click into place. Repeat this step for the other side...

...unless during the course of this tutorial you break the hinges off one side of your extremely cheap glasses. DON’T PANIC! Just attach that side of your chain to the frame of the glasses instead of the hinges. Add glue if you don’t want your chain to slide back and forth on the frame.

ROCK IT! Be sure to send me a picture at Malekamag@gmail.com. I may put you in a future issue.

*Jump ring can be purchased in craft stores, such as Michael’s or on Ebay and other online retailers.

Movie Review: Whores’ Glory Reviewed by: Greta Feit

hores’ Glory, directed by Michael Glawogger, is a phenomenal documentary depicting the lives of sex workers and prostitutes in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. The film offers a raw and horrifying truth as to what role women have in a global context. In Thailand, the women in glass booths dressed in rather short skirts, and revealing tops. They also had an assigned number placed on their tops, which John used to identify them. What is truly appalling, is that the process is practically identical to farmers choosing cattle from branded cows. After the night is done, Glawogger films a few girls who make their way to a temple and get on their knees to pray for more clients. It is heartbreaking to discover that this is what they pray for, as their hope for a new way of life is completely demolished. In Bangladesh, the red light district is filled with many young girls, most are teenagers or younger. Many of these girls confess how ashamed and disgusted they feel and their innocence and youth makes it that much more disturbing. One man confessed, “if it were not for the brothels, men would be raping girls on the street”. The fact that the only way to protect girls from being sexually assaulted on the street is to sell their innocence in muddy brothels is such a horrifying thought. Entrapment and mistrust is easily found in this community. In Mexico, the emotional detachment and clear sense of an “everyday routine” was also extremely apparent.

The strong portrayal of poverty and drug dependency is completely raw and heartbreaking. What made the film extremely touching and unlike most films on this topic was the filmmaker’s ability to get ‘up close and personal’ with the women he was documenting. Since he was able to actually enter the brothels and capture the reality of what goes on behind closed doors, he captured something truly private, personal and emotional and he was certainly able to film their experience quite gracefully. However, I couldn’t help but wonder why the women who were exploited and 12

victimized by men on a daily basis chose to trust some camera man. It makes one question if the filmmakers paid the women or if the girls that were filmed agreed to have their stories and their truths be shared on a global level. The interviews with the women varied anywhere from them speaking highly of their work, confessing how ashamed they felt, or sharing sex stories rather indifferently. Sometimes the film would play a sad song or have dark lighting, in order to set the tone when it was appropriate, but other than that the viewer was able to interject their own thoughts and opinions. Whores’ Glory depicts an intense inside look at sex work on a global level. When one considers these three countries, they might think about their delicious food or beautiful clothing and architecture thus, it was really heartening and fundamental to get a real look of what occurs behind closed doors. Many of these women and young girls around the world are being harassed by men throughout the day and hear statements of how they are nothing but trash. Yet, it is the same men who are touching them and loving them when the sun goes down. This film is definitely a must-see! Purchase: Amazon Stream: Netflix

Music Review: Love in Flying Colors by The Foreign Exchange Reviewed by: Shairi Turner

he Foreign Exchange (+FE) is a Grammy nominated duo that consists of rapper/ singer/writer Phonte Coleman, formerly of Little Brother, and Dutch producer Nicolay creator of the City Lights album series.. The group reportedly started back in the early 2000s on the Okayplayer message board. Phonte resided in North Carolina, Nicolay lived in The Netherlands, they connected and vibed and the rest is history. They have released several albums since their conception, including 2008’s Leave It All Behind and 2011’s Connected. Love in Flying Colors is less rap oriented than Connected and less down tempo than Leave it All Behind which makes it a particularly excellent album to start your day with. The bright, life-affirming nature of The Foreign Exchange’s (+FE) Love in Flying Colors album starts from the cover and continues to thread itself through the energetic opening song “If I Knew Then” to the sleepy final song “When I Feel Love”. The beats are heavily influenced by Jazz, R&B, Funk and Dance music and it would be hard to pin them down into one category. Although the lyrics are accessible, they are not cliche or simple minded. This is clearly an album written and produced by and for grown people in grown relationships. While it is clear that Phonte is not a trained singer, he exceeds at carrying a tune and has chosen excellent features that complement his vocals. Unfortunately, he sounds less experimental and adventurous with his singing than on Leave It All Behind which gives the voice a bit less character. This does not ruin the album by any means, it is just worth noting that he has pushed his voice further in the past. Hopefully he’ll do so again in the future.

Love in Flying Colors is a wonderful, uplifting album that is the sonic equivalent of waking up to a gorgeous sunrise and knowing the day will go exactly as you planned. It is very much worth a listen. Recommended songs: “When I Feel Love” (featuring Jeanne Jolly), “Call It Home”, “The Moment” Purchase: www.theforeignexchangemusic.com, Itunes, Amazon, other music retailers Stream: Spotify

The Shakedown By: Maryam Abdul-Kareem

When greeting someone, the American instinct is to stick out one’s hand and deliver a firm handshake. Generally, that instinct kicks in regardless of who is being greeted, understandably so; however, in New York the idea is that we’re a “melting pot”, and a part of that entrée is cultural respect and understanding. These two words may sound daunting and intimidating but, trust me, they aren’t. They are small adjustments that broaden our personal horizons. Now, this is not a piece about us all being one and loving each other. We can talk about that another time. This is about,

‘The

Shakedown.’ Also

that awkward moment when you thought wearing Hijab would stop men from trying to shake your hand (or touch you in general). known as,

In Islam, Muslims practice gender separation. Not gender seclusion; there is interaction, just not as cozy and close as other cultures. There is a respectful distance between members of the opposite sex. How does this all work in a meet and greet situation? Greetings are just as cordial, but less touchy. No handshakes, kisses, hugs or pats on backs but respectful acknowledgment; smiles, kind words, polite head nod, et cetera. There are several reasons for this custom, one of which is a means of prevention and another is the honor and value of women. Today’s society is admittedly promiscuous in action and morals and these are attributes that are not confluent with Islam. In fact, mediums such as literature and media have made adultery, fornication, premarital relationships a norm in societal morality, which is why the idea of not touching members of the opposite sex may seem weird. This simple “no touchy” attitude serves as a preventative measure. It is a barrier for all the extra sexual acts, that have nothing to do with one’s spouse (ummm, hello Unfaithful). It secures the Family Unit, which is essential to a healthy functioning society, by removing temptation in the first place.

Secondly, I must say that as Muslim woman this tradition is awesome! Even in this small context of greetings, it is ridiculously comforting to know that I am not the only one who’s “got my back”, “protecting my honor”, “guarding my chastity” and that’s pretty darn liberating. Especially in a world where, sex trafficking and brothels are absurdly popular, rape is a prevalent and women are seen as bodies and not people with brains and souls. Additionally, not having to fight for equality because my way of life gives it to me from Jump Street is pretty cool. Not having to fight to be treated like a man because being treated like a woman makes me inferior, is also pretty cool. A man not feeling like he can touch me in any context also earns another cool point. Now I get to actually focus on being a woman, in all of its components; because being a woman is more than just being body parts. I get that not every man is trying to grope every woman, but just like again every person isn’t trying to steal your jewels (or money or anything of significant value); you still keep them encased in a “safe place” (like a bank or a vault). The difference between that concept and this is that women are far more important and independent than any inanimate possession, including her best friend “diamonds”. With all that said, the etiquette is different when men are greeting men or women are greeting women or when greeting a sibling, a spouse, a parent, an uncle, an aunt, et cetera. In these situations, a bear hug or kiss or any other personal space invasions are perfectly cool and encouraged. As a matter of fact, they can often be seen amongst Muslims since we are all about brotherly and sisterly love, respect and understanding; which surprisingly enough is not so hard to achieve. Here are some tips (geared specifically towards greeting Muslims): When greeting a Muslimah (Muslim women), if you’re a man: 1. Introduce yourself in a friendly manner, 2. Smile. 3. Say your name. BOOM! Your introduction is done; simple as that. The same goes for the other side of the spectrum, when greeting a Muslim man, if you’re woman: 1. Introduce yourself in a friendly manner, 2. Smile. 3. Say your name. BOOM! Your introduction is done; simple as that.

Now, you can avoid all those awkward moments and respect and understanding don’t feel so intimidating.

Sol- Greta Feit

An Interview with Shamanic Healer Olivia Olkowski By: Nicole Saenz Shamanic healing is one of the oldest forms of medicine. Having heard about shamanism primarily through the podcasts of Terence Mckenna, American philosopher, psychonaut, and ethnobotanist, I decided to experience shamanism first hand and attended a sacred healing ceremony with Shamanic healer and *Peruvian Pachakuti Mesa holder, Olivia Olkowski. The healing circle was for fostering the Divine Feminine and it was profound. The Peruvian tradition emphasizes the different living worlds and acknowledges the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms. In the circle, we shared our experiences 18

and what we wanted to work on within ourselves. After being part of such the cathartic and immersing emotional space that was created, I was left curious and asked Olivia for an interview about her work as a Shamanic healer.

While doing that in my trainings I said, what’s one more class? That was when I switched to hands on healing.

Art: One Who Knows by Nicole Saenz

Nicole: What was hands on healing like for you starting out? Olivia: It was after September 11, and within two years of working with light frequency, I started doing hands on healing. That was when my intuition really kicked into gear. I could sense my clients’ pain on my own body. In this way, I was able to unravel what the emotion was behind the issue. You know, throwing out a fishing line if they were ready to work on it. We had some really great sessions. I worked with people with stage 4 cancer. During two years of doing that therapy, out of eighty people, I think six died. Everybody else went into remission. As long as your hair and nails can grow you have the *Chi to heal. Nicole: What is it in this work that you enjoy most?

Olivia: Hands on healing was all about building your energy and opening up pathways and make you strong enough to heal whereas chemotherapy and radiation take away. That’s why I liked learning hands on healing. It took me a few years to believe I was a healer, because I didn’t want that path. I did past-life regressions a couple of times and I’ve been told that I’ve been a shamanic healer in my past lives, in Brazil. Your soul has a path too, in every lifetime. I am not Native American, I never claim to be any kind of Native American. I am Nicole Saenz: So how did you get into the healing work? not Peruvian either. I am Polish, Russian, French and Olivia Olkowski: I was looking for change and found Italian. I do honor the Native Americans of this land Feng Shui. I wanted to develop more within myself. I and that’s one reason I never use their medicine. I feel studied with the Peruvian Shamanic tradition and never that is one of the things they have left behind and I want planned on being a healer. I was just looking for a new to respect them. Before I do any ceremony, I honor the career—something more meaningful and shamanic work ancestors of this land to get permission to do my South opened my path. American work. I am very mindful to ask permission from the land spirits to do ceremonies and workshops or Nicole: What was one of the first healing methods you circles in the park. began working with? Olivia: I was taking a course using far-infrared technology. It was developed in the eighties by hands on healing, based on the Meridian System of Chinese acupuncture. I used *Maksa to burn *Mugwort on a needlepoint to create heat. The far-infrared pinpoints certain areas with deep penetrating light frequency.

Nicole: What sort of initiations did you complete in order to become a Shamanic Healer? Olivia: In the Peruvian Tradition there were four or five initiations. We had to work a few years on ourselves first, to work on our core issues and our *shadows. This is called *shadow work. That was the first initiation;

a deep cleansing of the soul and connecting to all the worlds. Another one was the Death and Dying initiation, where a true shaman, out in the wilderness, if there are any, can get hit by lightning and if they survive they are on the Shamanic path. If anybody ever gets hit with lightning, you don’t move them because the lightning will strike three times. It has to strike three times for the person not to die. If they get struck once, although it usually happens at the same time, it stops their heart and then revives them. The Death and Dying process is done through deep journey work in which different energies are brought in. It is taking that first step into the unknown without your house, your parents, your body— you are just leaving it all behind; and it is very deeply profound. I do teach this. So, it’s working on an atomic level, a quantum physics level for your entire being. Not that I want to get into the *mental body thinking about it but that is how the initiation works. Nicole: Do you see many people with these gifts for healing? Olivia: There is a lot of awakening going on for young people even young people under thirty, and they don’t have the tools. They don’t know what to do with it. A lot of them go to Peru to do *Ayahuasca, to experiment with *Peyote because they are looking for an answer; then they get addicted because of that high, that need to go onto another plane. The plant medicine is very powerful and you need to respect it. I know it is illegal for Ayahuasca to be done here in North America. It’s called Grandmother Vine in the Amazon and it can be a wicked teacher. You need to respect it and have a master Ayahuasquero, a Master Shaman, who works with the plant medicine to be able to see what kind of trip you have. Nicole: What can visionary plants like Ayahuasca open up for someone?

cleansing your every aspect. This is important before you take the *Sacred Tree. And she said she was channeling and chanting the Icarus, which are ancient, native songs related to the Ayahuasca plant. She was not trained to sing the Icarus. She is Brazilian not Peruvian but she was able to chant a very ancient song that she had never learned because she was cleansed enough. Later she said, “I don’t know what I was singing,” and she was told she was singing in an ancient language from the north of Peru about Ayahuasca. Nicole: How has the *spirit drum worked for you as a tool for healing? Olivia: The spirit drum has a life of its own and that’s my teaching. Nobody taught me about the drum, the drum taught me, or my past lives. That and inspiration, or I would hear my guides as I was working. I know it brings the healing into another dimension. The resonation from the drum just really shakes up your atoms and changes your DNA. There is also the use of the rattle in every indigenous culture around the world. I find it to be very comforting work because when you think of it, it is like when we were babies in the womb, with the heart-beat of our mothers, it is that kind of very comforting energy. So it really taps into our ancient self. Drumming and rattling puts you in a state of REM, the state you are in before you go to sleep. So it is that dream quality dimension you go to in order to access things during journey work. The beauty of shamanism is that it’s your own experience. I help lead you to get there but it is solely your experience. I can try to interpret things, but I usually let people sit with it and for the notions to come in processing because the drum heals in another plane that you can’t explain. The drum has been used for healing purposes, in tribal societies with their shamanic traditions to communicate with the spirit world, social integration and to restore harmony for thousands of years.

Olivia: To do the Grandmother plant in North America where it is foreign is not respecting the energy. You also need to do some previous work before. I just spoke to a Nicole: What is the role of the shaman in the client of mine, who went to the Peruvian Amazon for 12 community? days and she did 15 days of food cleansings and other Olivia: There’s the reality we are sitting in right now medicines for purification first. They really work on but there are multiple dimensions and many planes of

existence. The role of the shaman is to navigate those planes, to have training and navigate those realities to help bring back the soul of someone who’s had Soul Loss. Soul loss is when a trauma, if serious enough, causes a fragmentation of one’s inner vitality. If someone was raped, for example, the soul can leave in order to deal with that reality. As a shaman you need to know how to navigate and call back those parts of the soul.

it’s what man do with it.

In Peruvian traditions, it’s about bringing balance to the different worlds and acknowledging the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the mineral kingdom, the spirits of all the life forms in their planet. In the mountains of Peru and Bolivia when you’re fourteen or sixteen thousand feet high, you need to chew the cocoa leaves because they have sixteen different beneficial medicinal properties and a little cocaine in them The cocaine aspect dilates the lungs so you can breathe at that altitude without getting altitude sickness and it also cuts your hunger. So when they’re hiking up and down mountains not every day but every week, they’re trading with the *Quechua people. So the cocoa leaf, which I’ve chewed many times, is a life force that helps them to be able to live in the mountains. It is a necessity. But it doesn’t make you loopy, it doesn’t make you high, and it doesn’t make you sick. Chewing the leaf is not the same as snorting cocaine. The cocoa leaf is the plant that cocaine comes from, but they derive from it and split it to get that one property. The plant itself is not harmful;

So, I created Bubbles and Boundaries, a workshop designed to help you deal with strengthening your energy field. The workshop also provides tools for how to remove unwanted energies. It is important to realize how to really practice expanding your energy field so you don’t take on people’s energies and also for ways of cleansing.

Nicole: How does the New York City environment influence your practice and the clients that come to you?

Olivia: Well, my clients in NY have quick paced lives; a lot deal with many energies from people every day. If I see two to three clients that have a similar topic of concern within a day or two, I know that I need to create a workshop because I’m seeing a pattern of what’s wrong or out of balance. For example, I Nicole: What is your main focus in your work currently? had an acupuncturist and other practitioners and Olivia: Currently, it is the group healing. The role of psychotherapists that said they felt they were picking up the Shaman is to establish group dynamics and bring energies from their clients. This is because when you do medicine to the community. In ancient times, and acupuncture needles you are releasing energy and in the even in Native American times, the wise men or wise Chinese tradition they don’t teach you how to remove women lived outside of the circle of teepees. They lived this energy from yourself. They will teach you tai chi and outside the community and when something within yoga to build your energy but they don’t deal with sticky the community was wrong, or the community needed entities and really dark, scary stuff that I deal with. And help or healing, they would go to visit the shaman, the so they don’t have the knowledge of how to get rid of an medicine man. Their goal was to bring balance to the entity they release from another person. community. To be the seer, to be able to pin-point things, Then a psychotherapist said that she is taking up too to bring in rain if they needed to water the crops, and to much shit from her clients were they dump their issues talk to the worlds. on her and she has no way to get rid of the excess energy.

There was a time that I worked on 3 women who had been victims of incest. For cases like that, I might do a supportive workshop for people who have been abused, are abusers of alcohol and other addictions. It is in seeing where there is a need in my clientele that creates my work. The role of the shaman in many traditions is to bring balance to the community. And I take it seriously. Recently I have been working with a lot of psychotherapists and quite a few general doctors. I find it great because it is totally against everything they know and they are getting something out of it. So that’s beautiful. I worked with all kinds of people, actors,

models, people stuck in any facet. All ages too. I’ve worked on some children who have ADD or ADHD and the drumming is actually beneficial. I think the youngest was four and some were seven and eight years old.

Olivia has healing circles once a month, usually on the third Thursday from 12:30-2:30PM. You may find more information on her website at: www.spiritrockshamanichealing.com.

Nicole: Are there any particular healing stories you would like to share? Olivia: I’ve worked on families and that was profoundly beautiful and hard work. Five people from one family in India contacted me and their son who was only twenty-five had testicular cancer. His fiancé was there; his mother- in-law and his sister were also there. They didn’t know anything about shamanism. They were here getting cancer treatments for him and they wanted to get some spiritual work done too. So, they found me and we put together a program which was pulled from one of my workshops Fire and Ice-- which I will be repeating in September. I try to do it two times a year. It was very powerful. I gave him a place to experience it for himself, to journey and understand why this happened to the family. Why did he get cancer? And the answers were amazing and clear for the family. That’s where the healing begins; if you can name it you can heal it. It was really beautiful and the cleansing ceremony was magical for all of them. They saw that his treatment would be fine and he would be able to have children. They were really able to relieve all their worry baggage which was huge.

Definitions:

Nicole: What advice do you have for someone who is looking to go within and connect with nature? Olivia: To really connect with nature doesn’t take much. Nature is very healing; if you sit by a tree you can talk to the tree spirit. I teach how to do it, but you can lie on the earth and invite the earth to come heal you. It is simple just to ask. And of course in my tradition, you want to give a little offering. So instead of saying heal me, give me everything you have, it is also to give something back. It is sacred reciprocity. Anybody can connect, kids are so connected already. We get conditioned by society to keep clean; to not sit on the grass and to not be tree huggers. You should definitely get shamanic training and listen to your heart.

* The Pachakuti Mesa is a personal altar used in ceremonies to access spiritual forces and energies for the purposes of healing, the advancement of consciousness, and the restoration of balance on both individual and collective levels. * Maksa is used to heat up the needle for treatment * Mugwort is a common name for several species of aromatic plants in the genus Artemisia. * Chi is the energy or life force which flows along meridians, the invisible channels in the body. * The shadow self is the other side to you or your alter ego. * The mental body is the part of the self that is made up from thoughts. * Ayahuasca is a tropical vine native to the Amazon region and noted for its hallucinogenic properties. * Peyote is a small, spineless cactus, whose principal active ingredient is the hallucinogen mescaline. * The Sacred Tree is a common name for Ayahuasca, the sacred tree of spiritual knowledge. * Quechuas is the collective term for several indigenous ethnic groups in South America who speak a Quechua language * The Spirit Drum is used for shamanic drumming in order to connect with the spiritual dimension of reality.

What’s in A Woman? Maryam Abdul-Kareem Legacy of those who came before Born on stilts I have no choice but to stand tall Women in my blood Painted with brushes of the past-present in the soul Golden garbs of modesty sown by believers before me An illuminating reflection of what I should be Always reaching for the light of Queens My namesakes stand before me and shine modesty of a humbled degree, submitting to the resplendence of Allah’s decree Half the sky but all the stars the Moon can see Persistent fire in a degrading society They ban Hijab and steal modesty Dear France, I am caped in modesty- standing on something taller than beauty despite what your laws decree America, you can’t air brush my beauty, it is cloaked in something stronger than insecurities and fake images on T.V. No time for colonized images of what a woman “should be” There is an ocean covering all the pearls that She-be A Woman

An African Epiphany By Aissatou Diallo

Dropped off in the middle of another world, I felt the cool air brush against my face as the palm trees did the same for the sky. It was hot all year round and even on a day thar it was supposedly winter in the country of Guinea. Yet, all that meant was that it rained more often than not. While driving to the West African village of Fouta Djallon, I peered out the window of a taxi. Little girls and boys ran up to the cars trying to pitch and sell their food items as the sun began to set during a day in the month of Ramadan.

father so that he would rethink his decision, but his mind was set. I was further disappointed when he allowed my younger brother to play soccer instead. Yes, I had discovered the reasoning behind my father’s decision before I set foot in Guinea, yet until then it had never really set in and I continually annoyed him about it. One day, right there in that West African village as I gazed at the young boys and teenagers trying to tackle (take ball from opponent’s feet) a player from the other team, it set in with finality.

This was just the beginning of my first experience in Africa. What I saw and learned was something that I tried to explain I would never forget and would to him that both always remind me of why things sexes played soccer, were the way they were…well, in my life at least. but he refused Until I set foot in the country, I never realized the meaning behind many experiences in my life, especially the day a dream of mine was crushed: “What? But why?”

to reason, as he was from Africa where only boys participated in soccer.

I let the pen slip through my fingers and hit the ground that suddenly felt cold. I was looking forward to this day for so long and now it had been shattered. I came into high school with the driven thought that I would be a member of the girls’ soccer team for the next four years. I had played soccer during gym for fun in the past and I felt that I played well, but when I went home and asked my dad to sign the soccer team forms, he said no. I refused to leave without a reason as to his decision, but he would not tell me. I later discovered his reasoning: He believed that soccer was a sport made for boys. I tried to explain to him that both sexes played soccer but he refused to reason, as he was from Africa where only boys participated in soccer. I nagged my

I was amazed at how the boys had a field of their own to play soccer while girls, who were even younger than me, only had a kitchen. They were tending to kitchen duties to feed those who had fasted for the day, as the boys were free to play soccer.

Although the reason why my dad made his decision, had finally set in, it didn’t mean I understood it. Being born in America, I had always known women to be more independent and have more freedom. Although women in America might have the most freedom, they still fight for the rights they believe they don’t have. It’s even a major part of every presidential election. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but in Guinea, the role of submissive women is merely a part of the culture. This is not something I can necessarily change, but it’s interesting to know how women are defined differently all around the world.

I am one who is stuck in between two cultures and just trying to find the middle ground. 25

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Interested? Contact Shairi at malekamag@gmail.com. If you have an online portfolio, please be sure to send us a link. If you are interested in designing for Maleka, but would rather help on a less intensive, but just as important scale, we also need people to help create advertisements for future issues and our various social media outlets. We also have open spots for illustrators and photographers.

She Isâ&#x20AC;Ś K.C. Burke Do you see it? The weight, I carry on my shoulders, The scattered pieces of my once, broken heart, The pain behind these colored eyes, The weariness in my stride from dodging all I try to hide, The struggle of my tongue to keep from lashing out in anger The workings of my ever going mind Do you see itâ&#x20AC;Ś? No, because I am She And what I call my own Has already been hers She is Capable and enduring Of all that comes her way Never faltering in her step She stands erect and proud Her eyes looking forward to the life she has Looking forward to facing her tomorrows She speaks gracefully in calm truths Holding back nothing And giving you all that you need to hear She loves unconditionally Her heart knowing no bounds Her past and present her teachers for the future She walks her path with her head held high She spreads light to those around her She exudes confidence She compels you with her smile She holds you with her mind She is fragile but strong and She completes you with her strength She gives life She is significant For without her there would be no you and me No us She is your mother, your sister, your niece, your daughter, your friend, your lover, your cousin, your aunt, your grandmother She is your provider Respect her choices, acknowledge her struggle And believe in her voice.

ZAYA

By: Victoria Pavlov If there’s anything the women in my family share, it’s storytelling. It’s not that we have a talent for telling stories. It’s just the need to constantly have our mouths running. Neither one of the women in my family can breathe without having a telephone as a facilitator. The talking was something I had to grow into though. As a child I was so quiet and timid that no one would suspect I was in the room. I could never even bring myself to meet anyone’s gaze when they spoke to me. Zaya, my family called me. Rabbit. To my father’s chagrin I was a first-born daughter, and to his deeper chagrin, I looked like him. The women in my family were large and round, with thick bones and breasts they could throw over their shoulders. I, on the other hand, came out small and thin and dark, crushed by their big hugs and examining pinches. I remember there was a man that lived in our neighborhood. I remember that he gave me nightmares. We would run into him coming back from synagogue on our walks, his hands clasped behind his back, his walk slow. I was small for my age and he was tall, and I would keep my head down and tried to keep him from seeing my face, while my hand was buried in my mother’s, the gem in her ring cutting into my finger. I was terrified of him because each time he saw us, he would take my chin in his large hand and lift my face with a soft pressure, making me look up at him. “There are those muddy eyes,” he would tell me with a strange smile. “Such dark, muddy eyes on such a little child.” My mother’s eyes were blue, and everyone in her family had eyes of a variation of blue or green or grey, so when my eyes filled with color, they knew I would be difficult. As a woman in a Russian family, you encounter rules. Not just rules about curfews or grades or boys, but clothes and hairstyles, jewelry and friends, ideas if it was possible. I was deemed a liberal when I started questioning religion and was locked out of the house for a few days when I began to date my boyfriend. I remember when I told my mother that I wanted to be a doctor. That I wanted to be in school for the next two decades, and that marriage wasn’t the first thing on my mind. Also, I remember the argument that ensued: that women shouldn’t be doctors. Russian women toil. We raise the kids and clean after our husbands. But we don’t seem to do much else besides it. I could tell that she was getting worried. Was I becoming one of them? One of those American girls that my family feared, who talked back to their parents and pierced their bodies? The only part of me I was allowed to pierce were my ears, and only then to my grandmother’s growls and howlings. According to her, every piercing was a way of sucking the life out of my body, and releasing my very soul into the air. Piercing my tongue would spill all the nutrients in my food from my mouth and make me too skinny for good babies and sticking a hole in my belly button would suck the fertility out my womb. If I pierced my eyebrows I’d be depriving the energy from my third eye and I’m sure my grandmother would have jumped into the nearest grave if I asked her about the dangers of piercing my nipples. In a sense, I wanted to be an American girl. They didn’t wear their older cousins’ potstained hand-me-downs or have afternoon curfews. They could date anyone they wanted and be 28

whoever they wanted, color their hair and burn incense in their rooms. They could be doctors if they wanted and their parents wouldn’t even mind. I was standing drunk in the kitchen once, swaying to musi in my head. The counter felt warm under my fingertips and I suddenly remembered my aunt teaching me how to kiss. She’d told me I had a soft bottom lip, the kind any boy would like to kiss. She’d taught me what no one in my family actually bothered to teach me, because really, for all our talents of talking, we can’t, for the life of us, actually talk to one another. I met my aunt when I was ten years old when she came to visit my family from Israel. She was the strangest woman I had ever met in my life, slim and beautiful, curly-haired and copper-skinned. She was an entirely different woman to me. As children, we grow up with the familiar, and for me a woman was supposed to be like my mother; heavyset, full-breasted, short hair made dull by years of coloring, with a smell of warmth, like baby powder. My aunt took out all my previous perceptions when I first met her. She was tall, with long hair that curled down her back and over her shoulders and a deep, melodic voice. She’d gone to school in Tel Aviv so her accent was different than that of my parents, the r’s more rolled, the t’s harder, the l’s more delicate. She wore her nails long and bare and sometimes she’d forget to shave her legs, and when she walked her anklets and her bracelets clinked like soft music. My parents were embarrassed of her. The minute my aunt came through the door, my father hid in his bedroom and my mother opened the closet where she kept the clothes that were too small for her and too big for me, hoping she could make my aunt cover herself up during her stay in New York. My aunt liked blues and Ziggy Marley, swaying to the stereo in our living room with her eyes closed and her hands above her head. She wore beaded clothing and beige pants, belly button shirts in natural colours and long skirts with golden thread that glittered when she moved. Sometimes, she’d forget to wear a bra, and my mother would blush and move her hair to the front so the family wouldn’t see her breasts. When she came, she brought us gifts from Israel, sandalwood incense and candles that smelled like soft flowers, beaded shirts and necklaces. The night she came, she had tea with my mother and me, and she studied me with her face cupped in her hands, her head inclined as if curious. “Do you listen to Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros?” The question surprised me. I shrugged and shook my head. “You’ve been depriving the child,” my aunt smiled at my mother, and for a moment, my mother looked sheepish. “Zaya doesn’t really listen to music. She likes to read instead.” I think for all her talk my mother was a little jealous of my aunt. My aunt was young and beautiful, and her breasts were small and didn’t sag. Men looked at her, and every woman wanted to be looked at least a couple of times. Most of all she didn’t care, and there came a certain freedom with that. She was indifferent to the grandmothers’ chatter and smiled when my father made fun of her lifestyle. As much as my mother might have wanted to be like her, she could never bring herself to shame, to detach herself from the gossip and commitment that meant being a part of our family. And I think, more often now than then, that she was afraid that I would follow my aunt. And I’m not sure if she felt more sad or relieved that I would try to be my own person. 29

“Reading doesn’t mean you can’t listen to lovely music, Zaya.” She lifted my chin and looked me full in the eyes. “Never put something aside just because you think other people won’t approve. That just makes you a coward.” She stayed with us throughout my winter break from school, telling me stories about the places she’d been, the things she’d learned. I was ten, but she liked telling me about her boyfriends, and to my amazement, girlfriends, like the Rastafarian man with dreadlocks down to his back and the girl with bright blue eyes and dragon tattoos that coiled down her arms. Around my parents, she kept our conversations simple and boring, relieved my parents of the long and tenacious duty of tucking me into bed and reading to me. But when they were gone, she was a completely different person. Braiding my hair, singing in Hebrew, showing me the tattoos on the small of her back and the inside of her arms, brewing Indian chai in hot milk as she talked with me at the table. As a child, I understood little of what she told me, but I knew she needed someone to tell it to. I could tell that despite her adventures she didn’t have many friends or people to talk to, no one to keep her company besides the people she met at parties. I could also tell her awkwardness around my parents, not only because she was younger, but because they considered her strange and didn’t bother to hide it. I’m not sure what had made her suddenly decide to visit us after so many years, but I like to think sometimes that it was to meet me, to talk to me. To tell me that it was okay to leave and do whatever it was I wanted to do. It was okay to be strange. I found her dancing once when I came into the room. Mondo Bongo played on the stereo and she held her arms up with her hair coiled in her hands like a ball of dark yellow yarn. She swayed her hips with each mon-do bon-go and when I came nearer I saw a cigarette between her lips. My heart started, and as if she heard, my aunt turned to face me and lowered her arms, letting her hair fall. “Zaya.” The cigarette moved when she smiled at me, and she took it between two fingers and tapped the ashes out the open window. “Don’t tell your mother. She doesn’t like me smoking.” I nodded, watched the smoke that coiled from the cigarette between her fingers. She saw me looking, extended it. “Want to try?” I wanted to, I did. I wanted to smoke and drink and be kissed by boys and girls. I wanted to be like her so, so badly. I wanted to be happy I was a girl, I wanted to have breasts and be so proud of them that wearing a bra was out of the question, to wear my hair long and unbound. I wanted to stop being afraid of my parents, of the family. It’s like being part of the mafia. The word family is a singular term, a separate entity. “You don’t want to ________ the family,” is the sigil of our House, replacing the blank with shame/ anger/piss off/embarrass to their graves; whatever word the opportunity calls for. I wanted to be all of the things my aunt was, but I was just too scared. I shook my head and she brought the cigarette back into her mouth, breathing it in deeply, then tapping the ashes out the window again. “Can you teach me to dance?” I asked suddenly, and she laughed then, not unkindly, a deep throaty sound. 30

“Baby, you don’t learn how to dance. You gotta just do it.” She put her hands on my hips, cigarette in her mouth, and pressed against each one in rhythm, making them sway. “That’s it?” I asked, and she laughed deeply again. “That’s it, baby. You just sway them hips and you move them arms, and you let the music take you far, far, far away. Listen to Mondo Bongo, little girl. Let it take you places.” We listened to the last of the song as it played out on the stereo, and then she finished her cigarette and opened the window wider to air out the room. “Want some tea, Zaya? I got this one from when I went to Mumbai. I rode an elephant there and got this red anklet from a bazaar, and then I met a man whose nails were stained with curry and he told me the Ramayana over tea, and that’s why I bought it. So I could keep the story in my mind just the way he told it.” She’d led me by the hand to the kitchen by then and went to the stove to boil milk in the tea kettle as I sat down on the wooden chair. When she sat back down I watched her wide-eyed. “Have you been everywhere?” My aunt folded her hand under her chin, the bone of her wrist a shiny pebble. “I haven’t been everywhere. But I’ve been to a lot of places.” She turned and stood as the teapot shrieked and her sweater fell past her shoulder. The bones of her spine coiled like a snake under her flesh and I watched her, the perfect fluidity of her movement, the line of her shoulder, the way a strand of hair curled down her back. She waved away the steam from the teapot and moved it to another corner of the stove, wrapping the handle with a handkerchief. She came back to the table with her hands wrapped around a cup. “I’ve watched a festival in Mexico for the Day of the Dead. It was spectacular. People paint their faces white like skulls and everything is festooned with colour, and flowers, and the food...” She looked so happy when she talked about the places she’d gone. So free. And they made for the best stories, too. India, Israel, the deep blizzards of Siberia and the blood-like vineyards of Spain. Anywhere but here. On the night my parents went to a wedding, my aunt woke me and told me we were going on an adventure. She hurried me into my winter clothes and out the door to her car, where we drove and drove and drove, past trees that rushed by the window, and a sky as black as ebony. When we finally stopped, she sat back and turned off the car, breathing quickly as if she had run the entire way. I suppose she was afraid that she’d taken me, but she didn’t show it. She turned her face to look at me and she smiled widely, like we were in on a secret. I don’t remember being afraid. I remember the car. I remember that it was cold until she’d turned the key in the ignition and the warmth blew into my face and clouded the windows. She pulled me to her lap and pushed my head back with her hand on my forehead, letting me lean into the warm space between her breasts. The sky turned an inky navy around us, studded with stars and the milky shapes of resting clouds, and she rubbed her arm against her window to clear a view for us. I could feel each one of her breaths; my head following the movement of her chest. Crickets chirped from outside the windows, and she sighed deeply and wrapped her arms around me. “The night maiden’s drawn her cloak,” she whispered to me. “And now the sky is made of 31

silk, until the morning comes back. Do you see the moon, Zaya?” I nodded. I could feel myself growing sleepy as the heat thickened around us in the car and her arms enveloped me in a cocoon. “Want me to tell you about the stars?” She didn’t wait for me to nod this time, but drew in a breath and began to speak, her words washing over me as I felt myself getting heavier. “There once was a raven. She had an eternal life, and after many centuries, she began to grow lonely, and so she had a child who grew up in the raven’s nest and dreamed of becoming a human. After she grew old enough, she begged her mother to let her down from the nest until finally the raven relented and turned her into a beautiful young woman with black hair and blacker eyes and a dress of soft black feathers. The young woman rejoiced in her humanity, and went to a ball in the castle she had always admired as a bird. She was considered the loveliest in the ball, and every man wanted to dance with her, but there was one man with whom she danced the most, and before the night was over, the young woman had fallen in love with him. As the dancers all began to leave, the man offered the young woman to walk with him through the woods and she agreed and took him by the arm and together they left the castle into the night. As they walked, the young woman knew that she had never felt happier, and she told the man how much she loved him. The man looked at her then, called her beautiful, and told her that he had never loved a woman more. And then he led her deep into the woods and he killed her, and told her that no woman should be so perfect. And after he killed her, he cut her up and threw her bones into the ocean, so that no one may ever find her, and then he left without looking back. The raven flew the world many nights searching for her daughter, until she passed the ocean one night and heard the soft cries of her child, calling for her mother. The raven filled the ocean with sticks and pebbles and heavy stones, until all the water flowed away and her poor daughter’s bones were all that remained on the top of the piles of stones. The raven cried for her child, and knew that although her magic allowed for it, she could never put her back on earth, for fear that someone would hurt her again. And so she threw her bones into the night and scattered them round the moon so that her daughter wouldn’t ever be able to come back down to earth. So now she glitters up there in the sky, never able to come down, with the moon as her only company. Don’t you think she feels so lonely?” I had been falling asleep by the end of the story, but I woke up when she began to cry. It was a quiet sound, like a breathy gasp, but it was the shudders of her chest that woke me. She wrapped her arms tighter around me and began to cry onto the top of my head. I tried to twist my neck around so that I could ask her what was wrong, but she held me in place and I could only sit still and wait for her to finish sobbing against me. I could feel the sweat trickle down my face and back from the heat in the car and my heavy winter jacket. When she stopped, she reached up to dab at her eyes with a sleeve, and then turned me around so that I was cradled at her chest. She placed her chin over my head and sighed deeply, and then the both of us, finally, fell to sleep. We were found soon after. I woke first, from the flashlights beaming into my face. She woke when my uncles pounded on the window. They pulled her out of the car and a cousin snatched me from her arms before she could say anything, and then I was tossed into another car into the arms of another cousin who covered my eyes and ears. I still heard everything though. I heard their voices echoing in the forest as my uncle shouted at her, heard her shouting back and then 32

the sound of a hand against flesh, followed by a gasp. It took a while before my uncle climbed back into the car and drove me and my cousins from the forest, leaving my aunt behind, leaning against her car, alone under the light of the moon. She disappeared a little while after that. Now that I think about it, she was probably told by the family to never return and had obeyed with her silent indifference, but back then it was like a disappearance to me. One minute she was there, teaching me how to dance and paint my lips red, and the next she was gone. With her, there disappeared the lingering smell of incense and foreign cigarettes, patterned pashminas draped over the coat hanger and shampoo that smelled like persimmon. Until I went to high school no one cooked with curry anymore or made their tea with boiled milk. I missed her, but just like the grandfather I lost when I was nine years old, she quickly just became a comforting presence in my life that no longer existed but remained somewhere deep in my memory. It makes me sad because I know that will most likely happen to me, if I try to be a doctor, if I marry my Bengali boyfriend, if I adopt a baby or change my religion or do whatever it is that breaks the rules of womanly conduct set up through the generations of my family. My parents took me to Ukraine the summer after she left, either to make me forget her, or to get me out of America, I don’t know, but we were to spend the entire summer in my father’s little farmhouse in Semferopal. The house had large windows with bee houses in the backyard that hummed with the movements of their inhabitants. Bees drifted by the house and crawled on the windows, but they fascinated me, and I would lie in the tall grass by the house for hours and watch the bees at their work. My grandmother showed me how she took out the filters of honey from the houses, wearing a helmet with a veil over her face. She also showed me how to feed the goats and milk them, but they were massive Slavic goats; huge and white and angrily fierce, and I was tiny and terrified of them. I missed my aunt, but the quiet days in the country surrounded by my chittery grandmother and my older cousins made me feel occupied despite my memories. We’d fetch water from the village pump and read in Ukrainian under the shade of the oak, pick mushrooms and run after the cow. One morning, we all awoke to the sound of the bees. The sky was dark, but the windows nearest to the bee houses were plastered over with bees, and their buzzing was angry, a loud and tense drone. Before my cousins could stop me, I ran out of the house to see, and was promptly caught in the middle of a full-on bee war, where I was bitten over a dozen times as the nearest moving being. My grandmother dragged me back into the house but by then I was feverish and hallucinating, and spent the next week recovering from my bites. I’m not sure what had happened, but from what I was later told, one bee house attacked another because of a lack of honey, and the result was a battle that resulted in over a hundred bee deaths. I recuperated slowly, with balms and tea and warm rags, though I remember little of it besides my cousins singing to me and pouring cold water over my forehead to cool me. One night after I’d lain in bed for over a week, I was restless. Most of my sores were gone and I ached from laying too long, and my head throbbed from sleeping too much. I began to think about my aunt again and after a while of lying in bed and thinking on it, I decided to find her. It must have been the fever, but that was that. I was going to set out and find her, no matter what it took. I packed a t shirt and my shoes and climbed barefoot out the window, trying to make as 33

little noise as possible. The house was situated by a dirt path that led into a forest and that was where I made my way, down the path that wound through the trees and round the mushroom patches I’d frequented with my cousins. I marked each tree by sight so that I could remember it in case I needed to and I hummed as I walked, and walked, and walked down the path in my bare feet. I’m not sure if I walked for hours or just for many minutes, but after a while my feet began to ache and I could feel my bites throbbing and the warmth returning to my face. I was going to have to spend the rest of the night in the forest, but I didn’t feel afraid. My aunt had told me that the world was round, and by the use of logic I deciphered that walking straight would lead me to Tel Aviv, where I presumed she had returned. She’d taught me that if you were walking somewhere and had to sleep where you walked, you had to sleeping with your legs in the direction of where you were headed, so that was what I did. I laid down on my back with my legs pointing to where I was headed and I watched the sky that gleamed from between the darkened branches of the trees; the stars, and the moon, and I could feel all of her stories rushing back to me. I remembered the one about the raven’s daughter, and I remembered all of the places where she’d gone. I remembered when she told me that the moon was the same wherever you were, and I wondered if she was watching the same moon that I was that night, with its grey-yellow ridges and bony craters. I wondered if she saw the same stars, the bones of the raven’s daughter, the same dark silky sky, the night maiden’s black cloak. I fell asleep wondering, and I woke up to my grandmother lifting me gently from the ground and murmuring chastisements as she walked. The family credited my little misadventure to my fever, and I never bothered to correct them. As punishment, I was the designated goat feeder and cow chaser, but the besides that, the rest of the summer passed smoothly, and my memories of my aunt soon faded away, until I came back to America barely missing her. I will never understand how my family thinks. And in return, my family will never understand how I think. Perhaps in a few years’ time I will be told to leave and never return, or perhaps by that time my generation will precede and change the rules. Perhaps I’ll join my aunt among the women secretly out casted from our family, and although the idea of being on my own frightens me at times, I feel free when I think it. Because I’ll be happier, and I suppose, in the end, that’s the goal. I remember the loneliness of my aunt, and I truly hope that one day I’ll find her. I’ll find her and we’ll finally travel together, smoke foreign cigarettes and buy exotic teas in bazaars. I’ll be a doctor and I’ll learn Arabic. And in the end, who knows what will happen? I might become so proud of myself that I’ll stop investing in bras.

A Quick Lunch at the o o l r e t a W Club By: Rose Rushing 35

Vera, in a fringed costume dress and moccasins, walked down First Avenue on the shady side of the street. It was a cloudless Halloween. She was twenty and had been living in New York City for three years. She worked as a secretary at private elementary school on East 55th. The whole front office had worn costumes today. Vera got many compliments on her Indian getup as she handed candy to the children. She was hungry, on her way to some party downtown. On the other side of the street, the dusk light washed all of the townhouses and parked cars in quiet gold. Vera stopped at a stone staircase with a plastic menu ziptied to the handrail. The doorway at the top of the stairs read, in small, painted letters, ‘The Waterloo Club.’

diffused in the dust and made the air look thick with smoke. Posters for old Westerns and other curios papered the walls. No one sat at the tables. There was a pair of crossed rifles over every arched doorway. The Roy Rogers song warbled and faded from another room that Vera couldn’t see. Three men with silent faces stood in a line on the back wall with their hands folded behind their backs. They wore red rodeo shirts with white piping and little black boots. “Sit anywhere,” one of them called out. Vera pretended to look around for a moment, before moving towards the redwood table in the middle. She settled herself at the end of it and smiled widely at the waiters. She asked for some water. When they all filed out of the room, she pulled her notebook up onto the table.

It was her favorite variety of especially tacky restaurant. The he won and thanked only yellow wood bar stood before a row Ronald Reagan in her speech. of empty bottles on the back wall, covered, like everything else in Her mother cried and Vera the Waterloo Club, with Halloween put the entire hundred-dollar spiderwebs. The older woman behind the prize in the tithing basket the next bar wore red lipstick and a gingham Sunday. shirt tied at the waist. She arched her penciled-in eyebrows as Vera made Vera looked around the room and her way down the cement steps into smiled. She had a nasty sense of the Club, announced by beaded shoes humor. Her friends dared her to and a brown, clicking ankle. enter the Miss Carson City Pageant in eleventh grade. She won and thanked “Just one?” the woman asked. only Ronald Reagan in her speech. “Yes, please.” Vera answered. Her mother cried and Vera put the “Ok.” The woman jerked her thumb entire hundred-dollar prize in the towards another dark doorway. Vera tithing basket the next Sunday. That’s followed it through, and turned into the kind of thing she thought was a sort of great room, littered with very funny. One thing she thought crackwood tables for two around the was especially funny was going to ‘Old edges. The table in the middle was West’ themed restaurants in the city. cut the length of a man, cut from She shook contents of the a single tremendous redwood tree, notebook out over the laminated cased in gummy plastic. The yellow menu, brushed away the wadded-up gum light from old Coca-Cola glass lamps wrappers and unfolded a letter to her

sister. Lily was turning seventeen on November 5th. She lived in Nevada with Vera’s parents. The last letter Lily had sent Vera enclosed her grades, a photo of their dog, a brief report on her boyfriends, and a large drawing of Lily’s head on a grizzly bear body. Vera had finished her response (which included her grades, a brief report on her boyfriends, and a photo of the Balto statue in Central Park,) and was trying to draw her face onto a wolf when the waiter came back. He put the Coke glass full of water onto her napkin and asked her if she was ready to order. She looked up at his wide cheekbones and smooth skin and wondered how he’d ended up in this dump. She blinked with shiny black eyes. “I’d like a cheeseburger, please.” She lightly held her hand over the drawing. The backs of her hands were long and brown, like her fathers. “How would you like it cooked?” asked the unsmiling waiter. “Rare.” The waiter nodded and turned back to the kitchen. Once he had left the room, she went back to coloring in the fur on the wolf. Last summer, their father’s foot had been removed. When he’d told Vera over the phone, he’d said that now he would only have to spend half as much when he was shoe shopping. He used to run marathons in his twenties. He’d had diabetes since he was six years old. She’d meant to ask how Dad was doing in her letter, but it was all finished now and the question would just have to wait until the next one. An Andrews Sisters song was drifting in through the darkened doorway when the couple from France walked in. They looked young and

seemed to be falling over each other with laughter as they passed under the crossed rifles. The man was fair and wore blue jeans. He talked in rapid, excited French to the woman who nodded and nodded as they sat down at a table in the corner. Vera looked at them out of the corners of her eyes as they sat down. She wore her heavy black braids behind her shoulders. She was mostly Navajo, her father had been born on a reservation, but she didn’t like her costume. She had wanted to be a flapper, but the woman in charge of the front office, some mother named Deborah, thought it would be inappropriate for children. Vera had bought the rayon Indian dress for fifteen dollars last night because it was all she could find in the ransacked Spirit Halloween on 34th Street. Really, Vera thought her costume was a terrible thing. It wasn’t nice to dress up like another kind of person. It wasn’t funny at all.

eally, Vera thought her costume was a terrible thing. It wasn’t nice to dress up like another kind of person. It wasn’t funny at all. The waiter returned with a tremendous hamburger on a white plate. It must have been the size of her face. Vera lifted it to her lips and stream of pink liquid ran onto the table, leaving wet hemispheres on her letter. She bit it slowly. It tasted like flesh. Her lipstick left a red mark on the bun. She swallowed the cold heavy mass reluctantly and looked at the French couple. The French woman held a heavy 37

black camera tightly in her hand and was taking photos of the man. She giggled quietly as he posed with his fist under his chin. He took a cowboy hat from a hook and picked off the spiderwebs before sliding it on his head. He pointed his finger at the camera and whispered bang. The woman was giggling harder. The shutter clicked rapidly. She slowly began to move the camera to the left. The man was smiling and pointing his finger-guns at the stuffed buffalo head on the wall. Some unseen hand turned up “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds” from the dark room. It seemed to have gotten a little colder since she came in. Goosebumps climbed up Vera’s arms.

he turned towards the couple again, only to see the black camera facing her. The shutter snapped

again.

She blinked and looked away from the French couple. She saw a plaque on the wall with a single human tooth mounted in the middle. In small golden letters, it claimed to be the right molar of Pancho Villa. Vera set the burger down on her plate. She noticed gray-green mold floating between the ice cubes in the Coke glass. She turned towards the couple again, only to see the black camera facing her. The shutter snapped again. “Excuse me,” Vera said, curiously. “Did you just take my picture?” The woman laughed excitedly and said something again in French to the man. She pointed a pale, bony finger at Vera. The man turned around in his seat and smiled widely at her. Vera 38

noticed suddenly that he was a lot older than she thought he was when he’d first come in. His hair wasn’t yellow but white. He stood up and began to walk towards her table. “Please,” he said. He motioned for her to stand up. He was looking down at her with watery eyes from across the huge redwood table. She sat still and looked at him with wide eyes. “Please,” he said again, sounding almost desperate. Something about his watery blue eyes under the black cowboy hat made Vera feel very scared. She looked at him for a minute, grease still on her fingertips, then pushed her seat back and stood. He pointed to the back wall. She turned and began to walk towards it. There was a huge frame, larger than Vera, thickly draped in spiderwebs. There was a picture underneath, but she couldn’t make it out. The man muttered something to the French woman. She stood up with the black camera hanging from her neck and walked to the back wall. She looked at Vera, almost sadly, then grabbed two fistfuls of the spiderwebs and began to pull them down. They pulled apart achingly and the woman threw them into huge fluffy piles on the ground, like cotton candy. Vera looked up and saw two tremendous bodies on the wall in a close embrace. One was a cowboy and the other was a woman in a fringed dress and moccasins. She had dark red lips and black hair in braids. She clutched the cowboy and looked off into the blue distance, reflected in her blue eyes. The poster read, “James Stewart in Broken Arrow—color by Technicolor” across the bottom. She turned with horror to the

white-haired man, who was grinning. His watery eyes were wide and he was almost trembling with excitement. “Our favorite film,” he said. The woman nodded at Vera. “We love Westerns,” he said thickly. “Cowboys and Indians!” He pointed his fingers again to the ceiling and said, “Bang!” The woman giggled and walked to the other end of the table. She lifted the black camera to her eyes and began to snap. “Please,” pleaded the man. “Let us take a picture.”

“W

e did not think there were any of you left!” The shutter continued to snap as Vera stared blankly into the lens. Speaking for the first time, the woman said gleefully, “We did not think there were any of you left!” The shutter continued to snap as Vera stared blankly into the lens. Without a word, she walked out of the room. She bounded up the stairs as the bartender realized what was happening and began to scream after her in a cracked voice. She heard clicking footsteps behind her and broke into a dead sprint once she was on the sidewalk. The skin soles of her shoes slapped against the pavement. She ran all the way to Fifth Avenue and into the park.

On Women In Video Games By: Pawel Dziurawiec

Faith from Mirror’s Edge

“Now, some of you may not understand what that was. What we just heard was a female protagonist as scientists in the anthropomorphic community refer to them as. Very rare to be heard in a video game of course.” - Jim Sterling, Now Bloody Playing [Gone Home Pt.1] YouTube Among the thousands of video game titles available today, not many are led by females. Most of today’s games still predominantly play from the point of view of a male character so, a lot of the time women get overshadowed by men in video games, despite the strides of progress that have been made towards gender equality outside of gaming. The overshadowing can be seen in various forms in the video game industry. For example, 2k/Irrational Games’ marketing decided to go with the lead Booker Dewitt, on the cover art for the highly acclaimed Bioshock Infinite, as opposed to the more popular [as well as a far more well rounded character] Elizabeth. Instead, they shoved her to the back of the game case because they found that gamers prefer a male character on the cover. And one of the highest grossing game franchises, Call of Duty, hasn’t given players the opportunity to play as a female character in the online mode until the tenth iteration. Evidently, this industry is behind on gender equality, but let’s examine some of these issues briefly while searching for a more female friendly environment to play and develop games in. 40

As a male gamer, it seems absurd not being able to pick your gender as male has been the default option since the original Call of Duty multiplayer. But here it is, Ghosts adds gender selection even though they could have just as easily worked in the option years ago. Especially, since female gamers have been investing as many hours into previous editions of Modern Warfare and Black Ops as males. It just doesn’t make sense for women to be underrepresented like this when we have a rapidly expanding industry with an increasing population of dedicated female gamers, journalists, developers and so forth. When I first started brainstorming for this article, I had a title floating around in my mind. It was about a specific issue, yet it requires an explanation because it‘s a new way of wording an issue: the underrepresentation of women. The word misrepresented doesn’t fit into what’s happening in the games industry quite well, though I would not dismiss it either so, I’ve crafted some new term. Ultimately, when I say under-representation, I mean the lack of satisfactory inclusion in something larger. The unsatisfactory inclusion of women hurts video games and I honestly feel that the industry is missing out in the creative process because of this too. Indeed, it scares me to think how many video games may have a miserable narrative not because of poor writing but because the perspective of a woman would have given more relevance to the narrative or simply would have just worked better. Think about your favorite movies or books, how would have changing the gender of the protagonist(s) changed the work? It’s a bit of a stretch, but then

that could be categorized under some larger women’s commentary. In case you missed the point I’m trying to drive home, it is that, with the exception of The Cave which is published by a comparatively larger/ only arguably “indie” developer (Double Fine Studios); none of these games would have been picked up by large companies like ActivisionBlizzard or Electronic Arts because the radical circumstances of the games narratives or character choices would be seen as too much of a risk to develop in our gender normative industry. Which leads to this question, that in large part the industry has failed to ask women: how do you want to be considering that strong inequality in video games makes it represented in video games? Women such that most roles will be male rather than female. Gamers ought to know and have a say in how are missing out on a lot of good women’s storytelling. video games represent them. The Undoubtly, gaming needs a lot of work in giving women a question can only be answered with better footing in storytelling, multiplayer gaming, advertising, more female protagonists.Currently, etc. Fortunately, there is always a glimmering light of hope for every one Faith (Mirror’s Edge) somewhere. In this case, the there are ten Marcus answer is Indie Games. For an Which leads to this question, Fenixes (Gears of War) Indie Developer, sex isn’t even Gordon Freemans that in large part the industry or an issue; a gamer is more likely Life). Gaming has failed to ask women: (Half to find female protagonists, was once solely a female characters and better How do you want to be market for male-only representation of women in Indie gameplay and represented in video games? fantasy games because these developers storytelling, however do not conform, but instead make since the earliest the games the way they want to. With all the creative freedom conception of home video game in the world, this playground of men and women developers, consoles and arcade gaming women musicians, writers, actors, directors, and producers offers what have been involved in the video game triple-A titles and big budget studios cannot: gender equal process more, so the industry really games as well as games that dare to take on controversial ought to start adjusting accordingly. topics regarding gender. For example: Gone Home, the game For an added perspective, I referenced in the opening quote of this article, has a female recommend google searching protagonist. Additionally, LISA the Painful RPG by Austin “#1ReasonWhy” as the tweets will Jorgensen, a game that is currently unreleased but was provide first hand questions and funded through Kickstarter, is about a universe where only answers regarding the challenges men exist and the chaotic society that exists as a result. Both facing women in the industry. Compulsion Games’ Contrast and, to a lesser extent; Ron Gilbert’s platform adventure game The Cave, have instances in-game that challenge gender normative aspects of society Lisa the Painful RPG

Novelas Angely Mercado

Growing up, my mother was one of the few Hispanic moms I knew of that did not watch novelas in the evenings. My grandmother liked some of them, but whenever I tried to join her in the living room, I was shooed away. My impatient, childlike mind took that to mean that adults were allowed to watch something interesting that my siblings and I were banned from. Years later I was able to watch several full episodes of different series. I became disillusioned and I was extremely grateful to my mother for encouraging me to watch other shows. Technically, novelas were full of crap. Everyone was named Maria and Jose. All the women that were considered “pretty” were the ones with the most cleavage and the nicest concealer. They were also the ones with the highest heels. However, despite Latinos coming in every shape, color, and size (because ‘Latino’ is not actually a race), all the protagonists were pale. Pale and thin, pale and petite, pale and straight haired, pale and small nosed; it went on and on. My first reaction was one of admiration for their beauty and ability to do every scene in every type of high heel imaginable. In contrast to (yet reaffirming of) the ever dominant “the paler the prettier” mentality that novelas seemed to keep shoving at audiences, there would occasionally be darker toned actors. They were usually the servants, or a group of indigenous people whose leaders were the paler natives and whose children would look similar to the rest of the cast. In one particular novela, one of the characters was a darker Dominican, not unlike what many people look like in my mother’s region of the Dominican Republic. She was a villain and her hair was straightened and I was pretty sure that they put concealer on her to “brighten” her tanner complexion. Had the makeup artists and producers kept her hair a bit more natural and gone easier on the makeup, she would have otherwise been a stunning actress. She might have even outshined the “pretty” protagonist. The scary thing was how cunning she seemed. That character had an evil plan to poison someone else, and she was able to convince a few others that she was on their side but apparently in novela-land, a brain without boobs and heels won’t get you very far. Consequently, I believe she met her end in a car accident or something like that while her paler counterparts lived long and happy lives. Another novela was titled El Clon. It took place between Latin America and Morocco. As in Latin America, people in Morocco can have many different body types and facial features, especially 42

since that country is versatile in terms of cultures and continental boundaries. Though slightly darker actors were featured in that particular series, the lack of diversity did not do the story of intercultural love any justice. Once again, Moroccans and Latinos were embodied by a very shallow range of skin tones and body types. I craved actual tans, intelligent women who used wits instead of cleavage and legs. And even with slightly tanner actors, I was deprived of my wish. Sure there was extra eyeliner to emphasize the supposedly “exotic” atmosphere and setting, but there wasn’t much depth to the characters and how they connected to the culture behind the storyline.

bed as I did eating a meal, or yelling, or awkwardly making out under some sort of tree. The illusion of glamour came crashing down soon after I realized that every scene that made a cast member look good was due to a makeup crew. At one point, an actress was “dying” in a hospital bed. She leaned back into the pillows and slowly looked up at the ceiling. She was foundation pale, and her perfectly combed hair stood out against the pale sheets of the bed. It was then that I realized that she had eyeliner on and that she wasn’t a very good actress. And then I realized that the majority of the actors weren’t very good either.

It bothered me as I began to learn how to analyze and critique texts and plots in my teenage years. I began to notice that beauty had become synonymous with better character. The pretty, moral character has nicer cleavage, and her makeup is a lot more coordinated than that of the villainous character. She also receives a slightly nicer wardrobe and the obvious bias of the producers. Some aspects of the novelas made me want to emulate the protagonists, yet I began to loathe them all so very much.

Women in novelas were never on each other’s side. They fought over men, they had an amazing amount of dresses that never seemed to reach their knees, and they weren’t all that intelligent. They still aren’t. The majority of past and current novelas seem to be a conveyor belt of perfect women who are there for the adoration of the men in the show and in the audience. They are objects to be behold and a “standard” for young Latinas to copy. Sadly, if Latinas follow their example, the majority will become home-wreckers, or dumbed down, or suddenly own more make up than Sephora knows what to do with. If those women are cunning, they’ll become villains, or drug traffickers. Either that or

I feel as if part of the loathing came from wanting to be that beautiful protagonist who everyone was fawning over. I also wanted to look as glamorous in

in order to justify the intelligence, they’ll have to be amazingly beautiful and fight for the love of an equally beautiful man. The more I realized what was wrong with the mentality behind novelas, the more I began to abhor what they represented and as an aspiring writer and journalist, I began to see holes in the storylines. The caked on make-up, stilettos and catfights made it so that the cliché story lines wouldn’t seem as bad. The attractiveness of the actors also helped distract audience members from the lack of character development. Moreover, resolutions occurred too quickly, and climaxes were either too slow or too fast and very annoying because it was clear that the protagonist would be alright anyway. There was no point in pitying her or worrying about her safety, because there would be a man there to fix it or mess it all up for her. Once I realized all this, I refused to put myself through watching novelas again. I tried from time to time to find way to talk about them to friends that I knew liked to regularly follow certain series but it was painful.It always ended in me feeling horrible about myself. I wasn’t tall enough, or poised enough; I didn’t wear my dresses short enough and I didn’t wear heels. Despite understanding that Spanish speaking networks want to add to the representation of Latinos in mainstream media, they were making a paltry attempt at doing so. I wanted to actually see my family and my friends from all over Latin America represented as well. I wanted to see all types of women represented. The tall and the short, the lighter toned and the dark, the well endowed and the bottom heavy. Very few aspects of women are represented in media overall, and it becomes so much more disappointing when a niche that you’re supposed to identify with rejects it’s own diversity and the many different embodiments of women. I really hope that novelas change one day, despite the still omnipresent colonial standards of beauty and femininity. One day, I hope to turn on my television and see a curly headed, tanned woman alongside a cast of many other different women. They’ll be complicated, and actually wear pants that fit them. They’ll also wear sneakers and flats, not just heels. In fact, they won’t play into the “exotic” and “sensual” Latina 44

stereotype, but they’ll make a name for themselves and for the women that look up to them.

Goldie - Shairi Turner

Dissolved Girl - Nicole Saenz 46

What it means to be a woman By: Hunter Stone To be a woman means to be harassed nearly every time you leave your home. To be jeered at in a way that makes you feel naked. To hear:

“nice tits,” “looking good,” “smile, beautiful,” “have a nice day,” or anything else a man decides you need to hear him say. Many question what’s so wrong with being told to “smile,” that “you look good,” or to “have a nice day?” To them I say: what’s wrong is that even those “friendly” or “kind” words often have a menacing intention beneath them, and they have a menacing effect. See, if you respond in ANY way that is not positive-if you tell the harasser to fuck off, that he is bothering you, even just ignore him--his “kindness” most times turns to hatred. Just today I was walking, talking on the phone when a man purposefully stopped in front of me and muttered something under his breath. Assuming he made a comment about my physicality (since that’s what typically happens), I said, “I didn’t ask for your opinion”--my go-to response when I don’t say, “you are harassing me.” As I continued my conversation, I heard him violently yell, “I said have a nice day, BITCH”.Ok--so I made an incorrect assumption about the literal words he used, but this does not matter. His response made it clear that he only wanted me to have a nice day if I responded positively to his words. Since I didn’t, I became the stereotypical, so-called ‘delusional-feminazi-bitch’ deserving of a violent reaction. This was verbal violence, which is also jarring, upsetting, and disturbing and only a thin line away from being physical violence. Many people believe a comment only becomes harassment when the behavior is persistent and threatening. What these people don’t understand is that such comments and actions made by men towards women are innately persistent and threatening. The persistence comes from the sheer frequency of these behaviors. The threat comes from FACT that many men are physically stronger and larger than women and are statistically more likely to beat up, rape, or murder women. To be a woman is to have to make the choice: either submit to this harassment or rebel against it at the risk of being beat up, raped, or murdered. This is not hyperbole. It is the grim reality that women, regardless of shape, size, color, clothing, or demeanor--face. This is what it means to be a woman. Inspired by: Street Harassment: Is a Man Running Over a 14-Year Old Girl for Refusing Sex Serious Enough? by Soraya Chemaly Via The Huffington Post

Lugubrious Stephanie Sengwe What are you doing here? What Business do you have calling me? You left me remember, thought you found something better? I was too difficult, too demanding. I did not know how to love you the way you wanted me to love you so you left. I separated myself, tried to live without you for a while, You were the one who came for me. Told me you loved me and you could see yourself being with me and as simple as that, you drew me right back in. It was almost as if I was falling all over again. I was ready to move on, get on with my life, But you were not there yet, so you saw it best that we both be where you were. You pulled me back, and I let you. I took you in. back into my heart and back into my body.

Seamlessly you ruined me, as if it meant nothing to you that I loved you more than I loved myself. You found the next one. And she was better. She had everything going for her, she was everything I was not. She was smatter, top of pack in all she did. She was more outgoing, she would take you places you would not even think of going. She was getting you, but you could not let me go until you knew for certain. So you came to me, bedded me one last time, right before you went to her house to seal that deal.

You left me abandoned, and I had to pick up the pieces of what was left of me and unlove you all over again. There is no way we can be friends, because I know that if you could not embrace me when I was the one near and dear to your heart, there is no way you can love me now that I am one of many. I refuse to be your home! Home is the place you can always go back to after you want in the world.

I refuse to be the girl you come back to after you have fucked every living thing walking. I am ready and willing to let you go. I now understand what people mean when they say thoughts make them sick to their stomach. You and her have that effect on me. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the thought of her getting everything I want. You are going to touch her, kiss her, laugh with her, in the same way you did with me. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the thought of you loving her more than you loved me, because she seems better than me, therefore she is easier to love. I am going to let you go. Let you live your life the way you want, because I refuse to let us be the end of me. 48

Little Girls

Angely Mercado

I was never one of those little girls The ones who Paraded Down and up streets Perched on pedestal-like shoes Too high And too gilded To be practical Defying gravity Adorably petite And Elegantly statuesque Perfect proportions Hand carved by a Creator Ivory and ebony And every other precious material in between Gold and silver Offerings to the goddesses While men and boys alike Attempt to Catch them Woo them Seduce them Pull them in by their waists Claim and conquer their lands While the girls Play pretend Their thoughts, words, actions Forming empty Nothings A beautiful glorified ignorance Many flashing green eyes observed But I never was Can never be Would have loved to be And probably would have regretted being One of those Little Girls. 49

Eva - Shairi Turner

The Art Gallery

art

Emancipationn - Greta Feit

His or Her - Nicole Saenz

Resistance and Transformation - Nicole Saenz

Sight - Hunter Stone

Fell in Love at the Seaside - Greta Feit

Untitled - Victoria Pavlov

Maleka means queen