SCHOLARS PROGRAM DISCONTINUED
Scholarship program for minority students ends abruptly
Association in 2008, provided merit-based scholarships primarily geared towards supporting underrepresented minority undergraduate students.
to the University of Michigan community, but all program activity is now being discontinued.
The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan sent an email Thursday afternoon notifying members of the LEAD Scholars program that the program will be immediately discontinued. The LEAD Scholars program, founded by the Alumni
ADMINISTRATION
The
Ashleigh Hardy, director of student and recent alumni engagement at the Alumni Association, sent the email to members. Hardy wrote that she appreciated the members’ dedication to their studies and
“I am reaching out to share some challenging news,” Hardy wrote. “After careful review and consideration, and in order to comply with all applicable laws, the Alumni Association has made the decision to discontinue the LEAD Scholars program, effective immediately.”
University Housing to ban dorm door decorations
move upends
decades of precedent for free expression in university housing.
from both residents and ResStaff.
Hardy clarified that previously dispersed winter 2024-25 payments will not be impacted, and the Alumni Association will help LEAD Scholars find continued funding.
“The Alumni Association is committed to helping Scholars find additional sources of support, and will continue to offer all other alumni and student programming,” Hardy wrote.
ACADEMICS
For decades dorm room door decorations have been a way for students to express themselves and connect with other students.
University of Michigan Housing has decided to ban dorm door decorations effective May 6, 2025 in response to past vandalism concerns. The ResStaff Allied Organization, the student residential workers’ labor union, thinks the ban is not the solution to this concern.
RAO has since then drafted an open letter to send to University Housing with almost 100 signatures from ResStaff and students opposing the ban, stating the new enforcement is a suppression of free speech and the ability for a student to express themselves.
LSA senior Mark Tallents, RAO president, said in an interview with The Michigan Daily he feels University Housing is banning dorm door decorations as a way to silence residents and ResStaff.
“So right off the bat of this academic year, we’ve seen
MHousing be authoritative,”
Tallents said. “They’re trying to control what is seen and not seen in the residence halls and by extension of that, they’re limiting resident expression.”
In an email to The Daily, LSA junior Henry Barron, RAO secretary, said the decision has the potential to make it harder for ResStaff and residents to create a warm environment.
“Having to now police something like this creates an unwelcoming environment where it is more difficult to connect with residents,” Barron wrote.
“This reduces our ability to provide meaningful support to our residents on the topics most relevant to them like identity, belonging and community engagement. Additionally, the door dec ban makes ResStaff’s jobs much harder, as they’re now expected to enforce when a resident has a club poster, a national flag, or a nice drawing on their door.”
Tallents said he believes the true reason for this ban is to silence opinions that differ from those of University administrators, specifically concerning Palestine,
Similar actions have taken effect at Columbia’s Barnard College, where the administration has mandated dorm door decor to be removed in an attempt to not isolate those with differing views.
“I think what is happening here is we’re seeing this policy become a catalog of other policies that’s limiting speech in the dorms,” Tallents said. “This is included with the programming neutrality policy, which restricts ResStaff from holding programming that housing deems non-neutral, which included censorship of events that were planned in November where people wanted to talk about Palestinian history. Those events were censored.”
Tallents told The Daily University Housing does not consult ResStaff on such policy changes. ResStaff simply received notice that University Housing had made changes to the Community Living at Michigan Standards, which are the policies that people agree to when they become residents.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
In an email to The Michigan Daily, Rob Clendening, vice president for marketing and communications at the association, wrote that the Alumni Association plans to work with current LEAD Scholars to help find other available financial opportunities to assist with their studies.
“The Association is eager to explore ways to continue to enrich the University of Michigan’s impact and find ways to maintain our rich legacy of supporting students through the generous support of alumni and donors,” Clendening wrote. According to the email from Hardy, the Alumni Association will host a community event Friday, April 4 to provide more details on the discontinuation.
SACUA discusses strategy session and questions for Ono
‘Imagine that the administration just threatens to pull funds. Would he fight that?’
ALYSSA TISCH Daily Staff Reporter
The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs met Monday afternoon in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building to discuss their thoughts on a strategy session covering the lecture, “The New McCarthyism: Authoritarianism and the Future of Academic Freedom,” cosponsored by SACUA and the National Center for Institutional Diversity. The committee also discussed what questions they plan to ask University of Michigan President Santa Ono in an upcoming meeting.
The meeting began with SACUA member Soumya Rangarajan describing what faculty members discussed in the strategy session following the McCarthyism lecture. In the strategy session, faculty members developed action items in five areas: engagement with administration, media engagement, political outreach, research and teaching and organizing faculty. Rangarajan said one thing some faculty
members focused on during the discussion was having professors share their research with politicians more often.
“(Politicians) actually really want to hear from faculty about the things that they have expertise in because otherwise, the only things they’re going to hear is from lobbyists who usually have a profit-based interest in whatever they’re lobbying for,” Rangarajan said. “So we actually need to talk more about our research.”
Rangarajan further said the faculty discussed ways to improve the way the University speaks of itself in its communications on The University Record, the University’s news self-publication.
“I’m excited about this because I feel like academic freedom is something that we say a lot, but everybody actually would benefit from some unpacking of it,” McCarthy said. “We need to figure out how we can make sure that everybody understands, as a society, that academic freedom is really important in order to make sure that good progress occurs in knowledge.”
SACUA members next discussed what questions they plan to ask Ono in an upcoming meeting set to take place the following week. SACUA member Simon Cushing, in light of Columbia’s University’s recent decision to change their policies regarding topics like campus protests to yield to the President Donald Trump administration’s demands to regain threatened funding.
CONTINUED AT
“I think a lot of people perceive that a lot of the messaging we have, for example in The University Record and in our public messaging, makes Michigan come off as elitist,” Rangarajan said. “I think we need to change that perception and really make Michigan kind of stand out as a public institution that’s serving the state of Michigan, rather than this elitist, Ivy-type institution that everybody’s kind of intimidated by.” Luke McCarthy, director of the Faculty Senate Office, told SACUA he is excited they are discussing these topics and breaking down the meaning of academic freedom.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
SARAH SPENCER Daily Staff Reporter
EMMA SULAIMAN Daily Staff Reporter
Lila Turner/DAILY
Latin@ Culture Show celebrates heritage and community
“It means everything, especially because it’s a celebration of culture. It promotes unity.”
SALMA ABDELALE Daily Staff Reporter
Last Friday, the Michigan Theater buzzed with energy as the 2025 Latin@ Culture Show brought together students, families and community members for an evening of vibrant performances celebrating Latine heritage.
Hosted annually by La Casa, one of the largest Latine student organizations at the University of Michigan, LCS showcased Latine culture through traditional and contemporary song, dance, film and storytelling.
For many performers, LCS was more than just a show; it was a chance to connect with their roots and share their stories with the broader Ann Arbor community.
Information senior Julia Magallanes performed the song “Sabor a Mi” as a tribute to both her mother and her roots in Zacatecas, a city in central Mexico.
“I chose to do ‘Sabor a Mi’ because it was a song that was close to my family, it’s one of my mom’s favorite songs in particular,” Magallanes said. “I knew she was gonna be here, flying from out of town all the way from California, so it was basically a tribute to her.”
Magallanes said the show gave her an outlet to connect her to her heritage after moving to a place with a smaller Latine community for college.
“As a Hispanic Mexican American it means a lot, especially coming from Los Angeles with a very large Hispanic community and then going to Michigan where it’s not as large here,” Magallanes said. “Being a part of a show like this was really, really nice, just to kind of go back to my roots. I’m originally from Zacatecas, so it was a nice tribute to that.”
Throughout the evening, audience members were treated to a diverse lineup of acts — from energetic dance routines to soulful vocal performances and even a parody of a telenovela.
For LSA freshman Alvin Stanton, a Huapango dancer, LCS was more than just an opportunity to share his talents with the Latine community, but a chance to engage with the greater Ann Arbor community as well.
“It’s a way to be seen,” Stanton said. “A lot of other cultural groups here do their own shows and it’s cool to be part of the club and show off our culture. You see a lot of people from each of them go to each other’s exhibitions and
whatnot. It’s a nice exchange of culture.”
But the magic on stage was the product of months of planning and working behind the scenes. LSA junior Bairon Calderon Alvarez, LCS committee member, said planning the event involved many moving parts, eventually coming together over the course of the school year.
“The show honestly took the entire school year to plan,” Alvarez said. “There was a lot of delegation, we’ve been talking to the theater since the beginning of the school year and then obviously talking to the coordinators, the dance choreographers and such, but my role specifically was the backstage manager.”
Alvarez explained this year’s show carried particular significance because of current nationwide challenges to diversity in higher education. At the University, these challenges have led to the discontinuation of the LEAD Scholars program, a scholarship founded by the Alumni Association in 2008 to support underrepresented minority students.
“It means everything, especially because it’s a celebration of culture. It promotes unity,” Alvarez said., “Especially more so in time (because) the school just announced that the LEAD Scholars program is shutting down, so it’s more important to celebrate culture and celebrate the diversity on campus.”
UMich Regents discuss student success, hear public comments from union members
‘Now is not a time to compromise our values.’
research projects between the University and OpenAI, which are focused on AI applications that broadly benefit society.”
such as graduation rates, which the committee found are often lower for students who take fewer credits their freshman year.
commitments to its students and continue to cultivate a community of the leaders and best.”
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The University of Michigan’s Board of Regents met Thursday in the Alexander G. Ruthven building to discuss the University’s accomplishments from the past semester, hear a presentation on student success and listen to public comments from two faculty unions regarding ongoing contract negotiations.
University President Santa Ono opened the meeting with a speech focused on University achievements in the last semester, specifically highlighting a University partnership with OpenAI, which Ono said would positively impact research at the University.
“We recently established a new partnership with OpenAI, one that will bring additional resources, research funding and computing power to our community,” Ono said. “This collaboration will include joint
Ono continued his speech and said the University must continue to expand student support resources and financial aid services in order to continue fostering their success.
“It is vital that we continue to build upon the foundation of student opportunities, achievements and excellence as the year progresses,” Ono said.
“This will include an expansion of services such as career counseling, mental health resources and other essential supports which meet the needs of our students. This also includes targeted investments such as expansion of the Go Blue Guarantee.”
Following Ono, Angela Dillard, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, presented on the progress and findings of the Student Success Initiative. The initiative seeks to close equity gaps between students in areas
“We’re targeting students in the 12 to 13.5 credit enrollment category,” Dillard said. “They have tended to only have a roughly 72% chance of graduating in four years, which is good, but why not seek to close the gaps?”
The assembly also listened to a report from Central Student Government President Mario Thaqi. As the final report of his term, he detailed several CSG efforts to increase campus affordability, and urged the University to protect students in the face of federal attacks on free speech and higher education institutions.
“I encourage our administrators to consider student sentiment and the impact that particular programs under attack have on our campus community at large,” Thaqi said. “Now is not a time to compromise our values, it is a time to reinforce our University’s
The meeting ended with public comments from the representatives of LEO-GLAM, the branch of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization representing workers in the University’s galleries, libraries, archives and museums, and the U-M Flint American Federation of Teachers-American Association of University Professors, two unions which the University is currently negotiating collective bargaining agreements with.
Kathleen Folger, University librarian and LEO-GLAM negotiator, said she was pleasantly surprised at the negotiations between the University and her branch of the union, which specifically represents librarians, archivists and curators. She also said that if negotiations stalled, the resolve of the union would remain strong. CONTINUED
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Community members rally in support of the National Association of Letter Carriers at the “Fight Like Hell” rally in front of the United States Post Office in Ann Arbor Sunday afternoon.
CAMPUS LIFE
Venus Jefferies/DAILY Students celebrate their heritage in La Casa’s Latin@ Culture Show at the Michigan Theater Friday evening.
ARIEL LITWAK Daily Arts Writer
My 2024 ended on a sour note. Just a few days before Christmas, I got sick. Like, really sick, maybe the sickest I have ever been. I initially thought that I had contracted a classic case of the “con crud” (the illness so-called for its prevalence at fan cons), having spent the weekend at Holiday Matsuri. But as Winter Break flew by, leaving me still bedridden, I realized it was in fact my greatest enemy: sinusitis. I hate that guy.
I started the semester already behind and still sick, trying to support my closest friends through some of the toughest periods of their lives while also trying to hold myself together. The only respite I had all month was that Frosty Faustings — the one of the largest Guilty Gear majors — was coming up. All I wanted, even needed, was to do well and prove myself, because my next chance was months away. So I practiced every day for hours:
studied every problem matchup, researched every player in my pool, refined the tech I needed to win. And in the process, I let myself fall even further behind on my schoolwork.
By the second to last week of January, I was feeling much better — perhaps even ready for Frosty Faustings. My original plan was to take the train to Chicago on Thursday, catch up on homework during the journey, get KBBQ with the Central Florida Strive scene and have a fun weekend overall. My train, however, was cancelled due to the cold front, replaced with a bus far too cramped for me to comfortably do my homework. Instead of arriving at 2 p.m., I got to my hotel well after nightfall, missing the opportunity to see my friends on my first day in Chicago. And in my rush to get off the bus and lie down, I left the only pair of gloves I had brought behind. It was the worst start to the weekend I could have imagined. Friday, the day before my Strive pool, provided some respite, though.
Crying in a crowded room
I had plenty of time to practice, support my friends and play in the Skullgirls tournament that I had completely forgotten signing up for. This had been happening for over a year now: I would sign up for Skullgirls at a major, thinking I’d make the time to practice, and then just … not. Still, the bracket was a fun time, as I got to fuck around in a game I still love even if I don’t really compete in it anymore. I showed off my horrendously boring playstyle to my friend and hotel roommate Nahida then got to bask in the glorious horror of the Super Smash Bros. room’s overbearing heat and stench. Afterward, a few friends and I went to the mall (the only landmark in Lombard aside from Frosty Faustings itself), and I practiced Strive as much as I could. I went to bed early, feeling calm — for once — and ready to tackle my bracket and prove myself as a competitor.
I had gotten close before. My results at other majors had been good, if not spectacular. I had come close to beating top-level players
‘Mickey 17’ isn’t ‘Parasite,’ and that’s OK
ZACH LOVEALL Daily Arts Writer
It is inevitable that when a director peaks early in their career, every subsequent film of theirs will be compared to it — Francis Ford Coppola will always be known for “The Godfather,” Barry Jenkins will forever have to talk about “Moonlight” and Bong Joonho will never escape “Parasite.” It’s a melancholic fact of greatness in art that audiences will hope these directors recreate that same artistic genius. Rightfully, Bong Joon-ho should be held in very high regard for his universally acclaimed biting critique of class disparity under late-stage capitalism.
“Parasite” will surely be watched for decades, but perhaps we shouldn’t hold directors to the unreachable standard that is their best work. “Parasite” is a once-in-a-generation masterpiece — don’t expect a repeat with Bong’s five-year awaited follow-up, “Mickey 17.”
“Mickey 17” follows the titular Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson, “The Batman”) who, after becoming indebted to a loan shark on Earth, signs up to become an “expendable” on the colony planet Niflheim. Expendables are workers whose bodies are reprinted from organic slop after each death. From dangerous expeditions to intentional
LOGAN BROWN Daily Arts Writer
radiation and virus exposure, their bodies are used to complete some of the most life-threatening tasks imaginable. Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”), the narcissistic fascist and former Earthen politician hell-bent on creating a “pure” colony in his own image with Niflheim, only worsens Mickey’s quality of life. But while things may look pretty rough for Mickey, especially due to his ostracization as an expendable, he does have one bright spot: his girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie, “Blink Twice”), a flawed yet endlessly supportive partner to each one of his cloned iterations. While it might not be fair to hold Bong to the standard of his best film, “Mickey 17” covers basically the same set of topics as his previous films. Like “Snowpiercer,” the film focuses on the role class plays in an isolated community of people with a despotic leader in a frozen tundra. Like “Okja,” the immense destruction of animal life for human profit is pervasive in every moment of the film. Bong might be treading familiar ground, but his experience is a strength. The core conflict of “Mickey 17” starts when an alien creature called a creeper, a dog-to-elephant sized cross between a roly-poly and a pig, saves Mickey, and no one realizes, resulting in Mickey 18 being printed out. Though they initially seem extraneous to the plot, it’s these strangely cute creepers that
make the film’s thematic messages feel significant. Upon discovering the creepers, Marshall’s dreams of a pure colony are dashed, making him determined to exterminate them. Environmental destruction and animal cruelty are familiar themes in Bong’s films, and “Mickey 17” is no exception. It’s fitting that Mickey — another life deemed expendable by his fellow humans — is the first person able to communicate with the creepers. It would have been easy to default to a classic science fiction clone versus clone narrative, but Bong’s turn to the allyship between both of the Mickeys and the alien creatures is a much more interesting route. This addition extends the themes from a simple human-centric perspective — one centered on the conflict between Marshall and Mickey — to a broader message about the value of all life in the face of ecological colonization. Thematically, here is where Bong excels, and “Mickey 17” follows up the environmental themes of his previous films in a much more whimsical and oblique fashion. There is no dour talk of climatic collapse in the film, but the looming threat of anthropogenic climate change is a clear source of anxiety for Bong, which makes “Mickey 17” a clever plot for indirectly exploring these ideas.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Confusion
before, but never quite managed to. For the entirety of my Strive career, my greatest enemy (aside from sinusitis) had been the game five set: Oktoberfist II, CEO 2023, Frosty Faustings XVI, Roundhouse 2024, CEOTaku 2024. Dozens of locals
and online tournaments in between. Runs lost to the critical do-or-die moment when, regardless of how well I had played beforehand, I would invariably freeze up, make amateur mistakes and fumble each and every opportunity I had. But I had
SXSW 2025: ‘Slanted’ societal values and the horrors of conformity
MICHELLE WU Daily Arts Writer
When I was little, my mom told me that if I spoke more English than Chinese, I would eventually lose my Asian features and turn white. At the time, I was just heading into preschool, a place where I wouldn’t be at home conversing with just my family anymore. As a naive child, I didn’t know she meant this only metaphorically — I thought I would get blond hair and blue eyes if I stopped speaking my mother tongue. I don’t know why my mom used this as a threat, because to me it seemed more like an enticing possibility than an undesirable punishment. For the first six years of my life, I grew up as one of the few Asian Americans in my town, and I wanted more than anything to blend in.
With “Slanted,” I guess I (and many others) don’t have to keep pondering what life would be like if race change was a possibility (and no, I’m not talking about racefishing makeup). Amy Wang’s directorial debut film is a funny and heartfelt comedy-drama mixed with body horror that lays out what life would be like if race transition was possible.
Set in hyper-patriotic and predominantly white America, “Slanted” takes us along Joan Huang’s (Shirley Chen, “Dìdi”)
coming-of-age journey as she grapples with the challenge of peer acceptance, all while struggling to hold onto her racial and cultural identity. From a young age, she was taught that her lunch was smelly, that her eyes slanted at an odd angle and that her nose was unnaturally flat. Essentially, Huang was taught that she was a far cry from the “ideal American” plastered on posters and billboards throughout her suburban town.
As such, Joan grows insecure about looking “odd,” eating “repulsive” foods and having parents who work blue-collar cleaning jobs. When the mysterious organization Ethnos Inc. reaches out to Joan, promising to transform her into a popular white girl, Joan ecstatically seizes this opportunity to better her life.
After the transition, she renames herself to Jo Hunt, played by Mckenna Grace (“Gifted”), and lives out her dreams: receiving invitations to parties, male attention and the opportunity to actually have a chance at winning prom queen. However, the so-called benefits of the treatment start wearing off as Joan (or Jo, after the transition) gradually realizes how much she stands to lose in the pursuit of popularity.
Wang also introduces other characters to highlight why Joan is torn between her lineage and the allure of blending in with the
might be the point
I often find myself in this pattern of reading and re-reading the beginnings of books, trying to understand anything and everything going on in the world in which the characters reside. This constant need to understand everything fills me with frustration when the plot is too complex, the world is too abstract or the prose is too winding. Reading in this state, one in which you are constantly out of breath from trying to keep pace with the author, is simply no fun. It’s easy to fall into this desire to fully understand the inner workings of a novel, but doing so might actually hold you back from engaging with the book at face value. Every time I find myself agonizing over the layout of a town or trying to remember each and every character at the start of the book, I lose the joy that comes from reading in the first place. Diving into these worlds is certainly laborious, but to expect you are going to pick up everything at once is ambitious and needlessly overwhelming. The first thing you do when you move to a new city isn’t memorize every street and building you might come across, but rather start home and explore from there. While easier said than done, when you start reading a novel, the last thing you should do is strain to understand every last thing the author is saying.
This topic of confusion in novels was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend of mine about Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” a multi-narrative novel with an expansive cast of characters and a whiplash-inducing timeline of plots. While I finished the novel, she put it down partway through due to the same reasoning I listed above — she couldn’t begin to enjoy reading the novel because she spent the first 50 pages just trying to get steady footing. I assured her that my finishing the book had nothing to do with my mental fortitude or ability to comprehend the twists and turns of narrative better than her. Instead, when I came across something I didn’t understand, I just filed it away and kept going with faith that
the details would iron out at some point.
Although I finished “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” it certainly wasn’t the easiest book to start. The novel has several distinct plot lines with characters that have only a whisper of connection to the next — more often than not I found myself flipping back to the previous chapter to see how any component of the current story could have followed from the previous story. But I found pretty quickly that this avenue of literary investigation was fruitless and that trying to understand all the connections between the stories before the author wanted me to was a little absurd.
Having patience when reading dense and confusing plots is a virtue — you must trust the author to bring you back to what’s important. Reading is a dance between the author and their audience — if they are doing their job you will not be left alone to figure things out for yourself, but guided through the narratives to a point of apex in the story. “Sea of Tranquility” by Emily St. John Mandel is a perfect example of this relationship of trust between
“it” crowd. Joan’s friend Brindha (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, “Never Have I Ever”) unapologetically embraces her different features and happily eats Joan’s lunch for her — at the cost of being made an outcast. On the other hand, Olivia Hammond (Amelie Zilber, “Grown-ish”), the school queen bee, conforms and conceals parts of her identity to garner social points. The contrast between these characters’ chosen lifestyles demonstrates the different consequences of sacrificing either your race or your sociality. It’s as if it is imperative to erase an essential part of yourself or risk total alienation. Unfortunately, this is a sobering lesson that is imbued into the minds of many immigrant youth.
Unlike Joan, her parents, played by Vivian Wu (“The Pillow Book”) and Fang Du (“Madam Secretary”), see their Chinese American identity as a mighty strength rather than a debilitating weakness. Their unique backgrounds give them the necessary resilience to stay rooted in the face of adversity. After all, the unique way they raised their daughter gives her a vastly different worldview from her peers, and isn’t that worth something in a monochromatic world devoid of diverse perspectives?
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author and reader: Her multinarrative plots set across multiple millennia are woven together tidily. Although she eventually gets to a point of connection across narratives, it definitely takes time to get to the holistic understanding many of us crave. By reaching the end of the book, the satisfaction I was left with was from those “aha!” moments of connection, all of which stem from the questions budding right from the beginning. In so many multi-narrative novels like the “Sea of Tranquility,” you don’t get to know everything. You’re just going to have to be okay with it.
Confusion doesn’t always stem from plot and varied character perspectives, but comes from dialogue as well. One of my favorite authors is Sally Rooney, but the most common objection I hear to her work is the lack of quotation marks in her dialogue, which for many renders her novels confusing and difficult to enjoy. While a fair criticism, I counter this objection with my own: Your confusion is the point.
Michelle Peng/DAILY
Lauren Roberts’ “Powerless” trilogy has taken over the book world in the past few years. With “Powerless” finding its way to the New York Times bestseller list, the first two installments both being Goodreads Choice Award nominees and the trilogy stoking a #BookTok frenzy, it has felt like you can’t turn around in a bookstore without seeing someone raving over these books.
In the “Powerless” trilogy, nearly everyone in the kingdom of Ilya has powers, but protagonist Paedyn Gray is one of the few “Ordinaries” — in other words, she’s powerless. She has to hide this truth from those around her, but things get complicated when she saves a prince, winds up in a dangerous competition and starts falling in love. With nail-biting fight scenes, female friendships that will bring you to tears and a love story with BookTok’s favorite prince, the story has something for everyone. And it really does feel like everyone is enjoying it.
All of this is even more special and awe-inspiring when you realize that Roberts didn’t expect any of this to happen.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Roberts explained that the journey of “Powerless” really just began because of her love of reading.
“Growing up, (I) was obsessed with writing, but it was one of those things where I never thought it was in the cards for me, because I always thought … it’s so difficult to get your foot in the door and pursue a passion,” she said. “And so I was 18, and I remembered reading all these amazing books but thinking, ‘oh, I wish there was this in this book,’ or ‘I wish it had an element of this aspect or this trope.’” Her creative mind was at work nonstop. Eventually, her whirring brain shifted from hypothetical changes to make in books she was reading to an idea for her own, born out of a deep desire to bring into existence the book that she had always wanted to read.
“One day, I had a shower thought,” Roberts said. (Isn’t that where the best ideas always come from?) “(It) was nothing profound, but I really thought, what if I do an ‘Uno reverse card’ on the chosen one trope, and instead of our main character being the one to find these powers and save the kingdom … she’s the only one who’s powerless and is surrounded by people who do have these abilities? That was the first little nugget of inspiration.”
So, she took to social media, as so many authors are wont to do in this day and age, to see what others thought. She explained that she had “amassed a little family on TikTok” of fellow readers who all loved the same kinds of genres and tropes, and, after the initial idea for “Powerless” came to her, she hopped on a TikTok live to see what her internet reader friends thought of her idea — and was met with wild support.
And she continued to reach out, via the internet and social media, to stay in contact with her would-be readers.
“When I was 18, as I was writing every scene, I would go on (social media) and ‘promote’ it, in a way, and I would read (the scenes) to them,” she recalled. “I called them ‘bedtime stories,’ and I read different scenes or (took) different lines, freshly, as I’d written them.”
This process was an extension of her own excitement with the experience and consisted of a desire to share that excitement with others.
“(It) was like, ‘here I want to gift you this book, and let’s talk about it,’” she said. “I think because I had such a great community off the bat, it’s been very natural to go on there and talk about my books (today) … I love being able to have this oneon-one relationship with readers; I think that’s so special … In this day and age of publishing, authors are so reachable, so why not take advantage of that? I love asking the readers what they want, (asking) what tropes (they) like, what type of characters (they) like. Because I’m writing for me … but … I also want them to like it. So I like to ask and see what they’re looking for.”
Roberts continues to post snippets of her writing on Instagram, keeping that door open for her readers to feel like a part of her process. As the final book in the trilogy, “Fearless,” creeps closer to its release date in early April, fans pore over her quotes in their eagerness to close out the trilogy.
Roberts seemed in awe of the support she’s received from her growing number of fans on social media and elsewhere.
“I wrote (“Powerless”) when I was 18 — and obviously I’m not too much older now — but there are so many things (that) I would go back and do … differently (now),” she said, looking back on her experience. But at the same time, she reflected on how special the book is to her, regardless of the changing perspective that time offers.
“It’s almost like a time capsule of what I wanted to read when I was 18,” she said. “And I feel like the readers are also growing up with me, which is so exciting.
“Fearless” comes out in April, (and) I really do feel like it ages up … it’s just darker, the themes are a little bit more intense, and there’s just a lot more at stake. It’s cool to be able to grow up with this community (and) have their support.”
In terms of “Fearless,” Roberts reflected on the bittersweet experience of writing the final book and wrapping up the trilogy.
“It is so surreal,” she commented. “(The trilogy) feels so familiar, and I can write Paedyn and Kai with my eyes closed. I feel like I know them so well — these characters are just living in my brain — so it’s very scary to … (close) off that chapter. But at the same time, I’m also excited because, like I said, I wrote “Powerless” when I was 18 … So, I’m excited to step into something fresh where I can take the knowledge and the things that I’ve learned and put that into a new series or a new book and to really just … make it the best I absolutely can. So, in some ways, it’s very bittersweet to finish it, because … I love these characters, and I’m so comfortable here.”
She did assuage our worries, though, about facing the end of the series. “There’s still more to be said in this series,” Roberts explained, “so I’m not quite done with it. But I am going to step away from Paedyn and Kai’s story and grow with the series a little bit more. So I’m not completely saying goodbye to it, but definitely saying goodbye to Paedyn and Kai and their relationship, which is what is so comfortable to me.”
When discussing these beloved characters, she spoke about her protagonist, Paedyn, with special fervor.
“Paedyn was exactly what I needed when I was 18,” Roberts said. “She was kind of who I looked up to, in a way, and who I hoped I would be if I was in her situation. I would not say that she’s based on me in any way — maybe her stubbornness — but she’s way cooler than I am. But I (do) think she really helped me come into myself and gain more confidence in things.”
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I don’t care what you eat in a day
filming their daily food intake and racking up millions of views. Now, in the year 2025, this notorious content has found a new home on TikTok.
One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to focus more on my physical wellness. My body has been through a lot of ups and downs over the last couple of years, so I’ve gone into 2025 with a new respect for what it’s capable of. I’m taking more workout classes, eating food that nourishes my body and prioritizing a healthy sleep schedule.
Though I tried to hold true to these intentions, my TikTok For You page — like the creepy, omnipresent spy it is — quickly started presenting me with content surrounding these goals. Within days, my feed was flooded with videos of “wellness” influencers sharing their favorite workout classes, “easy and healthy” meals and other tips and tricks that were often not nearly as helpful to me as these influencers thought they might be. Amongst this wellness content lives another kind of video: the dreaded “What I Eat in a Day.”
These minute-long vlogs consist of influencers sharing everything they eat in a day, from the moment they wake up until they get into bed at night. Content creators film themselves cooking and share the thought process behind each food choice — often a breakfast with lots of protein, a light lunch and a dinner that is “easy but nutrient rich.”
This content is not unique to TikTok. The sharing of food and exercise routines dates back to the early 20th century, when celebrities were often pressured to share their wellness regimens in magazines and newspapers to “inspire” their fans. The trend quickly moved to YouTube in the 2010s, with popular vloggers — whose audiences often consisted of young, impressionable women —
On the surface, these videos seem harmless. They can give viewers recipe ideas and help college students or young professionals coping with a busy schedule plan meals ahead of time. Their usefulness ends there.
What you’ll find scrolling through these videos is that many of them open with a signature “ab shot.” These body checks, usually no more than a couple seconds long, often happen in a full-length mirror in the creator’s bedroom or living room. Though the person behind the camera may not have intended any malice by including such an image, the shot communicates a harmful message — if you eat like me, you’ll look like me.
As we know, this is indisputably wrong. I could follow my favorite influencer’s meal plan to a T, and my body would still look different from theirs. The exact same diet for two people yields different results — it’s science. Yet the influencers behind these videos seem to be sending a different message, disillusioning their followers into believing that their own daily diets are somehow “wrong” or “worse” simply because they are higher calorie or not as balanced.
the original post, in modern parlance
55. Goes extinct
58. "The devil ___ the details"
59. Things a spider might do to catch prey, or a hint to the shaded letters
62. Liveliness
63. Peace pact
There are some influencers who have broken out of this mold. Their “What I Eat in a Day” videos feature non-restrictive meals, frequent snacking and — thank god — not a single body check. Instead of encouraging diet culture, they actively deconstruct it, embracing food that makes them feel nourished and energized, not what will yield the best physical results. TikTok creator Spencer Barbosa is a standout in this regard.
She not only encourages her viewers to embrace their bodies, but displays a level of honesty and transparency about the food she eats that is rarely seen amongst “wellness” influencers. Nor does she frame this food as healthy or unhealthy — it is simply what she ate and enjoyed that day, no strings attached.
Unfortunately, these videos are few and far between and leave users in a sticky spot: If they engage with this content, the algorithm will likely flood them with other food and meal videos that are not nearly as well-intentioned, encouraging some pretty dangerous lines of thinking. It’s no secret that social media encourages comparison and perfectionism. Specifically on a medium like TikTok, short-form video content gives us nothing more than a glimpse into the lives of our favorite influencers — a highlight reel. We see them cooking, working out and mastering productivity, leaving us to assume that our own daily routines must pale in comparison.Many times, I’ve found myself watching a video from the comfort of my bed and being made to feel bad about my own habits. Why am I not up and about, getting three weeks ahead on my homework and doing crunches before I go to sleep?
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Conveniently, most of these vlogs are missing critical information, such as the creator’s activity level, metabolism or underlying health issues that may impact their food choices. They also present an idealized picture of what eating looks like on a day-to-day basis. The influencer in question likely decided to pick up their camera that day because they had healthy, balanced meals planned out in advance. What they ate on that particular day is not necessarily reflective of their daily diet and can often serve to make their followers feel bad about themselves.
64. Race that's about a quarter of a marathon
65. Turns suddenly
Observes Ramadan
Ice cream brand
Ruth of the Yankees
___-garde
Jiggly dessert
One of two states that fully contains another state's name within its own
Last Chinese dynasty
A female deer, a drop of golden sun
SABRIYA IMAMI Daily Arts Writer
REBECCA SMITH Daily Arts Writer
Photo courtesy of Zachary J. Goldsmith.
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Our work represents our identities in a way that is both unapologetic and creative. We are a community that reclaims our stories on our own terms.
Not your traditional Japanese Breakfast
Musical artist Japanese Breakfast and author Michelle Zauner are the same person. You might recognize Japanese Breakfast as the name of the Grammy-nominated band that sings “Be Sweet,” with its whimsical tones and quick tempo. Or, you might know Zauner as The New York Times bestselling author who wrote “Crying in H Mart.” Nevertheless, the two are one and the same: Zauner is the frontwoman of Japanese Breakfast, and Japanese Breakfast is a perfectly peculiar name to match the eccentricity Zauner showcases in her artistry and fashion. As she oscillates between different artistic mediums, she attracts audiences with different lived experiences. While I prepare for her highly anticipated fourth studio album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), I am at the same time required, by my own parasocial obligations towards her, to form my review with both her musical and authorial personas in mind.
I first found Zauner’s music in high school through the Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify when I was trying to grow my armory of indie artists. When her memoir, “Crying in H Mart,” was released in 2021, I remember a fervor of collective praise making its rounds into regular conversation. It wasn’t until I heard that she was coming to Ann Arbor in April 2023 to end her book tour when I connected the dots that she was also Japanese Breakfast. Being a fan of her music, this was my chance to see the muse herself. If not on a festival stage at Lollapalooza, it would have to be at the Michigan Theater on State Street. The catch was: I bought the tickets a mere week before the event and hadn’t yet read her memoir. So, I bought a digital copy and finished it in two nights. It easily became one of my favorite books that year and is still on my top-10 list. Eventually, I got my hands on a hard copy after I saw her speak — it was even signed! (It’s still one of my most prized possessions. I don’t even let my brother read that copy.)
“Crying in H Mart” is an ode to Zauner’s strained relationship with her mother, which was cut short after her mother’s battle with cancer. The memoir originally stemmed from an essay that Michelle entered into — and won — Glamour Magazine’s 2016 Essay Contest. She transforms
this essay into the opening chapter of her book, detailing how she finds herself lost in the aisles of H Mart, overwhelmed by the fact that she doesn’t know what brand of seaweed to buy without calling her mom to ask. For Zauner, who grew up with a white father and a Korean mother, food was how her family expressed their love for one another. In the memoir, she writes, “No matter how critical or cruel she could seem — constantly pushing me to meet her intractable expectations — I could always feel her affection radiating from the lunches she packed and the meals she prepared for me just the way I liked them.” So, when she lost her mom, she felt that she had lost her direct tie to her Korean roots. Throughout the memoir, Zauner delicately balances themes of grief, loss and identity. In exploring her Korean American identity, she writes, “I could never be of both worlds, only half in and half out, waiting to be ejected at will by someone with greater claim than me.
Someone full. Someone whole.”
Sitting in the fourth row at her book event, it felt as though she were speaking directly to me about her writing process, her food and family memories and her go-to breakfast meal. She enthralled us with her personable charm. Many audience members related most, it seemed, to her feelings of inauthenticity. In sharing that she didn’t feel Korean enough to claim H Mart as her own sanctum for goods, her audience in the Michigan Theater responded positively and shared similar sentiments. During the Q&A portion of the event, people prefaced their questions with descriptions of their own backgrounds and feelings of identity disjuncture. Some were moved to tears as they shared personal stories of loss, grief and cultural dissonance that all tied back to a familiar connection woven within Zauner’s eloquent and unapologetically honest writing. She appeared to us as a beacon of understanding and strength.
I found myself in mutual understanding among a room full of strangers as other audience members spoke on the pitfalls of dual identities. Growing up Asian in a white family, I felt more comfortable in a Trader Joe’s than I did in an H Mart. When I went for the first time to the Asian equivalent of a Costco, I didn’t know what to buy. Hearing about Zauner’s own grapple with cultural imposter syndrome made my appreciation for her as
an artist (but more importantly, as a fellow Asian American) grow.
What cements Zauner’s position as a top artist to watch and follow is not just the fact that she’s crossing genres of art, but that she touches on a range of topics within each that people with diverse backgrounds find connection in. Whether that’s identity formation, lust and love or planetary ambience, there is something for everyone. It’s been more than four years since she released her last album, Jubilee, an indie-pop album of celebration (and one I frequently put on shuffle when I need a dose of serotonin.) What might surprise fans of her memoir is that her music can be stunningly buoyant. The songs on Jubilee are as upbeat and spirited as Zauner’s wardrobe: On a given day, you can see her flaunting Miu Miu platform boots or a vibrant puff sleeve midi-dress. Throughout Jubilee, her energy is amplified through the use of orchestral instruments and horns that relay the exuberance of new beginnings.
We’ve seen these tones of elation in the familiar guitar and drum notes of revelry in her previous works like “Everybody Wants to Love You”, from her debut studio album Psychopomp. What Japanese Breakfast is doing now, however, might stray from her recent vibrancy. For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), to be released on March 21, seems to take a new approach.
Vulture Magazine describes this new album as a mark of her public return as Japanese Breakfast after she spent the last year abroad in Korea: “The project touches on her recent artistic success, though its storytelling is both subtler and meatier than what fans accustomed to her popularized first-person register might expect.” She teased us with her single, “Orlando in Love,” a reference to the Renaissance poem “Orlando Innamorato” about the unresolved nature of human ambition. The chorus in “Orlando in Love” sings, “As if the sea had bore her to be an ideal woman,” and is matched with somber violin chords.
For fans more familiar with deep cuts like Soft Sounds From Another Planet, these sorrowful tones might be nothing new. I think it’s safe to say, however, that her most well-known songs are jubilant. What will set this new album apart are her reclamation of despair matched with an aura of sophistication.
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Muslim Students’ Association hosts annual Food Truck Fest in support of Sudan
yet it hasn’t received the attention it deserves — not just globally, but even within our own community spaces,” Sheikh-Khalil said.
Food Truck Fest not only served as the opportunity to support a beneficial cause, but also a chance for introspection.
For many college students, 3 a.m. in March is synonymous with cramming for exams or scrambling to finish forgotten assignments. But on Wednesday night, 3 a.m. marked the transformation of the First United Church lot into something entirely different — a vibrant celebration of faith, community and generosity.
Hosted by the Muslim Students’ Association, the second annual Ramadan Food Truck Fest turned the early morning hours into a time for gathering and giving. More than just a break from the stress of midterms, the event was a fundraiser, donating all proceeds toward humanitarian relief in Sudan. While this marked the event’s second year, it was the first in collaboration with other MSA chapters from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, University of Michigan-Flint and Michigan State University.
The event coincides with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims typically have two main meals: Suhoor, consumed before dawn, and Iftar, consumed at sunset. The latenight hours of the Food Truck Fest, which lasted from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., catered to the unique rhythms of Ramadan when many Muslims stay up to engage in worship, reflect and gather in community as they prepare for Suhoor.
Open to the public, the Ramadan Food Truck Fest featured a diverse selection of vendors, including Vara Juice and Big Red’s BBQ Pit. While many student organizations at the University often host similar food truck events, the MSA donates all proceeds to a selected charitable cause each year. Last year’s inaugural fundraiser supported those suffering from the ongoing genocide in Palestine, while this year, proceeds were directed to Sudan.
With sustained violence due to civil war and a growing humanitarian crisis, Sudan has topped the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Watchlist for the second consecutive year. The country faces severe famine in numerous regions and is at risk of becoming the site of the world’s largest hunger crisis, with extreme food insecurity affecting nearly 25 million individuals. Fundraising efforts like these are critical in providing life-saving relief.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, School of Public Health senior Mohammad Sheikh-Khalil, MSA president, noted that while the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund had been the primary recipient of last year’s food truck event, the MSA had decided to shift its focus to Sudan due to the scale of the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
“Sudan is currently the largest humanitarian crisis in the world,
“Focusing on Sudan this year was a way for us to not only contribute directly to those in need, but also raise awareness about the severity of the situation.”
He explained that the proceeds would be directed toward fundraising pages for various displaced families in Sudan, providing essential medical aid, food and supplies. Additionally, he emphasized the importance of sustained support for Sudan and Palestine, citing the millions of people in need of critical medical attention and basic necessities.
“With crises like these, it’s easy for people to look away,” SheikhKhalil continued. “But for those experiencing genocide and war firsthand, the suffering doesn’t stop when the headlines disappear. That’s why we have to continue raising awareness and donating — because these communities have lost everything.”
Charity is a core tenet of Ramadan, emphasized as a means of spiritual growth, generosity and community engagement. Fasting during Ramadan is not only a means of cleansing one’s appetite, but also cleansing the soul. It serves as a reminder of the struggles faced by those lacking access to fundamental necessities, encouraging Muslims to reflect on their blessings and contribute to the well-being of others.
LSA junior Nawal Ahmed, MSA’s external vice president, emphasized how this sense of responsibility extends beyond borders, as humanitarian crises should be seen as a collective concern.
“As Muslims, we see it as our duty to help those in need, no matter where they are in the world,” Ahmed explained. “Any crisis, whether in Sudan, Palestine or anywhere else, should feel like a personal issue to us; we are one ummah, one people, one body. When one of us suffers, we all do.”
Beyond fundraising, the event also fostered a sense of community and kinship. For many students, the event was more than just a chance to enjoy good food — it also served as an opportunity to come together in a space that felt like home.
LSA sophomore Rima Al Mosawy, an out-of-state student from Virginia, shared how events like the Food Truck Fest have helped her find a sense of belonging within the Muslim community on campus.
“I’m not from Michigan and didn’t grow up around many Muslims,” Al Mosawy explained.
“Coming here, I knew I wanted to explore that part of my life more. The MSA has helped me deepen my connection with Allah and build friendships with fellow Muslims who share my values.”
For LSA freshman Kareem Al-Saghir, who also serves as the treasurer of Students Organize for Syria at the University, the
“I’ve seen how conflict can devastate families, how it forces people to leave behind their homes and histories,” Al-Saghir shared. “My own family lived through the Syrian revolution, and their stories of survival and resilience mirror what so many in Sudan are facing today. While I can never fully understand their struggles, I heavily empathize with them.”
The significance of the event coinciding with Ramadan was also not lost on attendees.
“Ramadan is about remembrance — not just of Allah, but of those who go without,” Al-Saghir said. “We break our fast with abundant meals, while others don’t even know when their next meal will come. This event reminds us of our privilege and the responsibility that comes with it.”
Additionally, despite being organized by the MSA in particular, the event was open to students of all backgrounds and faiths. Sheikh-Khalil and Ahmed reflected on how events like the Food Truck Fest can help challenge misconceptions about MSA’s inclusivity. For Sheikh-Khalil, fostering an inclusive space has always been a priority, one shaped by his own experiences of finding community at the University.
“I come from a very small, predominantly white town in Louisiana, where I was the only Muslim in my school,” SheikhKhalil shared. “Going from that to a university like Michigan, where there’s a strong Muslim community, was difficult for me to integrate into at first. … The sense of community that was given to me, I wanted to give to others.” This commitment to making others feel welcome has also been a driving point in Sheikh-Khalil’s leadership within MSA.
“I’ve always had this intention of creating spaces for those same people who have gone through a similar struggle as me because I know how uncomfortable it is to be in that position,” Sheikh-Khalil explained.
The Food Truck Fest is one such space, demonstrating how MSA is open to all students, regardless of their faith or level of religious practice.
“A lot of people come into (the University) with the notion that MSA is very strict or that you have to be a certain ‘level’ of Muslim to fit in,” Ahmed said. “I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to meet some threshold to be part of the community. Events like this are just one step toward expanding that notion — showing that our spaces are open, welcoming and for everyone, regardless of where they are in their faith or even if they’re not Muslim at all.”
Courtesy of Nazifa Kadir.
KARAH POST MiC Columnist
MUNTAHA RAHMAN MiC Columnist
Hannah Willingham/DAILY
Michigan in Color is The Michigan Daily’s section by and for People of Color.
A unified pulse
রক্ত
FAHMIDA RAHMAN MiC Columnist
Rokto
The Bangla term for blood and kinship. We use রক্ত to describe the pulsating liquid that drives the fervent allegiance to our nation. What, for generations, has washed through our brazen institutions in Dhaka, flowed through the hill tracts of Chittagong, nourished the roots of vast tea gardens in Sylhet and made its way to the Bengal Delta, rippling across waters that determined character ingrained in the Bangladeshi spirit. And we feel those strains of ancestral perseverance reach the shores of East London, Hamtramck, Buffalo, Queens — wherever we’ve sought to establish ourselves, our blood runs thick, drawing strength and inspiration from our forefathers to serve one another and build communities.
Hence why we also use রক্ত to describe family. In Bangladeshi culture, family is never finite. Whether you are my sister, cousin, neighbor or mother’s best friend’s sister-in-law’s niece, merely being acquainted and sharing a mutual understanding that you will spoon rice onto my plate when my ama is away or that I will watch over your child as they nap on my bed so that you can enjoy your meal in peace certifies that we are bonded by our effortless yet profound acts of compassion and trust. Indeed, I am unsure I can offer you an answer to how I am related to half of my “aunties” and “uncles”
— it’s রক্ত I had never truly noted the extent to which this simple twosyllable word encapsulated what it meant to be Bangladeshi until
this past summer, when the protests began.
What I believe to be a common experience for any Bangladeshi person is that buzzing family WhatsApp group chat composed of roughly thirty Facebook reels a day, herbal medicine remedies and one or two daily religious quotes captioned with “reminder.”
These chats that I normally keep muted (my apologies) caught my attention one June afternoon, however, after a video was shared depicting a group of college students clad with makeshift weapons, chanting and marching their university’s square while a brigade of police officers surround them, donned in their fortified helmets and bulletproof vests — protection from the rather peaceful crowd. I scoff under my breath and feel like I have just been transported back to campus.
My home country, it appears, was no exception to this debacle. The students in the video belonged to a rising national movement of Bangladeshi students seeking an end to a restrictive quota system that reserved 30% of government jobs for families of freedom fighters. The descendants of rickshaw pullers, fuchka vendors and textile workers refused to allow a corrupt system to continuously stifle their ambitions. Instead, they were going to manifest the future they and their families deserved by rising above institutional barriers, affirming that their intelligence and skills would be the sole determinant of their ability to enrich Bangladesh — not a certification of their grandfather’s sacrifices.
Learning of the plight of these students oddly initiated feelings
The Black DUFF
HILARY ADJEI MiC Columnist
In the movie of my life, my script was predetermined. I was the shy friend — the one who waited for someone else to speak first, or who wouldn’t speak at all. The one whose mom always had an excuse ready so she wouldn’t have to go to sleepovers because, honestly, she had nothing exciting to share. I didn’t need a movie to tell me my role. I was the DUFF, the Designated Ugly Fat Friend, the sidekick who exists to make the main character shine. I didn’t even have to audition for it. I was the one always asking, “Do you want me to take the photo?” instead of being in it. But it wasn’t until I started watching teen movies that I realized something else: I wasn’t just the DUFF. I was the Black DUFF.
Growing up, most of the few Black characters in shows were the sassy Black friends, the ones who always had something to say. She was the one ready to fight, giving the exaggerated sideeye, dropping a well-timed “Oh no, she didn’t,” or my personal favorite, “She don’t know ‘bout me … ” followed by something about running “these streets.” The ones with no story, made just to support and hype up the main (sometimes white) character. This supportive sidekick had no original thoughts of their own. They were just there to help, and support, support, support. Think of Taylor from “High School Musical,” Kim from “Moesha,” or almost any Black girl in popular media. They are accessories to someone else’s journey, helping them any way they can, even when they don’t want to. The friend who changes her whole schedule around the main character, no matter what she’s going through in her own
life. It doesn’t matter if they’re funny, pretty or smart. Their role is already decided, and their purpose is simple: make the main character look and feel better. All of my friends in high school were white. Not by choice, but because my mom sent me to a mostly-white Catholic school, believing it was the best way to get me out of a “ghetto” community. Being the only Black girl in my grade, I sat through conversations about vacation homes, new designer shoes and expensive makeup — topics I couldn’t contribute to. Their lives were filled with daily blowouts, new “situationships” and alarming diets. I was obviously out of place, an NPC accidentally left to function on its own. One day, I asked my “friend” to describe me in three words for an application that I was filling out. She thought for a moment and said only one: funny. Not smart, not curious, not adventurous. Just funny. And that’s what I became. If you wanted a joke, you came to Hilary. If you needed some unserious advice, I was the one to ask. That was my role, whether I liked it or not. I was the one helping my friends pick outfits for dates, choosing places for these dates, playing photographer and getting the best angles, acting as fashion designer, mom, therapist, and main point of contact. You know the saying, “always the bridesmaid, never the bride”? They were always selected for the best chances, praised for their efforts, and part of every group. That’s what it felt like, standing on the sidelines while they were chosen first romantically, academically and socially. At first, I laughed. I couldn’t possibly be that invisible. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I fit the stereotype. I have a habit of listening in social settings. No matter the
conversation, even if I had something to contribute, I would step back, unsure if anything I contributed would make a difference. At the very start of my college years, my friend was going through a pretty bad “situationship”, and she would ask everyone for their opinion. As everyone started to go down the line and tell her what she should do and how to feel, I started to panic. What if what I say makes it worse? What if I’m judged because I’ve never been in a relationship? What if? When it got to my turn, all I could offer were my condolences for the end of a relationship, and hoping that would be enough to avoid a conversation I wanted no part in. I could see my other friends wrap her in a hug, their voices overlapping with each other as they continued to talk to her, forming a smaller and smaller circle, each of them adding comments and comforting words effortlessly. Meanwhile, I stood at the edge of the group pretending not to notice how alone I felt. The more they spoke, the more I felt disconnected, as if I was watching them from behind a glass wall. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be part of the conversation — it was that I never quite knew how to enter without feeling like an intruder. So, I stayed quiet, letting myself fade into the background, and in doing so, I became exactly what I feared: invisible. And with that realization, my confidence started to slip. I began to believe I would always be second best, that I had to work twice as hard because I didn’t have that it factor.
It wasn’t just about feeling invisible — suddenly, I saw that those around me, especially the sidekicks, had personalities that hinged on being loud, unnecessarily funny or mean. CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
of guilt. In my first year, I found myself habitually remarking on my “first-generation” status because I was constantly told that my parents not having higher education degrees meant that I faced invincible barriers to achieving my academic dreams. It’s a constant “them” versus “us.” What do you lack, who’s to blame, and how can you overcome it? But the Bangladeshi students offered a different perspective. They did not fault their peers for utilizing the quota system once or twice to advance. They blamed their government for attempting to create division and social constructs instead of uplifting a motivated, educated generation. Many students who benefited from the quota system still joined protests with their peers, demanding a more equitable job market for all. Using your
“connections to your advantage” as we often say in the U.S. was not an upheld rhetoric for these students: There is no merit in your selfish success at the expense of others.
It provoked me to ask: “What do I live for?” Am I merely just trying to outperform my peers for a sense of self satisfaction or do I actually have goals I’d be willing to move the world for?
Why do I attend this mighty institution if I have no intention of serving the community that brought me here?
As I diligently read articles and watched news updates on increasing government crackdowns, I recognized that despite police efforts to exterminate and isolate student protestors, the Bangladeshi tradition of hospitality and collectivism could not be
quashed. They had a whole nation behind them and I found myself captivated by the camaraderie and national sentiment to “hold down the fort” while our youth front fought to revitalize a democracy. I watch a petite woman maneuver a prickly jackfruit with ease, gnawing it apart and stuffing the bulbs into the mouths of young male activists, whose own hands are immersed with signs and banners, too concerned with destabilizing the corrupt autocracy to notice their school uniforms loosening, cheeks slim with exhaustion, lips chapped. They refuse at first out of shyness but when she clicks her tongue and shakes her head, they comply. Their mouths naturally grow agape and relish in the sweet taste of the fruit. After days of prolonged hunger in the scorching streets clamoring with armed officials determined to see them to death, one mother’s persistence to see them chew produced a sly, satisfied grin on their faces. You may refuse khala’s insistence on stuffing you full, but you always eventually give in. I watch fathers embrace their daughters as they bid goodbye to join routine demonstrations, eyes glimmering with admiration and pride for the valiant women they’ve nurtured. Their retreating figures and swaying pigtails act as a reminder of the resilient character that lies at the heart of Bangladeshi identity. And I watch as male students encircle their female counterparts to protect them from the rash police officers eager to apply their unchecked authority and brutality
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Gratitude for a beach 8,421 miles away
My grandfather’s memory is failing.
Every time he tells a story more and more sand slips out of hidden holes, and my grandmother is too far away to fill in the gaps.
Some days he tells us of a childhood pen pal
He knows lives just past the train that passes on the other side of the lake by which we live.
We do not tell him we know this is not possible for we have searched for this woman, know she passed away many years ago, lived in a town far from ours.
Some days I look more like my mother than my own mother does others I am the spitting image of a neighbor from a childhood village long ago.
Slowly but surely the hourglass turns,
The stories blend, a face fades away, a vague name is erased, Soon any listener can mold the ending.
Sand is a coarse grain
We throw rice at weddings because sand is too precious
It creeps into our mouths, slips under our tongues when we least expect it.
My grandfather knew this, was always a frugal man, In his youth he made sure to guard his grains of sand with a firm hand.
As time went on he would slowly sneak them to his children,
Even more to his grandchildren, closed their small hands around a couple grains, over the years it would spill from our fingers, line the creases of our palms.
We placed them in unmended pockets, let them trail behind us as we wandered down our paths.
The beaches are not endless, but we treated them as such, the sun on your back makes you forget.
No one is ever prepared for when the hourglass stops turning.
I have begun to count my grains, afraid to lose even a single one,
Wishing I could hand him fistful after fistful, the grains of sand are precious, Only now do I know,
The ocean is salt –washed from the faces of those trying desperately to return the sand to the shore.
But when he has dinner with my grandmother tonight, he will pull out her chair for her and wear his best shirt
They will dine on a terrace under the stars and the table will be set for two.
Before the meal begins she will smile and ask him about his day and he will reach into his pocket and pull out an empty hourglass, place it on the table, and tell her their story.
When it is over they will rise, walk to the terrace balcony, lean over the edge, look down
And see the grains of sand he has proudly spent his life scattering
Spread out amongst the many corners and landscapes of the earth.
She will open her purse and reveal one last grain of sand she has been saving
And they will release it together, watch the wind carry it, and gently lay it to rest
On a beach many miles away
On a small island where a boy once saw a girl
And eagerly raised his hand, if only for her to notice him
And she rolled her eyes but started to smile And a single grain of sand trickled through an hourglass for the first time.
Anjalee Ravao/MiC
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Studying abroad is more important than ever
History might not always repeat itself, but it often rhymes. President Donald Trump’s administration has put isolationism — which dominated United States foreign policy in the 1930s — back on the table. Even before the disastrous Feb. 28 meeting in which President Trump and Vice President JD Vance demeaned and demanded gratitude from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president has articulated how little he values Ukraine’s defense against Russia. While some may argue that Trump doesn’t fit the bill of a true isolationist, his “America First” attitude no doubt puts ties to long-time allies on the line. One of those allies is Germany. Friedrich Merz,
leader of the victorious conservative Christian Democratic Union and selfdescribed transatlanticist, has made his dislike of Trump clear. Moving forward, developing European independence — and aiding Ukraine — is of greater interest to him than working with Trump’s America. This decision is no skin off of Germany or Europe’s back. After all, how would you intend to work with someone who has no interest in working with you? As a student studying abroad, however, I can’t help but wonder about the implications for us young Americans. In times like these, studying abroad and building connections to foreign places becomes all the more important.
One of the greatest benefits of studying abroad is that it allows the student to develop greater empathy. Through studying abroad, you gain
new experiences and immerse yourself in a culture unlike your own. You’re required to approach unfamiliarities with curiosity and understanding, confront your biases and build bridges to new places and people.
The personal connections you build while studying or traveling abroad are not meant to completely replace the political ties between countries, but they certainly are a start. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans who travel abroad follow international news more closely and have greater interest in and knowledge about foreign affairs than non-travelers. Furthermore, researchers at the University of Chicago’s Center for Practical Wisdom found that students who study abroad are more civically engaged due partly to improved “perspective-taking abilities.” CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Going into college, students expect to find and express themselves
authentically. However, external influences on campuses can impact the extent of that expression. Recently, many right-leaning and non-liberal students have taken to social media to share that they feel pressure to express
Igraduated from the University of Michigan this past December. When I returned to campus in late January, I anticipated a relaxed semester with plenty of time to apply for jobs, study for the LSAT and explore side hobbies. And, while it’s true that my schedule is relatively open, I somehow feel busier than ever. This dilemma is not uncommon. Each time the human brain engages with a task, it exhibits a subconscious behavior known as unit bias. Unit bias refers to the tendency of individuals to view a single portion or unit of something, regardless of its actual size, as the ideal amount to consume or use.
It explains precisely why we feel compelled to finish the food on our dinner plates or read a book
A prescription for
ALEAH HUANG Opinion Columnist
s I stepped into the unit, a fellow nurse aide hurried toward me, concern written all over her face. My newly admitted patient was acting strangely, and some were hesitant to enter her room, whispering that she might be “one of those crazies.”
I found her lying rigid in bed, fingers clenched around the blanket, eyes darting wildly around the unfamiliar room. Nurses moved in and out, speaking too fast, their words slipping past her like water through fingers. “Delirious,” they said. “Disoriented.”
But when I sat down beside her and spoke to her in Mandarin, her face changed. Her grip on the blanket loosened. She exhaled. She wasn’t confused; she was just overwhelmed. Lost in a place where no one spoke her language, every interaction only reminded her of how alone she was. She didn’t need another round of cognitive tests or more restraints; she needed someone who could offer a sense of familiarity.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in health care were meant to accomplish this: Bringing providers into medical spaces who look, speak and think like their patients. Yet, with DEI initiatives under attack, that sense of familiarity, the difference between distress and dignity, is at risk of being stripped away.
Removing DEI curricula from health care programs would be a huge step backward. It’s not just about a single lesson or a few hours of training. It’s about ensuring that future health care professionals are equipped to understand and meet the needs of the diverse patients they’ll serve.
Don’t fake it till you make it
left-leaning views on assignments to score well at their universities. The pressure to conform is said to stem from a liberal majority at public universities.
Despite this majority, students should never feel compelled to fake or align their political beliefs with the prevailing campus ideology. Instead of fostering a culture of conformity, it is essential to promote authenticity in the classroom by encouraging open discourse on diverse political perspectives.
There is an ongoing discussion about whether liberal bias at public institutions actually exists. A survey of four-year U.S. colleges and universities conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found that about 50% of professors identify as liberal, 17% as moderate and 26%
as conservative. Similarly, the most recent sample released by the General Social Survey found that about 50% of college students surveyed identify as liberal, 23% as moderate and 26% as conservative.
Many have expressed concerns about the dominance of liberal perspectives on campuses, arguing that conservatives and other non-liberal views are a minority at public universities. Non-liberal perspectives are in the minority on our own campus as well. In a survey conducted by The Michigan Daily during the 2020 election cycle, they found that the majority of students identified as “very liberal.” Moderates and conservatives combined made up less than a quarter of respondents. The Daily’s data is the most recent available, making it absurd
Without this, we risk deepening the gaps in access to care, perpetuating the underrepresentation of marginalized communities in the workforce and ignoring the work of countless academics and activists who have fought for equity in medicine. DEI education is critical for preparing the next generation of health care workers to deliver inclusive, compassionate and effective care.
Across our nation, the statistics are clear and uncompromising. Asian populations are statistically more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, while Black communities face higher rates of hypertension and heart disease. These numbers represent real challenges encountered by people from different communities every day. Decades of research show these results, which link genetic predispositions with socioeconomic determinants and connect these challenges to specific interventions.
Without knowledge of cultural competence and the relationship between demographics and health issues, health care professionals will walk into patient rooms unprepared, misinterpret symptoms, overlook concerns and ultimately be less prepared to provide the quality care every human deserves. The ones who will suffer most are the patients who have already been failed by the system too many times.
When health care providers reflect the backgrounds of their patients, care improves, resulting in fewer misdiagnoses, fewer misunderstandings and better outcomes. But, that kind of workforce doesn’t happen by accident. It requires deliberate effort, ensuring that students from all backgrounds have the support to succeed, the opportunity to
that the University does not provide their own data on professor and student political leanings. The University should include political affiliations in their student demographics page where they list other aspects of identities like gender and race to be more open about the social environment on campus.
With the liberal majority on campus, it is easy for all other political affiliations to get overshadowed. In the classroom, students are often hesitant to challenge a dominant perspective or express a dissenting view out of fear of an unfair evaluation or grade.
In an interview with The Daily, Alexander Richmond, president of College Republicans at the University of Michigan, shared his experiences as a conservative Republican student at a predomi-
The real reason why you can’t get anything done
from cover to cover, even if we lose interest midway through.
This also applies to productivity, especially for deadlines and time limitations. For example, when attending a meeting scheduled to take an hour, employees tend to use up the entire hour even if it could finish sooner. The vague and distant deadlines involved in the job search process for college seniors produce a similar effect: The urge to use the entire time frame leading up to graduation often leads to procrastination, preventing many seniors from beginning the process well in advance. This phenomenon — that one procrastinates in order to fill their time — is more commonly known as Parkinson’s law. Coined by British historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay for The Economist in 1955, the law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. In other words, the more time we have, the
more we prolong tasks even when we have the possibility to complete them sooner.
The obstacles revealed by Parkinson’s law are especially crippling during the job application process, as well as preparation for graduate school exams like the LSAT. The open-ended deadlines that often characterize these processes frequently lead to unnecessary delays. Without immediate pressure, applicants and test takers may put off essential tasks which can result in rushed, low-quality work as deadlines approach.
One study, conducted by professor Stephen Knowles at the Otago Business School, demonstrates this phenomenon. The study, which tasked participants with completing an online survey, presented its subjects with alternative deadlines of one week, one month or no deadline to respond. While a shorter deadline of one week elicited a high
pursue medical training and the mentors to guide them. When students from underrepresented backgrounds see that their identities are valued and that their unique perspectives are essential to medicine, they are more likely to pursue careers in health care. Additionally, collaboration among professionals from varied backgrounds encourages creativity and drives improvements in health care, from developing new treatment protocols to implementing more effective public health strategies. This increased representation enriches the educational environment and ensures that the health care workforce more accurately reflects the diverse populations it serves.
Without that foundation, we’re not just closing doors for future clinicians. We’re closing them on the patients who need them the most. Whether someone is an aide just starting in patient care or an advanced practice provider making high-stakes clinical decisions, representation at every level makes health care safer and more effective for everyone. Some argue that by prioritizing diversity in health care programs, institutions create a system of reverse discrimination, where applicants are chosen based on their identity rather than their qualifications. They claim that admissions and selection processes should be based purely on individual merit, ignoring race, ethnicity or cultural background. They also claim that removing DEI initiatives would restore fairness, although this suggestion is somewhat disingenuous, considering that legacy admissions and economic privilege already favor certain groups.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
nantly liberal university. He highlighted the subtle discouragement he has encountered, particularly in classrooms that encourage political debate.
“When it comes to my classroom experiences, I have often felt deterred from fully expressing my opinions on political subjects or debates, especially when debate is supposedly encouraged,” Richmond said. “From my experience, all political debate is usually confined to the minor nuances between leftist and liberal ideologues.”
Despite the University’s policy on open debate — which aims to accept all perspectives — the voice of minority partisans is often silenced. Like any other majority group, the liberal voices on campus seem louder.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Maisie Derlega/DAILY
AUDRA WOEHLE
GISELLE SESI Opinion Analyst
Abigail Schad/DAILY
Normalize homesickness
actively integrate into campus life, amplifying the feeling of homesickness.
Throughout high school, college was the exciting adventure I was always waiting for, and when the time finally came to leave home, I couldn’t have been any happier.
The first few weeks of school were so exhilarating that I barely had time to process the fact that Ann Arbor was my new home.
But as the initial excitement faded and campus life became familiar, a different reality set in.
Homesickness is the feeling of emotional distress experienced when adjusting to a new and unfamiliar environment. It is a mix of discomfort, insecurity and uncertainty with where you are now and a longing for something predictable, consistent and stable, like high school friends, family and home.
This goes beyond just missing a physical location — it is also anxiety from changing routines and lifestyles. An increase in cultural distance can exacerbate this feeling since the greater the contrast between a student’s home culture and their university environment, the more difficult the adjustment. Additionally, culture shock might cause a student to withdraw rather than
In the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second presidency, he’s targeted institutions that stand in the way of right-wing conservatism. This was expected. One of the institutions targeted is higher education, which Trump claims perpetuates “wokeness.” His attack includes calls to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campus and crack down on pro-Palestine protests, threatening to withhold federal funding from these universities. Trump has already pulled $400 million of federal funding from Columbia University, citing pro-Palestine student protests. And these threats are working. Many universities have quietly complied by cutting DEI programs and suppressing campus protests. While some university administrations lobby against Trump privately, most are silent.
While there have been calls for universities to resist silently and use the vagueness of Trump’s policies to sidestep action, the University of Michigan must go further. Along with other universities, they must publicly stand up to President Trump and refuse to comply with federal orders. A hard stance against Trump’s federal funding freeze
Although homesickness is an overall negative experience, it can serve as its own type of catalyst. The discomfort of missing home may motivate students to actively seek ways to make campus feel familiar. By seeking out new friendships and engaging in campus activities, one can foster a sense of belonging, integrate themself into their new surroundings and build a supportive community.
Several studies have shown that social connection is a powerful antidote to homesickness, demonstrating that it is not merely something to overcome but a driving force for personal growth and the creation of a new sense of home.
Nevertheless, these feelings are difficult for any college student no matter how far their home is: 69% of first-year college students report feeling homesick. There is a common misconception that the moment you arrive at college, you should be fully independent and ready to live away from home.
Experiencing homesickness is often unfairly seen as a sign of immaturity and shame.
Many people mistakenly believe that homesickness
is only a first-semester issue and disappears once a student acclimates. In reality, students often face homesickness throughout their time in college. While there is pressure from society to overcome these feelings as quickly as possible, this creates a sense of guilt, making students feel like they’re failing at the “college experience” everyone else is enjoying.
Homesickness is not just a passing sadness to “get over”; it is a mental health problem that can develop into severe issues such as anxiety and depression. It can also lead to performance issues in school and withdrawal from society. The societal expectation to “move on” deepens feelings of isolation when acclimation to new surroundings doesn’t happen as quickly as expected.
Clinical psychologists attest that the best way to alleviate homesickness is to normalize it. The more conversations about homesickness we have — with our peers or campuswide programs — the more the stigma against it decreases. By collectively acknowledging how homesickness promotes personal growth, students can feel more comfortable opening up about their situations.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
The future of payments is digital, and that’s not a bad thing
TÉA SANTORO Opinion Analyst
Up until this school year, I would never leave my house without grabbing a credit card; I’d slip it into my bag or my phone case just in case I needed it. But at some point, I realized that carrying around a physical card wasn’t necessary.
Just the other day I noticed a sign at a coffee shop in Ann Arbor that read “cash payments not accepted,” a clear sign of just how widespread and relevant this shift is. From coffee shops to grocery stores, every place on campus I frequent takes Apple Pay and many don’t even accept cash. I realized using my phone to pay means I don’t panic about losing my wallet or digging around in my bag awkwardly before I check out.
While digital payments have been around for years, with most people citing the 2011 launch of Google Wallet as the origin, it was the COVID-19 that really accelerated the shift away from cash. During lockdown, people relied on contactless payments to reduce physical contact and the spread of the virus. As the pandemic restrictions were lifted, those habits have
stuck. Consumers realized the convenience of digital wallets, and businesses saw the efficiency. The pandemic was the catalyst for a future where carrying cash isn’t necessary: According to Capital One, in 2023 there were more than 3.4 billion digital wallet users worldwide with the value of transactions coming in at around $9 trillion. Surveys conducted in the U.S. show that 53% of Americans use digital wallets more frequently than any other traditional payment method, with this number continuing to grow in recent years.
The transition to a cashless economy isn’t some hypothetical or distant concept. It’s very real and it’s happening now with countries like Sweden leading the charge. In 2022, only 8% of Swedes reported using cash for their most recent purchase, down from 39% in 2010. The Riksbank is taking steps to make sure that digital payments are safe, efficient and accessible. In the U.S., many event venues and some airlines are functioning cashless, with JetBlue now even accepting Venmo payments.
Instead of being afraid of a cashless, digitized economy, we should embrace it. Digital payments make transactions safer
UMich must stand up to Trump
is necessary to preserve the integrity of the University and uphold the strong academic values and rigor it preaches.
The mission of the University of Michigan is “to serve the people of Michigan and the world through preeminence in creating, communicating, preserving and applying knowledge, art, and academic values, and in developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future.” These principles are meaningless if the University chooses to buckle under federal pressure. If the University prioritizes federal funding over its foundational values, it ceases to be an institution of higher learning and becomes merely an extension of the politics of the current president.
Trump is already going after the University of Michigan. It’s been added to a watch list of 60 universities who have allegedly failed to protect Jewish students on their campuses. Protecting groups on campus is a noble pursuit, but the Trump administration is merely using it as an excuse to attack pro-Palestine protesters they disagree with. U-M administrators had no role in facilitating these protests; in fact, they were dismantled.
Without a doubt, a hard stance against Trump will be difficult. The University would be putting practically all $1.17 billion of its federal funding at risk. Professors could
lose jobs, research projects would be cut and student support systems ranging from free tech help to mental health crisis management would be at risk. This immediate financial strain may be too much for the University to bear, which is why they need to strategically stand up to Trump. To start, they must build a campaign by leveraging existing relationships and preparing legal channels for immediate support.
The University of Michigan won’t be the only one publicly standing up to Trump. The president of Wesleyan University, Michael Roth, has publicly denounced Trump and claimed him as a threat to higher education. Wesleyan has lower stakes than the University of Michigan — it is a private university that receives little federal funding and has a relatively small student population. Still, the University has the opportunity to set a precedent for large universities to stand up to Trump.
Furthermore, given that most publicly funded universities are experiencing funding cuts, this could be an opportunity for the University to work together with other universities to stand up to Trump. The Big Ten could release a joint statement condemning Trump’s presidential overreach and making a case as to why federal funding is vital for their institutions and the country as a whole. This coalition could also be extended to the American Associa-
tion of Land Grant Universities, a research, policy and advocacy organization that 247 public universities, including the University of Michigan, belong to. An organization that large would be making a powerful political statement that would garner global attention and more significant public outcry towards the Trump administration’s attack on universities as a whole.
Another consideration is the University of Michigan’s institutional neutrality policy, meaning that the University refrains from making
political statements on non-University matters. Still, Trump’s policies have been harming the internal function of the University. Both federal funding cuts and bans on DEI programming affect how the University functions. This should allow University President Santa Ono and the U-M administration to make a statement denouncing Trump not on political grounds but on the topic of harm to the University and its students.
The University has a large alumni donor base; it expects to raise
and faster. While accessibility and privacy concerns are valid, we should focus on ensuring that these systems work for everyone instead of resisting a change that seems inevitable.
The most obvious advantage of a digital economy is convenience: We no longer have to carry bulky wallets around or worry about finding an ATM. Mobile wallets and contactless payments make transactions almost instant. It’s no mystery that younger consumers are more open to the shift: Generation Z was found to be almost twice as likely to adopt a mobile payment app when compared to older generations. Apple Pay, Google Pay and mobile banking apps make it easy to complete purchases on campus without needing to carry physical cash or cards. Apps like Venmo and Zelle make splitting bills at restaurants or managing rent with roommates effortless. When my friends and I go out to dinner, none of us even consider pulling out cash, we just instinctively open Venmo. Each of us sends our share of the bill in seconds. The platform makes it so that no one has to worry about having exact change or waiting for a check to clear. CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
$7 billion with its Look to Michigan campaign and, in the coming months, The University will have to make some tough decisions. Hard choices must be made, but upholding academic freedom and democratic values should be at the forefront of the University’s decisions. While alumni preferences need to be taken into account, it should be on the University to convey why this funding is so vital to the health of the institution.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
ADRIANA SEAGE Opinion Columnist
Emily Quinteros/DAILY
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ELIZA PHARES Opinion Columnist
Jonathan Grossman
Karina Howey
Megan Ocelnik
Saman
Emma
Shichi
Samuel
Bennett
Erin
Nikki
Lydia
Emily
Nathan
Joel
Sarah Acocelli
Shams Ahson
Jacob Albert
Violet Amezaga
Armaan Amiri
Flynn Baird
Louis Baranger
Chiara Baste
Katherine Bednarz
Alicia Bedoya-Hoeck
Tess Beiter
Alexander Bentley
Olivia Berding
Ava Berkwits
Tanay Bhangale
Kayla Bhavsar
Ginger Blodgett
Emma Bluman
Paige Bost
Kiera Burns
Ethan Chau
Jie Chen
Sijia Chen
Ju Cho
Irene Chung
Rhegan Clemons
Kara Cohen
Danielle de Coster
Gabriel Delgado
Michael Delphia
Eric Derr
AJ deVaux
Timothy Devine
Hannah Ding
Katie Dreher
Regina Duerst
Nazik Ebrahem
Mohamad Elzaatari
Quinn Engel
Chloe Erickson
Gabrielle Faro
Angela Fast
Jonah Feldman
Hannah Feng
Anjali Francis
Allison Gaines
Grace Gao
Alexa George
Nathaniel Giessner
Archita Girmannagari
Sam Gomez
Abigail Goodman
Hannah Gorman
Jacqueline Groves
Alexis Hancz
Suparna Hande
Sonya Hansen
Annie He
Emma Hedges
Margot Helft
Micah Helzerman
Cameron Hempton
Regan Henderson
Grant Hincher
Eva Holton
Fengyuan Hu
Dre Hubers
Ella Hursh
Neal Jayaraman
Catherine Jiang
Karen Jin
Faith Johnson
Ella Kalapatapu
Mari Kamidoi
Janice Kang
Laura Kapolka
Vivian Kaufman
Chloe Kazaglis
Natalie Keating
Megan Keller
Alexa Kelman
Kaden Klein
Kendyll Klingensmith
William Knudsen
Emily Koch
Alaina Kohley
Elizabeth Kolias
Ava Kuiper
Sachchit Kunichetty
Nathan Landers
Sophia Lane
Selina Langfeldt
Ariya Laothitipong
The following students were among those recognized during the Honors Convocation program on Sunday, March 16, 2025. These individuals have demonstrated the highest level of undergraduate academic success by achieving seven or more consecutive terms of all A’s (A+, A, or A-) while taking a minimum of 14 credit hours, including at least 12 graded (A-E) credits, and earning the designation of Angell Scholar. The University of Michigan congratulates these students on their superior scholastic achievement and wishes them continued success.
NINE TERM ANGELL SCHOLARS
College of Health Sciences, Flint School of Music, Theatre & Dance College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
School of Music, Theatre & Dance
School of Nursing
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design
School of Kinesiology
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WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Notre Dame offense explodes in 76-55 win, ending Michigan’s season
JORDAN KLEIN
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — In the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the Michigan women’s basketball team lived its worst nightmare.
In front of a packed crowd at Joyce Center, No. 3 seed Notre Dame’s offense immediately exploded and was red hot for all 40 minutes of action. The Fighting Irish (28-5) shot a hyper-efficient 28-for-55 from the field in a 76-55 win over the sixth-seeded Wolverines (2311), eliminating them from the NCAA Tournament and ending their season.
With a raucous home crowd in Michigan’s ear, the first few minutes of the game were a disaster for the Wolverines.
After a few possessions of sloppy, scoreless basketball from both sides, the Irish settled in, making a living in the half-court despite usually thriving in transition. As
Michigan struggled to get quality shots and couldn’t convert when it did, Notre Dame went on a 6-0 run, forcing the Wolverines to take a timeout.
Things didn’t get all that much better for Michigan afterward, either. Freshman guard Olivia Olson eventually got the Wolverines on the board, but Michigan still struggled to contain the Fighting Irish in the half-court. The Wolverines were slow on a rotation when Notre Dame swung the ball to the other side, allowing guard Olivia Miles to catch the ball on the wing and drive for an easy layup, putting the Irish up 11-2.
“We were a mess defensively,”
Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “I’m not sure why. I think because they could score like guards at every position, and then they sped us up.”
As if the nightmare couldn’t get any worse for the Wolverines, it somehow did — and fast. Notre Dame continued to carve up Michigan in the half-court and
was on fire from beyond the arc. On the other end, the Wolverines struggled to muster quality shots.
And Irish guard Hannah Hidalgo became a problem. In the last two minutes of the first quarter, she nailed a sweet stepback 3-pointer, and then drained another one off of a drive and kick from Miles. As time expired in the period, Hidalgo found forward Liza Karlen wide open in the corner, who drove to the rim for an easy layup.
By the end of the first quarter, Michigan was already down 32-12. With the Wolverines’ season on the line, their worst nightmare was unfolding right in front of their eyes.
“We just needed to regroup (after the first quarter),” Barnes Arico said. “We said, ‘Whatever the scoreboard says, we are going to go out here fighting, so pick your head back up and get your butt out there and play Michigan basketball, and let’s continue to fight.’ ”
The Wolverines showed some signs of life at the beginning of the second quarter, but it wasn’t nearly enough to compensate for its disastrous start. Michigan went on a 10-2 run to cut Notre Dame’s lead to 34-20, but the Irish eventually re-found their footing. A balanced scoring attack rekindled their offensive flame, giving them a 46-28 lead at halftime.
With the exception of a short stretch at the start of the second quarter, Notre Dame’s offense was firing on all cylinders for the entirety of the first 20 minutes of action.
“We’ve been working on making reads versus the defense that we were going to see versus Michigan,” Irish coach Niele Ivey said. “I thought we did an excellent job of sticking to the game plan.”
Notre Dame accelerated full speed ahead into the third quarter, not taking its foot off the gas. The Irish outscored the Wolverines 15-8 in the
period, scoring by getting out in transition and by methodically carving up Michigan’s defense in the half-court. At the same time, the Wolverines failed to capitalize on good looks offensively, unable to find much of a spark on that end. Notre Dame led 61-36 heading into the fourth, with the game practically out of Michigan’s reach for good.
After being animated, red faced and barking orders to her
players and complaints towards officials for the
stints in her seat became longer and longer as the deficit grew in the second. The competitive fire waned, as her shouts became blank stares and subdued head shakes. With the Wolverines’ season on the line, the Irish’s offense came alive and sent Michigan packing, destroying its hopes for a Sweet Sixteen.
My second-ever flash gamer for The Michigan Daily’s women’s basketball beat definitely wasn’t a walk in the park. Getting a story publishable by the final buzzer is always challenging in a tight game. It became exponentially harder when Michigan was at the free throw line in a one-point game with 18.2 seconds left and all I had was a radio stream and Twitter video clips to work with.
As a three-year veteran of the beat, trust me when I say it’s a much better experience for everyone when we’re at a game in-person compared to when we’re trusting a shotty connection to a pay-per-view stream, then interviewing players and coaches over the phone on a rowdy bus ride. But at nearly every away game I’ve had the privilege of traveling to, The Daily has been the only Michigan-based outlet represented in the press conference. In fact,
SOFTBALL
because we’re the only ones there, there’s often no point in arranging a formal presser and interviews are conducted in a tunnel outside the locker room. But no matter if it’s in a low-ceiling hallway or a March Madness press conference, Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico always shows her appreciation. Driving all over the country can be exhausting, but seeing the excited — and often surprised — looks on Barnes Arico’s and the players’ faces when we arrive at postgame interviews is revitalizing. They recognize the time and effort we put in. The lack of other outlets can make sense at away games, especially outside of conference play. It is shocking that four writers and a photographer would travel all the way to Fairfield, Conn. in November for a nonconference matchup. Big Ten road trips to ranked Minnesota or Maryland are long drives, but covering these games matters. By traveling to as many games as it possibly can, The Daily sets the mark for Michigan
women’s basketball coverage.
Our work has a real impact, and we shouldn’t be the only ones doing it.
“It affects everything,” Barnes Arico said Feb. 2 about having a dedicated beat consistently covering her team after a win against Oregon. “I think when you have people inside the University, people inside our culture, people inside the team, if everybody sees that, people care. It draws more attention. Your fanbase gets better, your recruits get better, it has an effect on every single thing. So, I think in my time here, things have certainly grown and certainly evolved.”
Barnes Arico has certainly seen a lot more growth beyond my time as a student journalist, but the overall change in women’s basketball over the past four years is impossible to miss. Generational stars are rising at the same time NIL is altering all of college athletics, and women’s basketball players are generating interest and reshaping the landscape of both women’s and collegiate sports. The talent
‘Against All Odds’: How Lilly Vallimont molds opportunity from misfortune
important to Vallimont that she even has it tattooed on her left arm. But Vallimont doesn’t simply defy the odds. She makes her own.
next generation of girls that come through their facility.
***
Lilly Vallimont has her own student section.
Among the ringing of metal against cork and rubber, the umpire’s shouts behind the plate and the hollers from the rest of the fans on a bustling gameday at Carol Hutchins Stadium are the high-pitched chants of a cluster of young girls adamantly supporting their favorite player — who just so happens to also be their coach, mentor and friend.
Not only are they chanting, but chances are they are wearing matching apparel, just like any other student section across the nation. It’s not exactly Michigan merch, per se, but it does feature an image of an athlete donned in maize and blue, poised in the middle of a perfect swing bound for contact.
Positioned between a broken fence in a stance powerful enough to assume she could have torn it down herself, she is surrounded by a simple motto:
“Lillian Vallimont: Against All Odds.” The shirts are a reference to the back-to-back major injuries
Vallimont suffered that kept her sidelined the last two seasons and how, against the odds, she fought her way back into the starting lineup. The phrase comes from the Bible verse Romans 4:18, and is so
Vallimont’s personal cheering section consists of students at BK’s Softball Lounge, a training facility located in Brownsville, Michigan, that Vallimont and her older sister Michaleigh took ownership of this past June. Although Lilly and Michaleigh have owned the facility for just nine months, they’re quickly making an impact that will last years for the next generation of softball players.
“Ever since we’ve taken the facility over, Michigan has gained probably 200 fans,” Michaleigh told The Michigan Daily. “All these girls, that’s their dream school now, because when you’re hitting and there’s a Michigan player next to you talking about your at-bat on a random Friday in the fall, you start to love Michigan.” Michaleigh herself was a Division I softball player at Central Michigan, where she graduated from last spring. When Lilly is busy in season, her sister spends almost every day at the facility with the kids, all while rocking her sister’s school’s merch. The pair have always been supportive of each other, pushing one another to new heights through constant competition and persistence that was instilled in them from a young age. Now, that is being passed on to the
Growing up on a farm in Brownsville, the Vallimont girls learned fast and early about hard work. Their mother Leighann would wake them up around five in the morning to go and muck the horses’ stalls before school. Never failing to seize an opportunity to try and best one another, the sisters would go all out to see who could clean their stall better, before waiting for their mom to pick a winner once they were done.
That passion to compete was only fueled by the work ethic embedded in her at such a young age on the farm, and soon enough, Lilly had swapped out the brooms and muck buckets for a leather glove and metal bat as her tools of competition. And just like the mornings in the barn, Lilly and Michaleigh would be at work with each other every evening, this time seeing who could hit the most pitches off each other in a row without striking out.
“(The Vallimonts) lived directly across the street from the elementary school,” Rick Tanguay, Lilly’s high school coach, told The Daily. “You could drive by that school seven days a week and you would see those girls outside with a bow net practicing and hitting.”
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
is undeniable, and the revenue growth is explosive.
Yet as the sport grows exponentially, the coverage isn’t keeping pace.
Coverage of teams directly impacts how invested viewers or readers are in players and programs, which can influence high-profile commitments. In-person interactions help journalists build relationships and trust with coaches and players, which directly translates to the quality of coverage. Direct analysis from seeing everything on the court — from off-ball cuts to a coach’s reaction not captured by the TV camera — improves coverage tremendously.
Being in press conferences, reading a coach’s body language and asking questions ourselves is instrumental to crafting the best story. That’s why driving 18 hours to Baton Rouge, La. during the heat of the semester or waking up at 5:30 a.m. to drive to Minneapolis on a snowy Wednesday morning in January is worth it. It’s incredible
SOFTBALL
that we have the platform and ability to travel to all the ranked regular season road games — something that’s new for The Daily in the last three years.
I understand not every journalist has the budget or ability to travel, though, especially in an expanded Big Ten conference now featuring west coast teams. But we’re also usually the only outlet in Crisler, and that isn’t right. There’s a general trend I’ve noticed in coverage of Michigan women’s basketball, a team that’s now made seven consecutive NCAA Tournaments. There’s the preseason hype fueled by Michigan Media Day, the best access to players outside of March Madness. Coverage dwindles during nonconference play and regular season coverage peaks for the Michigan State game, a historic rivalry with newly-raised stakes. When the Wolverines begin postseason play, other outlets get in the game, writing about the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament.
It’s a pattern that makes sense. Readers care about what the team might do in the upcoming season, they care the most about the biggest game of the year, and they care about the postseason: How far will the Wolverines go? Sure, it makes sense on the surface that there’s a lot more coverage of Michigan men’s basketball than there is of women’s. The men’s team is a storied program, and the women’s team is in its first chapter of success. Men’s basketball has developed a strong fanbase and following, which is fueled by competitive coverage from many outlets. These outlets cover the ins and outs of the men’s basketball program from start to finish and write unique, in-depth stories that peel back the curtain and intrigue readers, generating interest and revenue that’s then rewarded with more coverage. But they should be giving women’s basketball similar treatment.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Matthew Auchincloss: Michigan’s success is contingent on its offense finding consistency
Spend any time watching the Michigan softball team, and you’ll immediately notice a new star for the Wolverines.
Freshman
utility player Lauren Putz is probably getting ready for her at-bat, preparing to crush the ball over the fence. After all, she’s already smacked 10 home runs this season.
It’s rare that a freshman has such massive offensive impacts, but Putz has certainly provided that for Michigan. She leads the Wolverines in almost every offensive category — runs, hits, second bases, RBIs, batting average — you name it. Even with its star freshman, Michigan’s offense is still struggling. The rest of the roster’s pace has not matched Putz’s. The problem for the Wolverines isn’t a lack of star power or talent, it’s an inability to use that power and talent consistently to win games. They’ve had flashes of what they can be, most notably against Princeton and last weekend against Maryland and Wisconsin. Not to mention, they return all but one starting position player from an offense that scored the fourth-most runs in the conference last year. But low-
scoring affairs — like a 2-1 loss to Eastern Carolina — show just how far Michigan has to go. Without higher offensive production, the team can only flounder against weaker opponents.
Because, quite simply, the Wolverines’ offense as a whole hasn’t met expectations. With scores of runners stranded every game, difficulty producing against weaker teams and overall inconsistent production, Michigan is winless in three games against top-25 opponents, despite holding Georgia and Duke to a combined five runs. If you remove Putz’s stats from the team’s OPS, the Wolverines have a 0.716, which would put it second-to-last in the Big Ten. Michigan has very limited power outside of Putz. It’s a fact that threatens to sink the Wolverines’ season. Combined, Putz, junior infielder Indiana Langford and sophomore outfielder Jenissa Conway have batted in 60% of Michigan’s runs. Offensive production from a select few isn’t a recipe for success.
“I think we’re a really good team right now,” Wolverines coach Bonnie Tholl said March 8. “We’re not yet a great team, and good teams find ways to win on their talent, but great teams understand the nuances in the strategy of the game of softball.” Michigan’s other batters don’t
need to be nearly as good as Putz is — she’s producing at a rate few batters can match. But the fact remains that the Wolverines’ OPS of .857 is 75th in the country. That isn’t going to cut it in the newly expanded Big Ten, heralding national championship contenders like UCLA and Oregon. And it’s definitely not enough to do anything in the Women’s College World Series. This isn’t to say that the Wolverines’ offense is without hope — they’ve outscored their opponents by 110 runs. Not only have individual players shown signs of success, but Michigan has been able to string together wins when every player is confident at the plate. Last weekend against Wisconsin and Maryland was the Wolverines’ best showing of the season, confidently beating two conference opponents to open Big Ten play. The middle of the lineup was more productive, and the team left far fewer runners stranded than they have all season. They averaged 6.75 runs over four games, far higher than their season average of 5.65 runs per game. It was a moment that showed what this offense has the potential to be, rather than what it has been. That offensive production is what Michigan has been looking for this season. It’s what it needs.
first half, Barnes Arico’s
Arushi Sanghi/DAILY
DREW LENARD Daily Sports Writer
MATTHEW AUCHINCLOSS
TAYLOR DANIELS Daily Sports Editor
EDWARDS Managing Sports Editor
DENVER — The entire second-round matchup between the No. 5 seed Michigan men’s basketball team and No. 4 seed Texas A&M was neck and neck. The largest lead of the game for either team was 12, the final difference, as both teams executed their game plan for nearly 40 minutes.
When it mattered most, though, the Wolverines kept their March Madness hopes alive on a crucial second-half, 10-minute run behind strong individual and collective performances.
In a game where neither team could create much separation, it was Michigan (30-9) that sealed the win, 91-79, over the Aggies (23-11) in the second
round of the NCAA Tournament. The Wolverines outscored Texas A&M 34-16 in the final 10 minutes, including a 12-3 personal run from junior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. and another personal run from graduate center Vlad Goldin of 9-3.
“That’s the beauty of this team,” graduate guard Nimari Brunett said. “Multiple guys can come in and contribute. We have a lot of faith in … everybody on his team, and that’s what makes us so good. We have multiple guys that contribute to winning, and that’s the priority, and that’s why we won.”
The first half was a back-and forth-battle, as either team’s largest lead at any point in the first half was six — Michigan’s was a little over eight minutes in and the Aggies’ was with about six minutes remaining.
For much of the half, and the rest of the game, it was a battle of the bigs. Goldin recorded 12 points on 4-for-8 shooting while Aggies center Pharrel Payne had 14 points on 5-for-7 shooting in the first half alone. Texas A&M, throughout the game, relied heavily on setting up an offense and feeding it into Payne while it played aggressive full-court defense.
The Wolverines were also playing to their strengths. Michigan relied on transition offense and pushing the tempo to get buckets in transition, and if that didn’t work out, it worked the four-five pick-and-roll late in shot clock to fully play out.
The Wolverines often used the ball-screen action to find open gaps in the lane to finish emphatic dunks or complete nifty layups.
The Aggies went into the break with a 39-35 lead and to start the second half, Payne picked up right where he left off. He made his first three shots, including an and-1, to push Texas A&M to its largest lead of the game at 10, just over six minutes in.
Despite the initial burst, though, Michigan stayed within striking distance and narrowed the lead to four points just two minutes later after a burst of plays from freshman guard L.J. Cason, ending the sequence by forcing a shot-clock violation.
“We subbed in L.J. Cason and he broke the defense down, got downhill, got in the paint,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “Our decision making was really sound but I thought it was just our aggressiveness against their press (helped) more than anything else.”
As little as that spurt of energy seemed, it turned into a complete surge. With 6:08 left, Michigan retook the lead on a 12-3 personal run by junior guard Roddy Gayle Jr., the Wolverines first lead since over two minutes left in the first.
After the initial run from Gayle, who finished with 26 points, Michigan continued to build on its lead. Goldin added eight points of his own with junior guard Tre Donaldson finishing a layup and the 15-3 run going into the under-4 timeout.
“We talked (at halftime) about how we got great looks, but the ball didn’t drop,” May said. “…
But it was more about bringing the fight and the energy. Then once we got a couple to go down, that ignited our defense and our
activity, and the rest is history.” The Wolverines had a ninepoint lead, 81-72, and it could’ve been over — the Aggies, however, brought the game back within a single possession with 1:30 left. But with yet another late-game heroic, making an improbable layup, Donaldson extended it back out to five with a minute left, and a series of free throws all but punched Michigan’s tickets to Atlanta. The Wolverines’ championship aspirations live on. After Texas A&M seemed to have the slight edge over Michigan for the first 30 minutes or so, the Wolverines’ performance in the final 10 cemented them in their
ZACH
HOMECOMING EDITION
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MIKAELA LEWIS Statement Columnist
As my final year at the University of Michigan was beginning, my sister invited me to a new Minecraft realm. Although the thought of girls in their 20s playing Minecraft together may sound juvenile, the realm serves as a bridge for the 600-mile gap that stands between my sister and myself.
For the first 14 years of my life, we shared a bedroom (she finally moved down the hall into our older brother’s room when he left for college). Still, every morning, we’d bicker in our shared bathroom before heading to high school together. I would claim it was a mere coincidence that I enrolled in the same ceramics and sewing classes as my big sister, but now I’ll admit I just liked to hang out with her, even in the mere seven hours she thought she was free from me.
My sister has always been my closest friend and confidant. She was the first person I came out to, on a night that is ingrained in my memory. Winding country roads were carrying us home from one of those Target runs that teenage girls do — not because they need anything but be-
One block at a time
“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole live-action Ratatouille thing.”
What the fuck? Whatever. That’s my sister for you. At this point, I could feel my heart pounding in my throat and I hardly managed to choke out that I had something to tell her. Except then I was cut off again as my sister explained in painstaking detail how she thought the musical should play out. Her behind-the-scenes explanations included everything from the genre of music to the stage directions. I think it is important to note my sister had never expressed even an ounce of interest in musicals before this moment.
“Oh, and the most important part, the musical should be called ‘Remy’ because ratatouille is a dish, not a character.”
After an anxiety-inducing 15-minute drive filled with her rambling, we were parked in the driveway back home. I couldn’t believe what had just happened — it’s admittedly hysterical, but at that point in time, I was sitting shotgun mid-crisis while she was concerned with a rat who dreams of being a chef.
As she reached to retrieve her keys from the ignition, I blurted out, “I’m gay.” For a second, I couldn’t believe what I had done. My secret was no longer just mine. Was she going to tell our parents? Was this the
My mind fell silent. Her response wasn’t dismissive, rather a testament to the fact that she wasn’t surprised, and more importantly, she was unbothered. Her three words were a wave of relief that washed over me. We both exited the car and returned inside to be greeted by our parents sitting at the kitchen table. She opened her mouth and again my heart sank wondering if she was about to out me, but instead mentioned yet another idea that would be incorporated into “Ratatouille: The Musical” if she was the director. What a doofus. After such an anticlimactic encounter in which she was more concerned with her grand theatrical proposal, I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t tell her sooner. A secret that had been eating at me was less important than a hypothetical live-action reboot of Pixar movie. Who I love isn’t important to her; all that matters is that I’m her little sister and she loves me.
My senior year of high school was the first year of my life that I didn’t see my sister every day. She went off to college and was a flight away. Sure, we had breaks in which she’d return home and spend time with me, and I even visited once, but day-to-day, I was an only child.
The following year I headed to college too. At 18 years old, I was ready to leave the nest, choosing to enroll in the furthest university I was accepted to. When I left to go
to school 600 miles away, all three of my siblings ended up relocating to New York City or the surrounding area, including my sister, who transferred to the Fashion Institute of Technology. For the next few years, I established my life in Ann Arbor, infrequently showing face in New Jersey.
While I didn’t shut my family out, I didn’t put much effort into staying in close contact either. With the rest of my siblings in close proximity to our childhood home — and my frontal lobe developing out of my contrarian phase — the distance from Michigan felt greater. So when the thrill of freedom wore off, I found myself feeling “FoMO” around not only the holidays, but also each birthday celebration or impromptu gathering that my siblings were just a quick bus ride away from attending. Despite the FoMO, I’d seldom call home. On the rare occasion my sister receives a FaceTime from me, it’s to ensure my outfit isn’t clashing given my deficiency in pairing colors. Leave it to a big sister to enjoy being brutally honest about how my brown shirt is actually orange and how, when paired with blue pants, I look like I should be taking the court with the Knicks. But hey, that’s what I called her for. In true little sister fashion, when my sister showed me her Minecraft realm at the beginning of the school year, I demanded an invite to join. For the rest of our friends on the server, the two-week phase ran its course. Yet somehow, my sister and I are going on month eight. I can’t explain exactly why I’ve logged almost 300 hours on a children’s video game, but the desire for connection isn’t the only factor to blame.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Meleck Eldahshoury/DAILY
Photos courtesy of Mikaela Lewis.
Thank you Rancho
Coming home is the first sight of a bright orange field of California poppies as I’m winding down the road towards my house from the airport. The fresh air, the wind that sweeps through my hair and the warm glow of the sun on my skin is the most glorious feeling in the world. I feel at peace. I feel at home. My home away from home is Rancho San Antonio in the California South Bay Area — a park and nature reserve that holds my heart. I know the paths scattered around the grounds like the back of my hand. One path, Wildcat Loop, is roughly five miles long with foliage that provides a layer of coolness from the sun. I love running through Wildcat because the path lines a little creek with a variety of bay, oak and redwood trees. Another popular trail is Bypass — I’m not sure if it has an official name but this is what my friends and family called it. Bypass leads to Rancho San Antonio Farm. The last most common path is the pond, named for the body of water it surrounds, which is a four mile round trip almost on the dot with a pleasant mix of trees, flower fields and desert sun. It took me all four years of high school cross country to memorize the exact nuances of all these paths, but it was long before cross country that this park really started to feel like my place. Throughout my childhood, my family loved to go on hikes, but personally, I hated it. Why would anyone want to volunteer to sweat and walk uphill for fun in the hot sun? Regardless, my parents couldn’t leave
a 7-year-old home alone, so I had to tag along. I remember always asking whether or not it was snack time yet — at that point in my life, this hiking place was not for me. Back then, you’d never catch me asking my family to take me to Rancho. Yet, as I grew older, I needed to find spaces that were safe and comforting as I navigated the challenges of being an insecure high schooler. I was struggling to fit in, pursuing my interests against the expectations placed on me and accepting myself as I am versus who I wanted to be. I was exhausted all the time trying to keep up with the current status quo and never felt wholly like myself. I’ve shed many tears at Rancho, but they also carried away my worries, leaving me with streaks of clarity on my cheeks. Then, starting my freshman year of high school, I began running at Rancho for cross country practice; because of this, I became more familiar with the park than ever before. Frequenting this park so often opened my eyes to this space and its natural beauty — I realized that this reserve could be a place for me to de-stress and escape the burdens that hindered other parts of my life. As I balanced extracurriculars, homework and chores all day long, I would occasionally take a break to go run or hike at Rancho. In those moments surrounded by nature, I felt like there was healing power there. I noticed that the bugs, trees and wind all lived together in imperfection, yet from my perspective it was beautiful. I loved the way the leaves danced in the wind, the buzzing sound of cicadas and the breeze in my hair. I loved the random etching of bark on the trees — nature was not perfect and grew for itself, no expectations. I applied my observations to my own
life, realizing that I can also lead a life that went with the flow of nature. I started to notice beauty in the subtle details, things I had never noticed when I was younger.
When I was a senior in high school, I particularly enjoyed going to Rancho at night; I loved the way the skyline glimmers in the distance. My go-to spot for hanging out with friends is coming to a hilltop to watch the skyline together as we spill our deepest darkest secrets and share what made us cry today, yesterday and everyday. These were the realest adventures and conversations I experienced in high school.
Now that I’m far from home in Michigan, I get pangs of homesickness. I’m in the midst of experiencing so much newness that everything feels like it’s moving twice as fast. It’s exciting, invigorating and positive, but it leaves me with a pit in my stomach when I feel stressed and long for home. I miss the comfort and familiarity that I had where I grew up and the fields that would bring me calm.
As I create my new home here in Ann Arbor — new friends, new hobbies, new trails and new roads — I’m learning that I enjoy going to Nichols Arboretum. The Arb is a place that’s beginning to offer me the same solace as Rancho. Obviously the leaves, flowers and bugs are not the same — California and Michigan foliage differ greatly — but the effect of it is the same. In my new home, I’ve found a new safe space. Each step I take in the Arb is like a step in Rancho. Each orange squirrel I see in Ann Arbor reminds me of those annoying, fat squirrels at home. Whenever stress overwhelms me, I take a trip to the Arb. The pressure of learning the material in my classes, while balancing extracurricular organizations
and research, eats up a lot of my time, and I end up losing time for myself. The Arb is quite different from Rancho, but I leave the two parks feeling the same. I enjoy seeing the Arb in the summer with leaves in a lush green protecting me from the sun. When the days rolled into autumn, I got to witness red, green, yellow and orange foliage — none of which I get to see at home. Then when the new year hit, the Arb looked like a winter wonderland with snow delicately lining all the tree branches in sparkling white. Now that it’s springtime, I’m seeing the snow melt, leaves returning to their branches and the sun peaking through the clouds. It’s not Rancho, but it has its own beauty.
When I think of home, I imagine those golden fields sprinkled with orange poppies among them, but I also imagine the glow of the Arb. I’ve found some spots with gorgeous views where I can feel myself split into two places at once — here in the Arb and myself at Rancho. At home I go to Rancho with my family and cross country friends. I go for runs and climb the familiar hills and trails. In Ann Arbor, I go with my new friends to get to know each other or spend time outdoors. Despite the different people and places in visiting the Arb and Rancho, I come for the same reasons. It’s a place for me to run away from the bustle of life in order to feel at home. Knowing myself, I’ve realized that I need a place where I can come to and enjoy the natural beauty. Home for me is finding that quiet space in nature where I can watch and enjoy the movement of air, the glow of the sun and the bristling of leaves. I have it in my home in California and now, hundreds of miles away from home, I’ve found it here in Michigan.
NATALIE MARK Statement Correspondent
Meleck Eldahshoury/DAILY
Photos courtesy of Natalie Mark.
On a home dead, lost and rebuilt
AYA FAYAD Statement Correspondent
TheSoutherners,inalltheirgrief,return.
The pieces of their homes crumbled to the ground, scattered by the wind, almost imperceptible. The Southerners, they gather up these mere fragments, piece by piece, put them back together, breathe life into them, breathe their hope for something new into them. They rebuild.
The Southerners’ olive tree, the one that was planted in the front yard, now overturned, uprooted, burned, and burned and burned, they cradle it. They kiss it, like a mother her dead child. They hold it, love it, bury it. Beneath the sands of Arabia, an infant, a tree, lies still. The Southerners revisit it from time to time.
A new tree sprouts from the once-tree, now-carcass.
The cemetery where the Southerners’ mothers and fathers live, where lost sons and daughters were buried among
its wreckage after it was destroyed the first time, has fallen to the ground once more. The Southerners weep when they discover the wrecked graves of their parents, the ayat disarrayed and illegible, the whole of this once-holy place now tainted and in shambles. They weep when they discover their fathers’ graves, now 40 years gone, who were there to witness the first expulsion, but not the second or the third or the fourth. They gather the broken gravestones. They sweep the dust where sorrow and humanity alike have nested, for, to the Southerners, these sentiments are one in the same.
The Southerners make their rounds to see and to find who else they have lost. They stare one another in the eye, searching for a look, a tear or a shared grief. Their poor village has experienced tragedy too many times — they know, but still, they kiss her, their home. They nurture her and do their best to heal her, to let her live again. They collect the bodies
scattered around the village from this new massacre, lay them beneath an olive tree. They rebuild these crumbled ayat to allow them to rest eternally, finally.
Their poor village has seen life and death, birth and rebirth and, above all, defeat, too many, dozens of times over. They wonder how much more she can take. They wonder how long the miles to return will be when the next expulsion comes around, but they do not wonder for long. Shortly after their reflecting, they pick up the pieces and they rebuild. Afailedstateisafailedstateisafailedstate.
The Lebanese South has died. ***
Lebanon has been stuck in a state of limbo — of death — for decades. Like a body in decay, we whisper around it, too grieved to let it live on in such a state yet too afraid that its end may be brought about sooner than we are ready for. Lebanon has been in decay since the day I was born; in this perpetual state of agony, it has existed since my mother’s birth and since
my father’s childhood. And like some sort of life sentence, the words “failed state” have begun to ring in our ears. What does one make of a failed state? What happens to it and the people who live inside of it? To be a failed state means to no longer be able to perform the functions of a state, including those of projecting authority over its territories and protecting national boundaries. It is a harsh label, one of abandonment, of utter devastation. For decades, Lebanon has grappled with global superpowers like France, the United States and Israel as they exercise control over and invade the nation, but the final destruction — or so we thought — came in the summer of 2020. In 2020, Lebanon was assailed by the most devastating and debilitating economic crisis the world has seen since the 19th century, an occurrence that is now seen as an impending doom that had been building on itself for the past 50 years.
Caused by a series of government mis-
Photo courtesy of Aya Fayad.
management and political instability since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990, it all came tumbling down in late 2019 when Lebanese banks experienced a liquidity crisis and stopped allowing transactions. Between 2019 and 2021, Lebanon’s GDP dropped by 36.5% and, today, the Lebanese lira has lost more than 98% of its value.
On Aug. 4, 2020, the Beirut Port explosion further shook the country. This was the largest non-nuclear explosion and the third-largest overall explosion in history, ranking behind only Nagasaki and Hiroshima in World War II. The explosion killed 204 civilians, injured 6,500 and left thousands homeless in the midst of a record-breaking economic crisis.
Lebanon was taking another hit, just as it had gotten so used to doing, as it had so many times in the past decades. At the time, we, watching from the outside, weren’t sure that our country would make it out alive, that our relatives and friends would be able to avoid the bombs for long.
On Sep. 28, 2024, the Lebanese people slept in the streets. Throughout the night, the bombardment from a new wave of Israeli aggression rained on their homes. And so, thousands of families, with their children, a few blankets and maybe a pillow tucked under their arms, laid out their makeshift beds on the streets of Beirut and slept there for the next month and a half. No one came to help them. At the end of 2024, Lebanon faced a devastating aggression, one it had not seen in 18 years and that no one had the slightest inclination to expect, unlike some of the prior attacks. Lebanon, a state already on the precipice of collapse, was sent reeling further into total failure and utter disaster by Israel’s cataclysmic campaign and sixth invasion, destabilizing it to an extent that seemed impossible to come back from.
The South — Lebanon’s border to the occupied Palestinian territories — which Israel had previously occupied until 2000, is known to be Lebanon’s greatest area of resistance to Israeli occupation. South Lebanon has historically been invaded, attacked and continuously destroyed — more than any other geographical region in the country. The Southerners have rebuilt it over and over, but this time was unlike any other. By the end of what was deemed Lebanon’s “worst month,” 3,768 people had been killed, 15,699 wounded and about 1.2 million were displaced. Damage to housing equaled $2.8 billion and more than 99,000 housing units were partially damaged or fully destroyed. Damages and losses to the country totaled $8.5 billion and a 5.7% decrease in GDP.
to me most was the overturned olive tree in the front yard; it once stood there for 30 years, planted by her now-deceased mother — my grandmother — who I never got to meet.
My grandmother built this home in 1965 and rebuilt it once, 20 years after it was first edified. It has been my mother’s sole material reminder of her mother, who passed 24 years ago. My mother grieves her mother in a way I have never witnessed before: with an inexplicable pain, with a ceaseless vehemence. My grandmother’s home, the home that she built and rebuilt, that my mother has even rebuilt once too, has stood as her last reminder of what once was, of a life she left behind decades ago.
After the ceasefire was announced Nov. 27, 2024, Israel gave itself an additional two months to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and later pushed this date back again. After bombing cars on their way to the South and shooting civilians whom they proclaimed got too close, Israel declared that no Lebanese civilians were to return to their Southern villages. The original date for the ceasefire came and went and Israel still bombs and snipes, crushing and killing homes, olive trees and civilians alike with their tanks. As of January — that is, since they were supposed to withdraw their troops — the Israeli state has killed 83 people in Lebanon. Oh, the Lebanese Southerners. Where can one even start? My mother, a Southerner herself, has had her own home fall to the ground three times before. The most recent time was last November. And still now, her kitchen counter, her bedroom door, the entirety of her once-childhood home, sits collapsed, crumbled, clad in a layer of black soot. From the video I watched on her phone screen, what stood out
The Lebanese Southerners are always returning. Every Lebanese has heard this story, knows it by heart. After each expulsion, in which our homes become their battleground and their goal to bring them down on our heads, the Southerners, oh the Southerners, return every time.
The Southerners return to devastation and, devastated themselves, rebuild their crumbled homes each time. It has become a tradition, a perpetual cycle. ***
Is to be a failed state to finally rest? I wonder, before the Southerners begin their ritual of rebuilding, do they ever stop a moment and think: When will enough be enough? Is there ever any hint of disgust, of disillusionment, at this never-ending Sisyphean task? When the entirety of one’s livelihood is to be simply and humbly picked up off the ground, dusted off and wearily put together again, after it has been brought down tens of hundreds of times, when is enough enough ?
The question “Where does it end?” has begun to reverberate through Lebanon. How many times can one rebuild a home before the parts are too scattered and the dust too dense for the pieces to be made out and put back together again? My mother’s home still sits collapsed, after all. It has been five months.
I asked my mother recently if she planned on rebuilding her home this time and she told me she doesn’t know. She explained that there seemed to be something different about this third time, about this third destruction.
My mother’s home was a simple two-bedroom house with only one floor. It lied tucked into a winding street corner, with a small garden and the remains of what was once an olive tree in the front yard. It overlooked the green, rolling hills of Lebanon to the right, the farms and pastures of Palestine straight ahead and the Security Wall that the Lebanese call baw’waybit Fatme, Fatima’s Gate, a few kilometers away. For decades, this home has been unable to stay upright for very long. For decades, destruction has shaken its four walls, has poisoned its foundation, has slowly rotted its olive tree. The question has become one of practicality and economy, but there is a notable absence of hope there too. The destruction of Lebanon has repulsed us, the Lebanese. It has turned us away. Defeat has blemished the walls of our homes and has seeped into the dust. The breaths the Southerners take have become more jagged and labored as they put the pieces of their lives back together and try to rebuild. Some of the pieces do not seem to fit together anymore. Perhaps the end of Lebanon is marked not by gunfire and all-out destruction, but by a deep-seated and fundamental tiredness.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Photos courtesy of Aya Fayad.
IRENA TUTUNARI Statement Deputy Editor
I’ve always been envious of people who have an easy time placing the word “home.” They can instantly picture their parents, hair graying and skin wrinkling, sitting on the couch watching “Seinfeld” reruns or bickering in the kitchen or holding hands at the dinner table. They can picture a bedroom that’s always been there for them to return to, laden with mementos and childhood photos and outdated band posters. They can look forward to Mom making their favorite meal when they come home, Rover — I like to think the dog’s name is named Rover — wagging his tail in the doorway and family chattering around them during the holidays.
Of course, their lives aren’t perfect. I’m not naive enough to actually believe that. Parents fight, Rover tracks his muddy paws into the house sometimes and maybe they really don’t enjoy family Christmas dinner if, say, their Uncle Joe is vehemently denying the moon landing for the umpteenth time. I get it. But still, having to spend Christmas alone while pretending it’s “just an average Thursday” can make a person afflicted with a strange desire to convince someone, anyone, of the moon landing’s validity. Guilty as charged! So despite the inherent imperfections of family life — can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em and all that — I’ve spent a lot of
Home in human form
time in my life wishing I had this sense of home while also trying to compensate for the fact that I don’t. Growing up as an only child with a single mom has the potential to result in a “Gilmore Girls”-esque relationship, where the lines between mother and daughter blur into a relationship more like that between two best friends but, unfortunately, I wasn’t that lucky. Instead, I was raised in a household where “love” was bound by unspoken rules never given to me in advance, words were meant to wound and physical touch was something cold and frightening — never comforting. It wasn’t always easy. No one came to my high school graduation, I can’t call my mom as I walk to class like most of my friends do and no one’s exactly waiting on the edge of their seat to hear about how I did on my midterm. The more I looked at my home, the more I saw painful reminders of how different it was from what I thought it was supposed to be, what my friends had. That was until I realized that maybe, just maybe, I was looking for “home” in the wrong place.
I met Erin on orientation day at boarding school when we were 13 years old — an age where we hadn’t yet learned to mask the emotions on our faces or, conversely, place little weight on first impressions. I was way too loud and enthusiastic (yes, I just tiptoed around the word “obnoxious”) about being away from home for the first time ever while Erin … well, Erin was just plain pissed-off. Her arms were crossed,
her freckled nose was crinkled with distaste and she wasn’t nearly as enthused about “rose, bud, thorn” or “where the wind blows” as I thought she should have been. I felt nervous to even breathe around her for risk of, well, my wind disturbing her.
The first few months of our freshman year of high school went like this: I would barge into Erin’s room across the hall without knocking, sit at her desk and chatter animatedly to her roommate who would shriek and cackle back like a banshee. Erin would sit perched atop the top bunk, headphones in her ears (probably blasting white noise or deep-breathing serenity mantras) and eyes focused intently on the ever-decreasing space between my grubby hands … and all of her stuff. In short, we were not instant friends by any means. We didn’t even like each other at first. She thought I was a complete basket case who needed to take it down a few notches (or decibels for that matter), which probably sucked for her because I was in her room all the time gabbing with her roommate, whose last name I don’t even remember anymore. On the other hand, I thought she was way too wry and serious to have a good time with. While she was most definitely right about me, I couldn’t have been more wrong about her. It turns out that Erin, though reserved and frank, wasn’t an unpleasant person at all. In fact, I soon realized that she was just … shy. Once she started coming out of her shell, I realized that I had been in the
presence of the most hilarious, dry-witted and down-to-earth person the whole time. It turns out that we had a lot more in common than we thought: We both got bored easily, had an affinity for pranks and practical jokes and also possessed an extreme dislike for our school’s 10:30 p.m. “lights out” policy. And unfortunately, once we both discovered this commonality, we became each other’s dream-come-true and everybody else’s worst nightmare. We’d sneak out of our rooms past lights out and bake what we came to fondly refer to as “second dinner” while playing our all-time favorite game: “How-Would-ThisPerson-Dance?” A particularly memorable occasion was when our dorm parent came out of her quarters to tell us to “shut up!” just as we were about to get to her! I’m not exactly sure why we decided to start running — I think it was the shock of getting caught — and I’m not super sure why I hid under the bathroom sink stifling giggles, but it resulted in the most ridiculous wildgoose-chase (and a strongly worded email the next day). I guess our dorm parent will never know what we thought of her moves — her loss, because they were sick. We’d take turns waiting until the other was about to fall asleep, then snatch the comforter off their bed and sprint as fast as we could down the hall and then the stairs, laughing and shrieking “What the hell is wrong with you?” Do I even have to clarify that this resulted in other strongly worded emails?
Photos courtesy of Irena Tutunari.
We’d screamed-sung “Since U Been Gone” from the swings on campus until our throats were sore, which resulted in a meeting with the school dean, who rubbed his temples and sighed exasperatedly, “We’ve never had a noise complaint make it so far up to the dean’s office!”
In a moment of extreme boredom, we moved a potted plant from the window to the middle of the common room just because we wanted to confuse people the next day. So wild of us. We ding-dong-ditched way too many people for heaven to even be a possibility for us, for which we received extra days of kitchen duty as punishment.
We were ridiculous and most of the things we did had no point. I mean, what did the potted plant debacle really accomplish, other than maybe giving someone premature wrinkles from furrowing their brow? But maybe the idiotic, immature fun we had (at an age where, let’s be real, most girls were starting to date and do other developmentally-appropriate things) was the point all along.
Erin and I chose to be roommates sophomore year, a decision that stuck every year after that. And trust me, I’ve heard the spooky prophecy time and time again: “Don’t share a room with your best friend! It’ll ruin your friendship! You’ll find out all the things you hate about each other!”
But luckily, we had already covered everything we hated about each other waaaay back in year one, so feel free to remove the flashlight from beneath your chin!
If anything, living together made us closer. Every night we’d pile into one bed and have what we called “girl talk” (whatever the hell that meant because lord knows we weren’t talking about our love lives, or lack thereof), which resulted in us laughing so loud that we could almost drown out this weird knocking noise on the other side of the wall — we never did figure out what that sound was!
We’d pick each other up from classes and drag a chair to the communal showers just to have a place to sit so we could gab while the other person showered. Somehow, we never ran out of things to talk about. Quite honestly, the only time we were apart was during class or when we had to study (we learned rather quickly that studying together often resulted in one of us hiding the other’s textbook or something of the sort).
So naturally, saying goodbye wasn’t easy. When graduation day came, Erin and I had the most dramatic goodbye known to humankind, probably only rivaled by Michael Scott leaving “The Office” (I don’t totally understand this reference, but it’s something Erin would appreciate).
We went from living two feet away from each other (the rooms were devastatingly small at boarding school) to being separated by 200 miles. Yikes. We cried and we snotted and we pulled our most epic prank yet: putting fake cobwebs along the entire common room while wiping tears on our white graduation dresses.
So, aside from the obvious point that yes, Erin and I were monsters in
high school, the other point I’m trying to make is that my absolute best memories in life came from doing stupid, pointless, ridiculous things with my best friend. At “home,” I was constantly told by my mother, “If everyone’s doing one thing and you’re doing another, it means you’re doing something wrong.”
But spending time with Erin taught me that going against the grain isn’t always a bad thing. Erin made me feel comfortable being myself, something that I don’t think I’d felt since I was really young — you know, the kind of young where Mom hasn’t taught you that being yourself is something to be ashamed of just yet. I think I was so loud and enthusiastic and, yes, probably obnoxious, during my freshman year of high school because I wanted to mask who I truly was.
That’s why I say that without Erin, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Not necessarily because she shaped my personality or because I became more like her or anything, but because she gave me the comfort and warmth I needed to truly be myself, probably for the first time ever. I’d like to think that I taught Erin to be a little more “out there,” a little less reserved and maybe even a lit tle less pissed-off to be doing the same orientation day activities year after year.
For me, home might not have a white-picket fence or parents that call you on your way to class to ask how your math test went. Home might not be steaming lasagna adorning the kitchen table with a “Seinfeld” rerun play ing in the background. Hell, home might have nothing to do with the moon landing at all (huge disappointment, am I right?).
For me, home is the feeling you get when you don’t have to think before you speak. Home is singing too loud, laughing too hard, “doing too much.”
To me, home is not a place; it’s a person.
Even though Erin and I gradu ated from board ing school about three years ago, my best friend, my soulmate, my home is one phone call away. Even after three years, we still talk almost every day. Erin and I can’t see each other in-person as much anymore, but rest assured, our re lationship is as strong, filled with laughter and annoying to oth ers as it was before.
I mean come on, haven’t you ever heard of prankcalls?
Photos courtesy of Irena Tutunari.
I’m sitting in the Newark airport, on the way back to Michigan from a family wedding in Hyderabad, India. I’m listening to recession pop through my knotted, pencil-shaving-dusted wired earbuds and eating an overpriced everything bagel. New Jersey is a stark contrast to India, where I have spent the past 20 days after a cancelled flight and the last minute decision — probably at the expense of my grade point average this semester — to extend my trip to spend time with my family. Here in Jersey, the sky is a muddled gray and the industrial landscape drags on past rusted bridges and shipping containers until it meets the Hudson River, where one can see a clear vision of the buildings of New York City, close yet still on the periphery. That is perhaps too harsh of an observation of the Garden State (does anybody know why it’s called this?), but with a five-hour layover and the apprehension of an upcoming economics exam, I’m in a particularly pessimistic mood. I did not want to leave India to come back to Ann Arbor, where I feel the days drag on in a repetitive, static blur. This is not the Michigan I remember, the state where I was born and raised for the first 10 years of my life before moving to Florida. In terminal C, I am realizing a sudden shift in the fondness I felt for my birthplace, one that I thought would always be crystallized. The Michigan I knew involved skinned knees on Har-Tru tennis courts, apple cider after fall school days and Memorial Day trips to Mackinac Island. It was a place of peace. I suppose most people remember their childhood fondly, but to me, Michigan was the Eden where I was in pure bliss. True happiness, in my opinion, only exists when you do not have to think about it. It is a state of being that comes naturally; it cannot be forced. If you have to keep insisting to yourself that you are happy, are you truly happy? Happiness has to be effortless. This is what my Michigan upbringing was: walking to elementary school with my brother without thinking of what life was like beyond our idyllic Midwestern town. I came to my realization about happiness after my family’s sudden move to Florida two weeks after my tenth birthday. Florida was not Michigan, not in the slightest. It was an uncomfortable reckoning for me of what the world was like for many Americans in the rural South. Though I don’t have many pleasant mem-
ories of Florida, it was where I became a person, I think, because I spent my adolescence here. I was always itching to leave that backwards swamp, so I had an idea of what I wanted and didn’t want in life. Where I lived was a harsh and unwelcoming environment for someone who was used to the comfort of the Midwest: I lived in a small town with conservative retirees flitting around in golf carts, lastditch rehab centers and poisonous water snakes in my swimming pool. While I didn’t consider myself an outsider here, I knew it was not my home. It was not where I belonged and I needed to get out.
Yet, when my parents told me we were moving to Dallas when I was 15, my heart wrenched. I despised Florida, but I was tired of moving all over the country to various states that were unlike the previous ones. My sense of home became even blurrier because Florida was not my place, but the years in Michigan were becoming an even more distant memory that I was starting to have no connection with. Dallas was an even more confusing place as I struggled to adjust at my preparatory school. I was tired of my life and seeing as I would only be there for three years, I made no real effort to acclimate to my new environment. I was lucky enough to find friends who took me in and made me part of their lives, so I still did enjoy the last couple years of my adolescence. Even in Dallas, I lamented the superficiality of the city — the never-ending, twisting highways and how, despite the endless urban sprawl, there was an emptiness to the metropolis. This was certainly not my home, no matter how comfortable I was becoming here. I was starting to realize even though I didn’t appreciate it very much, it was where my family was going to be based for the next several years. Yet, I was embarrassed of its uncouthness despite my barely living in it. I felt out of place, but I didn’t want to try to make my life easier because, as usual, I would move on to someplace else at some point.
When I decided to attend the University of Michigan for college, I thought of it as a sort of a homecoming. I was retrieving my birthright, whatever that would unfold itself to be. I’m not naive — I knew that I didn’t have much of a connection to Michigan after living outside of the state for eight years. I knew my affection for the state was entrenched in my nostalgia; this would be a different Michigan, one that I would have to come to understand on my own. CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
RIYA KOMMINENI Statement Columnist
Photos courtesy of Riya Kommineni.