Editor's
Note
Dear Reader, To me, time seems to have come to The past year has been something of a
something of a standstill. It is difficult to
fever dream - for some a chapter to
keep faith in the passage of time when it
remember, for some to perhaps forget, but
appears to have splintered into a fistful
one for all to behold. It has been a time of
of dead-ends. But as generations before
solitude, of sacrifice, of sorrow. Yet, it has
us have proven time and time again,
also been a time of reflection, of recovery,
there is no end to the tenacity and
of
alwayss
determination of the human race when
wondered what Dickens meant with the
we combine forces. Time may have
pronouncement “it was the best of times, it
washed away at some of the constants
was the worst of times,” but I think I am
we’d grounded our lives on, but it is also
finally beginning to understand.
capable of blessing us with new ones to
radical
transformation.
I
rebuild upon. Time could be both the This unexpected dent in our lives has
cause of, and answer to, your prayers.
taught us not to take the time we have for granted. Some of us, I believe, have
So here’s to not just the time we exist in,
consequently learned not to take time
but also to better times to come. Here’s to
itself for granted— turns out time isn’t as
time in all its warped glory.
much a steady beat to march along to as it is a fluid entity lining these footprints we
Best,
pour ourselves into creating. AYUSHEE ROY Editor-in-Chief, 2020 - 2021
Table Of Contents "Time's To-Do List" -Rachel 0:01 0:02 0:03 0:05
"Time’s Small Miracles" -Vanshita "Grandfather Clock" -Brian Timeless" -Kai
0:07
"Anti-Asian Sentiment in the US" -Noelle
0:11
"Time flies, it stops for no one" -Navdha
0:12
"Amber" -Christine
0:15
"This is how summer passes us by" -Charlotte
0:17
"Timed Out" -Ayushee
0:19
"Erase, Embrace" -Abita
0:25
"My Time Has Come" -Phoebe
0:27
"Bus Soliloquy" -Ashley
0:29
"Time Playlist"-Jeffrey, Ayushee
0:31
Staff Page
Pacific Ties Newsmagazine is published and copyrighted by the ASUCLA Communications Board. All rights are reserved. Reprinting of any material in this publication without the written permission of the Communications Board is strictly prohibited. The ASUCLA Communications Board fully supports the University of California’s policy on non-discrimination. The student media reserve the right to reject or modify advertising whose content discriminates on the basis of ancestry, color, national origin, race, religion, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation. The ASUCLA Communications Board has a media grievance procedure for resolving complaints against any of its publications. For a copy of the complete procedure, contact the publications office at 118 Kerckhoff Hall @ 310-825-9898 designed by: Sahrang
Time's To-Do List Written by: Rachael Koh Edited by: Chelsea Tran & Ayushee Roy Layout by: Jonas Yee
7.25 am: Rot the carton of milk that Millie left on her kitchen counter last night 8.00 am: Skincare-less routine (I pulled on Mrs. Harper’s cheeks and a new wrinkle appeared!). 8.30 am: Held up traffic for a little on Cross Street; Parker still listened to Taylor Swift all thirty minutes he was late to school. 9.15 am: Sat in Mr. Lee's brain and went, tick, tock, tick, tock. I am apparently the bane of his existence. I decided to leave. 12.01 pm: Terry missed the bus by a minute. He was late to get back to work by twenty more. 12.41 pm: Watched Terry's boss rip Terry apart for always being late. Terry hates me now. 2.16 pm: Watched Lisa work. 3.27 pm: Watched Ahmed work. 5.43 pm: Watched Hana work. 6.47 pm: Watched Hana cry because she still hadn’t gone home and I had been whispering in her ear. It's her mother's 62nd birthday today. 7.02 pm: I watched as two lovers celebrated their first six months of marriage at the beach. I was there when Paul knelt down on his knee and said, “Time will have to stand still before I stop loving you.” I walked on for their sake. 7.09 pm: Told the sun it was time to set. He sunk lower and lower, until the light looked like a pindrop on the horizon and eventually vanished. 8.32 pm: I walked past houses and high-rise flats with lights on and families laughing and occasionally, families shouting. I walked aimless and alone. 9.55 pm: I kept walking. 10.12 pm: I kept walking. 12.02 am: I kept walking and walking, and though I wanted to, I could not stop.
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Written by: Vanshita Gupta Edited by: Jonas Yee & Ayushee Roy Layout & Design by: Zona Liao
I hate Mondays. I can’t wait for Fridays. I can’t wait for the next weekend, the next summer to begin. I can’t wait to turn eighteen so that I am an adult, a responsible, free, mature grown-up. I can’t wait to turn twenty-one, nights full of partying and dancing with someone. I’ve spent my whole life anxiously waiting, waiting for time to run, I wait for the next big thing, the next milestone, hoping it’s the one. The moment when everything makes sense, the moment when I suddenly have no regrets. Unaware of the time that slips through my fingers, like sand on a warm beach bay, not paying attention to the little gifts that life gives me every day. The tiny instances of joy, comfort, and gratification a funny joke, a new destination. A brush of hands, the feeling of rain, the beating of your heart when your love calls your name. Time is fickle and often washes a lot away, but I’ve learned to stop wishing for it to go astray. The nature of time makes moments special, irreplaceable, so we should enjoy all of time’s small miracles
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Grandfather Clock Written by: Junhyung “Brian” Kim Edited by: Joyce Kuo & Ayushee Roy Layout & Design by: Zona Liao
One river flows forward, One flows back. The two meet in a place called The present. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. One point in time, Two points of view. One caught by surprise, The other already knew. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. One questions, While the other accepts. One believes he is ready, The other knows he is inept. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. One has excelled, The other has failed. Does that make one better Than the other? Tick Tock. Tick Tock. By no means Is one more favorable. For two sides, no matter how different, Are still of the same coin. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
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In a similar vein, What is a mirror? Without one side Reflecting the other? Tick Tock. Tick Tock. One had both, While the other has neither. A grandfather clock. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. While the two Are different, They both shared time With the same grandfather. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Is that not enough For the two to reconcile? For the past To be accepted by the future? Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
Regardless of what each side desires, Arguing is pointless. The pendulum of the grandfather clock Keeps swinging unfailingly.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Feelings are irrelevant to time, For they say time heals all wounds. Though emotions cannot stop time, they can make a moment feel like an eternity.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Father Time waits for no-one, Relentlessly pushing forward. But maybe this boy doesn’t want his father. Maybe, he just misses his grandfather.
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collage pt one
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I pieced together this digital collage to acknowledge the parallels within the APIDA community over the last hundreds of years. Actresses, news clippings, and political cartoons were some of the ways I sought to compare aspects of our various cultures and backgrounds. Unfortunately, we continue to be belittled by the very country that millions of us seek to find refuge and solace in. This past year has made it clear that it is time for us to reclaim and rewrite our stories. We are enduring. We are Timeless.
Designed and Written by Kailani Tokiyeda Edited by Phoebe Chiu
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(1)
People v. Hall (1854)
Anti-Asian Sentiment in the U.S. Writing and Layout by Noelle Chang Edited by Emma Ong and Abita Venkatesh
Eight people were killed by a gunman at three spas in Atlanta on March 16 of this year. Six of the victims were women of Asian descent. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, anti-Asian hate crimes have increased by 150 percent according to a study released by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. Over the past year, an increasing number of racially motivated crimes against people of Asian descent have been reported.
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These individuals have been beaten, kicked, spit on, pushed, called slurs, and had their homes and businesses vandalized.
(2)
Page Act (1875)
countless unreported cases of anti-Asian hate crimes and racist attacks, there are notable historical events that reflect the sentiment of racism towards people of In light of the pandemic, anti- Asian descent in the United Asian hate has been fueled by States - some of which are those in power such as Donald highlighted below. Trump, who referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese The California Supreme Court virus.” This led not only to reinforced racism against wrongful attacks against Asian immigrants in the case Chinese-Americans, but to of People v. Hall in 1854. This such attacks against others in case was sparked by the the Asian American murder of Ling Sing, a Chinese community as well. Pervasive immigrant, by George Hall. stereotypes about the Asian The government believed that American community served Chinese people lacked the to fuel attackers’ hate as the intellectual ability to make community as a whole has sound judgments and believed become a target. With the rise that a Chinese immigrant of anti-Asian sentiment in should not be allowed to tandem with the pandemic, it condemn a white U.S. citizen. must be noted that in the This set a precedent allowing United States, people of Asian white people to avoid descent have been the targets punishment for violence of racism fueled by hate for against Asian people while over 160 years. While there also categorizing Chinese are
(3)
(4)
(5)
Chinese Exclusion
Rock Springs
San Francisco
Act (1882)
Massacre (1885)
plague outbreak (1900)
immigrants, alongside Native and Black Americans, as unable to testify against white Americans in a court of law. This was not overturned until the 1884 case, Territory of New Mexico v. Yee Shun. The Page Act of 1875, America’s first restrictive federal immigration law, excluded East Asian women from immigrating to the United States due to racist stereotypes that they were “temptations for white men” and exclusively sex workers. This is echoed in the racist fetishization and sexualization of Asian women that remains prevalent in the present-day United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a reaction to an economic recession in the 1870s that ultimately led to an increase in anti-Asian racism. This was due to the fact that
Chinese immigrants were treated as scapegoats and blamed for the downfall of the economy, as Chinese immigrant workers were willing to accept far less pay for jobs than white citizens. President Chester A. Arthur signed the federal law prohibiting Chinese immigration, which resulted in 62 years of Chinese exclusion. In 1885, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming attacked their fellow Chinese miners which led to 15 wounded and 28 dead. The Rock Springs Massacre also resulted in several hundred Chinese people fleeing the town, only to be escorted back later by U.S. troops. The Union Pacific fired 45 of the white miners who took part in the massacre, but no legal action was ever pursued.
In an episode reminiscent of the current state of racism in the U.S., the San Francisco plague outbreak began in 1900 and resulted in antiAsian sentiment by which the police subjected Asian residents to property searches. This led to the destruction of their property and excessive use of force. The spike in racism was caused by the fact that the first victim in the state was identified as a Chinese immigrant. Japanese-American internment occurred following the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in World War II. Tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were forced to live in internment camps during the war because the government suspected they might assist the enemy. The conditions in the internment camps were extremely harsh
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(6)
(8)
Japanese-American
Ku Klux Klan attacked
Vincent Chin was
internment (1942)
Vietnamese shrimpers (1979)
murdered (1982)
and no spies were ever found. After their release, many found that their homes and businesses had been confiscated or vandalized. At the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. permitted the immigration of many Vietnamese people. Many of these immigrants began working in the shrimping industry in the American South. They began to dominate the industry and the racist conception of Asian people stealing American jobs reappeared. As a result, the Ku Klux Klan attacked Vietnamese shrimpers by setting their boats on fire. On June 19, 1982, 27-year-old Vincent Chin was murdered as he was out celebrating his engagement with friends in Detroit. Outside of a bar, two white men started a fight with Chin as they blamed him for
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(7)
the Japanese “stealing” their jobs in the auto industry, beating him with a baseball bat. Chin died several days later. After taking a plea bargain which came with a possible sentence of 15 years, the judge gave the two attackers probation and a $3,000 fine. The L.A. riots resulted from a buildup of racially motivated tension between Black and Korean American communities which was furthered by the anti-Black sentiment expressed by some Asian Americans of the time. With the acquittal of the police officers in the Rodney King case, the city was full of riots and demonstrations. Although it was mostly lost in the media coverage of the beating of Rodney King, Latasha Harlins was shot by Soon Ja Du after a physical altercation in Du’s store over
stolen orange juice. This resulted in Korean American businesses becoming targets of anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes as many had their property vandalized and destroyed. Racism between minority groups in the United States is prevalent to this day. Present-day members of Black and Asian activist groups attempt to bridge the divides caused by race and join in solidarity against the racism in a white-dominated society. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment dramatically increased which caused those who were perceived by the public to be Muslim, such as those of South Asian descent, to face increased racism and violence. A mere four days after the attacks, Frank Silva Roque, an aircraft mechanic, murdered Balbir Singh Sodhi,
(9)
The L.A. Riots (1992)
(10)
Anti-Muslim sentiment following 9/11 (2001)
a Sikh American gas station owner whom he racially profiled and mistook for Muslim. Although mainstream society has begun to better acknowledge the importance of addressing systemic racism and white supremacy, the Asian American community is often excluded. Recent public awareness of hate crimes and racism has highlighted the connections between racism against the Black and Asian communities, as well as the communities of other people of color. In a system that is fraught with racist biases, it is of paramount importance for people of color and allies to display solidarity and stand against racism in the United States.
Protests in light of the recent anti-Asian violence. Victims of hate range from young AsianAmericans to the elderly in the community as the spread of COVID-19 has led to an increase in anti-Asian sentiment.
(11)
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Images: (1) https://immigrationhistory.org/item/people-v-hall/ (2) https://thomasnastcartoons.com/category/chinese-immigrants/ (3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act (4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre (5) https://lithub.com/inside-san-franciscos-plague-ravaged-chinatown-c-1900/ (6) https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/19/at-least-during-the-internment-are-words-i-thought-id-never-utterfamily-separation-children-border/ (7) https://timeline.com/kkk-vietnamese-fishermen-beam-43730353df06 (8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Vincent_Chin (9) https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/us/la-riots-koreanamericans/index.html (10) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/5/14/how-act-for-america-encourages-citizensto-spy-on-muslims (11) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-attacks-prompt-call-updatedhate-crimes-law-rcna576 (12) https://www.voanews.com/usa/anti-asian-hate-crime-crosses-racial-and-ethniclines
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Time flies, it stops for no one Written By: Navdha Sharma Edited By: Joyce Kuo & Ayushee Roy Layout & Design By: Vanshita Gupta Some pine trees look down at me, A waterfall gushes into a nearby creek, A red balloon is tied to my wrist, With a smile of contentment on my face, I try to jump from one patch of filtered sunlight to the next. Time flies, it stops for no one. The tall pine trees look down at me, The waterfall trickles into the nearby creek, “No one understands me!” murmurs the voice in my head, With a scowl on my teenage face, I resort to lurking in the shadows. Time flies, it stops for no one. The tall pine trees look down at me, There is no waterfall in the nearby creek, I see a red balloon from the corner of my eye, A smile of contentment returns to my face after years, As I see my little one hop from one patch of sun to the next. Time flies, it stops for no one. Time slips away like sand from beneath our feet, when the ocean waves crash on them. The choice is ours: We can either choose to be the sand that flows with water and adjust to changes with time. Or, we can be the feet That cling onto the sand Despite knowing that the water will take it away. Either way Time flies, it stops for no one.
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Amber by Christine King
Edited by Lynette Caballero & Abita Venkatesh Layout by Chelsea Tran
What I remember most from the movies is the music. A scattering of half-remembered details from those times slips under a haze in my memory. Dimmed lights, hushed voices. A theater with glowing strands of bulbs built into the stairs. Bodies upon bodies cushioned in leathery seats, a sticky cup holder by the elbow, popcorn kernels crushed underfoot. Lights out, phones off. The way we held our breath in the dark. And the music. Maybe we don’t remember every note. Maybe we don’t remember the leap and fall of each arpeggio, the swell of every crescendo, the interplay of instruments, melody and harmony, that come together to create the chords. But we remember the way it feels. Those notes, woven together in a net over the theater, saturate the air with something that sinks deeper than the images on the screen. Major key signatures thread exuberance through the music; minor ones settle softly, painfully, under the skin. A bang here, a crash there, frenzied flutes falling over themselves
themselves in a cascade of notes. The prescribed tempo drags the pulse to its beat, accelerando, ritardando. A subtle melody sits comfortably, immovably, in the background of every shot that lingers. What I remember most from the theater screens are the colors. The filmmakers submerge scenes of the past under sepia tones, developing the film in darkrooms where the memories come out somewhat aged around the edges. They are tinted the same burnt orange as the day when the ash was so thick in Los Angeles it covered the sun; I remember the amber brown tint of the air as I stood in my room, hands out in the dusky miasma of a wildfire's aftermath, and thought, so this is what it is like to be in an old photograph. This is what it is like to be part of history. The burnt sienna monochrome of vintage camera reels and childhood recollections and tea-stained letters. Like memories curiously trapped in amber, held up in front of a light to be studied. The future is lit in neons and cool blues, color-coded to the sterility of a time not yet muddied by memory or The
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experience. The vision of the decades to come is filled with lights reflecting off white walls and a strange sense of cold, an absence of commonplace warmth. Flash back, flash forward, from the warmth of burnt-sienna monochrome to the coolness of cyan-blue cyanotypes and everything in between. Another filter created through these shades of color, leaving a film over our eyes as we follow a story made vivid through the lighting, through the music. The movie finishes, credits roll, and we are released from this cavernous theater with its dimmed lights and hushed murmurs and the glow of bulbs built into the stairs. We walk out into
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into the clean air beyond brightly-colored doors propped open next to a squashed bin for 3D glasses. We walk away, because it has ended. We walk away, because we can. In the car ride home, in the next few days days where streetlamps and assignments flash in our eyes more vibrantly than the characters on screen, we begin to forget. It is the music, the color, that lingers. So tell me. What do you hear when you think of me, and what colors do you see? These events from your memories must have strung themselves into a version of my life that lives in your mind, making up the story of who I am in this moment. I wonder what you see when you look back on me because you live in a place where I am a memory; you remember me as part of a scene in your life that has already passed. And And in this memory, in this slideshow of scenes stitched together from your past and my present, I wonder what you hear; what timbre and color memory has tinted this version of me, this person who is writing to you. They say that this year is history in the making, our curled bodies settled against the cushions of sofas, news headlines scrolling across the screen. A pandemic year of stagnation that sinks so deep that it stinks, that it settles. I feel a foreign (2) weight in my bones now. A new type of gravity, centered around
around this home and room like a tether. It is like I have been trapped here in this moment in time, a fly in amber, preserved in memory. I don’t know what soundtrack and filter you’ve placed over this entire motionless era of waiting. Maybe something jaunty, slipped into the background of a vibrantly-colored montage where we crack jokes about 6 foot distances and funny designs on masks. Maybe you’ve managed to minimize my experiences into the space of a ditty. Perhaps you’ve plunged me into bright lights and siren songs outside my window, ambulances and news stories of rising death tolls across the country echoing in the back of a fastpaced song. Maybe you’ve submerged me in the past as a sepia-toned flashback to that time I stayed home for a year, placid and peaceful, sunken within the aged orange-brown of cinematographic memory. My words must come to you like something remembered, a tinny echo of a voice from within the hardened amber of the past. I wonder if there is nostalgic music, velvet-soft crooners, in the background. I think of you trapping me here like I was someone from long ago— the way you must look at me through a sepia tint that is translucent, so clear it is almost hollow. So tell me. You, who walked away because it has ended. You, who walked away because you could. Tell me what you have added, post-production, to my life, to these awful beautiful stagnant weeks, this frozen year I’ve spent not spending but wasting. From this gap between scenes in this yearlong movie, I’d like to remind you of some things. It is quiet a lot of the time. There is no music. No jaunty ditties, no smooth-throated crooners. I listen to the cars on the road, an occasional motorcycle. The washer running, a vacuum on carpet, the muted voices of news anchors in the background. Even the sirens sound hollower in reality; they echo differently against these walls.
walls. And the colors are plain, neutral. They are natural and normal and everyday. Because this is reality, a world outside the sepia filter of passed time. I think you might have let your memories of me take on the sticky trappings of a childhood dream, those sepia-toned walls. Do you remember, you will say. Can you think of that year. And age age will give you distance, time gifting you separation. This period will seem like something that happened long ago to someone else. And you will think of me with music I can’t hear, with color that I can’t see, shading in these scenes with some mood that, to you, has already passed. Turn down the music a little. Turn down the color saturation. And try to remember without the filters. This past year has been a movie that nobody would watch, not the way it unfolded, day by day. Not the way we lived it. I know you will look back on me, trying to frame and reframe my life in different lights. You will farm these memories for some great personal growth, for some great take-away within the highlights. You will find some way to make this part of your story, this version of me you have managed to escape and leave behind as a distant memory. But this year was not sepia-toned as I lived it. It has caramelized, hardened into something else in your mind, trapping me in a one-dimensional world held in the grasp of your memories. (2) me within the amber. Please look for images:
(1) https://www.topamberstore.com/about-us/ (2) https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/empty-movie-theater-with-red-seats-and-blank-screenpicture-id1064321430k=6&m=1064321430&s=612x612&w=0&h=2mB6ga5iaB6TLgx6Uw8FVZQRIiJ gsyKG9rBcdplWKLc=
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I’m caught in the slender crevice between a metro station and the Khadim’s shoes wed to it through dust and routine, an urban romance bathed in affectionate gaalis and communal pains, aging like an unnoticed tumour. College Street whispers my name, but I lose my way through the stacks of Tagore and Tennyson, never make it to the Coffee House at all. June beats down on my back in silent rage, bemused by these dwindling annual appearances. Nahoum pastries – reliably square and pink and saccharine – lure me in just so that New Market can slyly study the four or forty ways in which I can no longer pass for a local or haggle my way to a price point my mother would approve of. City of Joy, of jagged intentions, I am the jhaal muri spilled on your lap, the remains of a Prinsep Ghat picnic— staling rapidly but longing to be salvaged by your touch. You curl your steady fingers around my toes and let me dangle limply through the mesh of past and present like a Kwality Wall’s popsicle awaiting parted lips. By clawing for signs of remembrance through the carcass of a city I’ve reduced to patterns of fading footfall
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T
M E D Writing & Layout by: Edited by: Yusra Akhundzadah
O U T Ayushee Roy & Abita Venkatesh
and whiffs of dal pakoda wrapped in Thursday’s crossword puzzle, I stamp my skin out with scarlet curiosity, a singed poppy amongst marigolds. Even Park Street on Christmas Eve, with its designer apparel of blinding lights cannot illuminate the dark fog clouding my pupils, cannot jog a memory sifted heavily out of bedtime stories and second-hand laughter, a memory never quite mine to keep. Only the Ganga sees me for the paper boat you make of me, Time: absent-minded origami weighed down by the wanderlust knotted firmly in my gut. I sit anchored to shore in fear of history repeating itself, in fear of being cast again as a firangi in these plains watered by my bloodline, in the very city that once graciously welcomed me out of the womb. Home, I suppose, is not where the heart belongs but what it insists on revisiting, long after it has been slaughtered, minced, and hung to dry against a delicate sky.
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erase,
2004
I barely remember my first day at junior kindergarten, but I’ve heard the story recounted by Amma many times. Buzzing, elated, and chirping on and on about how I was so excited to be around other kids and play and enact stories, I talked my mother’s ear off about my high expectations of school. I’m sure my mother felt a kind of melancholy-tinged happiness. She didn’t know what kindergarten was like; it’s not as if my sister talked about it much when it was her turn years earlier. We entered the walkway to school, me holding my mother’s hand, her holding onto the hope that I would love school after idolizing the idea of it for so long. These worries did not last a long time (as soon as I saw the courtyard full of other children, I ran and never even looked back to say goodbye) but as I’m sure is common with many immigrant parents, there is always the lingering fear of how their kids will be accepted amongst their peers. It did help some that I spent the first few years of my life in a city with a heavy South Asian population. Certain regions in the Greater Toronto Area had sizable Desi enclaves, so in a way, I was lucky. Rarely did I feel like the only brown face in the room, and, as I would soon find out, school was no exception. Even if I did not fully understand the intricacies of racial identity and cultural belonging at the age of four, my expectations of a somewhat diverse classroom thus fastened since the very beginning, and this extended into other parts of society. Many of my neighbors were South Asian, and Indian grocery stores and cultural centers were common sights when gazing out of car windows.
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embrace
Written by Abita Venkatesh Edited by Ayushee Roy and Chelsea Tran Layout by Abita Venkatesh
Suffice to say, I was lucky enough not to succumb to the feelings of isolation and ineptitude common in the narratives of many children of immigrants. This was blissfully replaced by feelings of belonging instead - a feeling that would remain on its pedestal for the next few years purely by virtue of circumstance.
I’m four years old, and I’m unaware of being Indian.
2008 The bell rang to signal the end of Social Studies and the start of lunch. My friends and I left our desks to grab our lunch from the lockers. While many of them were excited about recess after lunch and playing with one of the girls’ new chalk set, I was more excited about the avial that my mom had graciously packed me for lunch. Indian cooking often means hours of preparation work that sometimes needs to start the day before - anyone who cooks Indian cuisine regularly in their household knows that their kitchen is always busy throughout the day. Eagerly, I scooted back into my seat in class, the cacophonous sounds of my classmates fading into the background. I open my lunchbox, remove the container, open the lid, lift my fork, and“What is that?”
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I freeze - the voice seems to come from behind me, but there’s no way that it can be directed at my food. At the food I grew up eating, loving, and sharing with family and family friends. Turning around, I see my classmate scrunching his nose at my lunch before laughing. Dejected, I barely notice him return to his friends as they proceed to enthusiastically share whichever Lunchable pack happens to be popular that month, or hear their collective “ew”. I don’t eat at school that day. I run with less energy, giggle with less enthusiasm, and respond with less vigor on the playground half an hour later. Maybe my friends notice, or maybe they don’t - eight year olds are not usually known for their powers of perception.
Mothers, on the other hand, do possess this skill.
I just get off the parked school bus as soon as I can and speed-walk home, leaving my sister behind as she calls after me. Eventually I reach my front door, where my mother is waiting with my afterschool snack. I grab it without saying a word. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Chellam, why are you sad?” she asks with concern, but this slowly fades to confusion and then anger as I hand her my lunchbox with my entire lunch still in it, uneaten. “I don’t want your food anymore,” I exclaim, cheeks flushed.
“Eh? Who else will make you food? Who else loves you enough to work in the kitchen all day to make you nice meals?” “I don’t like it, Amma. I can’t share it with my friends. It’s not normal.” Her face turns red, and her voice rises a decibel. I bring my plate of fruit to sit alone at the coffee table, tears streaming down my face as I chew.
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Time calms, the evening fades into night, but my mother and I barely share a glance. We go to bed. The next morning, I wake up, and Amma hands me a lunchbox while kissing my forehead, telling my sister and I to run to the bus stop lest we miss our ride to school. Once we take our seats on the bus, I open my lunchbox. It’s a cheese sandwich. I smile.
I’m eight years old, and I’m ashamed of being Indian.
2012 Lively music plays in the background. All around me people are laughing, partaking in picnic activities or chatting with their friends. At the foyer my family members take off to the places we know we belong - children play in the basement, aunties cook in the kitchen, and uncles sit and talk in the living room. I run downstairs jovially, excited to see my friends for the first time in a while. We greet each other, smiling, and then play board games for a few hours before going upstairs to eat. The medley of food available never fails to disappoint - lemon rice, thakkali sadam, payasam, rasagola - something for everyone. I smile, knowing that this happens to be one of those nights where I don’t mind being away from my friends at school, or missing out on parties for cultural events. Other days, I would begrudgingly drag myself to carnatic music classes after school, and on weekend, to Tamil classes early in the mornings. Madras Arts and Culture Association functions were fun, until they started to get in the way from my hometown life. At the time, I felt the need to keep my two worlds separate, and I did - growing up, none of my school friends ever knew about any of my Indian extracurriculars, friends, events, etc. They knew about the one hip-hop dance class I took in second grade, but not about the Bharatanatyam lessons that I quit much later. They knew I was busy some weekends for “family time,” but they didn’t know that this time was spent at Tamil plays and other functions.
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Perhaps I internalized the multitude of media messages projected at South Asians that reinforced the stereotypes over and over. Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb and Ravi from Jessie were overtly nerdy with exaggerated accents, and Raj from The Big Bang Theory seemed to be that token Indian character who is both extremely awkward and unable to talk to women. Jokes about if my family was full of “engineer Indians” or “gas station Indians” were made without batting an eyelash. I knew my friends didn’t think of me as any different because of my heritage, but I couldn’t help it - in my head, my Indian identity and my Canadian identity were mutually exclusive. I did what I could to assimilate, and over time, it showed. My ability to speak in fluent Tamil diminished, although I could still understand it. I packed away my Tenali Raman in favor of Archie Comics. And gradually, I stopped attending cultural functions in favor of either staying home or spending time with friends.
I’m twelve years old, and I’m uncomfortable being Indian.
2018 My dad’s GPS lights up on De Neve Drive, indicating that we’ve finally arrived, and the next stage of my life is about to begin: university. I exit the vehicle once the car is parked and we move my belongings up to the classic triple that would be my home for the next year. With each passing step, my excitement builds - I certainly worked hard for this moment back in high school, with my plethora of AP classes, extracurriculars, test prep, etc. After unpacking, my parents head out and I am left alone. Week Zero goes as it typically does - overenthusiastic but much appreciated RAs, awkward icebreakers that would start lasting friendships, campus tours - the usual. But when I attend club fair, I notice for the first time just how many South Asianaffiliated organizations there truly are at UCLA. This shouldn’t have been a surprise given the size and diversity of our school, but seeing signs for clubs ranging from various dance style to cultural organizations helped me realize that there were peers my own age who fully accepted their identity. They didn’t have mixed feelings on their heritage; rather, they were proud, and in that moment I felt I could start anew.
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Five years prior, I had moved to the United States with my parents. With the move came the complete isolation from any Tamil community we could befriend - my parents’ old friends from back in Canada were people they had met upon immigrating from India to Canada at the same time. With such a bond and shared history, it was almost impossible to replicate that feeling in a new country - so we simply did not try. I spent the next half a decade or so never attending cultural events, practicing Tamil, or immersing myself in Indian pop culture. I was the only South Asian person in my friend group in high school, and as a result, many of my feelings about being Indian from before remained stagnant. I hadn’t been around Desi kids who were so passionate about their heritage until I reached UCLA. The next few years here were truly a whirlwind, and were extremely impactful in shaping my Indian pride. On the one hand, I attended events thrown by the Indian Student Association, made more friends with whom I could better culturally-identify, and I joined Pacific Ties to talk and write about community-specific issues. On the other, I felt enraged upon being described as “exotic,” or for being asked if I “spoke Indian” at home. I would see people treat vegetarianism as a trend and yoga as “empowering” when I was made fun of for both years earlier. The only difference was that now, I had learned to defend myself and my roots.
I’m eighteen years old, and I’m proud to be Indian.
2021 I’m twenty-one years old now, and my feelings towards my identity have not changed since I was eighteen. The dichotomy of wanting to embrace my family’s lineage while accepting my own history used to fuel me to burrow under one identity or the other. But now, more than ever, I feel proud of my cultural identity; I feel protective. Living at home this past year afforded me the chance to converse more with my parents about their childhood, their lives, and our culture. Re-engaging with practicing Tamil and learning how to cook the same foods that I rejected in the schoolyard over a decade ago - this time in shouts and not in whispers showcases how the passage of time has allowed me to grow into my own skin.
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My Time Has Come My Time Has Come Written by: Phoebe Chiu Edited by: Natalie Albaran Layout by: Phoebe Chiu A way to make sense of finality For the imminent arrival of the Grim Reaper To forget about the inevitability of Our insignificance. Frightened yet inconsequential Counting down seconds Dragging out life like a child’s teddy bear I must resist time Time to count down my days left on Earth Time that I'm constantly running out of Grounded as if I knew that I’d stand the test of time No. But still I feel the clock hands turning forward As it accelerates , My skin wrinkles, my body withers Tick tick ticking As I wish that it would stop
Please stop as a I take a second to process it all Wondering what is happening in the world around me How could I have wasted so much time? Oh, to have a second more... To see the end of untimely deaths For wars and combat to become obsolete Before my long forsaken duties become irrecoverably overdue I wish I had more time I wish I had more time I wish that time would stop I wish that time would stop I wish that time would stop Stop. Because I don't want to die I don't want to die I don’t want to die Before I spread my wings and fly
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Bus S lil quy There sits a man with suspenders and beige slacks, waiting for the bus that will never come. He reads the newspaper, unaware that the days are evil, and the busy cityscape folds into itself to sweetly accommodate the hustle bustle of night and people conglomerate into bars and fluorescent 7-Elevens. One day he stands up from his fever dream and walks home from the bus station. No one knows why. What made our man wake from his Ichabod Crane fever dream? Perhaps it is the woman with the scarlet lipstick who briefly passed by (she was pregnant, by the way, holding hands with a toddler), or the lonely homeless man with the cardboard sign etched with five different Sharpie God ‘bless yous, or the kind-hearted evangelist
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Written by: Ashley Kim Edited by: Jonas Yee & Ayushee Roy Layout by: Ashley Kim
adding to a never-ending stack of precious Gospel flyers -- you are running out of time -- or the red-cheeked protestors on both boisterous sides screeching two versions of the same truth (he doesn’t know the difference, he sticks to his crosswords and humdrum local news), or the austere realization that in his beige slacks he is stark naked to Friedrich Nietzche’s pervasive time is a flat circle, that he and the rest are simpleton playthings in the sovereign hands of God, that there is nothing new under the sun, that life was the Hebrew hebel, a fleeting whisper, that dust would turn to dust and incest-bred children to ants.
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“SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS”
“RIBS“
“GENERATION WHY”
Lorde
Conan Gray
The Chainsmokers
“TWO SLOW DANCERS”
“AUGUST”
“CLOCK DON’T STOP”
Taylor Swift Carrie Underwood
Mitski
“2002”
“TIKTOK”
“HISTORY”
Annie Marie
Ke$ha
Olivia Holt
“HISTORY”
”TIME OF OUR LIVES”
“DAYLIGHT”
One Direction
Pitbull
Maroon 5
TIME
“EVERYTHING STAYS”
“WAITING FOR THE WORLD TO CHANGE“
“CAN'T THE FUTURE JUST WAIT”
Adventure Time
John Mayer
Karen McKay
”GOOD RIDDANCE“
“ALMOST THERE”
Green Day
Anika Noni Rose
“CHAMPAGNE CLOUDS” Malia Civetz
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COMPILED BY: JEFFREY SANDOVAL
"30 SECONDS”
"CLOCKS”
"SEASONS”
Vinyl Theatre
Coldplay
Brother Ryan
"FEEL IT STILL”
"IN A WEEK”
Portugal. The Man
Hozier
"CASTLE ON THE HILL” Ed Sheeran
"MIDNIGHT TRAIN” Sam Smith
"IF THERE'S NOTHING LEFT”
"OLD FRIENDS” Ben Rector
Niki
"STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER”
"SILHOUETTES” Colony House
The Beatles
"WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE” Billy Joel
PLAYLIST
"SILHOUETTES”
"SIGN OF THE TIMES”
Colony House
Harry Styles
"FLUROSCENT ADOLESCENT” Arctic Monkeys
&
"7 YEARS"
"YOUTH"
"END OF TIME”
Lukas Graham
Glass Animals
Beyonce
AYUSHEE ROY
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Abita Venkatesh | Managing Editor "My comfort show is Gilmore Girls and I've seen it more times than I can count."
Charlotte Chui | Writer "I always have peach lip balm and a notebook handy."
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Alyssa Zhu | Designer "I've recently learned how to crochet!"
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Ashley Kim | Writer
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