Activism and Art (Digital)

VOL. 171 ISSUE 8 JUNE 27, 2022

NEWS

O PINIO NS

FEATU R E S

H U MO U R

An interview with Chris Lewis

Don’t call us taxpayers

Being proud of colonialism isn’t it

McFogg is McDreamy

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Activism and Art Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers uplifts Mexican American Narratives

arts & culture p.11

Volume 171, Issue 8 Waiting for replies since 1965

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Maggie Benston Centre 2900 Simon Fraser University 8888 University Drive Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6 (778) 782-5110

NEWS New program for queer men who use drugs

OPINIONS

COVER Krystal Chan

U-Pass program should be year-round

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michelle Young eic@the-peak.ca COPY EDITOR Nancy La copy@the-peak.ca FACT CHECKER Gurleen Aujla factchecker@the-peak.ca

FEATURES

BUSINESS / ADVERTISING MANAGER Yuri Zhou business@the-peak.ca 778.782.3598

‘Hate the sin, love the sinner’ is damaging rhetoric

PROMOTIONS MANAGER Jaymee Salisi promotions@the-peak.ca NEWS EDITOR Karissa Ketter news@the-peak.ca

ARTS & CULTURE

NEWS WRITERS Chloë Arneson and Pranjali J Mann OPINIONS EDITOR Luke Faulks opinions@the-peak.ca

Exploring the history of bubble tea

FEATURES EDITOR Meera Eragoda features@the-peak.ca ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Gem Yelin Lee arts@the-peak.ca

HUMOUR

HUMOUR EDITOR Kelly Chia humour@the-peak.ca

Cutthroat group project things

STAFF WRITERS Nercya Kalino, Yasmin Simsek, Isabella Urbani, and Olivia Visser

How it works!

Get involved!

The Peak is the official weekly student newspaper of SFU and is published every Monday. We're funded by a student levy and governed by a board of directors. Any SFU student can become an editor, and we hire an editorial team every semester.

All SFU students can contribute to The Peak and get paid for their work!

Contact an editor or follow us on social media to find out when our weekly pitch meetings are.

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN EDITOR Josh Ralla production@the-peak.ca

We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, as well as style, grammar, and legality. We also reserve the right to reprint submissions at any time, both in print and on web. We will not publish content that is sexist, racist, or otherwise prejudiced.

We acknowledge that The Peak’s office is located and our paper is produced, distributed, and read on the Unceded Coast Salish Territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Kwikwitlem (Coquitlam), Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, and Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) Peoples. Unceded means that this land was never surrendered, relinquished, or handed over in any way. We recognize that the unceded land that we occupy includes not only the SFU Burnaby campus, but extends to the land occupied by the Vancouver and Surrey campuses as well.

CORRECTION

In last week’s issue, Language of Reconciliation, The Peak published a piece on student discounts stating, “There needs to be a minimum of 10 people in the group in order to apply the 15% discount.” This is incorrect and has been updated to reflect that Bard on the Beach doesn’t offer a 15% discount on $27 tickets. Bard on the Beach does, however, offer $10 student tickets for Harlem Duet until July 1, and a 50% discount for regular tickets in certain zones.

This has been updated on web versions of the piece.

ASSISTANT PRODUCTION EDITORS Megan Yung and Yining Zhou PHOTO EDITOR Gudrun Wai-Gunnarsson photos@the-peak.ca MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Karla Salazar multimedia@the-peak.ca ASSISTANT MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Rashi Sethi WEBSITE MANAGER Karar Al-Mamaar web@the-peak.ca BOARD OF DIRECTORS Kelly Chia, Emma Dunbar, Emma Jean, Angela Wachowick, and Yuri Zhou CONTRIBUTOR Fern Ridley PEAK ASSOCIATES Krystal Chan, Cristina Liao, Max Lorette, and Stella Nyguen

NEWS

June 27, 2022

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PARTY AND PLAY

Local organization launches new harm reduction program Progam offers support for queer men with sexualized stimulant use CHLO Ë ARN E S ON // NE WS W RI TE R

The local non-profit society Health Initiative for Men (HIM) has launched a new harm reduction program called PnP & Me to help clients identify and achieve their personal health goals for sexualized substance use. Colloquially known as party and play (PnP), the use of methamphetamines in a sexual context is common for gay, bisexual, and queer men (GBQ) as well as gender-diverse people.

To learn more about their 16-week counselling program, The Peak reached out to Evan Matchett-Wong, program director of HIM. The PnP & Me program is currently running its first cohort of clients, providing peer-led and drop-in group counselling. They also provide one-on-one counselling sessions with a professional. “The big component of this is not only receiving the mental health services, but also the social connections,” they said.

We don’t believe in punishing people for using.

EVAN MATCHETT-WONG // PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Matchett-Wong noted LGBTQIA2S+ individuals often face higher rates of poverty and job discrimination. “[They] might be encountering a life that is hard to live and hard to find joy [ . . . ] for some individuals drug use is the only way they can find that joy.”

The BC’s coroners service reported at least 161 British Columbians died from toxic drug supply in the month of April. Substance abuse particularly affects the LGBTQIA2S+ community — members are more likely to suffer from substance abuse than their heterosexual counterparts.

The American Addiction Centers explains these numbers are affected by lack of support, internalized homophobia, disproportionate rates of mental health issues, and the need for specialized treatment options.

“Drug use has a multitude of complex factors and reasons for why someone would go into using any type of substance.”

Matchett-Wong added, “It can be anything from surviving conversion therapy, being disowned by their families, or having difficulties accessing other services.”

In an interview with Global News, Matchett-Wong discussed how harm reduction is crucial in mitigating the effects of toxic drug supply. “The major component about having a harm reduction based program like this is to help reduce those deaths within the community just by limiting the usage of it,” they said. “We have a firm belief that people are masters of their own bodies and have control over their own health, meaning that if someone wants to join the program and they don’t want to quit using crystal meth they don’t have to.”

This means anyone whose goal is to reduce their usage may join the program without the pressure to remain abstinent from drug usage entirely. The strategy HIM employs is called contingency management, where they encourage clients to set goals with incentives if they achieve them. “We approach [the program] with a sense that it’s not condescending or patriarchal,” said Matchett-Wong. They note the program,

Clients are not required to abstain from drug use to access services.

PHOTO: Sushil Nash / Unsplash

unlike many others, does not require individuals to test clean for methamphetamines to participate. “We don’t believe in punishing people for using.”

On their website, HIM states their goal is to “strengthen the health and well-being in communities of self-identified GBQ men and gender diverse people in BC.” They have health centres in the Lower Mainland as well as anonymous testing events in the interior of BC to prevent and treat HIV and STIs for GBQ men. Their physical and social health programs provide holistic support to the GBQ community in BC. To learn more about HIM’s harm reduction program and services, you can visit their website or email peer@ checkhimout.ca for more information.

REWORKING RECONCILIATION

Chris Lewis becomes SFU’s first director, Indigenous initiatives and reconciliation Lewis discusses the need for collective effort and recognition to enable reconciliation P RA NJALI J MAN N // NE WS W RI TE R

Chris (Syeta’xtn) Lewis was appointed to the role of director, Indigenous initiatives and reconciliation at SFU in February 2022.

Lewis was previously a co-chair of the Indigenous Leadership Listening and Implementation Task Force which is working towards recommendations for the SFU-ARC and their subsequent Pathways Report, which recommends “pathways for Indigenous students to and through Simon Fraser University.” Prior to his position as director, he was part of numerous advisories and initiatives including being elected councilor and spokesperson for the Squamish Nation, Board of Governors’ Chair, and recipient of Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award.

The Peak interviewed Lewis to know more about his vision, upcoming initiatives, and his contributions in this position.

“I’m just really humbled with the position that I have,” he said.

“I really understand the responsibility, and the privilege, and a little bit of the weight that kind of comes with that role.”

When Lewis began the role, he met with senior leadership, deans, Indigenous faculty and staff to “listen and learn from all of the great work around what they’re doing.”

Gaining insights from these conversations, Lewis navigates collaborations regarding Indigenous initiatives and reconciliations which “transcend faculties and departments” — not limited to one section of the university. He recognized

Lewis looks forward to “bringing Indigenous names back to the university.”

that his work includes “creating safe and welcoming spaces.

So all of us have a sense of belonging.”

Unpacking the term reconciliation, Lewis said, “Reconciliation just isn’t an Indigenous matter. It’s a collective responsibility that we all have at the university.” To achieve this, he reiterated the need for collective action and effort. This included having support resources and capacity building to assist the ongoing work of Indigenous students, faculty and staff.

Lewis highlighted another essential step in the process of reconciliation: recognition. He explained it’s important to honour and appreciate the gifts of Indigenous students, faculty, and staff. But he pointed out that this inherits a challenge: honoring existing contributions can mean looking at things that have often been forgotten.

“We really need to build capacity on all fronts, and look at our governance structure, to ensure that it’s supporting the Indigenous work that we must do,” said Lewis.

His position allows Lewis to look into these concerns more closely and he hoped to work on the “Indigenous university wide governance structure on how the university needs to pivot to meet the needs and collective goals around Indigenization and reconciliation.” He said he is excited

PHOTO: Allyson Klassen / The Peak

for an upcoming project that addresses Call to Action #5 from the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council (SFU-ARC) report around “bringing Indigenous names back to the university.” Lewis said he looks forward to “creating a sense of belonging, especially for Indigenous community within the university,” through the project.

Reconciliation just isn’t an Indigenous matter. It’s a collective responsibility that we all have at the university.

CHRIS (SYETA’XTN) LEWIS DIRECTOR, INDIGENOUS INITIATIVES AND RECONCILIATION

Lewis noted he is looking forward to working with the “largest urban Indigenous population in British Columbia,” in Surrey, including Métis, Inuit, and other five host communities to “create safe and welcoming spaces.”

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OPINIONS

Opinions Editor Luke Faulks

·

opinions@the-peak.ca

INCHES V. MILES

The Depp v. Heard trial verdict is not a reason the bash the #MeToo movement Men are taking a weird victory lap about the case

ISA BE L LA URBAN I // STAF F W RI TE R

Content warning: mentions of abuse For a while there, it seemed like nearly the entire world flocked to the high-profile celebrity trial between former partners Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. After weeks of testifying, the jury unanimously sided with Depp. The verdict has been interpreted as a strike back against the #MeToo era — used as a way to prove that women lie about abuse.

It’s not just anonymous Reddit-dwellers taking victory laps.

Most concerning are the powerful people treating the verdict as a successful strike for men in the culture wars. The Twitter account for the House’s GOP members of the judiciary committee, finding nothing better to do with its time, tweeted out a GIF of Depp from the Pirates franchise. Donald Trump Jr. celebrated the verdict as being “perhaps a case that could end the effective rabid [feminist] notion that all men are guilty before being proven innocent that we’ve seen as of late.” It’s a recurring “worry” articulated by right-wing personalities. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson once mused about the intentions of the #MeToo era, suggesting that the movement could be out to “destroy men, or complete the destruction of men.”

Those narratives are perpetuated even by people who are outside of the reactionary right. Comedian Chris Rock wasted

You can’t cherry-pick cases to debunk the entire #MeToo movement.

no time putting his two cents in on the trial during one of his stand-up shows, imploring his audience to “believe all women except Amber Heard.” It’s a problematic line for two reasons.

First, it’s a joke that works based on poking holes in a tenet of the #MeToo era that tries to make sure abuse victims aren’t silenced. Second, it subtly changes the actual message of the #MeToo movement, which is “believe women,” not “believe all women.” The latter, as the Washington Post explains, is an intentionally false argument that diminishes the movement by making it seem absolutist. The Depp v. Heard case is being used to give life to both those narratives.

Nobody wins when we point the finger and perpetuate stereotypes about who can and can’t be abused. Women remain at much greater risk of assault than men. In 2019, 79% of police-reported domestic abuse in Canada occurred against women. By creating generalizations about who can and can’t be a victim, we create an atmosphere of distrust that discourages victims from coming forward and reliving traumatic events. Why report an accuser only to be subjected to people who may or not believe you?

PHOTO: Lum3n / Pexels

By creating generalizations about who can and can’t be a victim, we create an atmosphere of distrust that discourages victims from coming forward and reliving traumatic events.

The trial is not a referendum on the validity of the #MeToo movement, and it’s not providing justice for those who decide to come forward and expose themselves at their most vulnerable. At its core, #MeToo was made to shine a spotlight on cases of abuse and hold people accountable. Those who relish in debunking the entire movement aren’t seeing larger issues — and that’s the problem.

LET SLEEPING PEOPLE LIE

We need to stop harassing people who’re sleeping in their cars Ticketing car-dwellers just shuffles the problem around

NE RCYA KALI N O // STAF F W RI TE R

Everyone needs a place to rest. We’re all leading busier and busier lives, and need time to recharge. The problem is that not everyone has enough money on hand to get a roof over their heads, particularly in Vancouver. Enter, the problem of having to sleep in your car. And while I don’t see the harm in someone having a car to sleep in when going through a hard time, that’s not a widely accepted position. That’s not to say that squatting is something that we need to embrace, but we do need to acknowledge that sleeping in cars is often a last resort and a terrible symptom of a much larger problem.

Sleeping in your car gives people, at the very least, a modicum of personal security that sleeping on the streets or in shelters can’t provide.

Just last year, the City of Vancouver demanded 30 RVs parked near East 12th Avenue and Slocan Street vacate the area or face fines. Taryn Scollard, Vancouver’s director of streets, said officials had been “seeing a lot of increased concerns in the area as the number of RVs increase,” which in turn demands increased bylaw enforcement. Across the Strait of Georgia, the Victoria Police have spoken out against relaxing car-sleeping

rules. Police issued the statement when the Mayor and a city councillor proposed relaxing bylaws to prevent tickets from being issued to people sleeping in cars parked on the street should the city’s vacancy rate dip to 3%. The acting Victoria police chief said at the time that the police need to have the “discretion” to deal with people sleeping in their cars.

But you don’t need discretion. What we all need to do is reflect on the societal failures that leave people no other option than to live in their cars. If we’re not willing to do that, then the very least we could do is stop criminalizing people’s living spaces as a last resort.

The problem is bigger than we think. According to the CBC, Metro Vancouver’s 2017 homeless count found 58 people living in their cars across the region. Peer-Daniel Krause, who managed BC’s 2017 homeless count, suggests the 58 people figure is a “vast underestimation” of the number of people who live in their cars.

There are any number of reasons why a Vancouverite might turn to living in their car. We know, for example, that the housing market in BC continues to prohibit stable living situations, from ridiculously overpriced housing, to the gap between wage-earning and the municipal housing cost for rent and buying. There are huge problems preventing Vancouverites from affording a home. Sleeping in your car gives people, at the very least, a modicum of personal security that sleeping on the streets or in shelters can’t provide.

Instead of policing people sleeping in their cars, we need to express compassion for their impossible situation. But beyond compassion, meaningful policy adjustments are needed.

There’s the small stuff, like allowing people to stay overnight, in

It’s a symptom of a much larger issue.

PHOTO: Mitchell Hartley / Pexels

cars, in public parking lots. But the larger solution is, of course, tackling a dearth of affordable housing options in Vancouver.

People want to live in cities. Tackling zoning laws that prevent multi-family complexes might be a good place to start.

Enforcing bylaws on car-dwellers doesn’t solve the problem, it shuffles it, temporarily, out of sight. Car-dwellers are a natural outgrowth of the housing issue. They are not to blame for their circumstances, and shouldn’t be harassed by overzealous bylaw or police officers. Instead, we need to realize that antagonizing people who already have it hard enough is plain out not okay, and start chasing meaningful reforms to housing and work that make our cities affordable again.

OPINIONS

June 27, 2022

5

POLITICAL CORNER

WHAT GRINDS OUR GEARS?

SFU students aren’t eligible for a U-Pass during a semester off We pay enough to merit a pass

An engaged citizen is worth more than a taxpayer.

P H OTO: Adriean Lang / Pexels

Don’t call us taxpayers!

Canadians’ interests are more than just their wallets

LUK E FAULKS // OPI NI O NS E D I TO R

How do you describe your priorities as a Canadian voter? From climate change to income inequality, from reconciliation to immigration, we all have a range of issues that animate us. But what’s true for everyone is that those interests don’t stop at our wallets. We’re not just taxpayers, we’re citizens. Reducing the public to “taxpayers” minimizes our roles, reduces our interests, and teaches politicians the wrong lessons.

In any given election cycle, Canadians, and by proxy, their interests, will be reduced to taxpayers and taxes. It’s a trend we can see across the political spectrum. An easy search through Liberal, Conservative, NDP, and Green statements shows parties embracing the term. And our political leaders aren’t the only ones who are guilty of leaning into the rebrand. News and Opinion pieces from prominent Canadian outlets sprinkle the term throughout articles, as does academic research.

We need to fight back against the impulse to use the term.

“Taxpayer” reduces our role in politics to that of a piggy bank. It assumes stymied participation, something Canada doesn’t need help with. Canadian political participation has yet to match the over 79% turnout observed during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. The “taxpayer” brand is a symptom of that low turnout. Outside of paying taxes, the term suggests, Canadians don’t have a role. We don’t have a role in running for office ourselves, volunteering with public organizations, or otherwise engaging outside of whining about how our tax dollars are spent. It reduces our role to the point of endangering a healthy political system.

The term is also derogatory to Canadians, whose political interests exceed how politicians are going to spend their money. Case in point, we’re a country that knows fully well that fighting the climate crisis requires significant investment.

We want effective climate action, anyways. Indigenous reconciliation is another issue that requires substantial investment. Despite the impersonal nature of the problem for most Canadians and the hefty price tag attached to it, it’s an issue that Canadians feel passionate about, which makes it worth politicians’ time to integrate these issues in a way that doesn’t reduce us to the taxes we pay.

Lastly, the taxpayer brand risks not just softly disenfranchising and explicitly reducing Canadians, but creating a reverse effect — telling politicians that raising or lowering taxes is the way to win votes. A 2013 study found that politicians on both sides of the aisle were convinced

their voters tended to be more conservative than they actually were. The study suggested politicians were more likely to overestimate voters’ desire for austerity measures, and more likely to underestimate voters’ appetites for tackling social justice issues.

In any given election cycle, Canadians, and by proxy, their interests will be reduced to taxpayers and taxes. It’s a trend we can see across the political spectrum.

The race to the bottom on taxation — itself an outgrowth of politicians’ belief that they can run on lowering taxes — since the beginning of the neoliberal era has had a damaging effect on the government’s capacity to solve problems. To effectively solve issues like climate change and Indigenous reconciliation, we need a fully-funded government. Using the term “taxpayer” implies a penny-pinching public that’s reluctant to see their money go anywhere but into their bank accounts. Using a more comprehensive term, like “citizen,” would help support the perception that voters are willing to support spending initiatives.

During his inauguration as Canada’s 28th governor general, David Johnston provided a rallying mantra for citizens: “We are a smart and caring nation. A nation where all Canadians can grow their talents to the maximum. A nation where all Canadians can succeed and contribute.”

Each of Johnston’s important calls to action requires much more than being referred to as “taxpayers.” We have interests that both encompass and exceed worrying about how politicians spend on us. We’re citizens, not just taxpayers.

P HOTO : Diego Mazz / Unsplash

You know what’s cool? The U-Pass system. Through SFU, we’ve got unlimited access to the Lower Mainland’s sprawling bus, SkyTrain, Seabus, and gondola (c’mon folks) network. You know what’s less cool? Revoking that access when students aren’t signed up for enough courses. Dick move, whoever runs this thing.

Maybe eligibility is based on some erroneous assumptions about students. Let’s picture the SFU student who’s taking a break between semesters. Are they going to commute for work to fund their continued academic goals? Are they going to head out on the town to unwind after a grueling semester? Apparently, the survey says “nope!” No, what the U-Pass system tells us is that a semester off is spent sequestered away in your place of living. No travelling.

No commuting. Why else would the powers that be halt the U-Pass system when SFU students are still part of the community?

Now, yes, paper pushers, I can feel you fuming. “We pay for the U-Pass in our semester fees,” you say. “We don’t pay during off semesters,” you argue. “Stop pestering me for my take on the U-Pass system,” you add. True, true, and apologies, Tyler. Every semester in which we take courses, we pay a fee of just over $170 for access to the U-Pass system. That’s a lot. And it’s enough that we should be able to have a carryover semester where we, as SFU and Translink’s sometimesyear-round-money piñatas, get to use the transit system for free.

Even between semesters, a great deal of what we do remains in service of achieving our academic goals. Why grind our lives to a halt by intermittently dropping students’ U-Pass eligibility?

Written by Luke Faulks

6·FEATURES

Finding unexpected religious school

Despite being taught queerness was a sin, I was able to find m Written by Fern Ridley Illustration by Yining Zhou

Content warning: queerphobia, religious bias I think most people who grew up aware of their queerness felt like they were the “only one” at some point. I was attracted to girls before I even realized I was expected to like guys, but felt like I couldn’t tell anyone because I had no one like myself to look up to.

Thankfully, the indoctrination never came from my family, but when you spend seven hours a day at a homophobic religious school, you can’t avoid queerphobia.

I was 12 when I cut my hair short for the very first time. It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders, both literally and figuratively. I remember showing up at 7:00 a.m. basketball practice sporting a gleeful grin while passing my peers and awaiting their responses.

“There’s a boy on our team!” cried one girl.

“Are you a lesbian now?” rung in my ears.

This wasn’t my attempt at coming out. It was nothing more than an experimental haircut, but at my school you might as well be wearing a rainbow shirt with the word “queer” embellished on the front. I’d always had a hard time fitting in, even before people assumed I was queer.

Now, even my closest friends would turn around and avoid me while changing.

I’d always felt different from everyone else, but as the only girl in middle and high school with short hair, I had become a target. I remember the day the guidance counsellor called me into his office and sat me down. It was freshman year of high school, shortly after I buzzed my hair even shorter. He said he could tell I wasn’t like the other girls, and told me to listen more earnestly to what I was being taught at school about a woman’s role. It was for my own good, he told me.

Sometime after, I confessed my feelings to a crush. He responded by telling me he would’ve liked me back if I’d told him before I cut my hair. My first boyfriend was the first person to like me back since my haircut.

I had scooped him up in part to “prove” my supposed heterosexuality to all the girls in my grade.

Growing up queer in a religious school is terrifying and confusing. It’s almost like being in two closets, one of which keeps you locked out from being able to see your true self and the other from everyone else. With such little conversation about sexuality in my school, queer people became a fantastical “other” that were associated with the daunting “outside world.”

Fundamentalists like to pretend they can fashion a neat little bubble to protect their loved ones from reality. “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” is something you’ve probably heard if you grew up in a Christian environment. As a kid, it made sense to me. We were brought up to believe that all humans are sinners, and because of that, everyone’s equally . . . evil.

It doesn’t sound as nice looking back as an adult. How can you reduce someone’s identity to sin? How can you equate the innocence of sexuality to something harmful like deceit or violence? I experienced a lot of cognitive dissonance about my sexuality and gender because of this saying, and would constantly write off my feelings as a passing phase.

When I found myself friendless again in my freshman year of high school, I met a small group of people that felt like home to me. We spent hours in Animal Crossing changing our hairstyles and outfits. We dabbled in cosplay and embraced fantasy fiction as a way to escape our repressive realities. None of us realized it at the time, but our queerness was a big part of what brought us together.

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queer community in a

myself

Our friendships were characterized by a lack of judgment. Because we were all closeted at the time, this acceptance was seen mostly through a shared enjoyment in our hobbies. We all had different interests, but supported each other nonetheless. After high school, we faced more serious challenges because of our identities. Discovering we were all queer felt like meeting each other all over again, in the best way possible.

Now, we have a lot more to connect with each other about and have started to process our upbringings.

Some of the things we’ve collectively experienced were being ostracized when going against gender roles, the startling lack of resources we grew up with, and the lack of knowledge around queerness and gender. The few times I remember teachers speaking about queerness was when they were offering an outdated religious perspective on current events. No one dared question the teacher for fear of being outed.

Friends have spoken about how the shame carries over, sticking with them even as they try to unlearn it.

Ultimately, it prevented us from coming into our own.

One of my friends expressed “that you can’t keep people from being themselves forever, only delay people from discovering their true identity.”

Looking back, I can name many queer people that I went to school with, but only one came out in high school. The rest stayed silent until after graduation because there was such a high risk of ostracization. What we’ve all learned is that suppression does nothing to “cure” queer people, and everything to harm them.

Graduation felt freeing, but it was hard to fight the sense of isolation ingrained in us. Without a clear sense of community, queer people from our school felt like we were on our own. Because we were all forced to hide

Discovering we were all queer felt like meeting each other all over again, in the best way possible. ourselves, it felt like we were thrown into adulthood without the community that those who attend public school may have.

I was only able to truly love myself once I fully removed myself from the fundamentalism I grew up with. The more I distance myself from learned bigotry, the prouder I become of my queer identity. My friends and I are still learning how to openly be ourselves but I’m glad that I managed to maintain our connection. If things went any differently, I don’t know if I’d ever become comfortable in my own skin.

No matter how hard people try to silence conversations about gender and sexuality, they’re only teaching students to hide themselves. We are who we are regardless of what our teachers say. It breaks my heart to think about the suffering we all endured, feeling alone and unable to express our identities. I can only hope that in time, fewer people will have to experience what we did growing up. But ultimately, I’m grateful nonetheless for the community I unexpectedly found.

What does it mean to be an immigrant on stolen lands?

Canada tells us to be proud on Canada Day but what is there to be proud of?

ME E RA E RAGODA // FEATURES E D ITO R

This Canada Day, we can hold space for the nuances that make up the immigrant experience.

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PHOTO : Guillaume Jaillet / Unsplash

Content warning: war, ge Indigeneity, racism

It’s uncomfortable but nec it means to be a racialized lands. For many of us, life is we came from. But at who possible? And what forces countries places we neede Understanding this might h work together in solidarity.

I came to this country wi fleeing both the genocide o my abusive father. My moth from the community, with a I grew up shopping in thri cool — and not in a way-ahe deeply shameful and poor k between pride and accep strangers who knew me.

enocide, colonialism, anti-

cessary to think about what d immigrant settler on stolen s better than in the countries ose expense has this been went into making our home ed to leave in the first place? help us all learn how to better

ith my single Tamil mother, of our people in Sri Lanka and her struggled, disconnected law degree worth little here. ift stores long before it was ead-of-the-game way but in a kind of way. I saw her struggle pting hand-me-downs from

FEATURES

Life wasn’t easy at first but it slowly became more stable. And regardless of what it was like here, she taught me English first for a reason: she knew that she wanted us to leave Sri Lanka.

And it was a privilege to be able to leave, as fucked up as that is. To not be one of over 300,000 internally displaced people, to not have been killed or disappeared by the Sinhalese government, and to know where our family members are (even if we don’t talk to them). We also lived in Colombo, the capital, as opposed to the north and east of Sri Lanka where Tamils are concentrated, and therefore targeted. Aside from when we visited my grandparents, we were relatively separated from the conflict with enough money to leave.

My grandparents lived in a city called Kalkudah in the east and I have vague memories of being there, surrounded by my grandfather’s rough voice and whiskey breath and my grandmother’s scratchy saris contrasting with her soft skin.

Their love for me permeates into memories of dusty roads, the sea, and their farm with monkeys rustling in the trees above. I was shielded from the context we were living under but I also remember hearing practice drills at the military base beside their farm.

When I immigrated to Canada, there was little education about Indigenous people and Canada’s genocide and displacement of them. What I was taught made it seem like this history was so long ago. I didn’t learn that the last residential school closed in 1996. I didn’t learn that the residential school system morphed into the foster care system. I didn’t learn about the over-incarceration of Indigenous people or how many still grapple with very real intergenerational trauma resulting from displacement and colonialism. I didn’t learn about the vast diversity of Indigenous cultures, their resistance, their resilience, their creativity, and their care for the land.

I think all of us have a duty to examine our history and help other immigrants to understand that when we celebrate “Canada,” we celebrate the same forces that set the stage for volatility in our countries that are responsible for the loss of so many cultures and languages.

Placing this into historical context, I learned how colonialism touches everything. On the surface, the civil war in Sri Lanka is a straightforward conflict between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Hindu Tamil minority. However, this conflict emerged from tensions British colonizers capitalized on and exacerbated. Once the British left, they handed power back over to the Sinhalese who started enacting discriminatory policies, culminating in the two genocides of Tamil people in 1983 and 2009.

Like many other Tamils fleeing the genocide, our first point of entry was Toronto. This is where the largest diaspora of Eelam Tamils outside of Sri Lanka resides. I, like many of us, grew up being told Canada was a utopian alternative to the US. Canadians are polite, multicultural, and more progressive than the US. We’re told this even as we face racism and discrimination. On the other one hand, I am safer here. I have more opportunities, I can be openly queer, my non-binary identity is accepted, I can have tattoos, and I don’t live under a state that is trying to enact genocide on my people.

At the same time, fleeing one genocide just to benefit from the genocide of another group of people places me, and others like me, in a complicated position. The more deeply I examine my place here, the more I see the intersecting threads of colonialism that make up this country. The British created a problem in my country and left a sea of wreckage behind them as they exited. Then they sold us the solution by way of immigration to countries like Canada. Canada has a history of using immigrants to claim ownership over the land and continue their displacement of Indigenous people. In many ways, we are all pawns in this game.

The more I learned about colonialism, the more I realized how interconnected oppression is and, conversely, how it would be so powerful to come together to dismantle the system.

Conservatives of any ilk like to tell us the success of other groups comes at our own detriment.

We’ve been taught to divide so they can conquer. And we have been taught this. Who told us to see brown people as terrorists?

Who told us to see Indigenous people as criminals? But how do we all unite so we can conquer colonialism and capitalism?

Sometimes I think we silo our own movements instead of fighting for collective liberation. But who taught us this?

When we should be seeing a win for one group as progress and as opening space for us all to uplift each other and unite against colonial and capitalist structures.

It’s true that many of us can’t go back to our home countries.

I, for one, have been so separated from the language and the culture that even if I wanted to, I would not be able to live in Sri Lanka. We can hold multiple truths about our experiences here. We can be thankful for the opportunity and the relative safety and we can also recognize we’re here because of colonialism and capitalism. We can realize we can’t return to our countries but also understand that our presence here perpetuates settler colonialism. For those of us who are vocal against oppression in our home countries, we need to see the connections here and show up in solidarity with Indigenous people. That means paying attention to Indigenous voices calling to change the system, that means showing up when they ask us to, that means educating ourselves and our communities, and that means holding politicians accountable.

None of us are untouched by colonialism, whether we benefit or not. And this Canada Day, I think all of us have a duty to examine our history and help other immigrants to understand that when we celebrate “Canada,” we celebrate the same forces that set the stage for volatility in our countries that are responsible for the loss of so many cultures and languages, are responsible for the destruction of land, and an ongoing legacy of genocide right here. Britain has colonized the world.

We don’t have to let them colonize our minds.

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ARTS & CULTURE

Arts & Culture Editor Gem Yelin Lee

·

arts@the-peak.ca

Food for Thought: Bubble Tea The origin story of the popular Taiwanese drink is debated W RITTEN BY C RISTIN A L IAO

From the newly opened Yogost in UniverCity to the Gong Cha stores that can be found all over the Lower Mainland, we see this Taiwanese drink known as bubble tea, boba, or 珍珠奶茶 rapidly seep into the western world.

I have a never-ending love for this beverage. Once summer hits, the fruit-based bubble teas are my ultimate comfort drink when those study sessions start getting rough. With its numerous unique flavours like “peach soda pop” at Yi Fang and my go-to “osmanthus oolong tea” at Shiny Tea, it’s hard to imagine ever getting bored of this drink. Even if you were to order everything from the menu at one store, different shops will have their own flavours and unique takes on classics like taro.

Being one of Taiwan’s most beloved beverages, the history of bubble tea began in the late 1980s with the classic milk tea. Milk tea, shaved ice, and tapioca balls were individually popular as desserts at the time and these elements were combined to produce the first classic milk tea boba. As bubble tea became increasingly popular throughout Taiwan, “stall owners started introducing fruit boba, using fruit powders and syrups in lieu of actual fruit.”

ILLUSTRATION: Stella Nguyen / The Peak

However, this isn’t the only origin story of bubble tea.

There are other claims to the true beginnings of bubble tea such as the rumour that a teahouse in Taiwan called Chun Shui Tang started selling iced tea on their menu.

The manager there decided to add tapioca pudding

in their drinks as a test, and ended up adding it to the menu because of how good the combination tasted. This addition became so popular that it was a bestseller for the shop’s franchise and concessions all over Taiwan began following this trend.

Although I’ve been delighted at the growing popularity of bubble tea in the western world, it sometimes feels like East Asian culture is watered-down to iconic food and drinks like dim sum and bubble tea. Childhood memories of white classmates making fun of the smell or look of my lunches contradict the love for certain East Asian foods I see now.

Food can be closely linked to cultural identity, but cultural appropriation and the white gaze seem to take up too much space and overshadow this beautiful experience.

Bubble tea plays a large role in Asian Canadian culture, seeing as it has brought a newfound appreciation for our influence on Canada’s food and drink sector. As Presotea states, “For many diasporic Asians, bubble tea is a symbol of their culture.” As an SFU student, you have many options for getting this cultural beverage on our campuses. There are Xin Fu Tang and Coco stores that can be found at the Central City mall beneath the Surrey campus, as well as numerous places at SFU Burnaby, including the aforementioned Yogost. You might see me at Yogost on a hot summer afternoon enjoying the peach lychee yoghurt foam, contemplating the true origin story of bubble tea.

VANCITY VOGUE

How voguing carries decades of queer history through its movement From the underground ballroom scene of New York to RuPaul’s Drag Race, the journey of vogue represents both the tragedy and the beauty of queerness CHLO Ë ARN E S ON // NE WS W RI TE R

On June 16, the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts and SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement hosted a Public Talk and Vogue Workshop at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. This workshop and presentation was part of their two-day event to explore the history of the house and ballroom community.

House and ballroom is an underground Black and Latinx LGBTQIA2S+ subculture that features extravagant social events of gender and sexual expression. Vogue is “a highly stylized form of dance.” Inspired by poses from Egyptian art and high fashion, voguing uses exaggerated gestures and movements to tell stories and celebrate LGBTQIA2S+ identities.

As a queer person, I’ve interacted with fragments of ballroom culture and voguing, but had very little knowledge of its rich history and cultural importance going into this event. When I walked off of the colourfully lit dance floor on the afternoon of June 16, I left with a greater appreciation for how much of our present-day queer culture is owed to the Black transwomen of the ballroom scene.

Michael Roberson, co-creator of the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Group, walked us through the origins of ballroom and voguing. He explained that a community formed around the ballroom scene, led by Black and Latinx transwomen who created this space for themselves in and around New York. Vogue uses a variety of different styles and techniques, all with various cultural origins within the queer community.

Roberson showed us videos of iconic ballroom and voguing performances by trailblazers including Leiomy Maldonado and Javier Ninja.

I was astonished that in all of the drag related media I have consumed, I had never heard these stories. Drag is an industry

The public talk and workshop event gave an emotionally compelling introduction to ballroom culture and vogue. that profits immensely from the culture of Black and Latinx people, but now largely excludes them from the limelight. I made a mental note to think more critically about the queer content I support going forward and started by watching more Maldonado videos in awe as soon as I got home.

Learning how to vogue encouraged me to step out of the restrictive box I created around my queerness and allowed me to be unapologetically expressive.

Following the moving and educational talk by Roberson, we jumped right into the voguing workshop. Ralph “Posh” Gvasalia, the founder of the non-profit VanVogueJam, led us through the basic 5 Vogue-Femme elements: hands, catwalk, duckwalk, spins/dips, and floor.

As we learned the first few moves with our hands and practiced our catwalks, I felt like a badass. This explosion of confidence was instantaneously cut short as we moved on to spins, dips, and the duckwalk. Bouncing across the floor in a crouched position, some attendees put on their best

PHOTO: Chloë Arneson / The Peak

Maldonado faces and some couldn’t help but laugh as we struggled to keep balance and kept falling backwards. The duckwalk required you to kick your feet out while crouched, incorporate the hand movements we learned earlier, and core strength — all of which I do not possess.

For a dance that is so commonplace within queer culture, I never realized how hard voguing is. Posh taught us that ballroom is more than just individual elements laced together to create a performance: it is a form of storytelling. He told us to imagine a story for ourselves that embodies the attitude we feel while we dance, and let it be seen through our movements.

It was a little tricky to embody the diva within me as I gracefully smacked my head on the floor.

We practiced in a circle around Posh and even though I was definitely not getting better, I started having more and more fun. In the spirit of vogue and ballroom, we clapped to keep each other on beat and cheered with delight as Posh showed us what a true master of vogue can do.

As a person who never had the chance to really participate in queer culture within their own city, this event felt really liberating for me. Learning how to vogue encouraged me to step out of the restrictive box I created around my queerness and allowed me to be unapologetically expressive. I felt connected to both my local queer community and its rich history.

To learn more about the history of ballroom, you can watch Michael Roberson’s TED talk. To learn more about SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement’s upcoming events you can check out their website and their Twitter.

ARTS & CULTURE

June 27, 2022

11

BEYOND BORDERS

Unraveling stories of “dreamers and changemakers” at the Xicanx exhibition UBC’s Museum of Anthropology hosts art exhibition on Mexican political, social, and cultural issues

P RA NJALI J MAN N // STAF F W RI TE R YE LIN GEMMA LEE / / ARTS & CULTURE E D I TO R

Content warning: mentions of racialized violence against Latinx folks, undocumented status, systemic racism The Museum of Anthropology (MOA) on the UBC Vancouver campus displays art as a powerful form of activism and sociopolitical critique. The Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers exhibition opened on May 12 and is gracing MOA until January 1, 2023. It aims to expand on “the idea of Xicanx art while continuing to address the personal, social, and political issues of our times.” Being a student learning about similar issues relating to the India-Pakistan partition and loss of family and culture across borders, this theme intrigued me.

Xicanx is a gender neutral term for chicano/chicano — used to connote “people of Mexican origin living in the United States since the early twentieth century.” In the context of the exhibit, the term “reflects those who fought for and claim this designation, and incorporates the ‘X’ from the Spanish transcription of the Nahuatl sound, ‘ch.’ Nahuatl is one of the major Indigenous languages in Mexico.”

The exhibit covered experiences which “transcend borders and gender,” through themed sections: neighborhood, borderlands, activism, home, and identity. Displaying a wide range of artworks from 1970–2022 by 33 Mexican American artists including murals, mixed-media installations, and paintings, the vibrant exhibit was captivating.

I ‘illegally’ place a representation of the Mexican into their utopia.

Therefore, by placing the running family into these landscapes, I am documenting the undocumented.

CARLOS FRE SQUEZ // MEX I CAN ARTI ST

According to the exhibit co-curator, Jill Baird, the exhibition presents stories significant to Mexican culture, activism, and the US border. The moment I entered the exhibit, a ceiling full of colorful flags and hot pink walls welcomed me into the space with a powerful quote by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto: “The power of place is tangible and evident in the way we speak, how we identify ourselves, and the values we profess.”

Borderlands According to Baird, this section of the exhibit captures “peoples’ concerns of crossing the Mexican American border, but also the idea of how that impacts people’s lives.”

A piece by Carlos Fresquez titled Salon de los Ilegales particularly stood out to me the most from the borderlands section. The piece uses the silhouette of a family that was used on “yellow highway caution signs” at the US-Mexico border “to warn drivers to watch for Mexican families running or crossing the roads.” This recognizable silhouette of the running family is placed on various thrift-store landscape paintings. The paintings are displayed across a map of the US. “I ‘illegally’ place a representation of the Mexican into their utopia. Therefore, by placing the running family into these landscapes I am documenting the undocumented,” wrote Fresquez in the description of the artwork.

I was immersed in reflecting on the stories of perseverance depicted in this piece. Would the kids running ask their parents why their identities were constructed this way? What conversations would they have? Where are they now?

Another piece read, “We did not cross the border. The border crossed us,” attributed to Ybarra-Frausto. The exhibit referenced a map of 1848 borders, when Mexico made up a larger part of the US. In Our Lady of the Checkpoint, a woman with a halo and prayer hands is depicted crossing the border. The piece was crafted by “woodcut and vinyl on archival paper” by Celeste De Luna.

The artist statement read, “The common experience of brown women of the border, both documented and undocumented, is how bodies are considered potentially criminal vessels and are objectified by both governmental agencies and people all around us.”

Activism The section focusing on activism highlights the negative impacts of fighting the status quo on their bodies. The twopiece painting by Roberto Jose Gonzalez featured skeletons on a Black background and appeared to be connected by two skeletons’ hands meeting at the same point along the edges.

One was titled El Paso 8/3/19 and the other No Hate, No Fear.

El Paso 8/3/19 depicts a chilling scene of skeletons strewn about on the ground on top of each other, with one skeleton leaning a hand on the edge of the canvas. Gonzalez described that this piece was on the El Paso, Texas massacre, a racially targeted mass shooting.

Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers showcases the interconnectedness of art and activism.

PHOTOS: Krystal Chan / The Peak

“The shooter wrote that he was specifically hunting Mexicans.

It is a tragedy where few words can express the pain and sorrow experienced,” wrote Gonzalez in his artist statement.

No Hate, No Fear extends off of the death-pictured piece, depicting what appears to be the grieving loved ones of those in the previous panel. Even through skeletons, Gonzalez successfully expressed human grief and tragedy of lost life in an emotionally impactful way.

Neighbourhood The Brown Dot Project by Linda Vallejo featured “data pictographs” which represented statistics in different shades of brown relating to class and color. The project came from Brown Belongings where Vallejo collected “the experiences, knowledge, and feelings” of “Chicano/a and American Indigenous communities.” In her statement the artist said, “I ‘long’ to find a visual language that will open a dialogue about how Latinos see ourselves, how others see us, and how we can find understanding and joy in both our differences and our similarities.” The infrared orange colour of the pigment prints as a way to present data and make commentary on racialized experiences was powerful.

The Xicanx exhibition stirs a strong message of social justice by allowing a platform for artists that are “dreamers and changemakers.” The most important takeaway is to go and visit these masterpieces while they are here. As Baird revealed, the viewer might be able to catch some of the artists as they sometimes drop by the museum to talk about their impactful pieces. MOA plans to host a celebration in honour of Day of the Dead on November 2.

To learn more about the exhibit and purchase tickets to Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers, visit MOA’s website.

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HUMOUR

Confessionals If you leave the group chat, I am leaving you for the sharks Written by Kelly Chia Is this a confessional or a reckoning? At this point, I’m not sure. I am a destroyed woman. And it’s because of you. I will RUIN you.

Humour Editor Kelly Chia

·

humour@the-peak.ca

Dining with sophistication Townies, Tricks, and Trash Townhouse Compost

Look, I know how I sound.

I’m a nice person. At least, I think I am. I always say thank you when I leave the bus, sometimes even when I leave the SkyTrain. But I am not patient. I’m about two inches away from releasing fresh hell, and I will not apologize. And it’s because of you.

A bit of background on my dilemma. I admit, this group project wasn’t everything to me, three months ago. I mean, it wasn’t graded strictly, and I thought we were all about sharing the tasks. Then, we had the naive pretense of exchanging contacts via Discord, or WhatsApp. We laughed about taking on group responsibilities and joked about the long syllabus.

We had the joy of laughter then.

But it is the eve before our presentation. The crux that breaks the ship on which our friendship sailed. I’m not dramatic. I tried to be patient. I believed that you’d do your part when I had seen you in class last weekend. You told me, with a smile on your face, that you’d respond!

I sent you a text through your cell number. I waited. I messaged you on Discord. I waited. Five days passed.

I accepted the truth. I have been ghosted.

You left me asunder in an ocean of Google Slide transitions and the most unhelpful illustrations. Please tell me how I’m supposed to use a vector of a sad boy eating ice cream for our Shakespeare analysis. You make me feel like a sad boy.

With no ice cream.

Left in my thoughts, I monologued on and on, much like Edgar Allen Poe and the worst group partner. You were supposed to be my partner, and you’ve parted my heart. I am running on three Red Bulls, and I’ve just had a revelation.

In fact, I’d call it inspiration.

Tomorrow’s presentation will not only have no trace of your work in it, it will condemn you, in the most academic sense.

You see, I have decided to do a fun mad-lib. We know the plot of Othello so well now, I’m sure the class will be excited at my creative decision to use your name in place of Iago.

You are the betrayer!

Tomorrow, you will receive my fair deliverance. Everyone will hear it, the professor, the TA, and the class that could really care less. What use is the high road in a 100-level Shakespeare elective?! . . . Or, I could go back to my chicken noodle soup, and never look at a Messenger group chat, ever again.

APPETIZER

Spinach and mushroom soup ENTRÉE

Prawns sautéd with cherry tomatoes DESSERT

Yogurt cheesecake WINE

Water

Reginald Trashpánda III, Acclaimed Food Critic

Simply disappointing. Those were the first words that came to mind as I exited the Townhouse Compost this sad evening.

This week I had the ”pleasure” of Chef Lotor’s exciting cuisine. He claimed to be a freelance chef hired by SFU . . . Suspicious, but I was optimistic. He’d sent out an invite made specially for me, Reginald the III, of course. He stated this was yet to be another tasty treat only meant for the likes of my noble self. I beg to differ.

Unfortunately, this restaurant and its . . . delights have left my tongue, dare I say, displeased. I will not be seeing Chef Lotor anytime soon, that’s for certain.

Off the bat, the appetizer, spinach and mushroom soup, was disappointing leaf water. All I could taste was the blandness of it all. No salt, creaminess, nor any garnish. I think at some point, the soap had layers of unpalatable awfulness of what was justified as “soup.” If you are familiar with homemade broth, the layers of fat and the liquid is what creates the taste of umami. What was in my bowl was simply not that. Far from it, in fact. The mushroom was raw and the spinach had withered into non-existence. More like a garnish than a feature! Stirred together, I saw the clear reflection of my regret in those murky waters. I nearly sobbed into my little paws. The downside of the whole appetizer is that this is supposed to be a simple tummy-warming dish, but at some point I felt it claw back up to my throat.

I insisted on skipping the entrée, worried that my night would suddenly become unpleasant from the indulgences of this regrettable meal. Chef Lotor, oblivious to my apparent disgust, brought this horror forth. How can one think to cook this meal and ration the least amount of prawns one can ever think of is beyond me. The whole point of prawns sautéed with cherry tomatoes is the prawns! The tomatoes overpowered the whole meal and it lacked zest and aroma. The spinach in this meal was, well, present. Come to think of it, the amount of spinach in this meal could have been used sufficiently in the spinach and mushroom soup.

The dessert was the only part of the meal that was able to calmly stay in my belly. I had no intention of finishing the whole fiasco, but the proportions of the ingredients and its warmth made the experience somewhat less vile. It was sufficiently filled with dairy, and I admit a small weakness for cheese. I sadly chewed on the soggy graham crust while thinking over my sordid meal.

For the many reasons I can list on for eternity, this meal did not deserve any assortment of wine, so I drank water to quench the filth stuck in the back of my throat threatening a torture that would proceed the night.

Was this restaurant worth my time? No. I have never been more disappointed in Chef Lotor’s recommendation, he has started to lose his dazzle. Worse, I suspect he unintentionally tried to poison me. I, Reginald Trashpánda III, your honorable and favorable food critic. I am deeply immersed in the love for cuisines but this was not anywhere close to that. I now must get on that Yelping app to warn my fellow readers of this monstrous chef!

Written by Nercya Kalino

OPINIONS HUMOUR

June6,27, 2022 May 2022

Your Weekly Horoscopes After the stress of midterms, the stars offer you some self-care tips

Peak Associate and Local Mystic

LIBRA — Sept 23–Oct 22

Has the stress of exams got you down, Aries? Do you feel stuck and exhausted? The stars have told me that you are overdue for a natural shower in the rain. Like Poet Laureate Natasha Bedingfield said, “Feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you.”

Just make sure you wear a coat. Whatever you do, don’t blame me if you catch a cold.

Have you felt out of balance lately? Have you been feeling generally off? The stars have informed me that you’ve been carrying your book bag on your right side for far too long. Switch that bag to the other shoulder and injure it too so it doesn’t feel left out.

TAURUS — Apr 20 –May 20

SCORPIO — Oct 23–Nov 21

Taurus, when your friends are asking how you’re doing, I promise that they genuinely wish to know. There’s no need to lie and tell them that you’re fine. Next time, instead of your cookie-cutter response, simply scream at the top of your lungs into the phone. That will certainly get the message across.

Next time you’re feeling low on energy, the stars advise that you appreciate the little things in life. Give a hug to your shortest friend.

Buy some of those erasers shaped like little versions of food. Give a kiss to a bug. Research bacteria. Either way, it’ll take your mind off of the constant gears winding in your head.

GEMINI — May 21–Jun 20

SAGITTARIUS — Nov 22–Dec 21

Gemini, how has your sleep schedule been lately? The stars have been worrying that you’ve been wearing yourself down too thin.

While the best solution would be to get to bed early, we all know how highly unrealistic that notion is. Instead, try micro-dosing on sleep by just taking slower blinks. I’m no expert, but isn’t that just basically a mini nap?

Have you ever heard some WASP woman talking about how good yoga is physically and mentally? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve made it a habit to never listen to a Karen. Even if they possess a shred of truth, I advise you to do the complete opposite. Instead of yoga, try lying in bed for a few days. Soon, you and the mattress will become one.

CANCER — Jun 21–Jul 22

CAPRICORN — Dec 22–Jan 19

Something (the stars) tells me you haven’t taken the time for a mental break in a while. Hit two birds with two stones and begin hydrating yourself to no end. I’m talking about getting one of those comically large bottles of water. You know the ones. Not only will you assist the proper function of your organs, but you can give your mind a quick rest while you stare off into space during your 5th pee-break of the day.

As much as I respect the hustle, the idea of working yourself to the bone simply isn’t sustainable, my dearest Capricorn. The stars and I are literally begging you to take a singular day off. Do not run any errands. Do not hang out with friends. Simply allow yourself to exist.

Don’t try to weasel yourself out of this one, Capricorn! It’s called tough love for a reason.

LEO — Jul 23–Aug 22

AQUARIUS — Jan 20 –Feb 18

Now, we both know that you hold a certain flair for the dramatics, so next time you feel a little bit too stressed out my best suggestion would be to fake your own death. Show up to your funeral in a clever disguise and watch on like the Petty Patty you are. Once you reveal yourself to be alive, I’m pretty sure that everyone will be so overjoyed that you won’t have to hand in that assignment you were dreading.

I think one time I read in a self-care article that keeping a journal is a useful tactic. Vent out all your feelings into the pages of your new Moleskin! Reveal all your life’s secrets! Next, leave it out in the open so that I can steal BORROW it. Don’t forget to add in your credit card number and your CVN.

VIRGO — Aug 23–Sept 22

PISCES — Feb 19–Mar 20

If things have felt too overwhelming lately, the stars have suggested putting on some rain sounds. They have advised you to imagine yourself as a tiny little frog on a lily pad. Things are always less stressful if you're just a little slimy guy on a lily pad. Maybe try eating a fly or two while you're at it!

When was the last time you went to the aquarium? Middle school?

Elementary school? The stars have informed me that looking at some swimming little fishies is exactly what you need to calm down. Rejoin your brethren and take a big dunk into the tank with the fellow aquatic sea life. Or, maybe just get an overpriced hat from the gift shop. That works too.

You haven’t noticed the pinnacle of queer SFU rep?

WRITTEN BY CHLOË ARNESON

June 27–July 3 Max Lorette

ARIES — Mar 21–Apr 19

McFogg the Dog is actually a queer icon

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In honour of pride month, The Peak wanted to shine a spotlight on one of our favourite underrated LGBTQIA2S+ icons, McFogg the Dog. Any student within the community with at least a semi-functioning gay-dar could tell you that the burly, mustachioed, kilt-wearing beast is definitely a little fruity.

The LGBTQIA2S+ community has a history of choosing strange mascots to represent our pride.

The question of who, or what, is chosen by the community to become a “gay icon” is simultaneously very simple, and yet impossible to describe. Lady Gaga and Elton John, those make sense. But what about frogs? Or the Babadook? Queer icons are adopted by different parts of the community from vastly different parts of culture. The one defining factor — an aura that speaks to some part of the queer experience. McFogg the Dog absolutely oozes the aura of a gay icon.

McFogg’s attitude is the only explanation for how he so effortlessly slays his iconic look: a kilt, boots, a tiny hat, and his muscled chest covered with barely a wisp of a vest. Aside from the obvious lack of toxic masculinity it takes to pull off a look so glamorous, McFogg is that bitch and he knows it. He is serving leather daddy in Pride-thehouse-down boots. He literally looks like the furries you inevitably bump into at Pride.

As someone who grew up on the

gay side of the internet, I don’t even want to know what kind of art of our Scottish fursona there is out there. McFogg has all the makings of a bear, despite being a tiny Scottish terrier.

His big, hairy body certainly does not go unappreciated, as he was voted SFU’s sexiest in 2022.

His pretty face and iconic look isn’t the only thing that we appreciate about McFogg, however. After reading a 3000-word article on the history of our beloved icon, I believe his story of overcoming adversity echoes the difficulties of the queer experience. You can definitely expect to see him on the front of rainbow coloured Walmart shirts next June.

After he was introduced in 1996, many students felt that McFogg was not manly enough, with one Peak writer having allegedly seen our dashing hero taken down and mugged by three pre-teens. Just mortifying.

Despite facing these horrors, he rose above with a fresh glow-up, those iconic muscles, and overflowing confidence. If that isn’t iconic, I don’t know what is. Last time somebody told me that I was an abomination, I got ten times hotter and made sweet love to their mom, so I can confirm that this is the quintessential gay experience.

While McFogg has never directly commented on his sexuality, it is pretty clear that he embodies the soul of the community. He is loud and proud, and quite frankly, looks way too good to not be a gay icon.

14

DIVERSIONS

Business Manager Yuri Zhou

·

business@the-peak.ca

CROSSWORD Across 1. Brainstorm 5. Fragrance 10. Occupied with 14. High 15. More sensible 16. Detergent 17. Vocalist ____ Fitzgerald 18. Sacred song 19. Moniker 20. Blunder 22. Made of clay 24. Relatives 25. Make over

26. Lettuce dish 29. Opposing 34. Native mineral 35. Give forth 37. Guiding person 38. Froth 40. Flawless 42. Presented 43. Appoint 45. Coin opening 47. Giggle sound 48. Strike back 50. Decorate 52. Corn spikes

53. Actor's hint 54. Moderately slow, in music 58. Product list 62. Indian attire 63. Speak 65. Bedspring 66. One who mimics 67. ____ Island 68. Leer 69. Worshipers' seats 70. Consumer 71. Facial feature

25. Quizzes again 26. As yet (2 wds.)

27. Got up 28. Minimum 29. Disencumber 30. Children's game 31. Boise's state 32. No way!

33. Putting ____ 36. Small model 39. Actress ____ Farrow 41. Pub drink 44. Narrow valley 46. Tense 49. R&B singer ____

Franklin 51. Church officer 53. Concerned one 54. Right away (abbr.)

55. Neck part 56. Depicted 57. Broadcasts 58. Give in 59. Advertising symbol 60. Greases 61. Delight 64. Tyke

Down 1. Ledger entry 2. Painter Salvador ____ 3. Building extensions 4. Juneau's state 5. Ski resort 6. Scrape roughly 7. Stop ____ dime (2 wds.)

8. Free-for-alls 9. Armored mammal 10. Negative contraction 11. Ark's captain 12. Docile 13. Unwrap 21. Ocean current 23. Stood up

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July 17