The Histories Issue (Fall 2021) by The Prattler

Table of Contents

MAIN FEATURE

LITTLE MANILA: MY HOME AWAY FROM HOME Anna Regina Gotuaco highlights Little Manila, a Filipino enclave in Queens, and how the area has helped her to return home to her roots.

AROUND CAMPUS

PRATT’S YOUNGEST STUDENTS Nina Martineck uncovers Pratt’s long-lost kindergarten program, and the lasting effects it has had on early education around the nation.

AROUND THE CITY

NUEVAYORKINOS: ESSENTIAL AND EXCLUDED SPOTLIGHTS NYC’S IMMIGRANT WORKERS AND COMMUNITY Carly Tagen-Dye reviews a recent MoMA PS1 exhibit about essential immigrant workers, and highlights its importance as both education and celebration of immigrant communities and laborers in the city.

CHANGSHA IN VIGNETTES Illustration by Selena Yao

OPINIONS

A POET BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE Morrison Haslock reflects on the importance of the Apple TV+ series “Dickinson,” and what the show can teach us about the famous poet a century later.

50 YEARS OF MAGIC Nicole Delp pays tribute to Walt Disney World in the wake of its 50th anniversary, and how the famous park has evolved throughout the years.

CAUTION: CHILDREN AT PLAY Ingrid Jones examines the significance of the yellow raincoat in the horror genre, and what it can tell us about fear and childhood beyond the screen.

LET ME WALK YOU THROUGH IT Maddie Langan shares a poem she’s written about the perils of dating and relationships.

ILLUSTRATION | Dizzy Starfie

MAIN FEATURE

Little Manila: My Home Away From Home Anna Regina Gotuaco

s I stepped off the 7 train from the 69th Street station for the first time, I was instantly greeted by familiar sights and sounds. There were honking cars, rain clouds looming over the city, shouts in Tagalog and people bustling about. Brightly colored signs boasting familiar Tagalog words called out to me, promoting food, travel, law services and makeovers. The atmosphere enveloped me, as if reaching its arms out and pulling me into a hug. I stopped at the base of the staircase to take it all in. As a new arrival in New York City, I had never been to Queens. I’m a California native, and my move to Pratt has been my first taste of the East Coast. I’ve been navigating completely new experiences: being three hours ahead of my friends and family; figuring out the subway system that is similar, but not exactly like the public transportation back home; the sheer diversity of people I’ve met or seen from a passing glance.

However, I felt a wave of nostalgia that day in Queens as I walked underneath the train overpass. Something in the way the humidity clung to my skin, in the parols that adorned the inside of the Filipino grocery store, in the “Come in as strangers, leave as friends” sign in the restaurant I visited, brought me home. This home I speak of is not a specific location; it is a feeling, an environment, a way of life. This is Little Manila. This is where a part of me yearns to be, surrounded by people who speak a familiar language and come from a similar background. Little Manila is a small area within Woodside, Queens with a condensed Filipino population. It starts on 63rd Street, with the Filipino fast food stable Jollibee, and stretches all the way to Freddie G Lucero Unisex Beauty Salon on 71st Street. The Asian Immigration Act of 1965 saw an increase in New York’s Filipino

population, as an influx of people left the Philippines to start a new life. Filipinos flocked to New York, specifically Queens, because the area was convenient for their new jobs. Woodside is not far from Elmhurst Hospital, the place where many immigrants found jobs in healthcare. Many Flilipinos also moved to America to send money back home to their families. Employment was easier to find in America and paid more than many jobs in the Philippines. Today, Queens has the largest population of Filipinos in all of New York, with roughly 50,00070,000 people. Roosevelt Avenue, in particular, is chock-full of Filipino establishments. There are eateries with the familiar smell of garlic and vinegar permeating in the air, and bakeries with fresh pan de sal sitting on bakery shelves. There are beauty salons with skilled workers that shower their clients with compliments (“maganda ka!”) and postal companies where people can send balikbayan boxes full of medicine, food, clothing and toys, many of which are hard to obtain in the Philippines, back home. Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike also flock to Little Manila’s restaurants, each of them filled to the brim with delicious food, lively conversation and immense

hospitality. You can go to Renee’s Grill and Kitchenette to pick up some tapsilog for breakfast, stop by Kabayan for some beef kaldereta for lunch and finally settle down at Ihawan for a traditional kamayan-style meal for dinner. On the corner of 70th and Roosevelt, Phil-Am Food Mart carries all the essential Filipino groceries, like white vinegar, frozen lumpia, mang tomas sauce and Mama Sita spice packets. Shoppers are greeted with an array of baked goods and sweets as soon as they enter the store, from the fluffy ensaymada to the rich and flaky hopia. Instant champorado mixes, spice packets and bottled calamansi extract line the shelves, along with comically large jugs of vinegar. Pre-prepared arroz caldo and ginataang sit in refrigerated shelves, waiting to be picked up and devoured. The back of the store holds frozen lumpia and adobo sio pao, finding home next to the pancit and sotanghon noodles. It’s everything a homesick Filipina, like me, could ever want. I come from Daly City, California, the city in the United States with the largest Filipino population outside of the Philippines. I grew up surrounded by familiar food,

language and culture. Moving to New York marked the first time in my life that I was separated from that. Walking through Little Manila gave me the odd sensation of being home. I walked down Roosevelt Avenue, rain falling hard as if I was truly in the Philippines, a sense of déjà vu overtaking me. Middleaged people lounged on the sidewalk, sitting on a chair next to a large blue cooler, selling popular Filipino street foods like taho, balut and garlic peanuts. The people in Little Manila spoke a language that sounded like home, sold food that my nanay makes and exuded a sense of togetherness. It was a place where Filipino culture was preserved and given the space to thrive.

Italy. Without a true name and boundaries, the area simply does not exist on maps, and, by proxy, in the minds of most people.

Unfortunately, Little Manila is in danger of disappearing. Rising rent costs and real estate developments have caused the eight-block stretch to shrink. Many Filipinos and other Woodside residents have proposed an idea: establish Little Manila signs around the neighborhood to encourage visitors to come and explore Philippine culture and cuisine. Little Manila is the unofficial name of the area given by the residents that live there; there is no Little Manila on the map like there is a Chinatown or a Little

If you’re ever around the Woodside area, take a trip to Little Manila. Experience the sights, sounds and tastes of the Philippines, and immerse yourself in the rich history of this wonderful country. From its humble beginnings more than fifty years ago, Little Manila has blossomed into a thriving community keeping the atmosphere and culture of the Philippines alive in New York. Magkita-kita tayo sa Little Manila! v

If the rising rent and usurpation of properties continues, Little Manila, a historically and culturally important part of New York, may disappear forever. Filipino identity and culture as established in Queens may be lost to corporate greed. By giving Little Manila an official name and location on a map, and not solely relying on word of mouth, more people will be interested and check out what the area has to offer. Bringing Little Manila into the public eye is paramount for its preservation and growth, and may help people like me to return home.

Pratt’s Youngest Students

For the most part, as Pratt students, we’re well aware of how Pratt’s history has impacted our own. If only out of necessity, we can recognize our place within our institution, and our institution’s place in us. However, because Pratt’s history is so heavily interwoven with aspects we didn’t know it created, it’s likely to have impacted us before we even knew Pratt existed. Example: did you go to kindergarten? The concept of a kindergarten program, in which preelementary age children learn fundamentals through handson learning and play, made its way from Germany to the U.S. towards the end of the nineteenth century. As the movement gained momentum, educators and reformers wanted to implement these programs into education systems and train

Nina Martineck

women to see it through. In 1892, Pratt Institute’s Teacher Training School would be one of the first in New York to do so. The program was run by and for women. Alice E. Fitts served as the longest-running director, and she prioritized the education of working mothers and their children. Per her beliefs, the kindergarten was open and free of charge to the surrounding community. Many parents attended classes at Pratt while their children did the same, learning how to read and count while the adults learned how to teach them. The course was a two-year commitment, and after its completion, women could enter the workforce. Most stayed in the education field, and quite a few, including Fitts, stayed in academia to train more teachers. As the number of trained kindergarten teachers grew, the programs became more and

more common in New York City, often completely tuition-free and geared towards the children of working-class parents. Pratt’s program, naturally, was a success. Hundreds of teachers and far more children passed through over the years. The facilities, located at the corner of Willoughby and Ryerson, were built especially for kindergarteners. The rooms were meant to resemble residential living spaces rather than contemporary classrooms. Children sat in circles instead of rows. Half the day was dedicated to play, both teacher-guided and self-guided. The children

grew their own gardens in the backyard, learned songs and dances in music lessons and began to prepare for elementary school. The work of the training school was even displayed at the 1906 World’s Fair in St. Louis. For both children and their instructors, the program proved to be revolutionary. It’s unclear exactly when the kindergarten program was terminated, as it appears to have fizzled out before its dissolution. The program’s building was demolished during the 1950s urban renewal of Clinton Hill, and now a Willoughby-copycat apartment building stands in its footprint. It feels like all that remains are blurry photographs and faded postcards. However, the kindergarten program’s legacy lurks quietly yet ubiquitously in boxes of broken crayons and patterned rugs on classroom floors. Unknowingly, five and six-year-olds see its vision into fruition.

ILLUSTRATION | Sude Kurban

PHOTO | Edwin Ortiz, Jr.

Nuevayorkinos: Essential and Excluded Spotlights NYC’s Immigrant Workers and Community Carly Tagen-Dye Nuevayorkinos: Essential and Excluded, showing in MoMA PS1’s Homeroom space through January 3, 2022, is more than an art exhibition. Created in collaboration with members of the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition and the Street Vendor Project, among others, Nuevayorkinos is a showcase and honoring of immigrant communities, culture and contributions in Queens, and the resistance present within them. The exhibit is an expansion of Nuevayorkinos, a project created by filmmaker and archivist Djali Brown-Cepeda. This digital archive aims to preserve the long history of Latinx culture and migration in New York through photographs and stories submitted by the public. As gentrification continues to displace Black and Latinx residents around the

city, Nuevayorkinos also serves as a “love letter to OG ÑYC,” as their Instagram bio states. The MoMA PS1 exhibit extends this work through the lens of the coronavirus pandemic. During the height of COVID-19, essential immigrant workers were excluded from state and federal relief programs. Nuevayorkinos spotlights the laborers, organizers and activists who helped launch the 2021 Excluded Workers Fund, which is now the largest economic assistance program for immigrant workers. The fund provides payment to low income workers and workers ineligible for unemployment benefits due to immigration status. Upon entering the gallery, visitors are greeted by the soft strum of guitarrón melding into protest chants, bellowed in English and Spanish. Banners and

artwork created by street vendors, and portraits of strikers and activists, line the walls. A chair and bookshelf rest underneath a window, where viewers are encouraged to sit and flip through a curated collection of books about Latinx culture, immigration reform and history. Testimonies from members of Make the Road New York, the state’s largest immigrant-led grassroots organization, along with informational fliers about the #RightToRecord and rights during ICE raids, hang on a nearby bulletin board. Perhaps the most moving part of Nuevayorkinos is the multi-media aspect. A screen in the gallery’s corner plays three videos on repeat, all recorded during protests in Queens over the past year. Bilingual subtitles allow viewers to join organizers in the midst of the movement. An advocate screams her frustrations about the essential

PHOTO | Carly Tagen-Dye

workers who have been excluded from pandemic aid. A woman washes an elder worker’s feet in a respectful ritual. The calls and cries from the street, mixed in with salsa music and people dancing, blur the lines between activism and celebration. Nuevayorkinos highlights the importance of both. Nuevayorkinos: Essential and Excluded is a must-see show for everyone in the city. The exhibit beautifully balances the realities of laborer’s lives with tributes to their cultures and contributions, highlighting the complicated reality of immigrant life. Moreover, at Nuevayorkinos’s core is love: love both for and by the communities who are the backbone of New York City, who keep the boroughs running, but are so rarely recognized. To reserve tickets, visit www.moma.org.

Changsha in Vignettes ILLUSTRATION | Selena Yao

A Poet Brought Back to Life Morrison Haslock

I first encountered Emily Dickinson as a high school freshman after a teacher had dismissed her poem, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” I’d chosen to memorize the poem for an assignment. That teacher called Dickinson “basic” and “simplistic;” something I wouldn’t come to realize was far from true until later in life. In November 2019, I came across Apple TV+’s “Dickinson” and found myself falling in love with the show, along with Dickinson’s poetry. The final season of “Dickinson” is set to release this November. I’ve found myself reminiscing on my first experience with the show, and in turn, reading Dickinson’s poetry. “Dickinson” features household names like Hailee Steinfeld (Emily Dickinson) and Jane Krakowski (Mrs. Dickinson), along with special appearances from Wiz Khalifa (Death), John Mulaney (Henry David Thoreau) and Nick 14

Kroll (Edgar Allan Poe). Mixed with 21st century pop music and language that comment on life in both the 1800s and today, viewers get a fresh look at a poet from a century ago. Although “Dickinson” isn’t the most historically accurate, often blending real life events with what better suits the plot, the show makes Emily’s life in the late 1850s, and the political events that take place, an accessible way into the past. The first season sets up Emily’s struggle as a woman who wants to write rather than find a husband. The second season focuses on the expansion of technology in the 1850s with telegrams, newspapers and literary salons. It also addresses the rising tensions between the North and the South before the Civil War. I fell down a rabbit hole while researching the poems that were mentioned in the show. Dickinson’s work began to influence my own writing.

ILLUSTRATION | Kira Bissell

Inspired by her “Envelope Poems,” I found envelope scraps filling my journals and collecting in my critiques. The poet even worked her way into my class schedule with a course about Dickinson and others who found solace in her work. She fueled my obsession of truth and poetics.

poems frame the episodes and contextualize the possibilities for how each poem may have come to be. In the words of the poet herself, “I dwell in Possibility.” The show takes this to heart when building on Dickinson’s work to create an entry into her life as a poet.

Through reading letters and observing Dickinson’s use of language, I pieced together that Dickinson was anything but basic and simplistic. Her poems were meant to trip the reader up. Every line is packed with a punch and houses recurring “characters,” like Death. In “Dickinson,” the

So much is still unknown about Emily Dickinson, but this show offered me a way into her story. My entry began with her work being undermined, but I chose to look beyond that at her words. They are the real history, scrawled and hidden away in a maid’s trunk a century ago.

50 Years of Magic Nicole Delp

ILLUSTRATION | Dev Kamath

“To all who come to this happy place, welcome!” This opening line was spoken by Walt Disney in his Disneyland inaugural speech on July 17, 1955. This message was for both the young and young at heart, and would spread across the country to Florida when Walt Disney World first opened on October 1, 1971. On October 1, 2021, Walt Disney World celebrated its 50th anniversary. The celebration will continue for eighteen months so everyone can experience the EARidescent magic. It’s hard to believe how much Disney World has changed since it first opened its doors. Many attractions are no longer with us, such as Hollywood Studios’ The Great Movie Ride and Epcot’s Maelstrom. However, none of the parks would’ve been possible without one idea from one man. Walt Disney wanted his new resort to both have the same elements as California’s Disneyland and new experiences as well. After purchasing 30,000 acres of land, Walt released a short video at a 1965 press conference announcing The Florida Project. In addition to the Magic Kingdom, Walt discussed plans for a park that would focus on the innovations of today and tomorrow in a fashion similar to the World’s Fair. It was called the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, more commonly known as EPCOT. Walt died before construction began on December 15, 1966. His younger brother Roy was then made CEO of Disney and oversaw the construction of Walt Disney World, which began on May 30, 1967.

Four years later on October 1, 1971, Walt Disney World officially opened to the public. Eleven years after opening day, EPCOT opened on October 1, 1982, featuring two different areas, Future World and World Showcase. On May 1, 1989, Walt Disney World’s third park, MGM (now Hollywood) Studios, opened with an emphasis on the filmmaking process, and was originally planned to be an active filming location. The fourth and final park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, opened a decade later on April 22, 1998 on Earth Day, and highlights conservation and nature. There will be many new attractions during the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World, like the Tron Lightcycle Run Coaster in Magic Kingdom, the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind Coaster in Epcot and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in Epcot’s France Pavillion. There are also two new nightime entertainment shows. Epcot’s “Harmonious” celebrates the music of Disney films and their cultural inspirations. “Enchantment” will replace the popular “Happily Ever After” show in Magic Kingdom, and will include new projections on the buildings of Main Street USA. Fifty golden statues of Disney characters will be scattered throughout the park, and each icon will be lit up at night as a beacon of magic that’s never been seen before. Walt Disney World has seen a lot of change in the past fifty years and will continue to change in the future. Still, the park will find ways to celebrate its past. Walt Disney once said that Disney World would never be completed. It will keep evolving as long as there’s imagination.

Ingrid Jones

Caution: Children at Play

On a dark and stormy night out at sea,

clown is hiding. Pennywise lures Georgie

the earliest use of the yellow raincoat was

into reaching for the boat before biting his

to provide fishermen protection from

arm off. In the Stephen King novel, Georgie

the elements and keep them visible to

bleeds to death, the red blood contrasting

lighthouses. The yellow raincoat is a staple

frighteningly against his raincoat. In the

of children’s wardrobes today, though worn

movie adaptation, Georgie, the perfect

most often by children in the horror genre.

image of vulnerability, is dragged into the

In movies and horror games, yellow takes on

sewer and swallowed by the darkness.

a deadlier meaning. The color of sunshine and innocence is also one of caution,

The video game “Little Nightmares” is

madness and cowardice.

the best example of the yellow raincoat establishing its wearer in direct opposition

But what is the symbolism of the yellow

to their much darker surroundings. The

raincoat, and what does it promise the

game follows Six, a seemingly defenseless

audience?

slicker-clad child who is physically miniscule in comparison to the mutated monsters

In the movie “Coraline” (2009), Coraline’s

around her. Color palettes consisting of

yellow raincoat contrasts against the dreary

dark sepias, blacks and desaturated primary

landscape that she has moved to. In the

colors dominate both the first and second

original book by Neil Gaiman, Coraline’s

game, making the vivid yellow raincoat a

raincoat is blue. This change provides a

focal point in every frame. Six keeps her face

loaded visual stimulus, psychologically

and body shrouded by her hood. However,

communicating in the first scene that

like a venomous animal, her color-coding

something unfortunate is going to happen

deceives the player. She is not at risk. In fact,

to its wearer. Coraline wears the coat on

she is potentially the worst monster of them

adventures inside and outside, where her

all. Six subverts the innocent child trope

desperately fluorescent clothing choices fail

when she murders her way through each

to garner the attention she seeks from her

level, betrays her ally and succumbs to her

negligent parents. However, the raincoat

severe personality disorder.

doesn’t go unnoticed by the “Other Mother ‘’ lurking on the other side of a hole in the

Child protagonists are easy devices to show

wall, who lures Coraline into another world

good versus evil and lost or corrupted

with the intent of stealing her soul.

innocence. At a certain point, the cloak comes off and the children are left to fend

The opening scene of “It” (2017) starts with

for themselves. They are lights threatened

seven-year-old Georgie Denbrough playing

to be extinguished by the darkness of their

with a toy sailboat in the street during a

circumstances. One thing is for certain: a

storm, clad in a yellow rain slicker. It’s an

fisherman might be protected, but a child in

innocent scene until the sailboat drifts down

a yellow raincoat is never safe in the horror

a sewer, where Pennywise the murderous

genre.

ILLUSTRATION | Ingrid Jones

let me walk you through it I1.

Maddie Langan

am going to put this in terms you will understand - so listen: the a. space between one body and another body is a body in itself. If I run fifteen paces into it, and you stay—you stay right there—why do I end up fifty paces away? Crashing, anyway, into that Italian restaurant we went to, that one time after the movies. Can’t remember which one. That was you, I think. Someone. I don’t know. He was tall. Laughed when I spilled olive oil on my skirt. Pants, maybe. I’m certain about the olive oil. Swear. Something else. That shitty French new wave film I pretended to like for you. Your fingerprints on the glass coffee table. Yours, I think. Could be anyone’s. Probably yours. Not sure, don’t know. The table is glass. It’s my mother’s. That German chocolate you like. The only kind you’ll eat. Maybe that was . . . no. Certain it was you. The body between us expands at a constant rate. Is that you past it? Would call it ours, but it’s not. It hates me. Bubbles, burrows, spits me out. Don’t look at it. Just hole up here. Hole up here.

2. don’t know how to tell you that I forgot the color of your eyes, too. Spending all this time,

ILLUSTRATION & LAYOUT | Avery Slezak

a. eating, breathing, sleeping. Swear to God I’ve worn all my shirts with you, a thousand times over. The pink one, with little white flowers and bishop sleeves, that I wore on our first date. I think I was wearing it when you ended it, too. Think, probably. Could’ve been the yellow sweater, with the brown buttons. Dizzy. I’m dizzy. Just remember the feeling of doom, sitting in my belly. Making a home there, folding it around, flesh bending onto itself, seeping out of my throat. It’s the same. Always the same. Can’t forget it. b. choking. I’m choking. Choking on my words. Was it you who liked that hyperpop song? One of you is allergic to nuts. And someone once poured bleach on a new shirt they’d gotten, just taken home. An accident. Close my eyes and point. You? You, it’s you. Don’t tell me it’s not. 3. feel the same. It’s always the same. And I breathe anyway.

Letter From the Editor Dear Prattlers, Our histories are ingrained in us and the world we live in. We go to a university where the past practically oozes out of the architecture, in a city where what came before us still lingers at every corner. Ingrained in the cobblestones comprising Pratt’s campus, and in nearly enclave of Brooklyn and beyond, there are an abundance of stories that we walk past every day without stopping to investigate further. Histories explores these supposedly hidden topics both close and far from home. Whether that is through an in-depth look at Queens’ beloved Little Manila neighborhood, a recent discovery of Pratt’s forgotten kindergarten program, or an analysis of a lost, but beloved, poet, these articles are sure to make you think differently about the past, and consider how it ties into our present and future. We hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading. Best,

Carly Tagen-Dye Carly Tagen-Dye Editor-in-Chief

EDITOR-IzN-CHIEF

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

ADVISORS

Carly Tagen-Dye

Naomi Desai

Christopher Calderhead David Gordon

MANAGING EDITOR

COVER BY

Nina Martineck CREATIVE DIRECTORS

Tien Servidio Amber Duan

Avery Slezak

SOCIALS

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Cover Story Avery Slezak

For the theme of “Histories,” I wanted to combine ideas of old and new. We are all familiar with Baroque-esque oil painting portraits, and associate that kind of iconography with “history,” as a far away era none of us can fully reach. I wanted to take this idea of a portrait painting and put my own spin on it, incorporating the idea of new artists today offering up their own perspectives. I felt this represented the concept of the issue, interpreting what “histories” means for each of us and making it our own.

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