Issue 2 Spring 2023

TUFTS

ISSUE 2 VOLCXXIX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BURDENS OF BUREAUCRACY

Hanna Bregman

MISS BLACKLISTED SMFA

Jorge Gomez-Gonzalez

BEYOND STICKY NOTE SOLIDARITY

Joyce Fang

VISUALIZING QUEERNESS

Alexandra Ward & Eden Weissman

MY SEVENTEEN GIRL DAYS

Erin Zhu

CREATIVE INSET

Ines Wang

TREMORS FELT ACROSS THE WORLD

Lily Feng

“MILD LOVE SEEKS SOFT SONGS”

Andres F. Arevalo Zea

FLY HIGH MY INNER CHILD YOU‘RE NOW FREE

Billy Zeng

DONNED AND DISCARDED

Kiara Mastropasqua

NOBODY OWES YOU A COMING OUT

Melanie Litwin

CALL ME YOUR CHILD

Chloe Cheng

fluidity

make like a lilypad; let cool waters pull you left & right. some things are best dealt with by closing your eyes.

Felipe Campano

Veronica Habashy

Joyce Fang

Bella Cosimina Bobb

Designers

Madison Clowes

Hami Trinh

Anastasia Glass

Jasmine Wu

Anthony Davis-Pait

Anya Bhatia

Aviv Markus

Maria Cazzato

Lead Copy Editors

Lucy Belknap

Eli Marcus

Olivia White

Lydia Jiameng Liu

Heather Huang

Mariana Porras

Rachel Liang

Chileta Egonu

Zed van der Linden

Nour El-Solh

Soraya Basrai

Matilda Peng

Maria Cazzato

Katie Rejto

Adina Guo

Website Manager

Clara Davis

Treasurer

Editors-in-Chief

Melanie Litwin

Amanda Westlake

Editor Emeritus

Sabah Lokhandwala

Managing Editor

Juanita Asapokhai

Creative Directors

Angela Jang

Yimeng Lyu

Feature Editors

Ruby Goodman

Emara Saez

News Editors

Rohith Raman

Layla Kennington

Arts & Culture Editors

Sophie Fishman

Millie Todd

Opinion Editors

Michelle Setiawan

Clara Davis

Campus Editors

Liani Astacio

Eden Weissman

Poetry and Prose Editors

Neya Krishnan

Priyanka Sinha

Voices Editors

William Zhuang

Sarah Fung

Creative Inset

Ines Wang

Art Directors

Aidan Chang

Audrey Njo

Multimedia Director

Pam Melgar

Multimedia Teams

Anika Kapoor

Megan Reimer

Juniper Moscow

Emmeline Meyers

Claudia Aranda Barrios

Brenda Martinez

Podcast Directors

Grace Masiello

Noah DeYoung

Publicity Director s

Ava Vander Louw

So a Valdebenito

Publicity Team

Anthony Davis-Pait

Emma Iturregui

Aatiqah Aziz

Sta Writers

Edith Philip

Leah Cohen

Billy Zeng

Ava Vander Louw

Sage Malley

Lily Feng

Siona Wadhawan

Hanna Bregman

Erin Zhu

Copy Editors

Seun Adekunle

Kara Moquin

Alec Rosenthal

Drexel Osborne

Nika Lea Tomicic

Phoebe McMahon

Ashlie Doucette

Podcast Team

Emily Cheng

Ethan Walsey

Alice Fang

Megan Reimer

Soraya Basrai

Jamie Doo

Qinyi Ma

Eden Weissman

Sta Artists

Emmeline Meyers

Diana Gateño

William Zhuang

Contributors

Chloe Cheng

Andres F. Arevalo Zea

Jorge Gomez-Gonzalez

Kiara Mastropasqua

Alexandra Ward

BURDENS OF BUREAUCRACY BURDENS OF BUREAUCRACY THE UNCERTAINTY OF REPORTING TO OEO

By Hanna Bregman

Content warning: mentions of sexual violence

Peer education initiatives on sexual wellbeing led by groups like Tu s Green Dot, Tu s Sex Health Reps, and Tu s Action for Sexual Assault Prevention reach far and wide on campus. ey engage with the student body in a number of ways, from formal training to the Sex Health Vending Machine on the lower level of the Campus Center.

Junior Elizabeth Cucuzzella, co-coordinator of Green Dot, said, “[Our understanding of] sexual misconduct on our campus is colored by all of these di erent groups and all of the work that they’re putting in.”

At the institutional level, sexual misconduct is handled by the O ce for Equal Opportunity, “a compliance-focused o ce at Tu s [whose] jurisdiction

lies within speci c federal, state and local laws,” according to the OEO’s website.

eir capacity to address grievances is informed by a number of federal laws and policies. ese include Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Violence Against Women Act of 2013, and CLERY, which is included in the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. ese laws may be invoked separately within varying contexts, but taken together they overlap to protect individuals from “hate crimes based on sex/gender, sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.”

Anyone seeking the OEO’s support as a result of experiences with sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence,

domestic violence, or stalking encounters a process informed speci cally by national Title IX guidelines. Title IX reads, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the bene ts of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal nancial assistance.” Any school that receives federal funding—including Tu s—is required to measure reports of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault according to the standards laid out in Title IX.

OCR INVESTIGATION INTO TUFTS (AND A NEW OEO)

In 2011, President Obama issued the Dear Colleague Letter to “remind schools of their responsibilities to take immediate and e ective steps to respond to sexual violence in accordance with the requirements of Title IX.” e DCL de ned the category of sexual violence as including “rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion.” is broadened the scope of allegations to which educational institutions were mandated to respond to and investigate.

In May 2014, a er a student accusation resulted in a long investigation into Tu s’ Title IX policy, the Department of Education’s O ce for Civil Rights concluded that the university was in violation of federal Title IX policy. Speci cally, the OCR reported, “ e University failed to provide a prompt and equitable response to complaints of sexual harassment/violence… and, for the student, this failure allowed for the continuation of a hostile environment that limited and denied her access to the educational opportunities.”

e conclusion of the OCR’s investigation of Tu s in required the school to “address sexual harassment/violence in a comprehensive manner that… requires clear notice of its commitment and the applicable processes for responding in a prompt and equitable manner…[to] ensure that students are not subjected to a sexually hostile climate.”

In response to the DCL and the OCR investigation, the OEO made signi cant internal structural changes. Jill Zellmer, the OEO Executive Director and Title IX/504 Coordinator, wrote in a statement to the Tu s Observer that the OEO “was reimagined in 2011…[with] a plethora of changes in its policies, procedures, and sta ng…At that time the sta and I implemented university-wide report, investigation and complaint processes and protocols.” ese included creating and hiring a con dential coordinator and an education specialist, and improving transparency about the sexual assault procedure.

Zellmer wrote these changes “were prompted, in part, by a desire to respond meaningfully to the 2011 Dear

Colleague Letter from the federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education.”

Regarding OCR’s investigation, Zellmer also wrote, “[It] involved a 2010 matter that predated the current OEO team and OEO o ce. e University and OCR resolved the matter almost 10 years ago, in 2014. Since that time, the federal Title IX regulations and thus the OEO policies and processes have changed at least three times.”

HOW OEO HANDLES TITLE IX REPORTING

Currently, Tu s’ Title IX Policy reads, “Prohibited conduct under this policy includes ‘sexual harassment’ as de ned in the Title IX regulations as sexual assault, stalking, dating/domestic violence and/or unwelcome conduct determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive, and objectively o ensive that it e ectively

denies a person equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity, including quid pro quo sexual harassment.”

Navigating an investigation as a complainant or a respondent involves a number of steps and multiple third parties. As the Title IX Coordinator, Zellmer is primarily responsible for coordinating investigations related to Title IX and implementing regulations at Tu s. When a case is opened, an OEO investigator— or an OEO-hired investigator—conducts a fact- nding investigation of the alleged conduct. If it’s appropriate to the situation at hand, a Decision-Making Panel of three trained, impartial faculty or sta members will convene. Alternatively, individuals seeking informal support from the OEO can access “an anonymous reporting tool called Ethicspoint [and can commence] Title IX informal resolution processes.”

Zellmer wrote, “Over 85% of students [who come to the OEO with a grievance] engage annually in an informal process option with the OEO and choose not to move forward with a formal investigation.” e OEO o ers “informal options/ resources and support” for those not looking to endure a formal investigative process. is can include “No Contact orders, housing changes, [and] academic exibility,” wrote Zellmer.

CHANGES TO TITLE IX

Another aspect of the OEO and Title IX’s relationship is the constant uctuation of federal policy. Most recently, Trump-era alterations narrowed Title IX policy requirements, leading to widespread public criticism about how this makes the process more confusing for survivors.

e de nition of sexual harassment under Title IX—the baseline that determines whether a particular situation may warrant further investigation—has changed alongside shi s in federal leadership. Signi cant among these changes was the constricting of the de nition of sexual misconduct from “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” to “unwelcome conduct that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively o ensive that it e ectively

denies a person equal access to a school’s educational program or activity,” according to the Crimson. Sociologist Nicole Bedera wrote in Time Magazine changes have “drastically limited the types of sexual misconduct universities are required to investigate…[as] almost no sexual harassment is considered ob jectively o

favor of accused students by mandating that Title IX cases could not be opened if the case of misconduct occurred o campus and requiring that colleges hold live hearings for each opened case, which can be traumatic for survivors.

Bedera asserted these changes make it “harder than ever for survivors to understand their legal rights [and make] formal

investigations more difcult and potentially dangerous for surviese changes in policy mean survivors may censor their behavior in an effort to protect themselves. the implementation of these changes, students nationwide who are trying to navigate next steps are connitions that seek to quantify the legitimacy of their suffering. is can be signi cantly discouraging. “I feel like going through the OEO process doesn’t make people feel super empowered,” said senior Rowan Hayden, President of ASAP.

Zellmer acknowledged the limitations of recent changes to Title IX policy and highlighted that the way the OEO adapted to these changes was aimed at being “more inclusive of all sexual misconduct matters,” as opposed to only those strictly cited under federal policy.

“Because the new Title IX de nitions of sexual harassment and jurisdiction are limiting (i.e. they do not include campus parties and/or conduct occurring in overseas study abroad programs, for example),” Zellmer wrote, “OEO decided to keep our Sexual Misconduct Policy and process.”

TUFTS STUDENTS AND OEO

On campus, students face the consequences of these federal policy changes, calling into question the role of the OEO as an institutional support mechanism.

e OEO’s role is not necessarily to exclusively support those who come seeking to disclose information and make reports. Instead, “the mission of OEO is to respond to complaints of discrimination and harassment and requests for accommodation from students, faculty, sta and community members (including visitors and pa-

tients) in order to a rm Tu s’ commitment to equal opportunity for all community members and compliance with federal laws,” Zellmer wrote.

e fact that the OEO operates on behalf of the university may prevent it from providing the kind of help that students need during the reporting process. Hayden underscored this when describing a core belief in ASAP. “Any form of sexual violence is a way to take power away from someone, and so it’s really important to give that power back to the survivor,” she said. “ at can look like letting [the survivor] lead the conversation, doing what they want, which is so hard because obviously, you can’t do that as a full institution.”

In contrast, the OEO’s mission stresses its intent to mitigate factors that would lead to any sort of unequal access to education through the establishment of “uniform and equitable policies, procedures, practices and/or guidelines to support equal opportunity for our community in accordance with federal, state and local agencies,” according to Zellmer.

ese di erent missions con verge once a semester when inter ested student groups, the OEO, and administrators meet to discuss the campus climate around sexual mis conduct in a meeting organized by the Sexual Misconduct Steering Com mittee, which was started in the fall of 2016 through the Sexual Misconduct Prevention Task Force. Cucuzzella said, “It gives a chance for the administra tion and people in the OEO to hear from students [about] how the student body’s doing, and also for us as students to hear, what are the current regulations in place? What is the OEO doing to make the process more e cient for reporting?”

e di erence in missions between the OEO and student groups can be confusing, especially since seeking support for sexual harassment or assault is nerve-wracking in any context—not to mention that among much of the student body, the OEO already has an unfavorable reputation. “ e people we talk to who have experience reporting,

it’s always bad,” Hayden said. For some students, this is compounded by preexisting negative encounters with the OEO regarding racial and ethnic discrimination. is fraught relationship between students of color and the OEO may be an additional barrier for students hoping to seek support from the OEO on Title IX cases.

...SEEKING

reporting process] and letting [students] know that they’re not alone in this. I’m with you on this journey. We’re going to gure this out as we go forward.”

Should a student be interested, a member of the CARE o ce is available to go through the process of reporting to the OEO alongside the student, including being “the bridge between OEO and the student.” Donovan said, “If they want me to receive the emails from OEO and then I meet with the student once a week… [and] talk about what OEO is trying to communicate with them. Because I know a lot of people don’t want an email ran domly when they’re not expecting it. can be jarring.”

who are perpetrators, and they didn’t want to look biased towards survivors.” Hayden described this response as feeling “very

are o en hesitant to report directly to the OEO, but there are systems outside the OEO in place that are able er support. e Center for Awareness, Resources, and Education exists to support students in any way that might relate to “sexual health, safe sex, hook ups, relationships, and sexual misconduct,” according to CARE’s website. Alexandra Donovan, CARE Director, and Emma Cohen, Associate Prevention and Response Specialist, are both con dential resources, meaning they’re not obligated to report disclosures to the OEO.

Because the OEO’s reporting process has so many moving parts, CARE is able to o er support to students who are interested in or are currently going through the experience of reporting to the OEO. According to Donovan, one way that CARE is able to do this is through “explaining what’s going to happen next [in the OEO

Another resource is ASAP, which is a survivor-led student organization that seeks to end sexual violence and support survivors. One branch of ASAP is Survivor Space, which Hayden said is hosted every other week as a “space where survivors on campus can come…[to] cra , carve pumpkins, eat food, do a random activ ity that has nothing to do with unpacking your trauma… It’s just to have a space and a community. And that’s entirely student [run] and an anonymous space.”

THE OEO AND NEUTRALITY

In navigating these spaces at Tufts, many students seek out alternatives to the OEO because they feel the OEO’s neutral and bureaucratic approach to sexual misconduct can be dismissive, as illustrated by an incident that occurred in the fall of 2022.

Last fall, ASAP coordinated an event called Take Back the Night to highlight resources and show support for survivors on campus. Groups including Sex Health Reps, CARE, and the University Chap laincy were invited to participate. OEO was also invited but declined the of fer. Recalling the interaction, Hayden said, “ e general gist that I got out of the conversation was that they will not come to the event because they have many people with open cases who are survivors or

SUPPORT FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT OR ASSAULT IS NERVEWRACKING IN ANY CONTEXT—NOT TO MENTION THAT AMONG MUCH OF THE STUDENT BODY, THE OEO ALREADY HAS AN UNFAVORABLE REPUTATION. “THE PEOPLE WE TALK TO WHO HAVE EXPERIENCE REPORTING, IT’S ALWAYS BAD,” HAYDEN SAID.

DESIGN BY ANTHONY DAVIS-PAIT, ART BY EMMELINE MEYERS

MISS SMFA

It was the a ernoon of October 18, 2022, ve months a er I had graduated from the Masters of Fine Arts program at the School at the Museum of Fine Arts. It was my day o from work, so I wasn’t expecting anyone to come to my house, yet someone knocked at my apartment door. I opened it to nd two Tu s University Police Department o cers wearing regular black suits. ey served me a “No Trespass Order.” It states that I am “forbidden to enter any property owned by or under the control of Tu s University”—otherwise I will be arrested. ey did not give me any explanation, and when I asked for one, they told me to contact the police chief myself. Right a er TUPD le , I closed the door and broke down. I felt severely threatened because the TUPD o cers knew where I lived and could come to my home unannounced. I never contacted the

police chief to ask why, because I know the university has always seen me as a threat. Since the day I arrived in Boston, I have been navigating my sense of security while coping with the power that Tu s/SMFA had over my life.

As an SMFA graduate student, I came in excited to learn about and make art. I was not expecting to deal with so much discrimination. By week one of fall 2020, my rst year, I was already hearing racist and transphobic remarks from a group of white students at the SMFA. A er I arrived, their attention shi ed to me. When my white housemate brought someone from this group to our shared home, I expressed that I felt unsafe with that individual in our home and would appreciate having boundaries implemented in order for everyone to feel safe, such as being informed when the individual would come

over or not inviting them back. is seemingly fair request from me unfortunately created tension with the housemate that then spiraled into aggressive accusations. I felt the school ended up siding with them without having any proof. For my safety, I ultimately decided to use my nancial aid to help me move out.

e same group of white students continued to terrorize trans students and students of color. When the students who faced discrimination made art about these experiences in their designated studio spaces, the former dean of SMFA asked them to stop. When we then advocated for changes to protect us, the administration told us to keep our heads down and graduate. roughout my rst year, I had countless meetings with the administration, but they led to very little to no change and distracted me from being a student.

TERRACOTTA CLAY INCIDENT

In the fall semester of 2021, my second year, I wanted to refocus my energy on my upcoming MFA thesis. In a ceramics class, I decided I wanted to work with terracotta clay to reconnect with my ancestral roots in Mexico. My plan was to make a terracotta piñata for my brother as part of my thesis. Terracotta clay has been used widely across Indigenous cultures globally. A studio manager told me that I couldn’t use terracotta clay because it would contaminate the white clay. I kept ghting and reached out for support from other faculty who have wanted to use terracotta clay in their curriculum. is e ort nally granted everyone access to the clay, but it came with a severe cost. During class, I was asked to work in the back of the studio while other people using white clay had access to the rest of the space. e studio manager told us to “segregate” the red and white clay. ey put up several posters that prohibited red clay from areas such as the sink reading, “!!!NO RED CLAY IN SINK!!!” Red is not just the color of the clay, but has also been historically used as a physiological racial classi cation by the colonizers to categorize Indigenous people in the Americas. e di erential and exaggerated treatment of the red clay echoes the historical exclusion of people of color and their cultural identities in predominantly white institutions, further exacerbating feelings of alienation. ere were Indigenous students who told me they felt unsafe being in the ceramics department because of these posters. I decided to email academic deans, the head of the department, faculty of color, my advisors, and some of the division of student diversity and inclusion centers to inform them about these posters and the harm they created. e posters were removed and students continued to use terracotta clay. However, it came at the price of my connection to the faculty. It felt to me that the faculty who had previously championed the e ort of change ultimately put their positions of power over student needs and concerns. ey stopped responding to me altogether and started treating me di erently in class and around the school.

FACING RETALIATIONS AT THE SMFA

e terracotta clay incident was just one of many harmful experiences I have

DESIGN BY HAMI TRINH, ART BY ZED VAN DER LINDEN

had at the school. When I tried to speak up against these discriminatory experiences, instead of receiving the protection and care I needed, the school only made it worse for me with distrust and gaslighting. I started to face retaliation not just from students, but from the administration, faculty, and deans, too. I learned from other students that their advisors warned them to not work with me or else they wouldn’t get funding for their projects. Multiple faculty that I had worked closely with also started to ignore me. ey would even avoid making eye contact with me when I saw

campus as if I were a threat. Tu s/SMFA was never held accountable for any of the wrongdoings they committed (of which I have only listed a few), but I was the one facing suspicion, retaliation, and eventually, exclusion.

OUR VOICES ARE POWERFUL

What I experienced at Tu s/SMFA was nothing new. I grew up with an understanding that enacting change came with a lot of heavy burdens, but the power of uni cation and students coming together important. At the end of the day, the school is supposed to give us an education without racism and transphobia. However, the reality is that the school failed to do that. I want people to know that our voices have so much power. Without our money and attendance, this school is nothing. I don’t need people to step up for me. I need people to step up for the Tu s community because I’m not the only one a ected by institutional and cultural racism. We are all interconnected, and we have a shared responsibility to create an environment that is safe for all of us. e recently published results of the 2022 DEI campus climate survey ndings show that a signi cant portion of Tu s students with marginalized backgrounds reported less than positive experiences. I’m part of that group, and so many others have been saying this for so long, but why does it take a survey for you to believe us? Why can’t you just trust your students when they say “I feel unsafe” without imposing retaliation?

them in the hallway. In class, one professor would not call on me even when I raised my hand. I had considered this person a mentor from the day I arrived on campus. It felt like I was being punished by the university for speaking up, even though all I did was to advocate for myself and my community’s needs. A er that, I felt even more uncomfortable, paranoid, and unsafe in these spaces.

A er I graduated in May, I was ready to move on and heal from my traumatic experiences at the SMFA. I did not expect the school to send TUPD o cers to my own home and completely ban me from

I want to thank everyone who has either contributed to or signed the open letter to the university president and TUPD. It made me feel very validated, seen, and allied in this experience. I hear so many situations where racism is prevalent in students’ experience but, even when they speak up, they’re shoved under the rug by the university. A lot of people do not think that my experience with racism at the SMFA is valid because it sounds so “ridiculous” that it must be false. e racism is so “ridiculous” that people don’t believe it. We need to start shi ing what we think racism and white supremacy look like and start listening to the truths of trans people and people of color.

BEYOND STICKY NOTE SOLIDARITY BUILDING STUDENT-STAFF RELATIONS AT TUFTS

Every semester, poster boards go up across all Tufts dining locations encouraging students to write messages of appreciation for the dining staff. From Hodgdon to Carmichael, these boards are filled with eager sticky notes thanking the staff and proclaiming students’ love and gratitude. In my experience having worked at five Tufts Dining locations, this gratitude isn’t limited to “appreciation weeks”—the majority of Tufts students are outwardly patient and make sure to enthusiastically thank the staff, albeit more so when operations are running smoothly.

However, these shows of gratitude can contrast sharply with students’ attitudes whenever they feel inconvenienced by Tu s’ services. When a shuttle runs late, the lines at Hodge are too long, or Dewick’s food isn’t up to our standards, we are very easily frustrated. It’s not uncommon for students to complain about these issues on Sidechat or to friends—it seems the only topic of conversation we all have in common are these complaints. is culture of disdain is supposed to be directed towards dining, facilities, or transportation as a “whole.” But when workers are

not directly in front of them and students are caught up in their own frustration, it’s far too easy for them to disregard the people who are performing these services.

Re ecting on the experiences of dining and facilities workers reveals how visibility impacts student-sta relationships. Dining workers are the most visible sta on our campus; students must interact with them directly whenever they swipe in at Carm, order a co ee from Kindlevan, or check out at Hodgdon. But visibility is a double-edged sword. It puts workers’ “missteps” in the spotlight, which can quickly shi students’ opinions and treatment of workers. When a worker comes o as impatient or isn’t constantly happy and kind toward students, we are far more hesitant to express thanks. e vast majority of workers are kind and patient—especially when supporting student dining workers on the job. Whenever I’ve been confused about an issue with the cash register or where exactly to grab the backup rice, there’s always been a dining worker there to help out. But if it’s a stressful workday or a dining location is understa ed, workers will not be consistently cheerful when they are interacting

with student customers. And for many students that have come to expect constant enthusiasm from dining sta , these aws are enough to make them withdraw their gratitude. Frustration toward Tu s Dining as an institution is redirected into frustration with individual sta who are seen as “rude.”

On the other end of the spectrum, for facilities sta , who work earlymorning shi s and are required to move quickly throughout Tu s buildings, there is not the same level of student interaction and visibility. It’s far easier for students to demonstrate disrespect—even unintentionally—when they don’t have to see janitorial sta on a daily basis. For example, it’s almost guaranteed that the communal dorm bathrooms will be, quite frankly, disgusting by the end of a weekend, with toilet paper strewn across stalls and constantly clogged sinks. is treatment of campus spaces demonstrates how little students truly consider Tu s workers when no one is watching. Students take for granted that not only are they not responsible for cleaning up their space, they never have to interact with the workers who deal with the messes

they create. Workers’ jobs are made all the more challenging, yet students remain unwilling to change their behavior.

Students’ lack of consideration compounds workers’ experiences of unfair treatment and hostility from the administration—when the administration’s shortcomings are usually the reason for students’ problems with dining, janitorial, and transportation services. Many students recognize this and actively ght against Tu s’ understa ng and managerial issues. For instance, Tu s Labor Coalition’s recent baking campaign highlighted how the dining halls’ decline in dessert quality is the direct result of understa ng and outsourcing by dining management. Many workers involved in the baking campaign take pride in being able to provide highquality recipes for students, and they, too, are frustrated when all they are allowed to provide in the dining halls are frozen, outsourced goods. However, for students who are not closely involved in this kind of organizing, it’s harder to pinpoint the connection between not enjoying today’s cake at Dewick and Tu s’ unfair labor practices—

kitchen, and withholding pay from sta

When we disparage our dining halls’ food quality without recognizing this connection, workers’ struggles are lost in the midst of students’ complaints. Students expect consistently clean dorms, quality dining, and reliable transportation—which, for the cost of tuition, room, and board here, are reasonable baseline expectations. But with the university’s e orts to cut costs through layo s and reduction of hours, sta do not have the time or resources to meet those expectations. It’s when these expectations are not ful lled that workers deserve respect the most; it’s a symptom of Tu s’ failure to maintain fair hiring and management practices. But, ironically, this is when students are the least willing to show gratitude.

For example, with Hodge’s upcoming temporary closure in March, students are understandably frustrated about what this means for their own access to food, but it is also a critical moment for students to keep an eye on how displaced workers are treated. Although the university has said Hodge workers will be able to work at the

While students are worried about not being able to grab a burrito bowl between classes, Hodge’s closing is a far more signi cant change for full-time workers who could potentially face a reduction in working hours; the pop-up location will only be open until 10:00 p.m.on “certain days,” meaning it will di er from Hodge’s regular hours. Even if workers are guaranteed full hours, the reduction in working space at the “mini” pop-up and relocation to other dining outlets still pose challenges. We’ve yet to see the impacts of Hodge’s closing in practice, so I don’t say this to make students preemptively feel guilty for their frustration with the closing—rather, I’m urging students to be precise about who and what their frustration is directed toward. A general sentiment won’t help workers and won’t create change, but showing patience and kindness toward workers while pressuring the administration to adopt fair labor practices will.

e most impactful form of “gratitude” isn’t sticky notes on poster boards. It’s student solidarity with workers when they sign petitions, show up to rallies, and supghts for fair contracts. ese rallies place workers’ needs and voices at the forefront. Far from being performative actions, they are the result of years of union

is semester, the dining workers’ contract is up for renegotiation, and student support—for instance, by attending the recent March 1 rally organized by TLC and the dining workers’ union—will be essential for workers’ victories. Staying up to date with action items is how we demonstrate that support; students do not need to be part of TLC to take action. As many workers have noted throughout previous contract negotiations, students have power as payers of tuition that workers do not. Our voices are not just appreciated but necessary for the university to ensure fair treatment of workers. s administration responds to public pressure, news coverage, and, most importantly, money. If we truly want to show gratitude towards workers, we need to ensure they are not alone when it comes to ghting the university for their livelihood.

An Examination of the Current Drag Scene at Tufts POLITICIZING QUEERNESS

By Alexandra Ward and Eden Weissman

Abeloved class returned to Tu s last fall for the rst time since spring

2018: Critical Drag. Professor Kareem Khubchandani—also known as their drag persona LaWhore Vagistan—taught this course under the eatre and Performance Studies Department, culminating in an end-of-semester showcase. e course’s description noted that it o ered students the chance to create individual drag personas and performances that consider the “intersections of gender, nationality, race, class, and disability to understand the implications of putting gender on the body, on stage, and in everyday life.”

e course has inspired an enthusiastic interest in drag for many students, as well as the creation of the newly-formed Jumbo Drag Collective.

Ashton Gerber, a sophomore who took Critical Drag last semester, spoke on how the course exposed students to the art

of drag and performance, with everyone in the class being “new to drag in some capacity.” Gerber added, “ e rst month was so stressful… You needed a name for your character, a concept for your character, et cetera.”

Despite the initial stress that came from taking a course that pushed them out of their comfort zone, Gerber quickly found the act of creating a drag persona to be incredibly meaningful. “My character’s name is Hyacinth, and… I describe her as if an alien saw the concept of womanhood, and then [that concept] just gets refracted through a lot of mirrors… I’ve also described it as a doll character,” Gerber said. ey also described how their drag persona has become a way of reclaiming ownership over their body, explaining, “For me, the image of the doll is something [being] manipulated, but also [represents] coming to life and coming

into a movement, and a perspective of its own rather than being controlled.” e course was split between performance-based exercises and examining drag through a critical lens. Mac Irvine, the teaching assistant for Critical Drag and a third year PhD student in the TPS Department, explained, “[One question] I know Kareem was trying to integrate [into the course] was how drag [can be] a critical intervention that can take on systems of power beyond gender. Kareem recently wrote a book called Decolonize Drag as part of a series of books thinking about a variety of subjects [through a decolonial lens]… It’s meant to be an accessible teaching tool.” rough the use of Khubchandani’s book, Critical Drag aimed to situate drag in relation to broader conversations about race, queerness, gender, and class.

In the US, drag has a rich and long history; what many now associate with contemporary drag ball culture originated from queer Black performers and other queer performers of color. e rst selfproclaimed drag queen in the US was William Dorsey Swann, who was born into enslavement in the 1860s and began hosting underground drag balls in the 1880s and 1890s. Swann’s drag balls, which were attended mostly by formerly enslaved men, became early sites of queer prosecution and resistance, as police frequently raided and arrested participants.

Many Black drag queens continued to face frequent prejudice in interracial drag balls in the 20th century, leading to the emergence of ballroom houses in the 1970s in Harlem, New York. Ballroom houses, which function as a type of family unit led by house “mothers” or “fathers,” became a crucial site of security for Black and Latinx queer and trans performers who refused to participate any longer in Eurocentric drag balls. In a HISTORY article, Julian Kevin Glover, an assistant professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University, explained houses provide “the basic kind of kinship structure and also [demonstrate] alternative possibilities for what kinship can look like. Moving away from this reliance on one’s biological family, and complicating ideas of a family of choice.”

e opportunity for drag-born kinship and community was powerful for students in the Critical Drag class and impacted how they viewed the broader queer community at Tu s. For many, Critical Drag was the rst opportunity to be in a close community with other queer people at Tu s. “I think that I found a new community on this campus that I never would have found if I hadn’t done critical drag,” said sophomore Jordan Monk, who took Critical Drag last semester. “By the end of the semester, [the class] was like a drag family.” Julian Hammond, a Resumed Education for Adult Learning Senior, described Critical Drag as “a once in a lifetime opportunity” and one of the best things they’ve ever done in their life.

Not only did students nd a queer community within the course, they were also able to explore aspects of their gender identity and challenge hegemonic notions

of gender. Monk said, “Being in Critical Drag, I got to explore parts of myself that I’d never gotten to explore before. Not only performance-wise, but also identity. I would like to say that the class is actually what pushed me into coming out as nonbinary, which is something that I’m so happy to do now.” ey explained that seeing how others in the class interpreted their own gender identity in uenced new understandings of their own. Gerber expressed a similar sentiment, saying, “ ere was so much uncertainty since the [class] focus was on exaggeration, gender performance, and gender uidity rather than any individual person’s actual identity… so you got a non-binary reading of everyone.”

Recognizing the course’s impact, Hammond was motivated to nd a way to keep the campus drag community they found alive and expand it to other Tu s students. ey teamed up with senior Lee Romaker to create the Jumbo Drag Collective. Hammond and Romaker, who both study Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, decided to abandon their original individual senior capstone projects to create JDC as a means of cultivating a space that allows students to carry the same positive experiences they had in Critical Drag, outside of the classroom. is semester, the duo is hoping to lay the groundwork for JDC to become a TCU Senate-recognized club on campus. For now, JDC is meant to be a collaborative space for students to come together to learn about the techniques and practices of drag, with the hopes of allowing students to perform in some capacity by the end of the semester.

Discussing their intentions behind JDC, Hammond acknowledged the dissonance that emerges with the presence of drag, which is political in nature, growing at an institution like Tu s— which they see as “ rst and foremost a business.” It’s important to recognize how drag is not merely an art form, but has historically been utilized as a political tool in the queer community. Speaking to the fact that drag has historically been a way of building community for queer people of color, Hammond said, “I hope [JDC] doesn’t just become a fun thing for middle and upper-class gay, white boys. It’s not that they don’t deserve fun, I just feel like there’s already so much danger

of appropriation… and not knowing the history of [drag] as an art form.”

Simultaneously, in a year where nearly 14 di erent states have proposed 26 legislative bills targeting drag in some form, it’s important that drag is able to continue to exist. However, there remains a need for drag on campus to not only entertain, but also retain its political roots.

Hammond and other Critical Drag students saw a contrast between the type of queerness that institutions like universities promote and the type of queerness they saw and desired within Critical Drag and JDC. Gerber said, “I think schools want to have a very sanitized [queerness], like ‘We have such nice gay people.’ Everyone in [Critical Drag was] lovely, but I don’t think nice gay people would be the rst description I would have [for many in the class]... It’s a lot of people who are very political in their queerness.” With the idea of political queerness in mind, Hammond noted in a written statement to the Observer that, while it is important JDC becomes an o cial club, they recognize how JDC could potentially “lose some autonomy because you have to follow the rules of the university. I’d love to see JDC utilize drag as a tool for disrupting the normative status quo (in and outside of Tu s), but you trade some of that radical possibility when the institution is the one signing the checks… Do anything they don’t like and they’re liable to take away your funding.”

Despite these concerns, Hammond understands how JDC holds the potential to allow “experience[s] that don’t typically exist within a normative university setting” to occur, and create a space for opportunities “that otherwise would not have been possible.”

While there are fundamental questions and concerns as to what drag can look like and mean on campus, the desire among some students and faculty to see spaces of drag and queer visibility expand at Tu s has already resulted in promising e orts. Having spaces on campus for students to engage with questions of how political drag relates to their individual identities has the potential to promote real political and personal growth. As Gerber put it, “Drag pulls the most intense things out of you… I don’t think you can avoid it. Drag will change you in a very fundamental way.”

MY SEVENTEEN GIRL DAYS

Last summer, I decided to learn photography.

I liked photography but, in all honesty, knew very little about it. I could take pictures of a nicely garnished plate of food or an occasional ower, but that was the extent of it. Perhaps once or twice I had taken portraits of friends and family, but the photographs were met with grimaces until whoever they were realized I was waiting for praise like a dog. To this they occasionally o ered a placating smile—I usually got the hint.

My inspiration for this pursuit developed rather abruptly, emerging a er seeing Japanese photographer Hiromix’s series Seventeen Girl Days. e youthfulness of the collection—with photographs of red polka-dotted bedroom walls, short skirts, and stylish bathroom sel es—was so appealing that it inspired a sort of desperation within me to learn the medium. I had just nished my rst year at university, and it suddenly occurred to me that my friends and I were not getting any younger. erefore, photography seemed like a great way to capture and preserve this decade of our lives that, as we were told, we would look back on as our salad days.

One of my earliest attempts was in May, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Manet exhibition; my friend and I, both admirers of his work, took the train into the city that morning to attend.

By Erin Zhu

During the exhibition, she asked me to take a photograph of her standing beside Manet’s Young Lady

I eagerly obliged, tilting the phone backwards and angling it about 30 degrees.

“You’re cutting her head o ,” a voice behind me said.

I turned. One of the museum security guards stood there. He was rather petite and rotund, with gray thinning hair and rosy cheeks. “Pardon me?” I asked.

“I said, you’re cutting her head o .” He took his index nger and gestured to the painting in my view nder. e dimensions of the camera had only included Manet’s Young Lady from the neck downward. I had accidentally decapitated her with my iPhone.

“Oh,” I said. I tilted the phone back even more, capturing the entirety of Young Lady. I looked at the guard for approval. He gestured a thumbs up, then walked away leisurely, his hands behind his back. I quickly took the photograph and sheepishly placed the phone back into my pocket.

e experience at the Metropolitan Museum of Art taught me a few things. One of them was to take pictures more discreetly. Overall, the comment had been humiliating, so I started to scan my surroundings in advance.

But perhaps the security guard’s note was for the better. I kept it in mind when, in June, I went up to the coast of Maine with my parents.

I’m rather proud of one speci c photograph I took there. Of course, it’s easy to nd idyllic moments in regions where the scenery is easy on the eyes.

I took the photograph on one of the small islands clustered around Portland’s coast. In it the sky is blue, but there are layers of clouds that hang on the sides. e water is pale and there are no waves, but it ripples eagerly—like a metallic fabric gripped at one end and shaken from the other.

ese northern beaches have no sand but, instead, slabs of rock and salt that line the coast. On this particular island, the stones are gray and marbled with stripes of violet and tawny. Near the stones are bright green shrubs that sit low to the ground. ey are dotted with berries, lucid and gummy-looking like pomegranate seeds.

In the photograph, my parents stand at the end of a particularly large slab of stone. They are dwarfed by the ocean and the rocks.

I cannot say this photograph, in the grand scheme of things, is anything momentous, but it makes me feel small. I do not mean small in the sense of insigni cance or fear, but small in the way the ocean makes you feel small when you look towards the horizon. e beauty and terror of the water disappearing is incomprehensible, while the sight of it makes you want to swim and see for yourself just how far it goes.

Later in the summer, I took a trip to the Finger Lakes with friends, and I prepared accordingly by ordering a plastic yellow Kodak on Amazon.

What I remember from this trip are the rolling hills of upstate New York as our four-hour drive from our hometown to the Finger Lakes neared the end—the anticipation building as we rounded the crest of the hill and saw the water below us. I remember listening to a lot of the Carpenters. I also remember the morning I spent sitting on the front balcony, reclined on a lounge chair with my hands folded atop my belly, with the sudden but murky sense of feeling young.

“Feeling young” is more of a contradiction than a clearly dened feeling. If I were to describe it, it would be a sort of mixture of relief, delight, and fear, brought about by my impression of what it should be like to be young.

I wanted to capture this feeling through my photographs, but I was never able to gure out how. Most of the photographs I took were inauthentic candid shots: photos of my friends seated around the table, pretending to ignore me while I stood in the corner, clicking away; photos of the lake from the view at the edge of the dock; a picture of one of my friends painting her nails.

I had started trying to learn photography because I wanted my own Seventeen Girl Days—but why did I want it? To feel young? Or was it a preemptive measure—done so that, when I was older, I could convince myself that I had indeed succeeded in enjoying this covetous age of youth despite rarely ever feeling that I had?

e week at the Finger Lakes ended, we went home, and I never got the photographs in the Kodak developed. I knew that inside of that camera, there was nothing worth seeing.

My interest in photography began to decline a er my trip to the Finger Lakes, though I cannot precisely dictate a speci c moment that killed it. It just seemed that, as the summer went by, the momentum was dissipating; and the more pictures I took, the further and further away I felt from it all.

is past semester, due to a hardware glitch in my phone, I had to go into the city to x it. e issue could not be resolved without wiping my device clean. All the photographs from between my middle school graduation and my sophomore year of college were gone.

Sitting on the train in a seat by the window, I suddenly felt the strange sensation that my memories had been untethered. As the train exited from beneath the ground, the lights from the apartment windows illuminated the view of the suburbs outside. e apartments, houses, and people came and le through the frame of the train windows, disappearing like movie scenes on plastic tape. What I had seen was now oating in the air, melting into a fog without any proof of ever existing.

I still like photography and take pictures from time to time, but in the end, I realized that photography couldn’t do for me what I hoped it would. ere was nothing that could.

In many ways, experiencing life alone is burdensome. ere is a part of us that wants to share the life we live intimately, to capture something temporary and unique in its entirety. We want to weld our visions, to inhabit the same body, to share our joys and our burdens, the su ering and the pleasure and the absurdity. We think photography is the answer.

But at the end of the day, the things we have seen and felt will be incomprehensible to all but ourselves, and we are the sole witnesses to our own lives. e photographs we take are nothing more than impressions: the red skin of a summer fruit, a glimmer of water attened into opaque white. is is what can be transcribed, this is what we can hold in our hands.

FLUIDITY FLUIDITY Y

TREMORS FELT ACROSS THE WORLD

The Kahramanmaras Earthquakes and Their Aftermath

Amagnitude 7.8 earthquake known as the Kahramanmaras Earthquake hit northwestern Syria and southeastern Turkey on February 6. A er the deadliest earthquake since the 2011 earthquake in Fukushima, Japan, 10 provinces in Turkey are under a state of emergency for the next three months. e Hatay, Kahramanmaras, and Gaziantep provinces were hit the hardest. As of February 23, the death toll has surpassed 49,000; while Turkish authorities have reported more than 43,000 deaths and UN reports have estimated 5,500 deaths in Syria, casualties are expected to rise in coming weeks. Additionally, more than 5,600 buildings across southeastern Turkey have completely collapsed, leaving 380,000 people in the region homeless and without shelter, food, or access to medical care and rescue assistance.

e conditions of this ongoing humanitarian crisis have

drawn stark attention to the inadequate response from the Turkish and Syrian governments, as well as from the international system.

Senior Sedrah Mashhour, co-president of the Tu s Arab Student Association, discussed the geopolitical climate in Syria prior to the earthquake, which “hit a region [of northern Syria] that has already been really heavily impacted by not only the Syrian Civil War, but also… it contains a huge population of [internally displaced refugees].” Mashhour said that prior to the earthquakes, it was almost impossible to survive on just a teacher’s salary, despite the fact that it’s considered a top job, due to the terrible economic conditions in Syria. Now, people “don’t have shelter, period. ey don’t have access to clean water. ere’s no sewage system in place. Food is hard to get. It’s the middle of winter now. So, hypothermia is a huge and real concern,” according to Mashhour.

Yet in the a ermath of one of the most destructive earthquakes to have hit the region, the Turkish and Syrian governments have been unresponsive.

Mashhour explained that the Syrian government has not taken any substantial e ort to help Syrians a ected by the earthquake due to the civil war. She added, “Personally, I don’t

ByLilyFeng

think that the Syrian government is really interested in helping citizens based on what we’ve seen for the past decade.”

In Turkey, no military forces were sent to the a ected areas, and residents in regions impacted by the earthquakes who attempted to get in contact with the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) received no response. Furthermore, from February 8 to early morning on February 9, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan banned Twitter to reportedly stop disinformation from spreading and to limit the criticism toward the Turkish government. By banning Twitter for 12 hours, Erodgan e ectively limited a crucial way in which people could share their or loved ones’ locations for rescue e orts.

is inadequate earthquake response is a consequence of the Turkish government’s shi to a centralized presidential system in 2018 and decisions to cut funding and support for the government’s disaster response agencies. is year, the AFAD budget was cut by almost a third, and AFAD now falls under the interior ministry, which reports to the presidency. e reduced funding and centralization of AFAD limited its ability to mobilize

quickly, and local units in the affected regions were unable to coordinate or act according to local needs, which only further delayed the time in which responders could get to those under collapsed buildings.

On Tu s’ campus and in the surrounding area, there have been ongoing e orts to support and send supplies to those in the regions destroyed by the earthquakes. Tu s Students of Turkey has raised over $16,500 since the earthquakes began through di erent fundraiser events, such as a bake sale with e Palmier ese fundraisers have helped support supply drives in the Boston area. Senior Eva Devletsah, co-president of Tu s Students of Turkey, said the Boston Turkish Consulate has been accepting relief supplies to ship to Turkey, such as sleeping bags, tents, and warm clothes. Freerange Market, a store in Medford, Mass., has turned half of its store into a donation center where Devletsah and other members of Students of Turkey have been helping to pack boxes and sort through donations.

When Tu s’ Middle Eastern Dental Society found out about the catastrophic event, the organization decided to send their Valentine’s Day rose fundraiser proceeds to earthquake victims. e Arab Student Association has collected over $2,000 in donations to support impacted individuals’ families. Mashhour said being able to raise this many donations has been amazing. “$2 can buy a piece of bread [in Syria]. So $2,000 has been wonderful in helping hundreds of Syrians,” she said. e ASA donated these funds to the Syrian Friendship Association, a humanitarian group that lends aid to Syrians residing in Turkey and Syria.

While students impacted by the catastrophe have found support within their own student communities, some believe the response from Tu s as an institution has been insu cient. Devletsah said, “ ere was a lack of response and lack of acknowledgement from Tu s University as an institution as a whole. And I would have really liked a community-wide message or community-wide email… recognizing the situation and providing resources in which students could help and students could donate.” Mashhour

DESIGN BY ANYA BHATIA, ART BY NOUR EL-SOLH

expressed a similar sentiment. She said, “We [MENA students] feel like we’re overlooked on this campus. Just to see [my friends and family impacted by this] going through the same pain that I was feeling was di cult to deal with on top of classes on top of exams.”

In a written statement to the Tu s Observer, Tu s Executive Director of Media Relations Patrick Collins said, “Unfortunately, given the sad prevalence of natural disasters, violence, and intolerance in our own country and around the world and the resulting volume of requests for presidential statements, the president cannot send statements a er every incident and request. Like most of his presidential colleagues, President Monaco’s general practice is to send statements only when an issue or incident directly a ects the members of the Tu s community and their ability to work and study, or is related to higher education and the conduct of research.”

ese earthquakes, however, have directly impacted the Tu s community. Talking about Tu s Students of Turkey, Devletsah said, “All of us felt [that] it’s really sad to be here and to look at what’s going on in Turkey. And so it was di cult to balance that emotionally… and a certain point, you don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to continue organizing all these events and donation drives and sup ply drives.”

While Collins shared that the International Center sent a message to Tu s’ Turkish international students the Monday a er the earthquakes and posted on the I-Center’s blog about the disaster, students from across the MENA region who have been impacted by this disaster expressed a desire to see more support from Tu s administrators. Senior Omayma Dalal, co-president of the ASA alongside Mashhour, commented, “It’s been really hard to support all of the MENA students on campus…[when] we don’t even have the space or resources to do so.” Moreover, as Devletsah said, an institution-wide message providing resources to help support victims of the disaster could have substantially helped students organize and raise funds for earthquake victims. is act would have additionally helped support victims and families a ected by the disaster, a burden that some students feel has been le on their shoulders.

For MENA students, Western media shapes public perceptions of the region in a way that fails to highlight these disasters’ impacts. Dalal said, “People don’t see these stories because [they’re] not being expressed in American media. All they see is numbers.” Devletsah said, “We in the West

Middle East as tragedies, and we tend to overlook them because we’ve normalized them in the region.” In looking at the US’ media response to the crisis, Devletsah found “there’s [not] much discourse going on around what people can do to help, the resources that can be provided. Maybe it isn’t the main focus of Western, Americancentric media.”

Dalal called into question whether Western countries are truly committed to helping Middle Eastern countries rebuild. She said Western countries have played a role in creating the economic and political state of most Middle Eastern countries and have “interfered with the politics and the well-being of the citizens there, [so] it would feel unfair if they le the citizens struggling to survive right now without providing any support.” is commit-

ment requires moving beyond just immediate disaster funding. As Mashhour said, “ is earthquake [response] is going to need continuous support.” Creating large, systemic change such as shi ing the framework of support and improving governments’ responses to international humanitarian crises will take time. In the meantime, the response and support from local communities, towns, and states play an important role in building a collective system of support for those impacted by humanitarian crises.

Devletsah encouraged people to “think about why you might be more inclined to help a tragedy that has happened in the West, as opposed to something that has happened in the Middle East,” and hoped that Tu s students can check on friends who are from the region. She

suggested a simple text like “‘I’m thinking of you,’ and ‘Hey, I hope your family is okay’… [It] doesn’t take much to show someone that you’re there for them or that you’ve thought of them.”

ASA’s fundraiser is ongoing and funds raised will directly be provided to Friends of Syria. To support, please reach out to Tu s ASA (@tu sasa) on Instagram, or directly send donations on Venmo to @Sedrah-M. e Turkish Consulate General in Boston is accepting “in-kind donations” between 9 am - 10 pm at its o ce, located at 31 Saint James Ave, Suit #840, Boston, MA. Large bulk donations can be delivered to Freerange Market in Medford at 325 Rivers Edge Drive. Below are di erent organizations Tu s Students can donate to and/or provide support:

Syrian American Medical Society: Earthquake relief for Syria Turkish Philanthropy Funds: Turkey earthquake fund

“Mild Love Seeks Soft Songs”

LinebyRomanPoetPropertius

By Andres F. Arevalo Zea

FLY HIGH, MY INNER CHILD, YOU’RE NOW FREE (IT’LL BE OKAY, I PROMISE)

By Billy Zeng

On the eve of my 20th birthday and the start of a new spring semester, I began the process of packing to leave my childhood home once again. I had no idea how to feel. So much was swirling in my mind. Turning 20. Entering my fourth semester of college, almost halfway through. Summer plans. I felt numb to it all. ere was so much unknown and unwritten, which quite frankly terri ed me.

I headed down the stairs of my un nished basement to grab paper towel rolls and napkins. My West Hall quad desperately needed these things, and I did not want to spend any of my own money, so I did what all college students o en do when they move back onto campus—go on a shopping spree at my parents’ place.

Over the years, our basement has become a collection of nonperishables, suitcases, and memorabilia that my mother and I have collected. It has become the site that houses my archives. Old gaming consoles, school yearbooks, painting supplies,

and concert tickets tell a story about the di erent eras of Ziyi Billy Zeng.

As I found the legendary Kirkland Signature paper towels, I remembered that next to them is where my mother keeps the family photo albums. I had flipped through them when I was little, but I had never thought much of them. To my mother, they have always reminded her of small glimpses into our old lifestyle in the bustling city of Guangzhou—a lifestyle that she will always be most familiar with rather than the conventional American Dream.

I felt compelled to open the photo albums once again. Maybe it was because I was turning 20. Maybe it was because I was leaving for college again, and I longed for the good old days. Who knows. I think I am at that age where I nally feel the desire to learn about my own culture, history, and stories for the rst time.

I opened up the drawer of photo books and picked up the rst one I saw on top of the pile.

is time, the photos were more than photos. As I opened up the book, my body stood still while my brain attempted to write these photos into my life story. My heart was fuzzy like a freshly snapped glowin-the-dark stick, as bright colors and happiness began to glow inside me. I felt truly connected to a past that seemed so distant but just within reach. For once in my lifetime, it felt like stories that I could see myself in. I saw ashbacks of my extended family that I had not seen in such a long time.

Faces of my (cousins), (uncles), (aunts), and (family friends) that are now dispersed across the US and China.

I saw photos of my younger self, a person with whom I have always had a hard time being friends. He was looking at the camera with the biggest smile and nding joy in the most mundane things. I hadn’t seen myself smile that wide in a long time. e photos instantly brought me back to a much simpler time in my life. To a life that was naive, where my biggest problem was worrying about how to spell the word “together” for class spelling tests.

Yet, those photos of little Billy caused me to re ect. To re ect upon my teenage struggles with selfconfidence, self-expression, and self-worth.

As much as my family photos revealed

answers to questions about my own history, there was a part of me that wished these photos were not part of my story. Family has always been a touchy subject for me. I’ve longed to connect with my relatives and distant cousins, but years of nancial hardships and traumas slowly obliterated holiday parties, birthday gatherings, and family outings. Just like that, I’m instantly reminded of my reality and why my family spends every holiday without them.

Sucking the joy out of what should otherwise be happy memories, these photos also resurfaced deep resentment toward my family. e same family faces that I saw in old photos over the years became the source of my fading smile. ey took away my childhood—how could I ever forgive them?

e smiles that once brightened my days have slowly dwindled over the years as the realities of my life forced me to wake up from the gaze of childhood innocence.

I’ve imagined a chance to talk to the younger me time and time again over the years. What would I say? Where and how would I even start? Would I apologize for the ways I’ve lost my sparkle and shine growing up? How would I let him know that it was never his fault?

On the brink of another milestone in my life, I should be optimistic and grateful. But I’m le feeling empty—a seemingly bottomless void in my heart. I’m le being my own friend and obsessing over how to heal the child in the photos I stumbled upon. I’m le imagining the childhood memories that I’ve never had.

e rst word that always comes to my mind when I think about my healing is the word “play.” Playing is such a privilege, something I did not get to experience as a child. Instead, I was glued to my mother’s side, helping her earn a community college degree.

Late nights of editing papers, writing emails, and reading college-level material de ned my childhood.

To me, the very idea of playing is all about expressing oneself.

To play is to radically create scenarios and stories that emphasize creative risks and challenge normalized social behaviors.

If I had the chance, I would give my young self a camera to document the world and share it with others. A notebook to write his stories no matter how convoluted the plot may be. A canvas to paint his own world, to share his highest highs and lowest lows with the universe.

Growing up, I did not get the chance to express who I really was. I grew up obsessed with stories because my story appeared to be written for me. I was born into a plot line that I could not escape from. Reading the Percy Jackson series brought me endless joy as I stayed up until dawn following the adventures of demigods. I imagined myself ghting alongside Percy Jackson and his crew at Camp HalfBlood. I envied the characters because they had a community that understood, relied on, and supported each other.

In real life, outside of these books, my story was just me and no one else. I was the one doing the saving in my story. But, instead of slaying Greek mythological creatures and saving the day, I was busy protecting myself from my family and their policing of my eating habits, my sexuality, and my hobbies.

I would give the younger me the unconditional love and the parenting he needed to have healthy relationships with himself. I would tell him to forever dance like nobody’s watching. To always be the light of every room that he walks into. To keep investing his time in meticulously collecting Pokémon cards. To achieve his dream of completing the Pokedexes on the games that he would play on his 3DS.

As I close the photo book and stock up on paper towels for the semester, I can’t help but think of the new decade of life I am about to embark on. I wonder if the process of healing my inner child is like paper towels, cleaning up the debris my childhood le behind.

e remnants of the person I once was, shaped by my family, are being wiped away. Le behind is a clean surface and new beginnings, as my paper towels absorb the past and all of its dark messes.

I am now in control of my own disarray, not my family. I write my own narrative, one lled with radical community, love, and grownup play dates with my chosen family.

DONNED AND DISCARDED:

THE FAST FASHION DEBATE

By Kiara Mastropasqua

They say trends are temporary and style is forever, but when it comes to fast fashion, a synthetic polyester shirt will be sitting in a land ll long a er it has lost its popularity. As the internet teems with ads of the latest low-cost trendy pieces, consumers are bombarded with a plethora of fast fashion brands daily.

Fast fashion can be de ned as inexpensive clothing produced rapidly on a mass scale as a way to create and respond to the latest trends. While the mass production of clothing has been around since the Industrial Revolution, the pervasive cultural normalization of trends and low prices have increased the prevalence of fast fashion as well as the sheer speed and quantity at which clothing is made. O en mimicking designers or luxury brands, fast fashion brands aim to

bring styles that people may see on celebrities or runways to the average person for a low price. However, these low price points are achieved through unethical labor practices and unsustainable quality that harm the environment.

e fast fashion industry a ects all of our lives, seeing as self-expression is re ected in style. At Tu s, the negative consequences of fast fashion do not go unnoticed by students. Senior Oluchi Ezekwenna described fast fashion as brands that “do not ethically source their clothing with a negative impact on the environment, and [whose] workers are not paid fairly.” Forbes stated that in sweatshops in the US, “Workers put in grueling 12 hour days, making garments that will be sold for anywhere from $5 to $75 for around three cents apiece paid

out.” Rolling Stone said that in SHEIN partner factories in China, “employees worked 12-to-14-hour days and often worked 28 days per month under incredibly unsafe conditions, such as windowless rooms with no re [exits].” Many clothes produced in these unethical conditions are purchased by US consumers, perpetuating an unequal power dynamic overseas.

Many workers face long hours in grueling conditions in order to produce a cheap product using poor materials, and the quality of the product suffers. According to NPR , fast fashion brands use cheap, synthetic materials coupled with rudimentary manufacturing processes, leaving most fast fashion clothing unable to survive more than a few washings. These

articles of clothing then get “recycled into industrial rags and insulation, or even thrown out altogether—generating the term ‘landfill fashion.’”

In this way, fast fashion has proven to be destructive to the environment, as it produces a massive amount of waste. According to Earth.org, the average US consumer throws away 81.5 pounds of clothing every year. Moreover, the US alone accounts for about 11.3 million tons of textile wastes—equivalent to 85 percent of all textiles—that end up in land lls on a yearly basis. e United Nations Environment Programme found that 20 percent of global wastewater comes from textile dyeing, where o en the wastewater nds itself in rivers and seas, with detrimental e ects on marine life and sewage systems.

e internet makes clothing shopping easy and prevalent. Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok broadcast the latest fashion micro trends, dubbing di erent patterns, pieces, and pairings as “in,” leading consumers to ock to purchase the newest fad. Freshman Grant Garland explained, “A lot of trends have to do with social media and celebrities and what people of in uence are wearing.” Coupled with the accessibility of online shopping, consumers can access any article of clothing with just a few clicks, leading them to be able to buy clothing at an alarming rate. Time Magazine cites a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2014, indicating “making purchases helps people feel instantly happier—and also ghts lingering sadness” as “making purchase decisions confers a sense of personal control and autonomy.” e repercussions of ubiquitous access to new clothing include micro trends fading fast, clothes being thrown away, and discarded garments becoming harmful waste. e cycle continues as soon as a new trend picks up.

Garland sees fast fashion as leading to an “increase in consumerism,” as people are encouraged to buy more clothing and, as “a consumer, things catch your eyes easily.” Fast fashion pulls from the notion that in order to stay up to date and relevant, one must constantly reinvent their style. According to Earth.org,

since 2000, clothing sales have doubled from 100 to 200 billion units a year, while the average number of times an item was worn decreased by 36 percent. e demand for clothing has risen signicantly as consumers buy much more, yet the amount consumers are wearing their clothing is decreasing.

As well as creating trends or duping luxury pieces, fast fashion has also been accused of stealing from other brands and small businesses. Time Magazine names brands such as SHEIN and Zara as some of the largest in the fast fashion industry. According to NPR, the designer behind Elexiay, a Black-owned fashion brand, took to Twitter when SHEIN copied the design of its “Amelia Top.” Elexiay’s crochet sweater is handmade in Nigeria and costs $330, while its dupe appeared on SHEIN’s website, mass-produced in a nearly identical color scheme, and was sold for $17 until its removal. is incident is one of many in which a giant brand steals the work of smaller brands in order to drive pro t, ultimately harming small businesses.

Students o en turn to fast fashion when they need something quickly for a speci c occasion. Ezekwenna said, “If I were to purchase fast fashion, it would be if I needed a lot of clothes for a certain occasion and didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it.” Fast fashion seems to ll the need for rapidly produced clothing that is simultaneously accessible and a ordable to consumers. Kaitlyn Wells, sophomore and eco-representative at Tu s, said she tries to escape fast fashion “by buying secondhand or mostly secondhand,” even though, “for some pieces, [fast fashion] is just most a ordable.” Wells warns consumers to be on high alert for greenwashing, “a practice where companies will intentionally portray themselves as being green or eco-friendly, when they might just be taking one fact and blowing it out of proportion.” Earth.org states that Zara is planning on switching to 100% renewable energy by 2030, and also planning on using sustainable and recyclable materials. Yet, still a leading fast fashion brand, producing a high carbon footprint, Zara neglected to share a detailed factory list and refrains from publishing results of

audits, showcasing a lack of transparency and leaving consumers unable to assess how impactful their sustainability goals truly are.

Many students expressed that in the process of developing their own personal style, their reliance on fast fashion has lessened as they shi their focus to the quality and longevity of clothing over quantity. Senior Bridget Gattinoni said, “Now I understand my style better, versus when I was buying fast fashion clothes, I wanted to order a lot of clothes. Now I put more money into the clothes I buy because I know I like them, and I know they will last.” O en, as one feels more comfortable and sure of their style, it becomes worthwhile to invest in nicer, more sustainable pieces that will last long term. Wells also suggested a perspective shi in relation to fashion, saying, “Whether it be by recognizing the value in high quality pieces of clothing, or just shi ing our attitudes when it comes to clothing consumption…We don’t need to be on top of every trend and wearing something di erent every day, every season.”

at being said, the option of more sustainable fashion is not always accessible to the working and middle classes. Sustainable alternatives—clothes that are made to last and minimize waste—tend to be more expensive and are not always nancially accessible. Due to low prices and accessibility, fast fashion becomes an enticing option to many as a way to stay up to date on trends and feel good about what one is wearing, all without breaking the bank. Consumers are faced with di cult choices when debating whether or not to buy from fast fashion brands, such as questions of ethical labor conditions and environmental impact, against general accessibility, ease, style, and cost. Wells suggested “a worthwhile exercise could be an introspective look at what you tend to like, re ecting on what I really enjoy wearing and what makes me feel good, because knowing what you like helps you reduce buying unnecessary pieces of clothing that might just be a fad.”

DESIGN BY JAZZY WU, ART BY OLIVIA WHITE MARCH 6, 2023

NOBODY OWES YOU A COMING OUT UNPACKING THE INTERNET’S FIXATION WITH “QUEERBAITING”

nline discourse is overrun with suspicions of sexuality and accusations of “queerbaiting.” But, like many terms thrown around online, its meaning has become diluted and convoluted. While the exact origins of the term “queerbaiting” are not easily de ned, it was previously primarily used to describe ctional characters who are teased as queer, but are never

explicitly or canonically queer, thus creating a false promise of representation that is never delivered. In this way, queerbaiting is a manipulative marketing strategy to bring in queer audiences without actually providing genuine representation. Some well-known examples of queerbaiting in popular media include TV shows and , as well as J.K. Rowling’s

claims that Dumbledore is gay—even though this is not actively present in any Harry Potter content.

But now, queerbaiting accusations are directed not just toward ctional characters, but real people in the public eye, pivoting the discourse in a completely di erent direction than the previous meaning. is creates a whole host of complicated

issues regarding gatekeeping identity, assumptions about strangers’ queer identities, and essentially forcing people out of the closet—all of which seem antithetical to a radical approach to queerness that works to dismantle binaries and allows for diversity of expression. ere seems to be a predictable disconnect between the online echo chamber and the more nuanced discussions put forth by queer activists and theorists.

A relatively recent and highly visible example of this phenomenon is actor Kit Connor’s online coming out. e 18-year-old starred in the popular Net ix series , which centers around the adorable romance between two queer teenage boys. However, some fans of the show questioned Connor’s real- life sexuality online, insisted he was straight and therefore shouldn’t be playing a queer character, and said he was “queerbaiting.”

As a result, Connor tweeted, “Back for a minute. i’m bi. congrats for forcing an 18 year old to out himself. i think some of you missed the point of the show. bye,” and then deleted his Twitter account entirely. is incident does not exist in isolation—other public gures such as Cardi B, Rita Ora, Jameela Jamil, and Becky Albertalli have previously had to defend their sexualities online against queerbaiting accusations—but the online bullying of Connor is a prime example of queerbaiting claims being weaponized, causing harm (to a no less), and not to mention being simply inaccurate.

I would not be the rst to point out that these kinds of accusations are rooted in part in biphobia and bi-erasure. Much of the queerbaiting accusations toward Connor came in response to a video of him holding hands with a female costar—as if a man possibly being with a girl must mean he was straight, and an especially ironic assumption considering Nick, Kit Connor’s character, is explicitly bisexual. is reductive view of sexuality furthers a binary gay/ straight lens of sexuality which frankly, one would assume we are past by 2023.

If we’re on the same page about the “default” not being straight and/or cis—and for the sake of this argument, I will assume we are—then it does not make sense to assume

a celebrity is cishet until “proven” otherwise. In the yearning for authentic representation and role models, it seems important ideas around the uidity and social construction of sexuality are being lost. Simultaneously, we are forgetting celebrities are real people too, with potentially complex relationships to their own queerness. Or maybe, they just don’t feel the need to tell millions of strangers online everything about themselves.

I want to be clear that I do believe representation is important. When I personally see a queer character in a TV show or movie, I appreciate when I can look up that the actor and/or the creators are queer themselves, especially if I identify with the character. But at the same time, the desire for queer visibility and representation simply does not outweigh the fact that nobody to “come out” and nobody you a coming out.

I’m not naive enough to think that straight, cis celebrities never utilize ambiguous queerness in order to appeal to queer fans and consumers—and it’s valid for people to be upset or concerned about individuals pro ting o queerness in this way. However, it’s wrong to assume that someone’s desire to not label their identity means they are inherently queer. As is o en the case with online debate, the nuance of the issue is lost. Twitter conversations about queerbaiting quickly turn hateful, accusatory, or overly simpli ed. At what point does it stop being productive to debate Harry Styles’ gender presentation or if Billie Eilish is allowed to have sapphic themes in her music videos? Where is the line between a desire for authentic representation and individual agency? I don’t pretend to have a de nitive or singular answer, but I caution against blanket claims of queerbaiting or gatekeeping of presentation—otherwise, the humanity of those in the public eye is disregarded, and queerness becomes just another binary.

I’ve focused this discussion around those in the public eye because that is often where online discourse centers, but this mindset on coming out extends to everyone. You don’t need to come out to everyone in your life, and nobody is required to come out to you. Many queer people—and I would include myself in this category—move through the world

not feeling the need to formally “come out” to every single person. Some may assume or know that people in their life already understand their identities through social media, relationships, friends, and/or selfpresentation. Not to mention, many queer people, especially young people, are also in a process of guring out or questioning their identity, feel their identity is uid and shi ing, or simply don’t subscribe to speci c labels. Even for those who do prefer to use speci c terms, labels don’t necessarily have the same meaning for everyone who chooses to use them.

e very concept of “the closet” runs the risk of sorting people into limiting binaries based on if they are “out” or not. Coming out is a constant process, not a one-time event. It evolves with meeting new people, existing in di erent environments, and/or changing identities. ere are plenty of people who consider themselves “out” even if they never directly say they are queer. e trope of a singular event of a person sitting down with their loved ones and formally “coming out” is a limiting idea of how people should experience their queerness. ose subscribing to this idea assume the end goal is to be out to all, and that if someone is not, then they are repressed—but this is simply not the reality. Not explicitly stating one’s identity does not equal living “in the closet” or not “being out.” Even those who desire a formal coming out should not be pressured into thinking it is the unilaterally “right” choice, as it is not always safe for everyone. To return to the case of Kit Connor: a pressured coming out does not automatically make an individual more liberated; in fact, the opposite can easily be true if one’s agency is e ectively taken away from them.

Queerbaiting accusations applied to real people are a symptom of an overly simpli ed perspective on queerness that takes hold primarily online, with these claims furthering an out/closeted dichotomy that harms us all. It is reductive to view identity and coming out in such binary terms, and it is unfair to put this idea universally onto everyone—in the public eye or otherwise.

Call me your child

By Chloe Cheng

My mother and father have known about my queerness for about a year now.

I wrote a letter to my mom about a girl I was seeing at the time: her so , lilac hair, auburn at the roots; the melodic breeze of her voice as she sang compliments in German to her runt of a tabby cat; that time we sat by an algae infested lake in Arlington Heights and, in an attempt to capture the ripples of the water, painted so many layers of cheap watercolor on multimedia paper that it warped under our brushes; the way that even a whisper of her name made my cheeks ush with the warmth of the sun on an early a ernoon.

e letter was the rst mention I had ever made of liking women, despite secretly being in the gay dating scene for six years by that point. When my parents came to visit in March, my mom asked about the girl, but her questions felt thick in the air, su ocating me like the rotten, salty wind of a seaweed-infested beach in Northern California. “How is that person you wrote to me about? What did you do with them on your rst date?” It was as if her mind let her skip over the troubling revelation of my sexuality. It smelled like denial and a twinge of hope that I’d only accidentally slipped an “s” in front of the “he” who had asked me out a month prior. I don’t know if she ever told my dad about the letter; he never mentioned it. My father noticed my switch in pronouns in the bio of my Instagram account. He posts regular photos of the meals he’s cooked, sketches of sailors’ knots, and birds in bold Sharpie on Post-it Notes and small paperback journals. He likes to tell me every time he sees I’ve posted something new. He pays attention, I guess. As we were waiting in the underground train station near my university, breathing in humid, sour air, my dad brought up the change I had made, curiously and gently asking what my friends call me. I said “they/them” and thought that would be the end of the conversation and a shift in my parents’ perception of me.

roughout the rest of my parents’ trip, they called me their daughter. “Aren’t we so lucky to have a daughter like you? She’s the best,” they would coo, and as appreciated as their praise made me feel, it also made me sick. e words coiled in my chest like secondhand smoke, coating the walls of my lungs with a raw sienna residue that caught my breath in its dust. My parents had own across the country to see me; they cared about me. I knew I should be grateful for them—I was and still am—but a part of me grieves the relationship we could’ve had if I was a cisgender straight woman, if there were no barriers to their understanding of me.

My mother loves jigsaw puzzles, my father not so much. As my mother leans over the dark dining table she’s cleared o to make room for her new obsession, my father watches a World War II movie on the couch 10 feet away. My mother puts pieces together starting at the edge before moving inward. When she talks to me, I feel she is trying to ll in the middle of my puzzle. She has the outside nished; she knows the facts. I am the product of her and my father, I am 5’7”, I am a student at a university 3,000 miles away from home, and I call her every Friday at 8:30 a.m. EST like clockwork. But she’s placed the remaining pieces upside down. e image is hidden, lying prostrate on the water-stained mahogany, impossible to construct in its current state. In the taupe cardboard backings, she sees the girl she raised. She sees the long black hair she used to cut in our gray-tiled bathroom and the dark shoulders with white stripes, tanned by the summer sun during swim meets. She hears mu ed cries hidden in pillows a er bad dreams and tip-toed footsteps on the carpet we tore up when I was 10. Concealed to her is the young adult who binds their chest because sometimes their body is too much, the student who doesn’t speak up in class due to a fear of being referred to in the wrong way, the half-baked person who’s gone by four di erent names over the course of a year because none of them felt quite right, the grown up child sitting in the corner, quietly waiting for their mother to turn over the pieces. My father still faces away, engrossed in his lms.

11 months a er their visit, I can count on my hands the number of times my parents have used my correct pronouns. Maybe it’s too di cult. Maybe I’m too di cult. ey say it’s hard to change, but I’ve never found it all that taxing. It’s as simple as a substitution of words, a nickname of sorts that one learns over the course of practice and correction. But it takes care. It takes willingness.

I don’t think they mourn their daughter, because they haven’t accepted that she’s gone yet. I know they love her, but I don’t know if they love me.

DESIGN BY ANASTASIA GLASS, ART BY KATIE REJITO