Issue 3 Spring 2022

TUFTS OBSERVER ISSUE 3 VOL CL

RESISTANCE

2 STAND WITH TIGRAY: FIGHTING A GENOCIDE NEWS • ELLA FASCIANO

6 CASTE ON CAMPUS

15 FOR THE UNCONTROLLABLE POETRY • ANICA ZULCH

18 THEORIZING FROM THE FLESH CAMPUS • PAOLA RUIZ & EMARA SAEZ

OPINION • TUFTS SOUTH ASIAN POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

22 SEARCHING FOR STABILITY AMIDST 9 WINTER RUPTURES, SPRING REMEDIES SICKNESS POETRY • P.S.

VOICES • SOPHIE FISHMAN

10 THE STRENGTH OF HIS SPINE

24 TRY NOT TO LAUGH AT TFL COMEDY

12 JUSTICE THROUGH BDS

26 UNPACKING UKRAINE: INVASION AND RESISTANCE

VOICES • RUBY GOODMAN

OPINION • TUFTS STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE

ARTS & CULTURE • CLARA DAVIS

NEWS • LAYLA KENNINGTON

DESIGN BY BAO LU, COVER BY JULIA STEINER

EDITOR IN CHIEF: Aroha Mackay MANAGING EDITOR: Sabah Lokhandwala EDITOR EMERITUS: Josie Wagner CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Bao Lu Julia Steiner FEATURE EDITORS: Edith Philip Melanie Litwin NEWS EDITORS: Gracie Theobald-Williams Silvia Wang ARTS & CULTURE EDITORS: Juanita Asapokhai Sabrina Cabarcos OPINION EDITORS: Priyanka Sinha Meghan Smith CAMPUS EDITORS: Shira Ben-Ami Hanna Bregman

POETRY & PROSE EDITORS: Michelle Setiawan William Zhuang VOICES EDITORS: Emara Saez Eden Weissman CREATIVE INSET: Brenna Trollinger ART DIRECTORS: Kate Bowers MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR: Unnathy Neltulla MULTIMEDIA TEAM: Jasmine Chang Miela Efraim Pam Melgar PODCAST DIRECTOR: Caitlin Duffy PUBLICITY DIRECTOR: Janie Ingrassia PUBLICITY TEAM: Sophie Fishman Paola Ruiz Millie Todd

STAFF WRITERS: Seun Adekunle Leah Cohen Clara Davis Ruby Goodman Layla Kennington Audrey Ledbetter Chloe Malley Aden Malone Akbota Saudabayeva Eloise Vaughan Williams Anica Zulch DESIGNERS: Emma Davis Uma Edulbehram Meguna Okawa Tara Steckler Miriam Vodosek Ines Wang Michael Wu LEAD COPY EDITOR: Marco Pretell COPY EDITORS: Sophie Fishman Linda Kebichi Eli Marcus Emilia Nathan Jack Rogen Millie Todd Alexandra Ward

PODCAST TEAM: Noah DeYoung Julio Dominguez Alexis Enderle Gayatri Kalra Bronwyn Legg Grace Masiello Jaden Shemesh Jillian Yum STAFF ARTISTS: Brigid Cawley Aidan Chang Anna Cornish D Gateño Amanda Lipari Maxson Carina Lo Emmeline Meyers INVESTIGATIVE TEAM: Liani Astacio Hanna Bregman Eden Weissman CONTRIBUTORS: Ella Fasciano Tufts South Asian Political Action Committee Tufts Students For Justice In Palestine

There exists a current in every space we step into. Sometimes, we sit back and move in the direction it wills us in, trusting its judgment. Sometimes, we are forced to resist, digging our fingers into the ground, teeth clenched, fighting for inertia. Where do we find the strength and courage to push against the current?

What force must be exerted to shift its direction?

DESIGN BY JOHN DOE, ART BY JANE DOE

NEWS

STAND WITH TIGRAY FIGHTING A GENOCIDE

By Ella Fasciano

Content Warning: Mentions of genocide, rape and war.

2 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

NEWS

O

n Nov. 4, 2020, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia restricted all media and declared war on the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Since that day, families and friends have been cut off from the internet, humanitarian aid, and each other. The prime minister’s systematic targeting of the Tigrayan people and resulting deaths have led many people to term the events a genocide. The United Nations recently reported that more than nine million people in Tigray are currently in need of humanitarian food assistance and almost 40 percent of Tigrayans are suffering from an extreme lack of food in a human-made famine. However, the Ethiopian government is blocking all aid from getting to the people who need it the most.

The New York Times reported that “Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, had been planning a military campaign in the northern Tigray region for months before war erupted one year ago, setting off a cascade of destruction and ethnic violence that has engulfed Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country.”

The World Peace Foundation, the United Nations, The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, among other international organizations, have cited human rights violations on both sides of the genocide, but as the World Peace Foundation puts it, “there is a clear and overwhelming difference in the scale and the systematic nature of abuses perpetrated by government-aligned forces against Tigrayan civilians.”

The abuses committed by government forces include systematic and perpetrated rape, forced displace-

DESIGN AND ART BY UMA EDULBEHRAM

ment, human-made famine, massacre, and the use of national media to broadcast hate speech.

Even with all of these human rights violations, the government has stopped most humanitarian aid from entering Tigray. No journalists have been allowed to enter and, due to the media blackout, all communication in the region has been blocked, and Tigrayans outside of Tigray have no way of contacting their family and loved ones.

Alex de Waal, the Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation, has been working for over 40 years on the issues of war, genocide, and human rights violations across the world, including in Somalia, Rwanda, and Darfur. He said, “there is no situation [that] I’ve encountered these [past] 40 years studying some of the world’s most horrible disasters that is as comprehensively grave as the situation in Tigray over the last 15 years in terms of the breadth and the scale of human suffering, exceeded only by the genocide in Rwanda.”

Senior Lwam Gidey was born in Tigray and moved to the United States for high school and has many family and friends back home in Tigray. When Gidey woke up on Nov. 5, 2020, she and her sister were shocked to hear news of the war that had started in their home.

Gidey described her reaction to the start of the war: “I’ve always been connected to my culture [and] to my people in my community, so, when [the war started], it was a very urgent emergency [and] very heartbreaking… the fact that there was no telecommunication and that Tigray was completely under [a] blockade

made me really fear the possibility of losing my family [and] friends.”

In response, Gidey founded the nonprofit Stand With Tigray, a global campaign that aims to support Tigrayans and help others learn about the humanitarian crisis and take action. By Nov. 6, 2020, they had created a website to serve as a witness and news source for the atrocities occurring in Tigray. “We wanted to fight against the mass atrocities that were happening and to be able to be a voice to our voiceless people back home in Tigray,” Gidey said. Stand With Tigray has taken actions such as creating trends on Twitter (#StandWithTigray), hosting webinars, organizing petitions and calls to representatives, and raising donations to help Tigrayan refugees in Kenya.

“I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO SPEAK WITH MY FAMILY FOR OVER A YEAR AND A HALF, AND I DON’T KNOW IF MY FRIENDS OR LOVED ONES ARE STILL ALIVE OR DEAD” Gidey said one of the hardest parts of this genocide is the media blackout that de Waal called an “extraordinarily effective information blackout and disinformation campaign.” “I haven’t been able to speak with my family for over a year and a half, and I don’t know if my friends or loved ones are still alive or dead,” explained Gidey.

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 3

NEWS

The media blackout has been emotionally devastating for Tigrayans, but it has also made it hard for journalists who cannot enter the area. Gidey explained that organizations like Amnes-

“WE ARE RESPONSIBLE… FOR BEING THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. THIS IS THE ONLY POWER I HAVE TODAY—[TO] LET OTHERS KNOW THE ACTIVE HUMAN SUFFERING AND [TO] CALL [PEOPLE] TO ACTION.” ty International and media outlets like CNN and BBC have used satellites to detect bombs and drones in their investigations of the area. Stand with Tigray aims to raise awareness and create action by amplifying these investigations on its social media in hopes of pressuring the international community to act.

4 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

Haddush G. Gebremedhin, a Tufts University alumni and founding member of the Tigray Rescue Mission Advocacy Group, also spoke on the impact of the media blackout. He recounted his experience of being unable to contact his family back home in Tigray while he was a student: “I never heard the voice of my mother, my brothers, my father. Imagine this, how difficult it is for students going to school and studying without any information about their family. It was a very traumatic time for me.”

In a written statement to the Tufts Observer, he explained part of his rationale for starting the advocacy group: “During the last couple of years, I have been physically here, mentally, and spiritually; however, I am with my people back home in Ethiopia… We are responsible… for being the voice of the people. This is the only power I have today—[to] let others know the active human suffering and [to] call [people] to action.”

In an interview, Gebremedhin also commented on the difference between the international community’s reaction towards the crisis in Ukraine and the genocide in Tigray. Regard-

ing Tigray, he said, “I don’t see that [the international community has] sufficient information. Why? Because [the genocide] is being committed in a black-out situation; there is no flow of information through media.” Without information to generate awareness, Tigrayans are going through a genocide largely without an international outcry.

Gebremedhin also commented on how international organizations and governments that are aware of the genocide are less inclined to intervene because of narratives rooted in colonialism and complex political relationships. “They know what is happening.

This is happening in Africa, which is really in terms of political strategy or ideology, there is a really different interest in [Africa],” said Gebremedhin.

Solomon Mezgebu is a human rights advocate and Tufts alumni who recounted a recent phone call with his cousin living in Tigray. Mezgebu said, “he traveled for three days… to a place where there is residual cell phone communication to give me a call. [My cousin told] me my cousins and their children are hungry and they need help from me, but I can’t do anything. I can’t send money, I can’t call them, I can’t send food or anything. To hear

NEWS

such a voice of agony and helplessness is just terrible.”

Since the 1980s, de Waal has worked to advocate for and uplift Tigrayan voices. For example, in a blog post in 2021, he shared his call with former senior fellow at the World Peace Foundation, Mulugeta Gebrehiwot, who escaped from the capital city of Tigray in November 2021 to the mountains. Over 250,000 people streamed the call, where Gebrehiwot described the current situation in Tigray.

De Waal also looked to the future, saying it is a must to consistently tell the world what is going on, even if it doesn’t seem to have

DESIGN AND ART BY UMA EDULBEHRAM

an effect, “because a time will come for accountability,” and once access to the country is granted, there will be a great need for targeted humanitarian support.

Gidey explained that even as she balances school with this global campaign, the support from her family here and back home, as well as from the Stand with Tigray team, helps her to keep going. She explained that there are “people back home who have so much hope in us and also just seeing that they are very resilient; they’re still hopeful that peace will come. So it’s kind of like not giving up on my people.”

She also said helping her people in any way that she can is what grounds her and inspires her resilience. “I think that the only thing that matters to me at this moment is to be able to see justice for my people.

Without that happening, I don’t think I can stop fighting.”

Students can go to swtigray.org to learn more about what is happening in Tigray and to take action. They can find places to donate to support Tigrayan refugees, ways to send letters, petitions to sign, guidance on how to tweet and share information on social media, and stories that elevate the voices and experiences of Tigryans.

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 5

OPINION

CASTE ON ON CAMPUS CAMPUS CASTE THE NEED TO ADD CASTE-BASED PROTECTIONS

By Tufts South Asian Political Action Committee

I

n the words of the US-based Dalit rights activist, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, “Caste has been [in the US] for a long time; wherever South Asians go, they bring caste.” Tufts is not absolved from the manifestation of caste in the United States, including the discrimination it breeds in this nation. In the Tufts community, race, class, and gender identity are protected by the Office of Equal Opportunity. These protected categories ensure that if someone in the Tufts community is harmed because of their identity, Tufts has the obligation to defend them and ensure such harm does not continue. Despite the pervasive nature of caste in South Asian American society, caste remains an unprotected category at Tufts. The university should follow in the footsteps of educational institutions around the United States and add castebased protections to its discrimination policy.

Caste is a system of discrimination that originated in ancient Hindu texts and is ingrained

6 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

to this day in South Asian society and its diaspora across religious, national, and class lines. The three varna (castes): Brahman, Kshatriya, and Vaishya are referred to with the all-encompassing term oppressor-caste. Caste-oppressed groups include Dalit people, historically known as untouchables; Adivasi, the indigenous people of India; and Bahujans, an umbrella term that encompasses these groups and other caste-oppressed people. As of 1950, discrimination based on caste was condemned in the Indian Constitution.

However, social and structural effects of the caste system continue to cause harm today through sexual violence, discrimination in the workplace, and social and political marginalization. Dalit people, for example, might not be allowed to enter a Hindu temple, and many caste-oppressed people also face discrimination for marrying outside of their own caste.

To recognize the existence of caste in the South Asian American diaspora is a step in the direction of caste abolition.

This is why, as a club, the South Asian Political Action Committee has launched a campaign to add caste as a protected category to the anti-discrimination policy, following in the footsteps of other universities, like Brandeis and the UC school system, in order to be proactive in assuring students are protected. We want to focus specifically on the ramifications and structural harms of the caste system and how they play out in the American workplace and in higher education. Caste-oppressed students face harassment, bullying, and even assault on college campuses.

One in two Dalit students is scared of being exposed as caste-marginalized because they know the harm that awaits them; two-thirds of Dalit students have faced harassment over their caste positionality. Universities must make caste a protected category to protect both marginalized-caste faculty and students from harm; they have a responsibility to their students to provide accessible and inclusive forms of protection, which currently lack comprehensive pathways to justice.

OPINION

The caste system’s manifestation in the American diaspora is a product of transnational migration. The insidious nature of caste often lies in its invisibility in upper caste, or savarna, communities.

Within the racial hierarchy of the US, these oppressor-caste communities are characterized as representing all of South Asia. Due to the dominance of immigrants of Indian origin who are upper caste in the US, the nuanced individual experiences of people in the South Asian community are overlooked in favor of the dominant narrative of oppressor-caste people. In the context of the US, caste becomes harder to trace, as all South Asians are placed in the same political and racial category.

This narrative minimizes the very real effects of caste oppression that exist in the South Asian American diaspora. In order to dismantle systems of oppression in the

US and abroad, it is necessary to amplify the voices of marginalizedcaste activists and create solidarity in the global South Asian community along caste lines.

As an organization, SAPAC itself is not immune to structures of power, with many oppressor-caste members who benefit from these systems. It is on these oppressor-caste people to unlearn castesupremacy and dismantle the incredibly harmful effects of it in their communities— that is the bare minimum.

In Silicon Valley, the relationship between caste-oppressed workers and tech companies is currently under investigation.

Two out of three Dalit-identifying people surveyed by Equality Labs working at Cisco Systems, an information technology firm in San Jose, have said they have been discriminated against on the basis of caste in the workplace, to the point where castebased harassment is a normalized part of the work environment. Immigration from India directly to Silicon Valley plays a large role in this as firms recruit from Indian universities.

As Soundarajan stated, “dominant castes who pride themselves as being only of merit have just converted their caste capital into

DESIGN BY INES WANG, INFOGRAPHIC REFERENCE FROM EQUALITY LABS

positions of power throughout the valley.”

This occurs as people who immigrate to the United States from India for work need an H-1B Visa, which, in the South Asian context is usually given to oppressor-caste people who have institutional access to more resources. Thus, the caste system from India and its hierarchy have merely reproduced themselves in the American tech field.

Companies are slowly starting to face repercussions for this, as Dalit people are beginning to file lawsuits against their employers. Because caste is not nationally recognized as a protected category, Dalitidentifying people must resort to a rather inaccessible, expensive, and time-consuming path towards justice. For example, Cisco Systems was sued by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing because of discrimination against a Dalit employee.

Cisco Systems was “denying him promotions, humiliating him, and giving him lesser work assignments.” Though lawsuits such as these are a step forward for protecting marginalized-caste employees, there should be alternative pathways to justice for castemarginalized people.

These would be especially necessary at universities, which, along with the

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 7

OPINION

workplace, are notorious for their caste-based discrimination.

In 2020, a Nepali caste-oppressed student named Prem Pariyar almost dropped out of California State University due to the casteism he faced. Pariyar did not hide his last name, which is a large caste-identifier under the system, and was outed to caste-privileged students. Their tone of voice would become patronizing when speaking to him, and their behavior changed when they learned through his last name that he was lower caste. In one instance, at a community dinner, he was given a plate of food instead of being able to serve himself, implying that by touching the food he would contaminate it. He brought this harassment to the school administration, but, because caste was not included in the school’s list of protected categories, they could not initiate any formal action.

CSU was structured to not protect students like Pariyar. Two years later, all universities in the California State system added caste as a protected category, which Pariyar called “very personal to [himself] and a historic win for caste-oppressed people in the US.” This was instrumental for Pariyar and

8 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

many others, as their experiences of harm and harassment in the university setting were finally being heard. For example, Pariyar looked back on his undergraduate years and remembered how his other Dalit friends were scared of being outed based on their caste when living with upper caste people, and were scared of losing housing over it.

In an interview with Pariyar, he shared the fear of being outed to his uppercaste South Asian acquaintances who quickly turned a cold shoulder when they found out he was a Dalit person.

An article he is paraphrased in said that “it triggered him deeply, leaving him humiliated and powerless. He calls it intergenerational trauma. It depressed him to know that he could not escape caste, even in America.” His experiences as a Dalit person in America propelled his activism and organizing to add caste-based protections to the antidiscrimination policy. He first spoke about his experiences with casteism in the classroom with supportive professors and started building a movement to institute these policies on the larger UC scale. Several other schools throughout the US have followed suit, including Harvard Graduate School, Brandeis University, Colby College, Scripps College, and the UC school system.

Tufts should be next.

At Tufts, as with every other highereducation institution, our current system does not protect students from caste-based discrimination. The lack of protection makes it difficult for students with marginalized caste identities to feel comfortable reporting caste-based discrimination. Adding caste to the non-discrimination policy lets castemarginalized students know that their institution values their comfort and livelihood. Under this policy addition, students, faculty, and staff across the university would be able to report incidents of caste discrimination. This gives caste-marginalized people a way for their experiences to be heard and provided with a more inclusive and straightforward pathway to addressing discrimination.

The petition to add caste-based protections into Tufts’ discrimination policy is available at bit.ly/casteattufts.

PROSE

WINTER RUPTURES, SPRING REMEDIES By p.s

My senses have been failing me; they are hijacked by the past. In my heart, I shiver as snow falls onto my delicately calloused palms, and trains make the air hum. There is a film playing beneath a purple sky, and I can smell freshly baked cookies, I can hear the hymns of your soft Indian language that rounds its As into Os. In my heart, you. Here I have long made a home for you, but you are suddenly absent.

Nothing is mine anymore, only the ghosts of what you used to call yours. My bones threaten to press their silhouettes against my skin, I am fading away. I cannot bear to lay like I used to, as the you-shaped space sears into the contours of my body with an everlasting sting.

Can my body be molded into the words we used to share? The words you used to select so carefully? Perhaps you and I are no longer, but can “enamored” and “found” lay against each other for the night? What happened to the people who fell in love with each other’s words, with the hushed whispers of our voices over the phone?

“Where is home now?” I ask.

The forced eviction leaves my body feeling stranded in its own land… “Where can I take shelter in a world of fleeting goodbyes?” In the space we shared within my heart, I knock on the door; you come to the window and look right through me. I never knew you’d exist so loudly here against my will, every chorus of laughter making me choke on my own breath.

In the world we once called ours, the paint peels, dust collects, spiders begin to crawl. Glass fractures, falling shards making incisions on my heart. My hand rests stoically DESIGN BY MEGUNA OKAWA, ART BY AIDAN CHANG

at my chest, as it ponders ripping this pulsating weight out of my body, tearing the seams of my skin, leaving a bloody trail as it spreads its tainted chambers across the sky as a warning sign for all those who lose themselves in love.

But perhaps one day I will cease to search for answers in relation to you, perhaps I will look inwards. Perhaps my tears will become my nourishment, perhaps they will make flowers grow through this winter snow. Perhaps my cries are the reservoir for the impending April rains, perhaps water will finally be my change.

Perhaps in May the sky will blush pink, the color I love, the way you used to make me feel. But this time, perhaps you will not be the source of that warmth, but my own heart, spirit, soul, singing, and nurtured by how I have worked through all this pain.

To those lost in love: know that when your person walks out of your life, no matter the reason, your body turns inside out.

Your inner struggles feel more tangible as your physical presence begins to fade. It’s very easy to channel anger at people, at the people who are tied to your pain. But right now, who I resist most is myself. When my intrusive thoughts are a noose around my neck, when my eyes project caliginous tones on innocent skies, I know I must resist myself and the destructive reactions that can compromise both my mind and my body. Resistance can become resilience if we simply take time to step out of our outlines, to truly admire the scars, to understand the poetry of a sadness that grows familiar. It is only as of late that I have felt more in control, and it is only as of late that I have begun to recognize strength through my loneliness and the power of my reactions, both destructive and formative.

Our bodies are so malleable, there is beauty in the marks past lovers leave, even after they have left. Scars of a love unraveled remind us of the love we had to give, and how it’s never really lost… just recycled in a different place within us, making flowers grow through snow. Our bodies are ever-growing repositories of the souls we have touched, and all those we have yet to meet. My world as I knew it fractured viciously in February, and I thought I had lost myself forever. Yet here I am, excited by the smallest joys and loving more sincerely than ever before.

The most revolutionary thing of all is the way the body can heal on its own, and learn how to be alone again, even when it was fused with another for so long.

Still, to speed up the process, I can’t help but ask: we fell in love during a pandemic, so can we get an inoculation for broken hearts?

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 9

VOICES

T H E ST R E N G T H O F H IS S P IN E By Ru by Go od ma n

Billy spent his last weeks out of hospice in the place he knew best: his bedroom.

It had seen every phase of his decline.

The room was made of cancer: one brick for chemo, a second for remission, and a third for its quick return. In those final days, he probably spent hours sedentary in his familiar position, back against the wall, hunched so only the sharpest part of his spine grazed the hard plaster. Sitting there, he might have re-read all his birthday messages (this year, he received more than ever). His email inbox was like a pile of wrapped gifts on Christmas morning, signed off with love: Love, the grandkids. Love, your son. Love, from the whole family. He wrote them all letters in return. Letters of gratitude for having experienced life with them.

When his goodbyes were finished, hospice was the only future he could look towards. Everything else, every scene of his life, was but an object of reminiscence. He was used to this; he could only anticipate those homogeneous white sheets, plastic-wrapped muffins, and 10 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

curtains to sequester his death. He may have even looked forward to them.

Because for now, in these final weeks, he would have woken up to prison sounds. His 3:30 a.m. alarm would be sharp voices and the sound of a breakfast tray against the concrete floor of his bedroom. He would, instinctually, rise quickly. That would hurt. As uniformed officers peered into his cell, he would spend the morning skimming his favorite John Grisham novel, reading his birthday cards, and thinking of hospice.

If he had the energy, he might stretch or pace. After 34 years, he knew exactly how many steps it took to get from one wall to the other. He might have felt the sickness eating at him, the colon cancer spreading quickly to his liver and then his pancreas.

It would have been one of those mornings where I’d feel my phone vibrate and the name “Billy Kuenzel” would stretch across the screen. Billy had been my grandfather’s client before he died, and he’d become part of the family. Receiving his messages always lifted my spirits.

Hey want to send you a big old smile and a hug. I hope everythings going all right thinking about you all the time wish you all the best.

In 1988, Billy was convicted of shooting and killing convenience-store clerk Linda Offord as she sat behind the counter in Sylacauga, Alabama. He was accused by his roommate, Harvey Venn, who testified against Billy in court in exchange for a shortened prison sentence. Venn’s story was corroborated by only one witness, who, changing her story, had only thought she saw Billy; she was driving by the store in rainy weather at the time of the crime.

Nevertheless, at 25, Billy was sentenced to be killed by electric shock.

As the years went on, new evidence emerged: blood-stains on Venn’s pants, a clear match between the murder weapon and Venn’s personal gun, and confirmation that Billy was home at the time of the crime. In 1993, Billy tried to file an appeal with a plethora of new evidence that could

VOICES ` not be reasonably denied, but he missed the deadline. For the next 25 years he spent in prison, the state of Alabama would use this clerical error as a pretext to bar him from a new trial.

Hi there please know that every day i say a prayer of thanks for all of you. i am blessed and send hugs love and warm thoughts to you all

In 1993, my grandfather, Papa, began to fight for Billy as his pro bono attorney.

By the time my Papa died in 2006, Billy had become close to the entire family. I grew up with his name floating through nightly dinners, in letters piling in the mailbox, and on the other end of the phone. On the 10th anniversary of my grandfather’s death, Billy wrote to my family, “His passing has and will leave a void in my life… he shared his family with me. He was the first person in the system I believed in.”

The fight to bring Billy freedom was like shouting for help in the middle of the deep ocean. He was unreachable, locked away by a dehumanizing system that would not even dignify him with an hour to plead his case.

For any man, this would be enough to die hopeless, angry, and alone. Whether it was by cancer or the electric shock, Venn, the state, and the people who feared and vilified him would get what they wanted if Billy died hating them.

This is not the way Billy died.

Too ill to be up. been one of those days of no rest. And am always thinking of all of you and how much joy i get from you.

I was eight when my parents told me about Billy’s incarceration. Afterwards, he and I began to exchange texts and letters. Every so often we would call, and, through static white noise and muffled words, I would hear his weathered voice sing sentiments of hope and forgiveness. But each story he told horrified me more. Sunday, he went in for chemo and came back to the prison in horrible pain.

Monday, the correctional officers did a shakedown, and took his phone away.

Tuesday, he watched as they escorted his friend to his execution.

Billy was angry that people suffered.

But he was not angry that he did. He maintained an interest in books, movies, religion, and passed his GED exams. He led prayer services and helped his friends in DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY OLIVIA BELLO

hospice. His marriage before prison gave him a son and then two grandchildren, and he always maintained contact with my family. Billy tried to build a full life in a 5x8 foot prison cell.

What could Billy do? His years were spent with his back against the wall, imagining the feeling of a final shock up his spine. And what could he do about the cancer? He was being consumed by another invisible, undeserved darkness.

What could I do? Or my grandfather? Or the lawyers?

Every week before his death, I sent Billy pictures of my family around the dinner table. He would respond with a picture of himself smiling, or his grandkids. Or maybe a book recommendation (he liked mystery novels). I often thought of his face, rough and wrinkled, his short hair, and his slightly-sunken eyes. If I didn’t know him, maybe I’d be afraid of him.

THE STATE OF ALABAMA DOES NOT KNOW HOW MUCH WE ALL LOVED BILLY. AND THE STATE OF ALABAMA NEED NOT KNOW THAT EVERY BREATH HE TOOK WAS A REBELLION AGAINST THEM. EVERYONE WHO KNEW BILLY KNOWS. But Billy was far from scary. He deeply influenced us all. His correspondence with my grandmother, whose old age had left her lethargic and in need of purpose, sparked her interest in volunteer work and reminded her how to engage with life. To my other grandmother, Billy was a thread to her late husband and a close friend. My cousin developed a deep bond with Billy and visited him in Alabama. Their relationship pushed my cousin to take responsibility for much of Billy’s health matters. Their closeness also fostered her involvement in criminal justice reform.

For me, in my most formative years, Billy molded my perceptions.

Not just in the injustices he exposed

or the cruelties his experience represented, but as a human being who brought urgency to qualities I’d only lazily aspired to: resilience, kindness, and strength.

Billy gave form to these abstractions. As I began to pick classes at Tufts, I kept Billy in mind. I signed up for a course on incarceration and another on ethics, seeking to comprehend how a person like Billy could have been so irrevocably wronged. The more I learned, the more I understood that Billy was never seen as a person at all. This system negates its victims’ complexities, emotions, and—most insidiously—their humanity.

But to us who knew Billy, no one could be more human. I remember calling him once on a particularly stressful week. He reminded me that I was doing the best I could, and maybe I should take a break and spend some time with my family. His words brought me clarity: if I just stopped moving for one moment, I would realize that everything I needed was in front of me. Only he could really know that. He was essential, grounded into the Earth like a compass, perpetually oriented towards good.

The state of Alabama does not know how much we all loved Billy. And the state of Alabama need not know that every breath he took was a rebellion against them. Everyone who knew Billy knows.

We know now that every man with his spine against a cold prison wall is fighting a silent war against his oppressors. We know now that if we were to have turned on the news in 1988 and had seen that mugshot, those sunken eyes, we might have said “lock him up” and we would have all been wrong.

Wanted to say hi and hope all is well. sending smiles, hugs, and love. I am so proud of all of you.

Billy died of cancer after deciding to end treatment. In this final act of resistance, he deprived the state of the power they so hungered for. They would never get to send the shock through his spine. They would never get to cast a shadow over the final moments of a life that they thought was doomed, but to Billy, had never lost its light.

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 11

OPINION

JUSTICE THROUGH BDS

By Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine

I

n the past year alone, israel has demolished over 1,000 homes and buildings, displacing 1,300 Palestinians. Zionism, a political ideology that advocates for the existence and maintenance of a Jewish state in historic Palestine, underpins these demolitions and forced removals. Its founders modeled the state of israel after European settler colonialism, a form of colonialism that emphasizes control over land and relies on removal and dispossession of an Indigenous population to make way for settlers. This apartheid state consists of legal, social, and economic systems which confer certain rights to Israeli citizens but deny them to Palestinians. We are calling upon Tufts students to engage in strategic boycotts to act in solidarity with those oppressed by these systems.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

In 1948, the same year the state of israel was created, Zionists violently displaced at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, in what is now known as the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”). This created a population of refugees who are living in exile today and are denied the right to return to their homes.

Palestinians living under the brutal occupation by the israeli apartheid and its settler-colonial state do not only face the contin-

12 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

ual threat of removal. Palestinians in Gaza have been living under a harsh blockade, relentless surveillance, and spatial control since 2007, in the world’s largest “openair” prison. In Gaza, 70 percent of the youth are unemployed, the healthcare system is overburdened, and 97 percent of drinking water is contaminated with sewage or salt. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank have been cut off from their land and their communities by an Apartheid Wall and are forced to endure brutal military checkpoints just to get to work in the morning, if they are lucky enough to obtain a permit.

The Zionist settler-colonial project has directly created these conditions in an attempt to secure more land and resources for settlers and weaken Palestinian resistance.

THE BDS MOVEMENT Today’s struggle for Palestinian liberation against oppressive colonial rule echoes the fight to end the brutal apartheid state in South Africa. At the height of South African apartheid in the 1980s, one in four people in Great Britain were participating in a boycott of South African goods, and a powerful student movement on campuses across the imperial United States demanded divestment from corporations involved in upholding apartheid. The im-

mense pressure from the collective boycott led to the fall of the South African apartheid regime.

Following this model, the Palestinian people seek justice and liberation as they call for a boycott of israeli goods. Tufts’ Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is bringing this movement to our campus through a campaign calling on students to show their support for Palestinian liberation through personal choices—namely, refusing to buy products or participate in groups that enable and normalize Zionist settler colonialism. We invite all students committed to human rights and decolonization to join SJP in taking these actions as part of the greater Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.

The BDS movement stems from the understanding that israel’s settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation are maintained by the economic, political, and ideological cooperation of the international community. BDS seeks to make it economically and politically unviable for israel to continue its violent occupation and colonization of Palestinian land by compelling governments, institutions, and corporations to withdraw their support for apartheid israel. It can be practiced on a personal level, by boycotting Israeli goods and companies that are complicit in israeli colonization, on an institutional level, by demanding that institutions divest

OPINION

their holdings in corporations that help maintain israeli colonialism, and on a governmental level, by advocating for states to impose sanctions on israel for its actions.

SJP supports the full range of Palestinian resistance against settler-colonialism. However, as students in the United States, BDS is a way we can materially stand in solidarity with Palestinians. As people living under the US government, we are all complicit in

israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

The US sends israel $3.8 billion of our tax dollars every year to help it maintain its system of domination over the Palestinian people and consistently votes against accountability for israeli human rights abuses in the UN. On an individual level, we all support the occupation through our purchase of goods from corporations that profit off of israel’s settler-colonial project. By engaging in BDS, we can directly counter this complicity by pressuring corporations to end their involvement in the occupation.

at Kindlevan and Mugar Cafes, is one prominent company on the BDS list for its direct support of the israeli military, which commits human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Sabra is owned in part by the Strauss Group, israel’s largest food and beverage company. The Strauss Group materially supports and sends care packages to Israeli soldiers at the Golani Brigade, a group known for arbitrary murders and detentions. Pillsbury, which is sold in Commons, is owned by General Mills and operates a factory in the Atarot Industrial Zone, an illegal israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem.

The factory has displaced Palestinians and profits off of their land, water, and other resources.

Tufts community members will find that our pledge also asks signers to refuse to join groups or projects that normalize or benefit israel. On Tufts’ campus, this means not joining Tufts Friends of israel (FOI), Tufts J Street, or TAMID, as well as not choosing to study abroad in israel or participate in Birthright, not taking the Visions of Peace course, and not participating in the Tisch Summer Fellowship

with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

FOI and J Street are advocacy groups seeking to improve israel’s economic, social, and political standing. FOI is an openly Zionist organization that actively whitewashes history by refusing to acknowledge israel as a settler colonial project. Although J Street U’s official position is that of a “two-state solution,” this position fundamentally promotes the maintenance of the settlercolonial status quo. While SJP recognizes that many Jewish people begin their anti-zionist political journey through J Street U, and appreciates that J Street U’s Tufts chapter agrees that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not synonymous, it is crucial for students to refuse half-measures that condemn occupation while normalizing colonization. Similarly, the Visions of Peace course invites Zionist speakers and implies that the solution to settler violence lies in mere “dialogue,” as if the occupation itself is not the ultimate source of injustice and violence.

TAMID is a financial consulting club on campus that contributes to israeli economic growth by connecting students to consulting internships for israeli companies. While they claim to be apolitical,

TUFTS’ COMPLICITY

The BDS list names several specific companies to target to maximize pressure, two of which—Sabra and Pillsbury—have products sold on our campus. Sabra, which supplies the hummus cups sold

DESIGN BY INES WANG, ART BY KATE BOWERS

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 13

OPINION

their website proudly states that they were recognized “...for exceptional israel-related advocacy and contributions.” The ADL is a Zionist nonprofit that claims to fight antisemitism in the US, but in reality has sponsored trips for US law enforcement officers to train with Israeli police, intelligence agents, and military officials for the past 20 years, and has a history of spying on and sabotaging progressive movements.

Birthright is an organization that provides free trips to israel for Jewish young adults ages 18 to 26 in order to foster support for the state of israel. As five million Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return to their homeland, the idea that others have an automatic “birthright” to this stolen land is patently unjust. Finally, we include studying abroad in israel because it connotes support for the israeli universities whose research justifies the theft of land and resources from Palestinians, and is instrumental in the design of surveillance technology and weapons that sustain the occupation.

OUR ASK We fundamentally believe that “no one is free when others are oppressed.” This means we see Palestinian liberation as a crucial part of our

14 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

collective liberation from racism, capitalism, colonialism, sexism, and all other interconnected systems of oppression which strip us all of our humanity and justify the exploitation of peoples and the land. As National Students for Justice in Palestine has articulated, “The struggle for a just and free Palestine is a struggle for Black liberation, gender and sexual freedom, a livable and beautiful planet, and a world where everyone’s basic needs are met and their rights are respected.” We know that our movements are stronger when we recognize our causes as one in the same, and we see BDS as an extension of the fight for collective liberation.

Our ask is this: don’t buy products or engage with the groups and initiatives at Tufts that contribute to israel’s settler colonial project and perpetual violation of Palestinian human rights.

To affirm your commitment, we invite you to visit bit.ly/bdstufts and sign our pledge to: 1. Boycott Sabra and Pillsbury products on campus 2. Refuse to be involved with advocacy groups that normalize israel

3. Refuse to be involved with programs that fund trips to israel 4. Commit to BDS until Palestine is free, including boycotting all companies that are targets of the BDS Movement globally (HP, israeli fruits and vegetables, Puma, AXA, SodaStream, and Ahava) The more individuals who commit to practicing BDS, the greater impact we will have. Ask your friends to join you; spread the word to your classmates. By signing on and abiding by this pledge, your actions on a day to day basis will contribute to justice and liberation.

You can stay up to date on our campaign by following @sjptufts on Instagram.

POETRY

FOR THE UNCONTROLLABLE

By Anica Zulch

This is an ode.

An ode to the young and beautiful. To the free, to the unattached, to those who will jump, eyes wide open, without room for fear or doubt.

The wind rips in ribbons around me, coiling slowly, a paradox in its acceleration, slowing me down just enough to lift my chin in defiance.

Does that scare you?

I hear it everywhere, echoing and ricocheting—an anthem I can’t shake and a relentless drone of restraint: It’s time to pay the piper.

Pay for the sins and the mistakes and the pain and the glory.

I refuse.

With each dagger your eyes shoot, each impalement drawing blood, I refuse to add more armor.

I shed my layers.

Does my exposed skin scare you?

Showing, revealing, never encapsulated in shadow.

I watch you watch me. I welcome the stolen glances and the fixated gazes.

I do not care.

Does that scare you?

I’m out of time. I didn’t run out—no—I gave it up.

Gave it to those calling for my apologies, for my explanations.

I’m fueled by adrenaline with no time, nor will, to stop and regret. No time to explain and no time to be stable.

I am a water glass filled to the brim, each bead in the surface bound by a trivial amount of tension. Any minute, any breath, any thought might plummet one more drop into the glass.

I overflow.

Spilling uncontrollably, I don’t resist, I embrace.

Aware, unrestrained, uninhibited.

A force to be reckoned with.

DESIGN BY MEGUNA OKAWA, ART BY CARINA LO

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 15

DESIGN BY BRENNA TROLLINGER, PHOTOS COURTESY OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

CAMPUS

THEORIZING FROM THE FLESH: EXAMINING ETHNIC STUDIES AT TUFTS

By Paola Ruiz and Emara Saez

O

n March 28, 1969, the Tufts Observer published a story on the sit-ins, strikes, occupations of buildings, and rallies that were a part of the struggle for ethnic studies at a variety of universities across the US. At the time, students noted the need for university reform at Tufts, including the implementation of ethnic studies into the curricula. However, it took 45 years for these demands to be met through the creation of the Department of Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora (RCD) Studies. The RCD department has served as the cornerstone of the university’s efforts to promote “social justice and cultural sovereignty” as the curricular home for discussions on contemporary and historical social inequalities. However, after examining

18 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

the state of the curriculum in the area of ethnic studies, students have questioned the sincerity of Tufts’ statements.

There are several interdisciplinary tracks within the RCD department, including 3 majors: Africana Studies; American Studies; and Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora Studies. There are also 5 minors: Africana Studies; Asian American Studies; Latinx Studies; Colonialism Studies; and Native American and Indigenous Studies. Despite the wide scope of the department’s curriculum, there are only 12 full-time faculty within the department.

The RCD department chooses to “theorize from the flesh,” a phrase originally coined by Chicana feminists that has since been adopted by scholars of ethnic studies. This intellectual

framework conjoins theory and practice through an embodied politic of resistance that centers marginalized identities and history in discussion.

For many students, classes within the RCD department are the only ones at Tufts that have promoted this framework of thinking.

Max Whaley, a senior double majoring in American Studies and Environmental Studies, believes the diverse set of classes offered by the RCD department challenges the standard forms of knowledge production. “[The RCD department] counters the rest of the university and how things are taught… The classes I’ve taken in RCD have definitely made me think a lot more critically about my other major—

CAMPUS

environmental studies—and also the university as a whole,” said Whaley.

Founded in 2019, the RCD department is a relatively new addition to Tufts. However, the history of ethnic studies as an academic discipline reaches back into the middle of the 20th century. In the US, the field of ethnic studies evolved out of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s and early 1970s as a result of students of color demanding that their education be less Eurocentric and more reflective of their histories. The fight for ethnic studies in the ‘60s and ‘70s was violent; students and faculty were brutalized by police during peaceful protests at schools like the University of California Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

As a result of this student activism, colleges and universities around the nation have hosted a variety of ethnic studies programs focusing on the history of race in the US. The nation’s first formal College of Ethnic Studies was established at San Francisco State University in 1969. In the Northeast, Tufts’ peer institutions and NESCAC schools first introduced programs in

the 20th century. For instance, Amherst College implemented a few classes in ethnic studies in 1948, and Colby College implemented an ethnic studies program in the late 1960s. Tufts has lagged behind in the implementation of ethnic studies, and only formally introduced it into the school’s curriculum in the summer of 2014.

Although students and faculty had been working tirelessly since 2011 to formalize the various ethnic studies programs at Tufts, it was not until 2014 that the university approved the creation of a Consortium for Race, Colonialism and Diaspora. As a consortium—an association of professors who were interested in promoting ethnic studies classes across Tufts’ curriculum— RCD consortium struggled with

faculty turnover, being unable to hire professors and experiencing a variety of other structural issues associated with consortium status. However, the consortium structure did allow the RCD professors to spread across several existing departments and reach a large pool of students.

This all changed when the Board of Trustees voted to allow RCD to become a department in November 2018. Shortly after, in the Spring

“The US is a settler-colonial state that is built on inherently upholding white supremacy, but I think it’s important that we are learning how to dismantle that for ourselves in these classes,” said Olea Lezama.

DESIGN AND ART BY MICHAEL WU

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 19

CAMPUS

of 2019, the department received a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the development of the department and the hiring of new faculty. “It’s important to note that the RCD effort emerged organically from the faculty—and students—who deserve the credit for its initiation and growth.

The school’s administration has embraced the effort with support and resources,” said James Glaser, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. With these new resources, the RCD emerged in the 2019-2020 academic year as a fully functioning department.

However, achieving department status has not completely relieved RCD of structural challenges. “There’s a lot of budgetary issues that go into founding a department because that money we got from the Mellon Foundation was only [enough] to cover [new] faculty salaries,” rather than other expenses

20 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

associated with creating a department, said Adriana Zavala, Associate Professor in the RCD department. “[However,] the university put a lot of money into the project of creating a new department, and that doesn’t happen easily at universities,” continued Zavala.

Additionally, the RCD department is “faced with figuring out who the next department chair will be [due to] a shortage of tenured faculty who can step up to do that work.” Since much of the faculty within the department is newly hired, Professor Lorgia GarcíaPeña is the only professor among the core RCD faculty with tenure.

Although RCD has become an official department, some students have expressed a desire for RCD modes of thought to expand across the rest of Tufts’ curriculum. Carolina Olea Lezama, a senior who is double majoring in Political Science and American Studies, arrived at Tufts in 2018 before RCD was established as a department.

“The US is a settler-colonial state that is built on inherently upholding white supremacy, but I think it’s

important that we are learning how to dismantle that for ourselves in these classes,” said Olea Lezama. “A lot of people really need to have these conversations,” but, for many, classes within the RCD department “are the first [and only] time learning about these things,” said Olea Lezama.

Historically, the work of anti-racist and counter-hegemonic education has relied on the unpaid labor of people of color—women of color have especially felt this burden. In a written statement to the Tufts Observer, Professor Courtney Sato, a Mellon Assistant Professor within the RCD department, wrote “with limited faculty it becomes harder to offer a variety of upper-level seminars or courses given the necessity of teaching introductory survey courses or required major core courses. I would especially be excited to grow our faculty and research offerings in the fields of Latinx and Asian American studies.”

Institutions of higher-learning like Tufts have the responsibility to offer courses that reflect the histories of all their students. Professor Lorgia García-Peña, a Mellon Associate Professor within the RCD department, said “the work of ethnic studies is literally to fill the silences and gaps that all of the other fields have left,” thus these courses “really are the future if we truly want to have a university that is anti-racist and anti-colonial, which universities including Tufts are claiming to want to be.”

Until the founding of the RCD department in 2019, there were few classes offered that reflected the histories and cultures of minority students. In this regard, Tufts, as an institution, has historically underserved minority students on campus.

Even today, due to the new status of the department and the lack of university support, students feel that

CAMPUS

not enough classes are offered. “They should get more money and be able to reach more students given the immense amount of support other disciplines have at this university. All of the professors that I’ve taken classes with or interacted with are extremely overworked and overburdened.

All professors are overworked but especially so in this department because of its specific situation,” said Whaley.

Among faculty within the RCD department, which is largely composed of women of color, the same sentiment exists. It is a very new department, but it could receive more support from the administration and students. “Some of us are serving multiple departments, [and] some of us are new and trying to figure out what this landscape looks like…We’re having some growing pains and I can’t underscore the degree to which the pandemic has made things even more challenging,” said Zavala.

However, Glaser maintained that the school offers enough of the intellectual framework adopted by the RCD department, as “departments and programs in the school have embraced examinations of their curriculum and their pedagogy through an anti-racist frame.”

This disservice is even greater when considering the lack of faculty of color on campus; 71 percent of faculty are white compared to 4 percent who are Hispanic, 3 percent who are Black, and 11 percent who are Asian. This reduces mentoring opportunities for students of color from professional faculty that look like them and share similar life experiences.

In a predominantly white institution like Tufts, those connections with RCD faculty are invaluable to students of color. “Just one semester of [Professor Lorgia García-Peña] DESIGN AND ART BY MICHAEL WU

being here, I feel like it’s been so good for my soul. That’s another thing that I’m really grateful for. I love that [professors in the RCD department] are here to teach and they’re also here for their students [of color],” said Olea Lezama.

Another way for the institution to support the RCD is through the establishment of an adequate department office space and increasing faculty hires. “Right now RCD is housed in the Humanities Center, but it would be ideal for the department to have a distinct space that’s conducive to long-term growth,” said Sato.

“Additional future faculty hires would further strengthen the program.

Finally, students can support the department by taking RCD courses and spreading the word about what RCD entails and the exciting teaching and research that the department can foster,” said Sato. For students interested in RCD courses, considering a minor or major is another way to support the growth of the department.

Despite large numbers of students enrolling in RCD courses, without students declaring a minor or major it becomes very difficult for the

department to prove student interest.

“We believe in ethnic studies, and we know how important ethnic studies is to the training of liberal arts undergraduate students and the future of this country, but [if] students don’t get on board and major, that looks very bad to the senior administration because they’re committing resources,” said Zavala.

As a field built from the bottom up, ethnic studies continues to be a way for students to engage in and counter white-centered educational hegemony. Co-Interim Chair of the RCD department Professor Heather Curtis wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer that, going forward, she “expect[s] the department to add additional faculty in the coming years as we strive to strengthen our engagement with [and] across all of our areas of focus.”

“There’s always the story of… ethnic studies as a field across the United States that is built from struggle. But we’ve also had successes.”

A university commitment to expand ethnic studies means “Tufts can be a leader in this regard,” said Zavala.

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 21

VOICES

N

SE

ESS

AR

I B L I A T T Y S A R M O F I D G S N I I C H K C

By Sophie Fishman For years, my aunt told my mom and me that the two of us needed to watch the show Gilmore Girls together. But between her long work hours and my need to over-pack my schedule, we never found the time to sit down and watch the show. In June of 2020, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and weekly episodes of Gilmore Girls found their way into our routine as part of our search for a sense of stability.

My mom and I created a ritual after her chemotherapy appointments. She would come home from the hospital, exhausted and defeated. She would then lament about a nurse not being able to find her vein or about the cold cap, meant to protect her hair, not fitting tightly enough around her head. After a grilled chicken breast dinner—it was always grilled chicken 22 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

breast—we would retreat to my family’s bulky, off-white sofa to hide away for the rest of the night. Each episode of Gilmore Girls we watched was followed by a “one more?” until one of us could no longer keep their eyes open.

During our Gilmore Girls nights, I could sense that she was in pain. When she first received her diagnosis, we were told that the cancer was not aggressive, and she would never need any chemo or radiation treatments. After a failed lumpectomy and mastectomy, it became clear that this was not the case. She spent long days in the hospital being poked and prodded; the chemo nauseated her, the cold cap gave her migraines, and her arms were bruised with the remnants of missed needles. But, despite all of this, we never broke our routine. It was sacred.

At times, the show felt repetitive. After four or five sequential episodes, it was easy to feel sick of the quaint and quirky charm of suburban Connecticut. But during the worst of the pandemic, Stars Hollow, the idyllic, suburban setting of the show, felt like a second home. New York City, my hometown, saw some of the highest COVID numbers in the nation—hospitals saw cases and deaths like never before. The sirens of ambulances could be heard at all times of night, and there was even a makeshift COVID treatment center constructed in the middle of Central Park. In the midst of the insanity of the world around us, Stars Hollow was simple, unchanging, and provided the exact sense of stability we were searching for.

I was terrified of bringing this disease into my home, as my mom’s

VOICES

immune system was extremely fragile from her treatments. As a result, we rarely left our apartment over the course of the next several months. During the summer of 2020, while cases in New York began to decrease and the city started to ease its restrictions, my family and I remained shut down. Instead of reuniting with our friends and extended family, my mom and I had Lorelai and Rory to keep us company.

One afternoon, my mom came back in tears from a walk with an old friend. She was reaching the end of her first round of chemo at the time and had been holding on tight to what little hair she had left. During this walk, her friend had been making snide comments about her thinning hair, telling her to “just cut it off.” For my mom, who is typically a composed figure, this distress felt out of character—in the grand scheme of what she had lost in the past few months, her hair felt the most trivial. But her friend’s comments hurt her, and she decided it was time to let go. Later that day, we bought a pair of scissors and cried together as I cut off what little hair remained on her head.

That day was the first time I ever saw her cry. I knew she was embarrassed to be displaying this emotion in front of me. At that moment, I was reminded of an episode of Gilmore Girls we had watched the night before. In season four, Lorelai falls into a significant amount of debt and has to ask a friend to loan her the money. Feeling like a failure, she breaks down into tears. My mom could not be more different than Lorelai Gilmore; while Lorelai is messy and obnoxious, my mom is organized and kind. Despite their differences, they are both deeply afraid of relying on others and feeling vulnerable.

Beyond the daily Gilmore Girls episodes, my mom letting herself rely on me is what truly brought us closer together.

The morning of my mom’s first chemo appointment, I woke up with a sore throat. Fearing the worst, I ran four blocks to my nearest Urgent Care, in tears, for a COVID test. After three days of anxious self-isolation, my test came back negative.

Confused, I attributed this sudden onset of sickness to a cold or hypochondria, but when I woke up with a similarly-painful sore throat the morning of her second,

third, and fourth appointments, I knew the cause of my symptoms went beyond just that.

My body has always been prone to stress—come finals season, I always find myself fighting off a cold or a fever. Usually, a few days of rest can alleviate my symptoms, but the piling up of stressors during that time began to take a more serious toll on my body and overall well-being. During my sick days, I found it hard to do even simple tasks like getting out of bed and eating. These days led me to miss days of school, and eventually fall behind in most of my classes.

The worst part of these sick days was the guilt. Seeing how much pain my

many people in my life who wanted to be there for me and to support me; I just had to let them.

At the same time, I learned that it was possible to be strong for my mom while also investing in my mental health. Attending therapy twice a week allowed me to work through the anxiety I was feeling in a healthy and productive way. In the end, it was more comforting for my mom to know that I was getting help rather than suffering in silence.

A friend of mine recently told me that my love for my mom was one of my most defining personality traits. I was initially taken aback by that statement because I feel it’s usually reserved for people who tell their parents a little too much about their lives. But, upon reflection, I think it’s true. During my first few months at Tufts, I felt incredibly homesick—it was the first time I had spent the Jewish High Holidays away from my family, and Medford just felt so small in comparison to New York. These waves of sadness and nostalgia often led to distressed phone calls home with my concerned mother on the other end of the line.

During one particularly teary phone call, my mom suggested I watch an episode of Gilmore Girls. We had not seen an episode of the show since she had completed her last round of chemo.

I did not know if I could get the same effect from watching it alone, nor did I care to be reminded of the negative circumstances around my watching of the show.

Despite my reservations, I heeded her advice, I turned off the lights in my dorm, and started the show from Season One, Episode One. I immediately felt at home; something about the beautiful simplicity of Stars Hollow and its residents felt familiar, and I felt connected to my home, despite being hundreds of miles away. Now, when I’m in search for a little bit of stability, Gilmore Girls offers comfort. Despite the painful context around my viewing of the show, it reminds me of all of the people in my life who were there for me when I needed them—especially my mom.

I PROMISED MYSELF THAT I WOULD BE A STABLE AND RELIABLE FIGURE FOR HER IN SUCH A TURBULENT AND CHAOTIC TIME IN HER LIFE—HOW COULD I BE ANYTHING LESS THAN STRONG FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS DEDICATED THEIR LIFE TO ME?

DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY AUDREY NJO

mom was in made me feel selfish and attention-seeking for feeling unwell. Despite the physical and academic discomfort I experienced, it all felt so trivial in comparison to what she was going through. When she was first diagnosed, I promised myself that I would be a stable and reliable figure for her in such a turbulent and chaotic time in her life—how could I be anything less than strong for the person who has dedicated their life to me? My mind was practically begging me to be strong, but my body could not follow suit.

On a Friday morning in December, I found myself on the verge of missing a fifth consecutive day of school due to illness.

Receiving multiple texts from concerned friends, I recognized that I could not continue to do this alone. I realized that, in my attempts to be strong for those around me, I was actually hurting them more. Allowing myself to be vulnerable with my friends after choking down my anxieties and fears for months was what really saved me during this whole ordeal. There were so

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 23

ARTS & CULTURE

TRY NOT TO LAUGH AT TFL COMEDY

By Clara Davis With reporting contributions by Mariana I. Janer Agrelot

It’s not SNL. No cisgender white men here. TFL comedy operates as the only comedy club on campus exclusively for women, nonbinary students, and trans men, opening doors and Zoom rooms for these students in the cis male-dominated world of comedy.

The comedy group uses a diverse set of media to perform comedy, including standup and sketches in both video and live formats.

TFL originated on campus in 2016 as Tufts Funny Ladies, a Facebook group made up of students in other Tufts comedy groups who wanted a place to discuss the challenges of being in male-dominated comedy spaces. The group rebranded as TFL later that year, stripping the acronym of its female connotation to better commit themselves to creating an inclusive space for all types of gender minorities that may not necessarily identify as “ladies,” like nonbinary people and trans men.

This change in name was only the beginning. Former TFL president, senior Alex Soo, said that to facilitate more than just a “superficial type of change,“ TFL’s rebranding involved a culture shift within the organization, including who serves on the executive board, and with the content TFL produces.

Jamie Boots, a junior and the Head of Film for Tufts Institute Sketch Comedy, believes TFL has had an impact on the

24 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

larger comedy scene on campus. “It is really difficult for women and nonbinary people to gain a presence within the community for many reasons,” Boots said. “[TFL] gives people the opportunity to… see what [gender minorities] can add to the comedy community.”

Junior Grace Abe, who is Head of Acting at TFL, said she goes to see other Tufts groups’ shows as well. “I think [the other Tufts comedy groups] are all great… they each provide… a different space [and] a different way of doing comedy that can fit

“WE WANT TO DEAL WITH THE WEIRD, CATHARTIC STUFF, WHICH IMPACTS OUR COMEDY…IT IS INCREDIBLY EMPOWERING SHARING OUR EXPERIENCES TO AN AUDIENCE THAT IS LISTENING TO US WITH [SO] MUCH ATTENTION.” everyone’s interests.”

TFL shows often bring the quirks of Tufts culture to center stage, with recent sketches poking fun at the tacit rule to avoid conversation with people you know while waiting in line in the mailroom, and providing humorous explanations for why students spend so much time in the genderneutral bathrooms at Tisch.

This relatable content keeps audiences engaged. Their show on February 26 attracted a group that is estimated to be their largest yet—both on the stage and in the audience.

“The reason I keep coming back to TFL shows is because the writers often draw from relatable and niche Tufts experiences like the mail room line into their scripts,” sophomore Aarushi Dabas, who attended the February show, wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer. “The jokes are extremely witty and so unpredictable.”

In addition to jokes aimed at community issues, some TFL members get personal in their comedy, especially during standup sets. “We’re all about breaking the boundaries here at TFL,” said sophomore Casey Weaver, Head of Standup at TFL. “We want to deal with the weird, cathartic stuff, which impacts our comedy… There’s definitely a lot of trauma dumping going on, but at the same time, it is incredibly empowering sharing our experiences to an audience that is listening to us with [so] much attention,” she said.

At the February 26 show, junior Nuria Lizarraga embraced this culture at TFL to poke fun at her own life. “One of [the sketches] is pretty much about my old boyfriends, [whom] I describe in way-toospecific detail,” said Lizarraga, Co-Head of Public Relations at TFL. “I think it’s pretty cathartic and all part of the whole ‘sketches getting personal’ part of TFL.” Soo previously performed a piece about an ex at a TFL show. “I kind of reclaimed what happened to me because I was able to use it… At least I got material from it [and] was able to make [it] an empowering experience for myself and… translate that into humor,” The larger world of cis male-dominated comedy often perpetuates prejudice by “punching down,” or making jokes about a marginalized group one is not a part of.

In contrast, TFL can act as a safe space for people of marginalized identities to “punch up” towards more privileged people. Soo said, “A lot of other people in the club also [turn personal experiences into comedy] when they talk about the parts of themselves that are [marginalized].”

ARTS & CULTURE When comedy draws from personal experiences related to gender and ethnic identity, “it is super important to acknowledge… the fact that one person’s experience of their identity and how they choose to create comedy about it is not going to be universal,” said Weaver. TFL is cognizant that comedy about these topics evolves by engaging in “ongoing conversation of how we talk about our identities through a comedic lens,” said Weaver.

Dabas wrote, “Jokes about the immigrant experience at Tufts don’t really land for me.” She continued, “It’s stuff I’ve already heard (and experienced) before that wasn’t super pleasant in the moment, like mispronouncing my name or my home food being “smelly” to the white kids.” Dabas went on to write that she doesn’t want to discourage other comedians from reflecting on their experiences. At the same time, she wrote, “Some of my friends and I also related to the experience of the name mispronunciation and reflected on the bad times it recalled for us instead of laughing at it in the moment.”

In a written statement to the Observer, Weaver emphasized TFL’s commitment to creating “a safe and comfortable experience for their audiences”—especially when the subject matter is related to “jokes surrounding identity.”

“We work to be extremely conscious of ensuring that [the jokes] are coming from a place of the writer/performer’s individual experience with the goal of providing a venue for self-expression,” Weaver said.

Within the club, TFL leaders run workshops and closely mentor members in order to ensure their comedy is as strong as possible. Being a non-audition group, TFL attracts some students who don’t have any experience in comedy or acting or perhaps only have experience from a high school improv troupe. Abe said that TFL’s commitment to running workshops to help their members sets them apart from other comedy groups on campus.

For students who have often already been made to feel “unfunny” because of their gender, the stakes while performing on stage feel higher. “I always, always do my best [to mentor members], and I will never ever let them flop,” Soo said.

Along with close mentorship, TFL strives to build a strong community amongst its members. Soo shared that when she first joined TFL, she didn’t immediately feel welcome. “[My] first semester, some people on e-board didn’t know my name or they mixed me up with another Asian comedian woman, which was really uncomfortable.” In her time as president, she worked to use her leadership skills to improve the club’s culture. “[The makeup of e-board] is one way representation matters,” Soo added. As part of TFL’s e-board, she believes she was able to encourage more people of color to join the group. Junior Sam McQuaid, Co-Head of Public Relations at TFL, credited Soo with “working to diversify TFL racially.” In turn, Soo said she was encouraged by McQuaid’s position on e-board, as a trans e-board member. “Having a wide array of experiences, perspectives, and voices makes us a better and funnier club,” McQuaid wrote in a statement to the Observer.

DESIGN BY MIRIAM VODOSEK, ART BY KATE BOWERS

TFL’s culture now includes many inside jokes, as you may expect from a comedy group. During the interview, Soo texted a TFL group chat asking if she should tell the Observer that TFL is “a cult.” They also like to call themselves “hot and funny”—which started as a bit, but according to Soo has since become “another layer of empowerment.”

TFL also has “lore” gathered from difficult experiences producing content. “We’re banned from the Powder House Dunkin for doing one of our sketches in there, we can’t even enter, I swear,” Weaver said. She added in a written statement for the Observer that TFL had been trying to quickly film a sketch, but got sidetracked when an MIT student musician approached the members about needing a videographer.

“Overall, it’s a funny story to consider in the TFL lore, and a testament to the lengths Alex [Soo], and our group, is willing to go for the content we produce.”

Some of TFL’s most inventive sketches included “The First Frat” and “First Local Chapter,” both written and directed by Soo. They imagine how college fraternities would function if they were transported to the 1400s. “They are so well written and every single joke lands for me... the posh accent and ‘old English’ with modern-day slang and phrases is so paradoxical and strange that it’s funny,” Dabas wrote in a statement to the Observer.

While Soo said “[her] goal is never to upset the Tufts community,” she does aim to “say something in a way that maybe people haven’t thought about before and maybe just bring a new voice to the table.” In the “First Local Chapter” sketch, this meant criticizing Greek life.

For Soo, “[making something into comedy] doesn’t take away from the gravity of the situation, it just gives humans the ability to get through it, day by day… so I think that’s something that has helped… You know, life is just too hard to go through without trying to make it a little bit funny.”

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 25

NEWS

UNPACKING UKRAINE INVASION AND RESISTANCE

By Layla Kennington

26 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

NEWS

I

n the days since February 24, Ukraine has been rocked by the perpetual siege of Russian forces. This war, which marks a contrast from the relative peace that characterizes postWorld War II Europe, has taken the continent by storm, marking a newfound era of outright aggression and Russian backlash against the West. In its brief 30-year history, Ukraine, a country with democratic leanings, has routinely been caught between the influences of the West and Russia, with whom Ukraine shares a significant degree of culture and history. This clash of influences is a core cause of the ensuing conflict, one which leaves over 40 million Ukrainians at the behest of an uncertain power struggle between its invaders and the rest of the international community.

To understand the unfolding of the conflict, it is important to recall the historical relationship between Russia and the West during the Cold War and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. For Russia, this dissolution translated to a fundamental loss of global power; for the United States and its allies, it ensured the reign of Western dominance. In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO, the security alliance between the United States and its European allies, has expanded, inching eastward into former Soviet territory. Russia, specifically its president Vladimir Putin, who has called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” views this growth as a security threat.

Arik Burakovsky, the assistant director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, outlined Russia’s growing agitation with NATO expansion. “Back in December, the Russian Foreign Ministry submitted

DESIGN BY UMA EDULBEHRAM

draft treaties to NATO and the United States... ask[ing] for a variety of security guarantees,” Burakvosky said.

These security guarantees revolved around the military activities of Western powers in the region, and, notably, the promise that Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, be denied NATO membership.

Burakovsky explained, “When the United States and NATO did not make concessions to Russia, Putin decided that it was time to act.” On March 8, 13 days after the beginning of the invasion, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, declared he would no longer be pressing for Ukrainian NATO membership, a decision seen by many as a move to placate Moscow.

In a speech released in the early hours of February 24, Putin made his case for the “special military operation,” that is the invasion of Ukraine, “It is a fact that over the

“FOR UKRAINE, IT’S AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO ITS SURVIVAL AS A SOVEREIGN STATE.” past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe... We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments... For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation.”

Burakovsky gave further insight into Putin’s claims to Ukraine, “Russia sees Ukraine as part of its identity. In some sense, the birthplace of Russia is Kyiv.” The relationship

between Russia and Ukraine begins with Kievan Rus, the first East Slavic state. The fall of Kievan Rus in the 13th century led to the region being split into pieces that eventually evolved into the modern states of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Russia and Ukraine are additionally both successor states of the Soviet Union.

Artem Dinh, a third-year Ukrainian student, also spoke on the interlinked historical identities between Ukraine and Russia, “The impact of this conflict is you have people fighting other people that share nearly the same identity; they share the same balances. They watch the same TV shows, they listen to the same music, they watch the same movies, they use the same flags.”

Despite the countries’ shared history, Ukraine has fought for its independent identity; it is a nation with its own language, culture, and political system. Since Ukrainian independence in 1991, the country has moved towards becoming a young democracy, unlike Russia, which has moved increasingly towards autocracy, a system in which absolute power rests with a single individual.

For Putin, Ukrainian democracy is an ideological shift that places the nation deeper under the West’s influence.

Burakovsky explained how this shift has led to Putin’s current efforts, “[He] wants to make sure that the government in Kiev is loyal to Russia.”

Oxana Shevel, an associate professor specializing in the politics of the post-Communist region surrounding Russia, outlined the consequences of the ensuing conflict.

“For Ukraine, it’s an existential threat to its survival as a sovereign state.”

Additionally, “the very idea that in this age a member of the Security Council [Russia] can violate the UN Charter and the principles of

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 27

NEWS

international law and try to annihilate neighboring countries’ sovereignty… has implications for the kind of world we live in.”

“I HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS IN UKRAINE, THOSE THAT I HAVE BEEN IN TOUCH [WITH]... THEY’RE ALL ON THE FRONTLINES FIGHTING RIGHT NOW [AND THEY ARE] THE SAME AGE AS WE ARE...THE OTHERS ARE WAITING TO GET DRAFTED [OR] STAYING IN THE UNDERGROUND BASEMENT, IN THE CAPITAL CITY THAT IS GETTING SHOT AT EVERY DAY, [THERE IS] FIGHTING GOING ON THE STREETS EVERY DAY... THEY’RE ALL TARGETS OF THE INVASION.” Sam Farbman, an international relations major studying the former Soviet Union, outlined the conflict’s global implications, “At this point, the real issue here is that this is bigger than just Ukraine. This is a complete shift in the world order. This is a complete shift

28 TUFTS OBSERVER MARCH 14, 2022

in what we know about diplomacy in the world. And this is setting the stage for more aggressive foreign policy and raised tensions.” Burakovsky added to this sentiment, “We’re in a new era of global politics, we’re back to the era of realism where might makes right, and the use or the threat of the use of force decides the course of events,” On campus, the ramifications of the conflict are widely felt. Dinh spoke on the war’s impact on his friends in Ukraine. “I have a lot of friends in Ukraine; those that I have been in touch [with]... they’re all on the frontlines fighting right now [and they are] the same age as we are… the others are waiting to get drafted [or] staying in the underground basement, in the capital city that is getting shot at every day. [there is] fighting going on the streets every day... they’re all targets of the invasion,” he said.

Dzheveira Karimova, a Russian first-year who has been highly involved in activism and advocacy surrounding the conflict on campus, lamented the inaction of the wider Tufts community, “It’s been very interesting to see the dynamic on campus because so many students are still uneducated about what’s going on.

So many students still think that it’s like some sort of joke, and especially when they learn that you’re from the region, they think that it’s the most hilarious thing they’ve ever said to say ‘Happy World War III’ to you when there’s so much turmoil going on.”

Dinh and Dzheveira, along with other students, have organized and attended rallies throughout Boston, with the explicit intent to push the governments of Western countries to further support Ukraine and its people. On March 2, Tufts Community members gathered outside of the Mayer Campus Center, chanting “Act now!” and “Support Ukraine!”

The organizers have also created a website with educational resources, lists of nonprofits, and other ways to support those impacted. Their Instagram account @tuftshelpukraine provides further information on how Tufts students can support Ukraine and become involved in related events on campus.

In an email to the community sent on March 4, nine days after the invasion began, the Tufts administration expressed, “solidarity with the people of Ukraine… and deepest concern for those impacted by the tragedy of war unfolding there.”

But for many students, the email fell short compared to the actions taken by other universities. “MIT released a statement immediately, [saying] ‘please let us know what kind of support you need, we will cancel all of our partnership with our Russian partners, to Russian labs, Russian universities, here’s all the support that you need.’ But Tufts at the same time did not even make a statement… it took the 100-person rally for Tufts

NEWS

to just write three paragraphs saying, ‘Oh, I’m sorry… war must suck for you’… that’s basically all we got,” Dzheveira said.

She added, “the mental health services are booked a month in advance, so it’s really hard to get any mental health counseling. And we have a lot of students who have family in Ukraine, like cousins [or] grandparents, and they literally have to check every second if they’re still alive. And it takes a toll on you, especially when you’re still a student.

Students don’t know how to request academic flexibility.”

Dinh and Dzheveria, along with freshman Eulalia Tisnovsky, sent an email imploring the university for

DESIGN BY UMA EDULBEHRAM

more support. “In the email sent by the administration, there was no promise of taking concrete action…

We ask for your immediate support to all the students who are impacted by this war. Tufts must recall and embrace its history and tradition of advocacy for democratic values and its international leadership in higher education to bring political change and support Ukraine. We believe that Tufts will use its power to help end violence and human rights violations in Ukraine.”

As of March 7, nearly 2 million people have fled Ukraine, and the United Nations has recorded at least 752 civilian casualties. These figures are expected to rise as Russian forces

continue their siege. The United States, European Union, and other nations have unveiled numerous economic sanctions on Russia in retaliation; however, the violence continues, and is now entering its second week. The Ukrainian forces, underestimated

by Russian forces, have prevailed in resisting the invasion thus far.

Dzheveria finished with a final plea to the Tufts community, “Please stay educated and don’t think that it’s some sort of abstract issue that WWyou can ignore, or you can joke about. There are real people on campus who are being directly impacted by this. So please be mindful of what you say… please support those affected… and please donate.”

MARCH 14, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 29

Nature’s gradient