Spring 2015 Issue 7 by Tufts Observer

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 27, 2015

VOLUME CXXX, ISSUE 7

ISIS’S ATTACK ON WORLD HERITAGE (PAGE 3)

TUFTS’ INSTITUTIONAL INVASION (PAGE 7)

UNPACKING AIRBNB’S EFFECTS (PAGE 22)

#BORDERS

Staff editor-in-chief Ben Kurland managing editor Katharine Pong creative director Bernita Ling news Eve Feldberg Sahar Roodehchi

April 27, 2015 Tufts Observer, since 1895

Volume CXXX, Issue 7 Tufts’ Student Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

opinion Liana Abbott Sarah Perlman arts & culture Anastasia Antonova Claire Selvin campus Carly Olson Ben Kesslen tech & innovation Olivia Meyer-Jennette Nate Williams poetry & prose Liza Leonard MT Snyder

FEATURE History in the Crosshairs

publicity director Lenéa Sims

by Claire Selvin

photography director Misako Ono photography editor Lily Herzan

CAMPUS The Shadow of Our Light

art director Eva Strauss

by Parker MacLure and Betty Fong

lead artists Rachel Cunningham Tess Dennison lead copy editors Chris Amicucci Nader Salass copy editors Aishvarya Arora Susan Kaufman Gabby Bonfiglio design assistants Zoe Baghdoyan Yuchun Bian Chase Conley Francesca Kamio Flora Liu Katherine Mimmack publicity assistants Yumi Casagrande Ashley Miller

LETTERS FROM THE EDITORS

by Bernita Ling, Katharine Pong, and Ben Kurland

NEWS Education Complications by Chris Amicucci

NEWS Uncertain Futures by Cayla Brown

POETRY 9/12/14: Notes to Self by Kaitlin Pang

web editors Greta Jochem Dana Guth

OPINION The Invisible Boundary

multimedia directors Aaron Langerman Flo Wen

film director Jay Radochia

ARTS & CULTURE Airbnb In Your Neighborhood by Katie Saviano

ARTS & CULTURE The Hollywood Celebrity Comes to Iceland

web developer Thomas Wang

by Madeleine Lebovic

MISAKO ONO

web managing editor Gracie McKenzie

staff writers Allison Aaronson Oly Huzenis Kumar Ramanathan Miranda Willson editor emeritus Aaron Langerman

Contributors Menglan Chen, Nina HofkoshHulbert, Julia McDaniel, Niya Shahdad

by Throunn Sigurdardottir

Theme How do we interact with our borders? In this issue, we look beyond our own borders to the education system in Spain and celebrity culture in Iceland. We consider the dangers of Tufts and Airbnb expanding borders recklessly and how language can transcend our borders.

ASHLEY MILLER @CSKWOKY

PHOTO INSET South Asians of the Hill

POETRY Forty seven

by Niya Shahdad

TECH & INNOVATION What’s Your Cymbal? by Olivia Meyer-Jennette

POLICE BLOTTER by Eve Feldberg & Aaron Langerman

The Tufts Observer has been Tufts’ student publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, creative writing, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and culture. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tufts community to effect positive change.

@tuftsobserver

www.tuftsobserver.org COVER PHOTO BY ANA-MARIA MURPHY-TEIXIDOR

Four years of InDesign ago, I was a freshman girl who wandered aimlessly into layout asking to “help out”—two weeks later, I made an infographic about beer and since then have only been encouraged to continue designing. It is extremely likely that without the O I wouldn’t be the designer I am today, so I have all the past and present members of the O to thank for their endless support. We are a group of content creators who can recognize talent in one another and devote endless hours to making a product that shares all of our ideas with the rest of the community. We are storytellers, and we’re good at it—but sometimes stories progress and the tellers must move on. So to all of the remaining staff, remember to give yourselves space to breathe and to think of titles as art. As for Tufts and our readers, please keep picking up the issues (even if they’re just pretty to look at— because that is a story in itself).

Over the past two years, the Observer has become more and more of a home to me. It’s a place for me to think; it’s a place for me to create; it’s a place for me to be with people who make me happy. The end of this year holds a lot of sadness for me as the O says goodbye to so many of the people who have made it what it is today. I’m anticipating feeling lost next year. I’m not sure how to move in this new way without the seniors who will have left. But I think one of the most impressive things about the Observer as a publication and community is that we’re always in motion—through midterms, through finals, through so, so many snow days. So despite my feeling stuck, I’m also feeling thankful to know that I’m part of a community that cares so much about what we do and how we do it. And I’m thankful we get to share that with all of you. Until the fall,

In a lot of ways, this is my last night at Tufts. Tonight I’m handing over the magazine to the next generation; soon we’re handing over the school. I’ve had some of the worst times of my life here and some of the best; I hope I’ve left it better than I found it, even just a little. Sometimes that seems futile, but I think it’s worth working at, scratching for four years to make your little corner a little better. I couldn’t be happier with the hands I’m leaving the O in. They’re more considered, smarter, more worthy hands—better hands. They’ll leave it better than I ever could. I have such confidence, such calm, and such hope. I couldn’t be gladder and I couldn’t be prouder. For those of you who will still be here, and for those of you heading off into the world, keep scratching. Surround yourself with people better than you are, and they’ll make you better in the process. I know they have for me. It’s been an honor.

Bernita Ling Creative Director

Katharine Pong Managing Editor

Ben Kurland Editor-in-Chief

Tufts Observer

April 27, 2015

FEATURE

HISTORY IN THE CROSSHAIRS ISIS’S DESTRUCTION OF WORLD HERITAGE By Claire Selvin

April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

FEATURE

SIS has a new target of destruction: history itself. After gaining worldwide infamy for kidnappings, beheadings, and bombings, ISIS members have recently bulldozed and jackhammered several ancient preIslamic sites in Iraq that date as far back as the 8th century BCE. These sites include the Mosque of the Prophet Younis, the ancient city of Nimrud, and the ancient city of Khorsabad. The group also raided the Sufi shrines and tombs in Syria and took sledgehammers to objects and freestanding statues situated in the Mosul Museum of Iraq. A video uploaded by the group to Twitter and other social media showed the smashing and tearing apart of ancient Near Eastern history at the Mosul Museum. If these actions continue, the world may only know the culture, art, and people of the ancient Middle East through old photographs of monuments or other secondary means. It is an injustice that the only objects that may survive ISIS’s sweep of Iraq and Syria are those objects safeguarded in museums abroad, estranged and displaced from their original homes. ISIS’s violence against the past threatens not only scholarship in the field of preIslamic art and architecture, but also human knowledge and memory of the traditions and values of peoples long gone. No group should possess the power to dictate

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what future generations may know about world history. Targeted sites contain some of the few, precious remains of pre-Islamic cultures. The Assyrian cities of Nimrud and Khorsabad contained statues and the remains of architecture distinct to that culture. A notable loss was that of four lamassu, winged stone creatures that guarded the gates to the city. Nimrud was the capital of the Assyrian empire, established over 3,000 years ago. The Sufi Shrines and Tombs are, as suggested by their name, associated with the Sufi sect of Islam, a sect that ISIS does not recognize as legitimate and deems blasphemous. The Mosul Museum held a vast collection of ancient Assyrian artifacts, many previously gathered by archaeologists at Nimrud, until ISIS invaded the space and shattered the objects. Five life-sized statues of Hatra kings—kings of the ancient city, Hatra, in Iraq—were jackhammered at the museum. These were the first of this family of statues to be destroyed, and only 22 of these statues now remain. Finally, ISIS has threatened, via video message, to destroy the city of Nineveh, the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire that was inhabited by Babylonians, Persians, Chaldeans, and other peoples throughout history. This tendency of powerful terrorist groups to destroy art during times of war can be traced through history. “Nazi

Plunder” refers to the organized theft of art from occupied European nations—in 1939, one member of the SS burned 1,004 paintings and sculptures and 3,825 drawings and prints deemed unsellable by the Nazis. In 2003, during the Iraq War, the Mosul Museum lost over 8,000 objects when armed mobs looted and pillaged the space. The destruction of past or present regimes’ ancient material culture seems to represent a triumph for some groups in power. Objects and monuments reveal a great deal about a given culture’s interactions with other cultures, religious ideas, favored modes of dress, and much more. Erasing evidence of another culture’s existence is a quick, violent, and irreversible method of politically silencing or even obliterating others. Nazis burned art publically and ISIS shares videos of destroying relics of bygone civilizations: these demonstrations become immediately visible to the public eye, and the world watches as knowledge crumbles into irretrievable pieces. Members of ISIS belong to the Sunni sect of Islam, and destruction has been predominantly perpetrated upon holy sites of the Shia sect. However, several Sunni mosques at Nineveh, the ancient Assyrian city situated in Iraq, have also been leveled to the ground. These incongruities seem to represent ISIS’s disregard

FEATURE

Erasing evidence of another culture’s existence is a quick, violent, and irreversible method of politically silencing or even obliterating others. and disrespect for all past visual expressions, even those in line with the group’s beliefs. Perhaps through these performances of unchecked brute power, ISIS means to communicate its ability to wipe out any remnant of the past. Maybe the ideologies behind the art ISIS destroys don’t matter, but instead the group solely seeks to demonstrate to the world how it can destroy identity, past or present. Along with the footage that ISIS released of members throwing and vigorously hammering away at not only priceless but also vulnerable items of the pre-Islamic past, a faceless voice stated, “The remains that you see behind me are the idols of peoples of previous centuries, which were worshipped instead of Allah… Since Allah commanded us to shatter and destroy these statues, idols, and remains, it is easy for us to obey.” In response to this statement and these destructive actions, Peter Welby of Newsweek wrote that it’s easy for viewers worldwide to reduce ISIS to a “death cult,” but that this oversimplification is dangerous because it fails to acknowledge the ideologies and justifications behind the group’s violence. We must understand from where their “violent literalism in their understanding scripture,” as Welby posed it, comes, or else erroneously reduce these events to mindless acts of terrorism. ISIS’s actions are intentional and

IMAGE BY NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

indelible acts motivated by religious fanaticism and extremism. Without such an understanding, world leaders, art historians, and museum curators run the risk of getting lost in their own anger and outrage. People watch what they rightly perceive as crimes against humanity. These artifacts belong to no one and every one; they belong to world heritage. After the bulldozing of Nimrud, the Iraq Ministry of Tourism released a statement condemning the group: “ISIS continues to defy the will of the world and the feelings of humanity.” In addition, the director of UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Irina Bokova described the recent destruction as crimes of war. Such visceral responses are natural, expected, and just. From this widespread outrage, a debate about the repatriation of objects to Syria and Iraq has emerged in the art worlds of the United States and European nations. Directors, curators, and trustees from museums including the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and the British Museum in London, to name a few, have spoken publically about their hesitation to return objects to these zones of conflict. President of the J. Paul Getty Trust, James Cuno, said, “I think that we have a stake in the world culture, everyone does, and that stake is to preserve it for the future.” Others, includ-

ing Tess Davis, a lawyer and consultant of the Antiquities Coalition, an organization that favors repatriation, stated that the objects now under threat have been under threat for their entire lifetimes and have seen all kinds of regimes fall and rise. Another proponent of repatriation, professor of anthropology at Queens College, Alexander A. Bauer, worries that Western retention of Middle Eastern objects parallels the colonialism of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, it seems careless to send important objects back to lands where they may soon be deliberately demolished; on the other, foreign nations should not hold the cultural heritage of others’ hostage indefinitely. It is not the role of the onlooker to decide when Iraq or Syria may have their rightful works of art returned to them. Western curators and museum trustees should not play the roles of righteous protectors of works that ought to be in their original situations—it seems that the Iraqi and Syrian archaeologists, art historians, and government leaders ought to be allowed to make the judgment whether objects return home or remain abroad. These objects do indeed belong to world history, but also to the distinct cultural history of the Middle East. Tufts Associate Professor of Armenian Art and Architecture Christina Maranci believes that these objects belong to world heritage, and that a system of loans and ex-

April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

FEATURE

changes would be ideal. Maranci, however, stated that there is no question of whether the destruction occurring today will have a negative effect upon global knowledge and understanding of pre-Islamic cultures. “Whether it’s standing monuments or archaeological sites or objects, if you only know them by old photographs or transcribed inscriptions, you will never completely know them,” she said in an interview with the Tufts Observer. “That loss has repercussions for the field, which has repercussions for the secondary scholarship, which has repercussions for teaching, which has repercussions, ultimately, for the way the public knows a tradition or a period. There’s no way you can get that back.” It’s easy to sit halfway around the world, so far from the sounds of smashing pottery and stone, and not consider the implications of these crimes against longgone societies. ISIS could succeed in defining which cultures survive the test of time, which cultures are studied, which cultures are known. The scholarship and study of Middle Eastern and Armenian visual heritage, as Maranci explained, is already minimal—there are too few advocates of this cultural heritage to save these vulnerable monuments and objects on their own. Perhaps this lack of academic attention, in comparison with academic attention

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April 27, 2015

given to European art, for example, makes it easier for us to turn a blind eye to this destruction and ignore the ideological motivations behind it. Ironically, ISIS’s destruction of these monuments and objects is drawing attention to their fragile place in history. Maranci emphasized that global awareness of the delicacy of this history is the key to any kind of progress or change. “The more these ancient Near Eastern cultures can be understood and celebrated, the better. But, obviously, it doesn’t bring back a statue that’s been destroyed or a site that’s been looted. But it’s something,” Maranci said. Art tells us, as human beings, about who we used to be and where we come from. Human roots, ancient religions, ideals, values, and regimes lie within sculptures, inscriptions, wall paintings, and the stone blocks of buildings. Art links us to those people who lived thousands of years ago. Without these physical ties, we may become divorced and alienated from our ancient counterparts. ISIS threatens to wipe out all recollection of a time dominated by non-Islamic societies. Only time will tell how completely ISIS annihilates world heritage. But, if the group’s machine-like efficiency is sustained, a child born today may only know the past of the Middle East in the form of a pulverized pile of rock.

It’s easy to sit halfway around the world, so far from the sounds of smashing pottery and stone, and not consider the implications of these crimes against long-gone societies.

CAMPUS

THE SHADOW OF OUR LIGHT TUFTS’ EXPANSION INTO CHINATOWN, MEDFORD, AND SOMERVILLE

By Parker MacLure and Betty Fong

isit the Tufts website and the history page “Get to Know Tufts” will tell you that the Universalist Church founded Tufts in the 1840s with a gift of 20 acres of land from Boston businessman Charles Tufts. Tufts’ land was located on one of the highest hills in the Boston area, Walnut Hill, between Medford and Somerville. As local lore goes, when a relative asked Tufts what he would do with “that bleak hill over in Medford,” Tufts replied, “I will put a light on it.” However, what Tufts’ website conveniently leaves out is that Tufts’ inherited land, on which our university resides, is colonized land that was taken from native peoples, later becoming a plantation. People of the Wampanoag tribes—including the Massachusett tribe for which the state is named— once lived around what is now called Massachusetts Bay, which encompasses Boston. As the Wampanoag tribes were forced onto smaller and smaller portions of land, millions of African slaves were concurrently sold and enslaved to work in the United States. Massachusetts was one of the first states to legalize slave ownership. Tufts is built on a former slave plantation, Ten Hills Farm, which was owned by Isaac Royall. Today, the old Royall House and slave quarters “museum” is located in Medford, a short walk from campus. In addition, the Tufts family owned slaves up until the late 1700s, which contributed

to their wealth, Tufts’ inheritance, and the founding of our university. It is in this context of Tufts’ own violent history and establishment of its borders that we speak out about its current institutional expansion, which continues to uphold its wealth and power by displacing people in surrounding communities. Over the past 30 years, community members and students have spoken out against Tufts’ expansion into Chinatown, Medford, and Somerville. This expansion is characterized by the increasing number of Tufts-owned administrative buildings, a growing student body, and the subsequent displacement of residents living in these immigrant, working-class neighborhoods hosting Tufts. First, in Boston’s Chinatown, land is being gradually consumed by Tufts University Medical School and New England Medical Center, also known as Tufts Medical Center. Together, the institutions occupy over one third of Chinatown’s land. In the 1990s, community members, activists, and organizers protested New England Medical Center’s decision to build an eight-story, 455 car garage that would displace a local community center and preschool and create health and safety concerns for the local neighborhood. After a decade-long struggle, local organizers halted the development project and instead built residential units as well as community space on that land parcel. However,

Chinatown’s fight against gentrification and displacement continues, due in part to the dental school and medical center’s heavy presence, influx of students, and need for facility expansion. The tension between residents and Tufts students isn’t unique to the Chinatown campus. In September of last year, Medford resident Kim Costa addressed Boston students in a video that later went viral: “Real quick reminder to all the college students coming back to Boston to continue their higher education… nobody likes you, you’re a visitor here; an interloper.” In a later interview, Costa comments, “I meant it. I grew up near Tufts, I worked in Davis Square for 10 years—these kids suck. They don’t tip, and they’re the ones flipping cars during the fucking World Series.” Judging by the 4,000 times the video has been shared and the many supportive comments from people in other college towns and touristy areas, it is clear that college students can be perceived as outsiders and invaders to their host communities. Many students are unaware of their impact on local residents and view them as “townie” outsiders, which demonstrates the elitist attitude Tufts students have about the people whose neighborhoods we occupy and enjoy. As Tufts extends its unofficial borders into our surrounding neighborhoods, local residents and businesses are concurrently being pushed out of their long-time communities. In Medford April 27, 2015

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Tufts’ Official Borders Tufts’ Unofficial Borders (determined by assessing Tufts subletting GoogleDocs)

and Somerville, Tufts students are living in local housing units, taking up the housing stock, and contributing to rising rent prices. Rents in Somerville and Medford have consistently increased over the past few years, and are expected to continue rising with the MBTA’s Green Line Extension (GLX) to College Avenue. Currently at the forefront of Tufts’ development, the GLX project will extend the T into Medford and reach Tufts’ campus by the year 2020. The GLX stop in Ball Square is slated to force two long-time Medford businesses to abandon their current location because they are in the way of construction. While the GLX is relocating local businesses, driving up rent prices, and displacing long-time residents, Tufts stands to benefit from the GLX’s convenient T stop on campus at College Avenue. Historically, new transit stops are associated with increasing rent prices. According to a 2014 report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), “Dimensions of Displacement,” rents within a half-mile walking distance of the College Avenue stop could rise by nearly $300. The creation of the Red Line’s stop in Davis Square demonstrates this phenomenon. Before the extension of the Red Line to Davis in the mid-1980s, the area was

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largely working class, but today it is has some of the highest rents in the city. The GLX is just one example of how Tufts benefits from local resources in Medford and Somerville. Tufts does not have the housing stock necessary to house its undergraduate population. As a result, almost one third of Tufts undergraduates live off-campus and benefit from local housing. As previously mentioned, these students both suffer from, and contribute to, rising rents in the area. They are desperate to find off-campus apartments, leading many to sign leases that start in June as early as September and October. Landlords are able to take advantage of students’ urgency and ability to pay, seeing as many Tufts students living off-campus come from privileged class backgrounds. In response to these circumstances, a shock to the local housing market may be in the near future. Due to a proposed Somerville law, Tufts may soon have to provide the city with the addresses of students living off-campus. This law is part of an effort by the city to enforce a zoning ordinance that allows no more than four unrelated people to live together in a single apartment. Medford has a similar law with a maximum of three unrelated people per dwelling. If this law goes into

effect, it could increase the demand for four and three-person apartments, and subsequently increase rent prices for those units. Additionally, the law increases pressure on the university to provide more oncampus housing options for students. Tufts has indicated a desire to provide more oncampus housing; however, it must make sure it does so in a responsible way that doesn’t negatively impact the Somerville and Medford communities. Tufts should try to utilize its existing property and work with the city if property purchases seem necessary, in order to diminish its negative impact on the surrounding communities. Within the past two years, Tufts has also made multiple efforts to expand its campus and purchase properties in Somerville. First, in August 2013, it was announced that Tufts had been selected to develop the Powder House Community School on Broadway at the intersection of Packard Avenue. The site is particularly valuable to Tufts because it is adjacent to the existing Tufts Administrative Building (TAB) on Holland Avenue. According to a March 2014 article from The Somerville Journal, the university had hoped to purchase the property for $2.7 million dollars so it could demolish the existing building and construct an office complex and a small residential building. In

GRAPHIC BY YUCHUN BIAN

CAMPUS

March 2014, after some planning sessions, Tufts and the City of Somerville ended negotiations because they failed to agree on a project timeline—Tufts was not planning on developing the property for about 15 years. According to a university official quoted in the Journal article, the inability to meet a reasonable timeline was due to other expenses. More recently, it was made public that Tufts considered buying a 41-unit apartment building at 119 College Avenue in Powder House Square. As demand for housing and rents rise in Somerville, there has been more pressure for Tufts to provide affordable housing for its students and faculty. This move, however, was unknown to the City of Somerville and subsequently angered some aldermen— members of the city’s legislative branch, with one alderman for each ward and four at large—who feared that if Tufts were to acquire the building, it would exacerbate the existing shortage of affordable housing for Somerville residents. Tufts has since canceled plans to purchase the building because it failed to match up with the city’s housing goals. These expansion attempts, especially the 119 College Avenue apartment building, have resulted in pushback from some elected officials in the City of Somerville. Most notably, Alderman Vice President Katjana Bellantyne of Ward 7—the westernmost ward of Somerville, close to Tufts—was angered by the move, causing her to call into question the relationship between the city and the university. As a result, the Board of Aldermen is considering a law that would require Tufts to provide the city with a master plan describing all future plans for expansion. Bellantyne believes that the university’s actions in recent years demonstrate a lack of partnership and difference in values. If Tufts wants to be a less invasive force in the local community, it should consider more avenues for collaboration with and contribution to the city. In addition to the Aldermen’s consideration of a Tufts master plan, local legislators have also fought for

increasing Tufts’ payments to the city. Tufts is considered a non-profit, which means that instead of paying real estate taxes on its property, it pays a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT). Interestingly, Tufts does not call its payment a PILOT and there is no record of the term on Tufts’ websites. In general, a PILOT is justified because the city provides street cleaning, snow removal, police protection, firefighters, and other services that the university uses but does not pay property taxes for. There is no standard formula for how much a non-profit must pay toward its PILOT. In the past, Somerville representatives have tried to make PILOTs mandatory for all institutions of private education, but the bill did not pass. According to Somerville Neighborhood News (SNN)—

If Tufts wants to be a less invasive force in the local community, it should consider more avenues for collaboration with and contribution to the city. a Somerville Community Access Television (SCATV) production—Tufts owns about $286 million dollars of tax-exempt property in Somerville, and if it had to pay taxes, it would owe the City $5.8 million dollars in 2014. In 2013, Tufts announced a new five-year agreement with the city of Somerville under which it will pay the city $275,000 per year, which is $100,000 more than 2012. While this may seem like a huge increase, it is less than five percent of what Tufts would owe if it paid property taxes. In Boston, a task force determined how

much a non-profit should pay the cities in which it operates. This task force recommended that all non-profits should pay 25 percent of what they would pay if they were property taxable, which includes services provided by the institutions into that percentage. If Tufts paid this full 25 percent, it would have paid the city of Somerville $1.4 million dollars in 2014. While Tufts benefits from city services, the GLX, local housing stock, and other community resources, it is coming up short in contributing back to its host neighborhoods. It does provide local benefits like library access, fields for community use, community service projects, and reduced application fees for Somerville High School students. However, its primary objective of educating students and producing innovative research has wide effects not limited to the local community. It is the local community that must shoulder the cost of the would-be property taxes of Tufts’ occupation. Since our university’s founding, our establishment and borders have been defined by a history of colonization, slavery, and exploitation. Today, our borders continue to extend into our host communities of Chinatown, Medford, and Somerville as our institutions grow larger and require more space. As Tufts expands, the people who are outside of and excludedfrom our borders are negatively affected by our growth and are at risk of being displaced. Tufts is buying local property, forcing students to take up local housing stock, and refusing to pay recommended taxes to the city. Though one could argue that an institution as historically and systemically advantaged as ours can never actually integrate with or benefit our surrounding communities, the least we can do is cause less harm and be less invasive. We as students, and Tufts as an institution, have a shared responsibility to acknowledge our privileged position and work to counteract the negative effects our expansion inevitably creates. O

April 27, 2015

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NEWS

How the Spanish Education system is failing By Chris Amicucci

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April 27, 2015

ART BY JULIA MCDANIEL

NEWS

niversity education in the European Union is largely public, and in order to facilitate the freedom of employment and settlement throughout the Union that citizens of EU member states are guaranteed, the 28 EU members, as well as additional signatory states within Europe, have worked to establish cohesion in the higher education systems throughout the region. This work has been, and continues to be, accomplished through a series of meetings and agreements known as the Bologna Process. Proposed at the University of Bologna in 1999, it is an effort to unify the way in which university degrees are implemented and recognized across all participating countries. Prior to the establishment of the Bologna Process, each nation decided its education policy independently from one another. In theory, having unified standards across all member states to facilitate the recognition of degrees and therefore mobility of employment makes sense. However, in practice the standards have been applied in varying implementations on the national level by different governments. Since the beginning of this year, university students in Spain have been facing the prospect of economic and educational hardships as a direct result of the Spanish Government’s changing implementation of the Bologna Process. There are clear benefits to the overall implementation of the Bologna Process in Europe. Paloma Fernandez Mira, an undergraduate student at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) who is currently spending her third year of university at Tufts, noted that, in Spain, Bologna “has improved the education system in the sense that it is more oriented towards practical applications [of learned material] and it gives more value to continuous evaluation in the classroom.” Spain proceeded with implementing Bologna differently than many other countries in the EU, and this incongruity is what has driven this year’s proposed changes. When Spain initially implemented the agreements, it used four-year undergraduate degrees, followed by a one-year Masters, known as the 4+1 system. Meanwhile, the majority of the rest of the EU member states used a three-year undergraduate degree and a two-year Masters, known as the

3+2 system. Earlier this year the Spanish Ministry of Education proposed a change in the higher education system to the 3+2 implementation. In both implementations of Bologna, the total time needed to complete an undergraduate and graduate degree is five years, but students from countries with the 3+2 system were not having their degrees recognized by those countries with the 4+1 system, and vice-versa. Spanish Minister of Education José Ignacio Wert claims that the switch to the 3+2 system will force Spanish universities to get their courses in line with those in the rest of Europe. Moreover, he adds, it will allow for students from elsewhere

The change in structure of the higher education system will result in harsh financial implications for students. in Europe to come to Spain more easily as their degrees will now be recognized. In an interview with the Financial Times, he explained, “We are currently isolated from the rest of Europe. We currently don’t recognize graduates from other countries with a three-year degree, even if they come from Cambridge.” The trouble for Spaniards comes from the fact that the change in structure of the higher education system will result in harsh financial implications for students. Annually, undergraduate degrees cost between €1000 and €2000, and graduate degrees run approximately €4000 to €5000 per year. Under the 3+2 implementation of Bologna, graduate degrees will cost the same amount annually as they currently do, but will now last two years instead of just one, resulting in increased financial hardships in a country where many students already struggle to pay for their education as it is. Darío Blanco Gómez de Barreda, a law student at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares and former cultural

mentor for the Tufts in Madrid program, pointed out that higher education in Spain is “increasingly becoming less accessible for the average student…[and] in most public universities even the most basic services are currently at stake.” Increased tuition will result in higher barriers of access to university education for many Spanish students. Nevertheless Minister Wert claims that the higher tuition costs are being implemented in an effort to boost the performances of the universities. José Ignacio Conde-Ruiz, professor of economics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, said to the Financial Times that the change to the three-year undergraduate degree would ultimately benefit students, as many “now have difficulties going abroad.” He also pointed out that the changes to the system as a result of Bologna would improve the quality of education that students would be able to receive, as there are currently “no incentives for good teaching and good research” under today’s implementation. When speaking with current and former students of the Spanish university system, one gets a very different impression of the effects of the Spanish implementation of Bologna than that given by officials of the Ministry of Education. Juan Blasco Palacios, who completed his undergraduate degree at the UAM and currently lives in Dublin, noted that the worst part of Bologna is “the cost increase” as Spanish students will be required “to pay more for the same education” as they received previously, while “the best [aspect is] the unification of the [higher education system] in Europe” to allow for simplified freedom of mobility. The question for Spain, then, is how to balance the implementation of improvements to the higher education system while still making it accessible and realistic for students to attend. Gustavo Flórez Malagon, who is currently completing a Masters at the UAM and studied at Tufts from 2012-2013 added that “the problem [with the change from 4+1 to 3+2]…comes when students or families who…had been facing much smaller [tuition] fees…now have to pay more than twice the original price” and that “for those who could barely afford it before, it certainly has become unaffordable in the present.” April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

POETRY

1. you are human and your heart beats as faithfully as a prayer. 2. forgive yourself for making your heart soft enough for love. it is not your fault if others wrap their fists around it. 3. not everyone is trying to break you. 4. you are here because of your mother and her mother and her mother and her mother. remember your ancestors, remember your lifelines. remember the ones who are not here. 5. do not fracture yourself for the comfort of others. 6. you are not anyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quest to find themselves. you exist for yourself. 7. you are the daughter of immigrants raised working classâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;perpetually searching, unlearning, bleeding. do not forget this. 8. the revolution starts at home. 9. you whitewashed yourself for 11 years. you are still wringing the bleach from out of your hair. that is okay. you will be okay. 10. your yellow skin is so beautiful. 11. for months after it happened, you regarded yourself a broken and fragile thing. but this does not make you weak. you are not tainted by him. you are strong and beautiful, in spite of and because of your bruises. 12. your body finally feels like your own again. those who have conquered it are false gods. you are soft skin and so much light. they cannot take this away from you. 13. name everything. call it abuse if it is. call it anger if it is. call it family if it is. call it love if it is. 14. love will not always come crashing onto you out of the nowhere. sometimes it just creeps quietly but gently into your life. 15. do not police your emotions. do not police your words. feel everything. sit with yourself, with your emotions. let them burn up if they need to. 16. there is strength in your vulnerability. there is power in your vulnerability. 17. you are 20, still so wide-eyed and freckle faced. you are learning to love yourself, broken parts and all. but you are not broken.

By Kaitlin Pang

9/12/14 NOTES TO SELF 12

PHOTO BY MISAKO ONO 12Tufts Tufts Observer April April27, 27,2015 2015 Observer

NIYA SHAHDAD (A’16) “I wish Kashmir had happened differently. It was born far too beautiful to eventually die under occupation.”

SOUTH ASIANS OF THE HILL

SOUTH ASIANS OF THE HILL is an ongoing photography project of Tufts’ South Asian Political Action Committee (SAPAC), an undergraduate student group that sparks dialogue and inspires action on South Asia and its diaspora. South Asians of the Hill captures the diverse and nuanced lived experiences of South Asian members of the Tufts community. Says South Asians of the Hill creator Vidya Srinivasan, “The project’s global audience has proved to us that these themes of home, family, spirituality, and resistance have universal reach.”

KABEER KAPOOR (A’14)

“Having left India at the age grown up in Dubai, Shangha Boston, I’ve never really felt city. But when I go back to D on idli dosa and my Nani-N know that I’m home.”

SAMIRA MANZUR (A’16) “You know you’re a South Asian if you like rain. There are a lot of poems about the rain back home. It rains differently here, though.”

AVNEET SOIN (A’17) “I feel most at home each time I step into a Gurudwara, even if I don’t know a single person there.”

NAZIFA SARAWAT (A’17) “Too American in Bangladesh, too Bengali in America.”

SERENA KASSAM (A’17) “I define myself as an ethnic Indian born in England, raised in East Africa, and now living in America. Four out of seven continents—not bad!”

age of three and nghai, Singapore, and felt settled in any one to Delhi and binge ni-Nana’s puri aloo, I

ANISHA WADHWA (A’14) “The minute you come here and you meet other South Asians, it’s an instant connection. One of the biggest things, personally, was becoming friends with someone from Pakistan— we met while studying abroad in Spain. Once you leave South Asia, these borders don’t exist anymore.”

ISHA PATNAIK (A’17)

PHOTOS BY ASHELY MILLER & SAPAC

“I don’t want my South Asian identity and my comedian identity to be mutually exclusive.”

SOUBHIK BARARI (A’16) “My grandparents lived through a much more tumultuous time than I ever have—they lived through partition and the Naxalite movement. It’s so impressive to hear about the struggles they went through. When my grandpa first came to Kolkata for work, he stayed with his aunt for a few days, but he ended up sleeping under a palm tree for three days. He was committed to supporting his family, and he rebuilt his life from there. We’re never going to have these kinds of stories to tell our kids.”

TENZIN CHOKKI (A’17)

MOLLY CHIRUNOMULA (A’15) “Before I came to Tufts, being South Asian was something I’d turn off at school and turn on at home. But here, I can just be myself all the time.”

PHOTOS BY ASHELY MILLER & SAPAC

“I miss gazing at the snow-covered mountains from the balcony of my home in northern India. These mountains would remind me of Tibet. Sometimes, you don’t have to be born somewhere— or have ever seen it—to call it home.”

POETRY

Summer days a la fairy tale: a promenade down my memory lane, a road trip through the valley’s rain. Meant to be missed, our Alfonso mangoes picked. Now and then, then and now whispers of danger visited us. They aimed to make aware: ‘Freedom comes second to fear’ They remained unattended, for freedom comes unguarded. We sent back whispers of hope, they died on their way; bare & disregarded. Now and then, then and now, Nostalgia knocks: knock knock. But the house is empty and the home is broken, for what childhood taught us is all forgotten. Ninety days of this summer, each whispers to the other: A bullet for you, a bullet for me in the name vain of azaadi* A twisted Disney story - a beast that hates his beauty. An unfortunate fate of unfairness - a writer’s source of tragedy. Now we’re here, here we are cross-legged on a curfewed night. Some skies pour, some stand still some speak silence: how much longer till? Summer days are not so much the fairy tales. For fairy tales are dreamt not sold. But summer days have now been bought, bought cheap.

FORTYSEVEN

By Niya Shahdad

As Iqbal mentioned in forty-seven; our freedom too will die forgotten. * azaadi = freedom (Urdu)

PHOTO BY NIYA SHAHDAD

April April27, 27,2015 2015

Tufts Tufts Observer Observer

17 17

NEWS

UNCERTAIN FUTURES Child Refugees Along the South Texas Border

By Cayla Brown

n the summer of 2014, an estimated 57,000 unaccompanied minors flooded the south Texas border fleeing conflict-ridden areas in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Due to the lack of sufficient resources to accommodate these refugees, centers overflowed with children. These children were living under inhumane conditions and lacked sufficient food, water, and medical care. In addition, they faced slow legal processing and possible deportation regardless of their countries’ unstable economy or rampant gang violence.

Tufts Observer

April 27, 2015

As 2015 progresses, more children will make the same journey across the border, but given the current immigration policies, it is unclear if they will receive the proper welcome they deserve. While last summer saw an unpredicted surge of refugees, this issue is not new. For years, numerous NGOs and international institutions have attempted to shed light on the growing immigration crisis. After the past summer’s influx, the Obama administration has enacted a few policies to alleviate this issue. However, these poli-

cies are set to help only a fortunate few and leave the rest of the refugees stuck in detainment centers awaiting a decision on their refugee status. What gets lost in dominant discourse about immigration and morality are the push factors existing in refugees’ countries of origin that make their migration necessary. The main reason many Latin American children have left their homes to journey to the United States is the increase of gang violence in their countries. Gang members impose a major threat by seeking to recruit these

ART BY TESS DENNISON

NEWS

children and kill them if they do not comply with their demands. These gangs originate from former Honduran and El Salvadorian refugees who immigrated to the United States to escape the civil wars that tore apart both countries in the 1980s. Refugees traveled to Los Angeles only to become heavily entrenched in American gang culture and then were deported back to their home countries where the same American-born gangs flourished and multiplied. Gangs like the MS13 in San Salvador have taken control of their communities and forced young children to either join them or risk their lives and those of their families. The increase of gang presence within these communities, paired with their struggling economies and high rates of unemployment, influences the families to send their children to America in hopes of attaining safer living arrangements. The reason that this crisis affects children from Latin America more than it affects those escaping danger in Mexico and Canada is that the legislation caters specifically to Latin American children. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act protects Latin American child refugees from the immediate deportation that awaits children crossing from Mexico or Canada. This act grants each child a court hearing to determine their status as refugees instead of immediately sending them back after they have been detained. Latin American children awaiting trial have the opportunity to stay with a family member residing within the states; however, before they reach this step, some of them spend weeks apprehended within a detainment center. During the summer of 2014, the ACLU reported that refugee children lacked essential needs and were subjected to sexual and physical abuse within these detainment centers. Moreover, children slept huddled together on the floor of overcrowded centers, covered only by thin Red Cross blankets. The law states that children are supposed to be detained for only 72 hours, however the increase in the number of refugees

has slowed down this process. Instead of addressing these humanitarian issues, those in charge of detainment centers, such as the GEO group, deny claims of abuse and overcrowding in their facilities. In addition, due to last year’s influx of Latin Americans at the border, the Obama administration proposed expediting the deportation process by subsequently returning thousands of refugees back into dangerous living conditions. The UNHCR reported that over 60 percent of children were eligible for humanitarian protection; however, the proposal for expedited removal could mean that the majority of child refugees will be inevitably turned away in the next few months. In anticipation of the surge of border crossing expected into the US this summer, the Obama administration has created new policies and requested a $3.7 billion increase in funding for several government departments involved in immigration policy and enforcement. Additionally, in November, the Obama administration revealed a new plan that would work with governments in El Salvador and Guatemala “to provide a safe, legal, and orderly alternative” to making the dangerous trek to the United States. With the new policy, the Obama administration is hoping to “establish an in country refugee/parole program” within these countries. The new policy also promises to provide refuge and a quick legal process to children who are under 21, unmarried, and have at least one parent living within the states. In early March, the Senate finally passed the immigration bill allowing for the distribution of funding to immigration programs. Only time will tell if the funding granted will improve and expedite child refugees’ time under the care of the US Customs and Border Protection. While this policy is projected to improve the legal process for many children, it would only apply to roughly 30 percent of the children who came to America in the last year. The ma-

jority of the children who traveled to the states had no parent to greet them once they arrived. In addition, the US only expects to accept approximately 4,000 Latin American refugees into the US Refugee Admissions program within the 2015 fiscal year. The amount of children crossing the border within the next few months is expected to far exceed this number, making it highly unlikely that the US Refugee Admissions will be able to absorb all of them. While some of the policies in place by the Obama administration have the potential to improve the refugee crisis on the south Texas border, many issues regarding the structure of detainment facilities and refugee requirements remain prevalent within the immigration system and continue to harm those who need the most protection. Given the recent aid approved by the Senate and policies established by the Obama administration, there may be a better future in sight for some refugee children. However, the exclusivity of the policies and the continued presence of detainment centers with inhumane accommodations also point towards a harrowing future for those who were not saved by the Obama administration’s new policies. It is unclear how many refugees will cross the border in the next few months; it is also unclear how they will be received given the newest reforms. The only hope is that as more children seek refuge, this issue will continue to remain at the forefront until these refugees receive the treatment and care they deserve.

It is unclear if they will receive the proper welcome they deserve.

April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

OPINION

THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARY

Transcending Borders Through Language By Madeleine Lebovic 20

Tufts Observer

April 27, 2015

ART BY EVA STRAUSS

OPINION

here is something striking about the anonymity of walking in a city—hundreds of thousands of lives relate only for a moment in shared space before continuing on. While irrelevant to one another’s futures, each is critical in creating the other’s timeline. I was considering this as I walked through San Francisco, listening to conversation in tongues other than my own, when I caught a snippet of a something I recognized: “Ein bisschen nach links, nej, vielleicht nicht.” A little bit to the left, no, maybe not. I turned to see a mother trying to frame both herself and her son in a picture. Recognizing the German, I held out a hand: “Ich kann ein für sie machen!” I can take one for you. “Danke!” she exclaimed. Thanks! I snapped a picture and was on my way, but that interaction has become permanently fixed in the lineup of stories I use to explain my city experience. We were little more than two extras in each other’s lives, but for a moment we shared an understanding of the history and culture of a place thousands of miles from our location simply by exchanging a few sentences. Our shared language was the means to knock away the borders of the city. At its core, learning a language increases the potential for cross-cultural communication, which in turn can limit conflict born of misunderstanding. Bilingual freshman Nada Khalil remembers immediately feeling closer to someone after finding out that she also speaks the Egyptian dialect of Arabic. She explains, “I think we, as humans, feel bonded to people with whom we have something in common, so sharing a language can play a huge role in connecting people and bringing them closer together.” But then there are the language barriers drawing many apart. According to the Worldwatch Institute, of the roughly 6,500 languages worldwide, about half are spoken only by populations smaller than 2,500 people. Oftentimes, there are severe implications for language gaps. In 2011, Panama saw heated controversy stemming from such gaps over the building of the Changuinola 75 Hydroelectric Project. This was a dam slated to provide energy for increasing electricity demands. However, its construction came

with large environmental costs, including the destruction of lands belonging to the Indigenous Ngöbe community. Reports from Cultural Survival, a website specializing in indigenous rights, note that authorities took Isabel Becker, a Ngöbe elder, to discuss the building of the dam. Becker spoke only her native Ngöbe tongue, yet was given contracts in Spanish to sign with no government translator. In fact, she did not understand why or to where she was being taken. With nobody to break the language barrier, Becker unknowingly signed over her and her family’s land, despite their opposition to the dam. This situation reflects the principal actors’, such as government or corporations, capitalization on and habit of profiting from a language barrier. This is unacceptable. Instead of undermining potential dialogue in the hope of smoother processes, efforts should be made so all negotiation and consultation scenarios are communicated to those involved in their language of choice. Otherwise, we risk an unjust system and future tensions, not to mention a huge population going unrepresented. Implications of language ignorance go beyond politics. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, some 49.6 million Americans speak a language other than English at home, while about half that number have only limited English proficiency. In nearly half of all ER cases in which the patient spoke limited English, no medical interpreter was available. This puts minority groups at a dangerous, sometimes life-threatening disadvantage. Hospitals need to be equipped to provide for all potential patients—language is the most fundamental tool. Pre-med sophomore Nathaniel Tran notes, “Reducing language barriers is the first step to improving access to healthcare. I can’t imagine feeling comfortable having someone poke, prod, and test me while they’re struggling to explain what they’re doing. And if I can’t trust my provider, why would I want to open up and share more of my concerns?” So what can be done about the language barriers that do exist? More and more people in the US are acknowledging the importance of learning (at least) one more language. With the

increasing popularity of resources such as dual language schools and apps such as Duolingo, learning other languages is more accessible than ever. Tufts University has maintained its role as a relevant international institution by acknowledging the need for language proficiency. While many complain that the six–semester requirement in a foreign language—or eight in the case of majors in International Relations—is excessive, Tufts students will be equipped with a necessary skill set in a dynamic global community.

By learning a language, you become immersed in a different way of thinking Tufts alum B.J. Mestnik speaks Spanish, Arabic, and French in addition to English, and is currently studying Portuguese. After a full year abroad, he has continued to travel, speaking and connecting with others. He says, “Speaking to someone in his native tongue is the best way of proving your interest and appreciation for his culture. Not only that, but so much culture is inherently ingrained in language that it is impossible to fully understand a place without it.” Some languages have words or phrases that do not translate well into other languages; others have different syntax that reflects ingrained beliefs such as gender roles. By learning a language, you become immersed in a different way of thinking, breaking borders even within your own mind. When we talk about borders in an international setting, the tendency is to focus on national boundaries. Learning a language transcends those boundaries as an identity that can be adopted by anyone with the right mindset, regardless of political and cultural background. So while you ride the train to work this summer, or with that hour that usually gets lost to Buzzfeed every day, do yourself a favor—learn a language. At the very least, you will be able to say “hi” to someone you couldn’t have before. O April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

ARTS & CULTURE

AIRBNB IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD Exploring the gentrifying effects of the site By Katie Saviano

ART BY NINA HOFKOSH-HULBERT

Tufts Observer

April 27, 2015

ICONS BY MAWRA BOUKARIM AND MEGAN MITCHELL

ARTS & CULTURE

The inundation of tourists results in other disruptions to communities outside of the tourist sphere, such as the tokenization of authenticity.

irbnb is deftly capitalizing on a new class of tourism, appealing to a new types of tourist with specific priorities: the “anti-tourist.” The anti-tourist is searching for authenticity, not destinations; for participation, not observation. They want to tap into local networks and culture and they believe that visiting a new city is more than just seeing the typical cultural touch points. Above all, the anti-tourist seeks a genuine experience. This shifting paradigm of travel is enshrined in Airbnb’s tagline “#belonganywhere.” Referred to as a “Pinterest with direct booking,” by Skift, a website that analyzes the travel industry, Airbnb combines tourism and social media. This global phenomenon is changing the way that we travel and experience new cultures. In the process, Airbnb is catalyzing gentrification in many of the world’s cities. Travelers are drawn to Airbnb for its array of convenient features, from transparent feedback to easy discovery of new vacation destinations. By building on an online infrastructure of travel sharing pioneered by sites like Couchsurfing and FlipKey, Airbnb allows tourists to book using a familiar platform. Furthermore, AirBnB contributes to the decentralization of power over the lodging industry, granting homeowners a say in the tourism trends in their own cities. Most importantly, Airbnb derives its authenticity from finding lodging for guests in areas of the city where there aren’t hotels and tourist centers. The benefits of Airbnb are enormous; however, many don’t consider its effects on communities. There are reasons to be wary of the anti-tourist and the hyper drive for niche housing. Tourists in pursuit of short-term rentals in local neighborhoods will inadvertently take units off the long-term rental market. Airbnb has been under scrutiny in New York City, where the Multiple Dwelling Law

states that it is illegal to rent out an apartment in a residential building for shortterm stays under 30 days. With the New York City housing crisis, the city can’t afford the large-scale conversion of apartments to hotels. Because renting out a property short-term is more lucrative than long-term rental, owners are choosing to rent out their spaces to Airbnb users rather than prioritizing New York residents in need of housing. Based on Skift calculations, “...some 6,000 units may be off the rental market” because of Airbnb. This dichotomy will undoubtedly push the housing market toward higher-end and shorter-term rentals. This trend is code for gentrification. Ultimately, this excess of short-term housing reduces the number of affordable units available to lower income city dwellers. A Slate article described a San Francisco citizen who “...is suing his landlord for unjust eviction...allegedly so his landlord could list [his apartment] on Airbnb.” Airbnb is not only contributing to a conversion of the housing market, but also generating influxes of short-term visitors that impact a neighborhood. No matter how carefully guests are vetted, a constant rotation of neighbors degrades other residents’ quality of life. The inundation of tourists results in other disruptions to communities outside of the tourist sphere, such as the tokenization of authenticity. Are Airbnb tourists, intent on receiving the genuine experience, fetishizing the local culture without thinking about what it means for an outsider to “explore another culture”? Using AirBnB as a quest for culture is exploitative, and guests need to think critically about defining the local culture and the privilege of experiencing it. But is the niche that Airbnb occupies less intrusive than mega hotels with no attachment to the local culture or people? In thinking about tourism’s impact on local residents, is AirBnB the lesser of two evils?

In April 2015, Airbnb began expanding its offerings to Cuba, which will allow tourists access to previously unreachable destinations. The rental-sharing site will grant rapid access to the island locale by opening preexisting homes to foreigners long before new American hotels are constructed. In comparison to large, impersonal hotels, which inadvertently alter the preexisting community, Airbnb tourism is still gentrifying, but less so. And it does have certain benefits for communities. By interspersing Airbnb tourism with the existing locale, tourism dollars are brought into new markets without causing large population displacement. Co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk further explains, “Think about the big hotel chains coming in, with mass development. The idea here is to support growth and travel that isn’t disruptive.” Airbnb embodies the new sharing economy by spreading its dollars over a variety of neighborhoods, not just tourist destinations. In fact, the most popular neighborhoods often lack hotels. In New York, Harlem has few hotels, but over 1,000 Airbnb listings. Furthermore, AirBnB decentralizes power in the tourist industry; large hotel chains no longer have a monopoly over lodging. Rather, people can participate in the process and take greater control over tourism in their cities. However, these intentions, if poorly framed and lacking critical reflection, can severely tokenize the cultures that tourists hope to appreciate. AirBnB has served and will continue to serve as a catalyzer of gentrification. Herein lies the irony of Airbnb: if short-term rentals go on to dominate the housing market, locals will be pushed out of their respective neighborhoods, thus disrupting the authentic community and degrading the “genuine” experience that Airbnb promises its users. O

April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

ARTS & CULTURE

THE HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITY COMES TO ICELAND By Thorunn Sigurdardottir

he year 2000 was the first in which the annual number of visitors to Iceland exceeded the national population. To be fair, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not saying much, as the population of this isolated island is about 300,000 people. But since 2000, the tourism industry in Iceland has become just that: an industry. In 2012, the number of people traveling to Iceland amounted

Tufts Observer

April 27, 2015

to over twice the population, and in 2014 it was just short of a million people. This sharp rise in tourism has changed many things about Iceland. More hotels and restaurants have appeared on the streets of Reykjavik, but more importantly, Iceland has become much more culturally connected to the rest of the world. The Hollywood film industry has gotten a foothold

in the country over the last decade, recognizing it as a great place to film because of the untouched landscape and great tax breaks. A decade ago, Iceland was a safe haven for celebrities, but this is changing. Constant exposure to foreign stars and tourists whose own culture, namely American culture, idolizes them is changing how Icelanders view celebrities.

ART BY RACHEL CUNNINGHAM; PHOTO BY MENGLAN CHEN

ARTS & CULTURE

It’s no secret that Americans tend to idolize celebrities. Celebrities are a constant presence in the entertainment industry, which seems to be ever expanding: magazines, commercials, clothing lines, social media, and even the political sphere. It’s impossible to go anywhere without seeing perfectly Photoshopped faces staring out from the covers of publications and billboards. Celebrities have a presence in some shape or form in most Americans’ daily lives, whether by following them on Instagram or copying their style. There may be a million different reasons why American culture so emphasizes celebrities. As an outsider looking in, I think it’s a byproduct of the age-old American ideology of constant self-improvement. From American thinkers like Emerson who preached self-reliance to the myriad stories about Americans pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to create a better life for themselves, it’s unsurprising that the same society praises the rich and famous. Celebrities are the embodiment of the American success story. In contrast to this celebrity-frenzied culture, Icelandic culture does not worship celebrities—neither American nor their own—in quite the same ways. There is no such thing as paparazzi in Iceland, and in fact, the whole concept of approaching someone on the street to ask for a picture or autograph is downright unheard of. Iceland is protective of foreign celebrities that come to visit—affectionately termed “Íslandsvinir,” or “friends of Iceland.” Icelanders genuinely love that these people, who can barely go one day without getting a cheeky picture snapped of them in the States, can come to Iceland and be left alone. Before the rise of tourism, the only guests that came to Iceland were geothermal scientists, genetic researchers, devoted outdoorsmen, and fishing enthusiasts. The visitors matched the population and culture well: scientific research in Iceland is very well respected and our landscape is appealing to hikers. Today, the culture that “regular tourists” bring with them has begun to influence Icelandic society. While celebrities can still walk the streets of Reykjavik without being followed, elements of American celebrity idolization

have infiltrated Icelandic culture. Whenever a foreign celebrity touches down in Iceland, it’s bound to make news the next day. While this may seem insignificant to Americans who are used to media coverage on a much grander scale, this is a big change from ten years ago. The increasing popularity of the film industry that has taken place compounded with the booming tourism industry is augmenting this trend of idolization. In addition to Icelanders making their own films, a market has emerged for foreign (mostly American) productions to come film in Iceland. Notable examples include Game of Thrones, the Thor movies, Noah, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Interstellar, Oblivion, and Star Trek Into Darkness. While photographs of these films’ stars are infrequent in Iceland, their presence dominates cultural conversation when they’re within the country’s borders. People update their Facebook statuses recounting their run ins with Emma Watson at the movies or their sightings of Chris Hemsworth outside a hotel. Furthermore, when these stars update their own social media pages, it’s like an ego boost to the nation. The fact that Ben Stiller chronicled his visit to Iceland with pictures on his Twitter makes Icelanders very proud. This rising fanaticism over foreign celebrities, although still at minor level compared to the United States, completely contrasts with the way Icelanders treat their own celebrities. Iceland has a handful of people who have reached international fame: Björk, Of Monsters and Men, Sigur Rós, and for soccer fans, Eiður Guðjóhnsen, Gylfi Sigurðsson, and Aron Jóhansson. Occasionally there will be small articles about these celebrities’ activities on Icelandic news websites or social media such as “Björk buys a house in Reykjavik.” Scroll down to the comments section on one of these articles and it’s full of people either vehemently demanding privacy for these people or denouncing the article with arrogant comments like, “Who cares what these people are doing?” It’s not that Icelanders don’t care about the success of their fellow countrymen. On the contrary, I think the nation as a whole is very proud of the bands that have made it big and the goals scored by the best soc-

cer players. Whenever our national sports teams do well in international tournaments, they are always heroically referred to as “our girls” or “our boys” in the papers the next day. Our view of celebrities is simply a bizarre mixture of thinking that everyone deserves their privacy and wanting to maintain a level of self-respect that doesn’t include drooling over the rich and famous. There’s also an element of refusal to allow celebrities to think they’re better than the average person just because they’re famous. While Iceland still maintains its status as a safe haven for celebrities, I’m afraid that more and more people are going to slip into idolatry. There’s undoubtedly a correlation between the rise of tourism and how connected Icelandic society is to American culture. The change isn’t just limited to our way of treating celebrities, but also extends to a more general erasing of authentically Icelandic elements of the culture. Don’t get me wrong, Iceland is still a wonderful, unique, quirky place to visit. But from my perspective, Reykjavík is becoming more “normative” with each passing year. Downtown Reykjavik, the most colorful and bizarre city center you’ll ever see, caters more and more to tourists than to its own citizens. Admission to the Blue Lagoon, the natural geothermal pool just outside Reykjavik, used to cost about $10, complete with a shabby changing room next to the lagoon. It was a wonderful, authentically Icelandic experience to run through the freezing cold in your bathing suit to jump into the lagoon. Right now, it’s a minimum of $50 and there’s a gourmet restaurant, gift shop, and spa, with a luxury five star hotel coming in 2017. It’s now a hot tourist spot that gets free marketing from Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake’s Instagram posts of them taking a dip. I have a lot of internal struggles about recommending it as a place to visit. Every time a friend asks me if they should go to Iceland, I always say yes. It’s a beautiful, unique place full of friendly people, and I’ve never heard of anyone regretting their visit. But a part of me strongly dislikes contributing to that rising number of tourists. O

April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

TECH & INNOVATION

WHAT’S YOUR CYMBAL?

The app that shares your life’s soundtrack By Olivia Meyer-Jennette 26

Tufts Observer

April 27, 2015

PHOTO COURTESY OF CYMBAL

TECH & INNOVATION

The app doesn’t need its users to provide context because it isn’t just about documenting the concrete details; instead, it conveys emotions and moments.

ake a second and think about that song you can’t stop listening to. The song that encapsulates your feelings about this hour or this day or this week, that gives you chills or makes you laugh or brings about late-night dances in the kitchen. Not your favorite song ever, perhaps, but your favorite right now, right this minute: the song that sets the rhythm of your days, reflects your moods, and defines your state of mind. Imagine if you could easily share this song with others and others could share theirs with you. Cymbal, an app created by Tufts undergrads Gabe Jacobs, Amadou Crookes, and Mario Gomez-Hall, offers just that. Jacobs thought of the idea after operating a music blog with a simple mission— to upload one song each day. Recognizing that this system emphasized both the quality of each selection and ease of consumption, he sought to create an app that would allow a broader network to share music with the same accessibility and ease. Cymbal, the resulting app, functions much like Twitter or Instagram but features music as its medium. Users have access to songs from Spotify and Soundcloud’s databases and can upload their favorite song, or “cymbal,” at any given time. Their followers see this song in a constantly updated newsfeed that displays each individual’s current cymbal. With this system in mind, there is a distinct weight behind one’s choice of cymbal. Unlike Twitter and Instagram’s design—in which it is possible to contribute multiple posts to the newsfeed— Cymbal only allows you to choose one song that currently defines your life’s soundtrack. As designer Gomez-Hall

noted in an interview with music blog Sound of Boston, “the design [of Cymbal] incentivizes high quality content.” Equally important, Cymbal rewards the thought behind one’s song choice. If you love another user’s song, you can save within either Spotify or Soundcloud; if you love their taste in music, you can go to their profile and listen to every cymbal they have posted, as well as every song they have “liked” from those they follow. In this way, Cymbal sets itself apart from other music-sharing platforms; it possesses the ability to create conversation among its users. While in Spotify users can see what their followers are listening to, Gomez-Hall points out that you “don’t really get a good sense of what they like versus what happened to come on.” Soundcloud, on the other hand, permits users to insert comments only at a particular timestamp—far less interactive than the Cymbal users’ ability to like and comment on their friends’ music with a system much like that of Instagram. You can tag the person who inspired you, hashtag a #tbt, or share your pick via SMS, email, or Facebook. Cymbal functions as a tool for “people-powered music discovery,” Gomez-Hall continues, offering its users endless avenues of music discovery. If you don’t love a song, you can skip it. If you do, you can save it to your own Spotify or Soundcloud account, comment on it, and perhaps bring it up the next time you see your friend. The desire to share music among friends is not new—in fact, a Google search of song-sharing apps uncovers several similar services. SoundTracking, an app from the online music-player Rhap-

sody International, provides many of the same services but also allows you to share photos and tag places that connect to the songs. Several others enable users to create collaborative playlists, or explore feeds of music that’s currently popular. With the presence of these existing music-sharing apps established, the obvious question arises—what sets Cymbal apart? The true appeal of Cymbal in contrast to these apps with more is the remarkable strength of its less. In the age of bite-sized media created to be easily consumable, Cymbal harmonizes with this structure and blends easily into the background of our lives. It is both effortless and timeless. It captures pieces of the everyday and presents them within a simple, beautiful, and intuitive interface, offering a space for the individual to create their own narrative and the group to construct a complex discourse. The app doesn’t need its users to provide context because it isn’t just about documenting the concrete details; instead, it conveys emotions and moments. It connects the user to their friends and their self, their past and present. As Jacobs said, “I will never stop loving music and I will never stop loving to share music with people, so... it’s very personal.” This individuality is applicable to each user and will endure for as long as the app exists. O Look for Cymbal in the App Store the first week of May.

April 27, 2015

Tufts Observer

POLICE BLOTTER

Police Blotter

By Eve Feldberg and Aaron Langerman

Pandamonium Spring is here, the flowers grow And on Thursday the second Someone decided to throw A panda onto Carm roof. The cops were called, And when they arrived All involved were appalled Because there was a fucking panda on the roof.

True Criminals

Thursday, April 2nd, 8:30am Ass down, face up, That’s the way the panda Was sitting. What did you think we were going to say? Facilities were notified. That’s it.

Monday, April 13th, 9:45am

In the bright early morning hours, TUPD arrived at a crime scene. There had been plenty of calls that morning, and the department was severely understaffed, but everyone agreed that this needed to take top priority. The problem: urgent. The scenario: a robbery. Item at hand: two bags of Stacy’s pita chips. One officer was overheard saying, “In all my years, I’ve never seen something like this.” The suspect is still at large.

Wax On, Wax Off

Thursday, April 16th, 9:26am

Residents of Lewis Hall received a rude awakening on the morning of April 16th: the fire alarm was blaring and a strange smoky smell drifted from the third floor. Groggy students drifted out of the dorm while police and firemen arrived to investigate the situation. A small fire was found in the trashcan in the lobby of the third floor. The cause? The leftover debris of hot cosmetic wax. Though it was put out with a fire extinguisher, it goes to show: nothing’s more painful than an early morning wax.

Tufts Observer

April 27, 2015

KATHARINE PONG

TUFTS OBSERVER SINCE 1895 www.tuftsobserver.org observer@tufts.edu @tuftsobserver

please recycle