6. The Pen is Mightier than the Sword: Institutional Rhetoric at Tufts Feature - Connor Howe
10. Your New Robot Landlord: How AI Systems Are Taking Over Real Estate News - Roderick Atwood
12. Give Us a Break: Exploring International Students’ Challenges During University Holidays Campus - Ethan Guo
14. In Lieu of Wisdom Teeth Voices - Emma Selesnick
16. Creative Inset Cherry Chen
18. Zionist Philosemitism Has Got to Go Opinion - Anonymous
20. Closer to the Other Side Voices - Emily Pham
22. Let’s Romanticize: the Ideal Language Experience Campus - Jillie McLeod
24. Not-So-Golden Humor at the Globes Opinion - Kate Weyant
26. This is a temporary home, my love. Poetry & Prose - Chloe Cheng
28. home / maison / hogar Poetry & Prose - Caroline Abut
staff
Editor-in-Chief
Emara Saez
Editor Emeritus
Juanita Asapokhai
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Veronica Habashy
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molt
molt
Like snakes, we shed our old lives to grow new ones. Like caterpillars, we shed our skin to enter the next stage. As we lose something that was once fundamentally attached to ourselves, we grow into something else in order to flower and ripen .
Dear Reader,
If I had to pinpoint where my interest in journalism began, I think it’d be at the same time as my love of chisme (which is Spanish for “gossip,” the cornerstone of Latinx social life), as a tween desperate to be in everyone’s business whether they wanted me there or not. My love of chisme then developed into an obsession with speaking truth to power. If there’s one thing that has not changed in the past three years, it’s the consistency of the Tufts Observer. It’s been my favorite part of my time at Tufts, as it has allowed me to feel empowered as a student journalist attempting to shake the institution. There is power in words, and that’s a responsibility the Observer has taught me to not take lightly.
I joined my freshman fall as an eager and doe-eyed staff writer, desperate to be part of a community on campus that was doing something meaningful. Since then, I’ve rotated through a variety of different roles—a semester as a Voices section editor with Eden, two semesters as a Feature section editor with Ruby, and a semester as Managing Editor with Juanita as my editor-in-chief. This semester, I find myself as the editor-in-chief sitting in the same chair she was: a beaten up, grungy red chair in the MAB Lab of Curtis Hall. If I’m being quite honest, I’m not sure how I got here.
This publication has become a mouthpiece for me and so many others to talk our shit— professionally and ethically, of course. It’s what I love the most about the Observer community: the fact that we’re united in our pursuit of storytelling that uplifts the most marginalized voices. That’s been true for the six semesters I’ve been on the O, and I want to thank all of my previous EICs—Josie, Amanda, Melanie, Aroha, Sabah, and Juanita—for instilling that commitment in me. I know it will continue to be true when I pass the EIC torch to Veronica next semester, and I can’t wait to see how the O continues this powerful legacy throughout my senior year.
Reader, do you know what else has not changed throughout these past six semesters? The support and love of my friends and family, including but not limited to my parents, Jorge, Paola, Cheyanne, Susie, and Nicolas. They’ve had to put up with me throughout all of my selfimposed Observer craziness, listening patiently to all of my chisme about this magazine. I’m endlessly grateful for their company and listening ears.
If there’s one thing I hope readers take away from my contributions to this publication, it’s that our words as marginalized peoples will never cease to be important; we are worthy of listening to and deserve a platform. So, dear reader, if you have a voice that you can use to advance this ideal, I urge you to. It’s one of the only things that will never molt: our ability to enact change through pen and paper.
With love and in solidarity,
Emara Saez Editor-in-Chief
To my dear reader,
Forgive me for discussing the seasons again—truthfully, it’s how I make small talk. It feels necessary as I write this in the dregs of winter, having also written one of these for last semester’s creative issue just as winter’s first oranges lit up, to call to your attention what you are certainly all too aware of: spring. As a foreigner to the more traditional definition of the seasons, I am prone to romanticism. To me, the cycle of the seasons is the earth’s permission for us to grieve, to carry the weight of ourselves accumulated over the course of a year and then to come to terms with letting go. The first time I walked out into a snow-covered night in December of last year, I felt, amongst the silence of a world deciding to carry the burden of noise, my stomach sink. It was this distinct weight in anticipation of the death of winter, as if the winter itself was the dying thing, rather than the world we habitually think of as drifting off each solstice. Is premature sadness relegated to the overly romantic? Or do I, in this feeling, finally reconcile with the stark bareness of the trees, the brick sides of buildings, and even the brown lawns, the disparities of my very own lung capacity between seasons as they continue turning, whether or not I am ever ready for them to? After all, the sun in December is permitted to sleep early, slumping beneath the weight of fatigue, so why amn’t I? To embrace the passage of time is not only to allow but to welcome molt; to, with pleasure, accumulate a film of gunk each time we are doused with experiences, all the while carrying the understanding that it will not remain there.
Each of my semesters on the Tufts Observer has been spent in a different position. I did not at all anticipate that I would not be granted the gift of attachment to one corner of this lovely place. I must say that if I had, I probably would have immediately freaked out about making the most of a time I understood from the start would come to a close. Permission to settle induces fear of inevitable change. Too often I think about the seasons like this, or even a trip, or even one single beautiful day in November. This is all to say that before, I did not stop to think about where my time here might lead, or even that it would end one day, or even that it might be something I would one day prepare myself to grieve in anticipation of the joy it has the potential of bringing me. It’s not ending! Don’t worry. It’s actually sort of just beginning.
To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to take on this responsibility—I almost felt that I had to go through at least one more cycle of experience and subsequent molt before I would be. That’s the other thing about molt. It’s almost aspirational. Feeling the weight of things always makes me excited for the moment when I get to shed them. But the other other thing about molt is that, despite its prosaic beauty in the sense of allowing oneself forgiveness and clinching optimism, I often forget that it’s also something we must decide to do ourselves.
So here I am—molted. My fresh layer of being is rather overjoyed by the beautiful work I have borne witness to from absolute start to finish for the very first time—can you tell? It is a joy. It will continue to be a joy! How do I speak with such presumptive nostalgia at the very start!
Here’s to fortuity, to the melting residue, to how proud I am to observe, observer that I am, this wonderful conspiracy of creation, and to put my name on it.
Yours,
Veronica Habashy Managing Editor
Letter from the creative directors
The Pen is Mightier than the Sword:
Institutional Rhetoric at Tufts
By Connor Howe
The pen is mightier than the sword. And, perhaps, so are emails. As the war in Palestine rages on, students at Tufts have been constantly inundated with statements, messages, alerts, and emails from the Office of the President, Tufts Student Life, and seemingly any administrative source that can reach student inboxes. Most recently, Tufts President Sunil Kumar provided an address urging students to “embrace diversity of viewpoints… beyond our own intellectual, political, or social understandings” and “engage in more conversation, not less.”
In response to President Kumar’s address, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) released a statement rejecting the “reductive call for dialogue and conversation in place of direct action.” With no new statements made by President Kumar since the beginning of the spring 2024 semester, an increasing number of students feel that the institution’s call for “more conversation” is just another way to avoid accountability. Understanding rhetoric allows students to question what they are being told by the university, analyze its use as a tool, and, as Fletcher Professor of Literature Lee Edelman put it, “recognize that it’s mediating between content and reception.”
What is rhetoric and how is it used?
Officially, rhetoric is defined as “the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion.” According to Edelman, rhetoric is, at its core, “[what] stands in between what we mean and what we say.” He explained that rhetoric is not inherently good or bad, but instead a tool of influence.
Edelman explained that, “[statements are] constructed to produce a consensus around commonsensical values without taking too strong a position on either side of a controversial question because they are directed at multiple audiences at the same time.” Institutional rhetoric, then, can be interpreted as being indicative of a university’s position on key social and political issues, despite the insistence on its neutrality.
Looking to the Past: Institutional Rhetoric during the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 – 1975, provides us with a unique retrospective view of how an institution delivers rhetoric regarding conflict and how that rhetoric can shift over time. According to Professor of History David Ekbladh, “there was actually a lot of support, particularly initially” for the Vietnam War among Tufts’ administration, and “a lot of people at Fletch[er] [were] even active supporters of the war.”
However, support for the Vietnam War fell, according to the Tufts archives,
around 1965, when student groups began to protest against the CIA and Dow Chemical Company’s recruitment efforts on campus.
During this time, many universities felt immense pressure from their respective student bodies to denounce the war, prompting a variety of responses from the institutions. One such response was what Ekbladh called a “neutrality statement.” In 1967, The University of Chicago released a statement justifying its lack of comment on the war by explaining that, “The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic… To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of
freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures.”
As the Vietnam War lost popularity nationally, Tufts too adopted this neutral rhetoric, despite still resisting calls to end CIA and DCC recruitment on campus. By the later stages of the conflict, President Hallowell finally declared his opposition to the war.
“Tufts has an obligation to uphold the values it claims to champion, especially when it comes to defending the freedom and dignity of oppressed peoples.”
Institutional neutrality today
A lot has changed regarding campus culture since the Vietnam War, but a central question remains the same: should universities take sides on controversial issues?
On one side of the debate, Executive Director of Media Relations Patrick Collins said in a written statement to the Tufts Observer that “[The university’s] ability to impact world events lies in producing relevant research, informed citizens, and responsible leaders. Except on rare occasions, our statement is through the work we do as a university.” Additionally, Collins suggested that Tufts community members should utilize the “numerous opportunities… to learn and engage in dialogue” on campus.
Collins’ comment aligns with what Edelman called a “liberal Democratic stance.” This stance, he explained, “is simultaneously more necessary than ever, and less persuasive than ever,” because “it no longer seems like it’s part of a binary
DESIGN BY JOEY MARMO, ART BY CHEYANNE ATOLE
alternative, standing above the conflict but… part of the conflict itself.”
The idea of a call for dialogue from those with power—such as the university— to those with less—such as the students— while perhaps benign on the surface, has historically been criticized by prominent social scholars like Paulo Freire. Freire, a Brazilian-born educator and philosopher, argues in his landmark piece, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that engaging in revolutionary dialogue with those in power is useless, for revolutionary dialogue “cannot tolerate an absurd dichotomy in which the [dialogue] of the people is merely that of following the leader’s decisions.” In effect, he argues that social change and dialogue must take place outside of the dominant social institution.
In the context of the war in Palestine, Isaac Chomsky, a sophomore at Tufts and member of SJP, explained in a written statement that, “To simply hold a ‘dialogue’ over this violence ignores the power dynamics in place. This isn’t some hypotheti-
cal scenario. Palestinians are being indiscriminately murdered every single day. It is unreasonable to claim that Palestinians should hold a conversation with the very people who are killing their families.”
Rhetoric is “a matter often of the seduction, of attempting to effect a transformation in the reader or auditor, that… will establish a greater sense of urgency or of complicity with your auditor or reader.”
Students like Chomsky feel that “education has always had a connection to social movements, and many universities have a long history of taking stances against human rights abuses. This isn’t something that should change.” For him, “Tufts has an obligation to uphold the values it claims to champion, especially when it comes to defending the freedom and dignity of oppressed peoples.” Students who share Chomsky’s belief about Tufts’ role hope that the institution will adapt its actions and rhetoric to better reflect the views of its students.
Despite its intention to generate minimal response, institutional neutrality can have the opposite effect. Harvard University experienced this after putting out an administrative statement that caused prominent donors to pull their funding from the university. The comment, which “did not address a controversial student statement and failed to directly condemn Hamas,” was inflammatory on both sides. The backlash against Harvard’s institutional neutrality shows that even impartial rhetoric is not always effective in the context of college campuses.
When discussing rhetoric, it is additionally important to reflect on how the words of an institution relate to its actions. Students aligned with SJP tend to believe that the institutional response and proposal for dialogue in place of action fails to advance either the conversation or action regarding the war in Palestine. As SJP member Roddy Atwood explained in a written statement, “in the instances where SJP has been able to correspond with administrators, they readily say they are listening, or they will consider our perspectives, even as they continue failing to take any action at all.”
In 2017, Tufts Community Union Senate passed a resolution calling for the university to divest from Elbit Systems, G4S, Northrop, Grumman, and HewlettPackard Enterprise for their ties to Israeli military and prison technology. At the time, the Office of the President announced that administrators would not support the resolution, which is an attitude that continues to be true today. Tufts’
refusal to divest from Israel perhaps mirrors President Halloway’s refusal to stop military recruiting during the Vietnam War, both benefiting financially from the war overseas while remaining rhetorically neutral in public statements. This gap between words and actions is consistently a point of contention between activists and the Tufts administration. As Atwood put it, Tufts “continue[s] to profit off of military terror and apartheid.”
Beyond neutrality:
Despite Tufts’ public display of neutrality, some individual student experiences with the administration have been far from neutral. “Official communications have disregarded, and at times even vilified, the concerns of pro-Palestinian students,” explained Chomsky. For evidence of this, one can look to Tufts’ official “Israel-Hamas war” website and their response to SJP protests. As Chomksy explained, “In its FAQ section on campus demonstrations, all mention of protests that call attention to Palestinian suffering is characterized as distressing, or ‘disruptive and intimidating.’” For many, this description allows Tufts to condemn the actions of those protesting for Palestinian liberation without losing its shield of neutrality. As Chomksy put it, “It doesn’t take an English major to understand how these words reflect admin’s hostility towards pro-Palestinian students.”
In addition to its hostile depiction of pro-Palestinian protests, the university’s direct interactions with some student protesters employ more explicit forms of aggression. “Even in the moments where administrators have reached out to me for what they claim is a dialogue, these instances have also often devolved into what I recognized as threats,” explained Chomsky. “In a correspondence over SJP’s campus center demonstration, I was told that ‘you can expect a different response this week than you have experienced with the last sit-in and some of your previous events.’” When asked by the Observer about this specific incident, Collins did not provide a comment. The very fact that
students feel threatened by institutional rhetoric suggests the power that the university has over campus climate; it creates an environment where students may feel disempowered and even distrustful of the university itself.
As Tufts continues to call for dialogue and understanding, claiming a place of neutrality amidst increasing tensions on campus, many students are feeling less heard and more removed from the conversation. In the face of this, students might look past the words, beyond the grammar and structure, and try to unravel what Tufts means amongst all that it says.
As Edelman reminded us, rhetoric is “a matter often of the seduction, of attempting to effect a transformation in the reader or auditor, that… will establish a greater sense of urgency or of complicity with your auditor or reader.” If nothing else, the current rhetoric of our institution creates discourse among students and activists and has done so many times before. As Tufts continues to call for dialogue and understanding, claiming a place of neutrality amidst increasing tensions on campus, many students are feeling less heard and more removed from the conversation. In the face of this, students might look past the words, beyond the grammar and structure, and try to unravel what Tufts means amongst all that it says.
By Roddy Atwood
Paying rent is one of the primary financial burdens on working people. It’s no surprise that there has been a 3.4% decrease in homeownership among young adults, as there has been a 29 percent increase in rent prices since the pandemic. This climb has been especially hard on low-income Americans, for whom the portion of income required to pay rent has increased the most since 2019. These increases are, of course, due to many factors, but advances in Artificial Intelligence could be one of the unsuspected culprits. New AI tools could be emboldening landlords to raise rents as well as inadvertently entrenching bias in the tenant screening process.
Recent attention on AI technology has mostly centered on large generative models like ChatGPT, sparking debate about the future of creative labor and intellectual property. But, outlets rarely discuss business-facing AI tools like those used by real estate conglomerates, which are already quietly shifting the dynamic between renters and landlords.
Property management software has actually been commonplace since the 1980s, when the rise of personal computers allowed real estate companies to sort through listings and tenants more efficiently. At this time, the advent of the internet brought online portals that let tenants and landlords easily manage rent payments and unit maintenance. But now, the potential of AI has spurred a boom in the industry. According to Technovia, the property management software market is projected to grow by 49 billion USD between 2022 and 2027. AI is attractive to real estate companies with uses from investment advising and rent pricing to tenant screening.
There is now a plethora of machine learning algorithms that can evaluate properties and recommend the most profitable portfolios for real estate trusts and investors. Large investors and trusts are always looking to purchase homes as investments, which are increasingly being controlled by AI investing algorithms. According to Shomon Shamsuddin, Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts, institutional investing has grown a lot, especially for singlefamily homes, but AI won’t change these investing behaviors much. “It’s not a function of AI, it’s a function of having a lot of capital,” Shamsuddin said. But beyond just investing, landlords are using AI to set rent prices.
The industry standard for AI rent pricing is known as AI Revenue Management by the real estate software company RealPage. Large landlords and property managers pay large sums for the tool to generate optimal rent prices within their private portal. The program has access to data from other properties that use RealPage software and uses this database of millions of listings to optimize rent prices. On their website, RealPage boasts that landlords who use AI Revenue Management are able to “outperform the market” by up to five percent.
Your New Robot Landlord: How AI Systems are Taking Over Real Estate
While these tools allow property managers to extract more from their tenants, some say AI models effectively create illegal monopolies. In October 2022, a group of renters filed a lawsuit against RealPage, positing that when competing landlords in an area use the same system to set rents, they are essentially colluding to set prices. The lawsuit is ongoing.
On their website, RealPage dismisses these concerns, stating that AI
Revenue Management “does not in any way control or influence market conditions.” However, statements by executives seem to rebut this claim. Speaking on RealPage’s software’s role in rent increases at an industry conference in 2020, RealPage executive Andrew Bowen said, “I think it’s driving it, quite honestly… As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually.”
AI is effective at finding the most profitable rent listing price, but it’s only perfecting the same process landlords have always used. When it comes to rent pricing, Shamsuddin said that AI tools are “a difference in degree as opposed to a difference of kind.” He stated landlords have always compared pricing to charge the most profitable price, but that AI will “take it a step further.” And, as Bowen’s statements indicate, that next step could come at renters’ expense.
As of now, RealPage’s AI Revenue Management and similar systems are limited to multifamily housing managers with more than 300 units. But as AI technology becomes more and more accessible, these types of programs could be approaching single and two-family units like those in the Medford/Somerville area. “It makes me nervous,” said Valeria Ramirez, a Tufts student who lives in a rental house off campus. “If AI is what’s deciding prices, it’s gonna be a lot harder to negotiate with your landlord.”
If AI is causing rent increases, it creates an issue of accountability. Big data AI systems like RealPage’s AI Revenue Management often operate as “black box models.” This means users and sometimes even developers are able to determine what factors produce a given result.
Landlord:
When these results are causing financial stress on renting families, there is only an opaque, indifferent computer system to blame.
When landlords are able to hand off the responsibility for their prices to an amoral artificial intelligence, they may be more likely to ignore their more humane judgment in favor of the supposed perfect market price. One RealStar software developer said landlords have “too much empathy” compared with price-setting algorithms, as quoted by ProPublica.
Black boxes pose all sorts of ethical problems for an AI-integrated world, but according to Tufts Computer Science Professor Marty Allen, they can also be a justification for lazy or unethical development. “There are cases where people use the black box nature of something as an escape hatch or an excuse,” Allen commented. He emphasized that careful testing is required throughout the development process to ensure that AI models function ethically. “Even if the model is a black box,” said Allen, “that doesn’t absolve anyone of misuse of the model.”
However, the work of making fair models is arduous, and RealPage developers are ultimately paid to create profitable software, not equitable software.
Unjust AI software could be even more alarming when it comes to tenant screening. RealPage now offers AI software to analyze a tenant’s renting history and financial information to assess their likelihood of rent delinquency. This, of course, creates the potential for discriminatory software.
Creating equitable software is notoriously difficult. One famous example is predictive policing software, which are programs that determine the risk of crime in certain areas in order to advise police. These algorithms consistently target majority Black neighborhoods despite great efforts to eliminate bias. So, even if RealPage committed to progressive AI development, the risk of bias would remain.
Still, problematic tenant screening is not a new problem. As Shamsuddin said, “tenant screening pre-AI also had plenty of biases and discrimination.”
Policymakers will have to innovate ways to enforce housing equity due to imperfect, biased landlords giving way to imperfect, biased AI systems.
Diverse development teams could be a first step to reducing unjust AI biases. Allen said, “People who are good at building software are not always experts on American economic demographics… they don’t always know what to look for.” He said that “expertise of different sorts” is essential if software developers hope to make their systems equitable.
In an era where housing affordability and equity are paramount concerns, the integration of AI technology into property management is disconcerting. AI advances show no signs of slowing down, so prioritizing equity as AI tools change the housing market is an important challenge. As technology changes housing realities, policymakers will have to remain vigilant in order to find solutions that promote fairness, transparency, and housing equity for all.
DESIGN BY RUBY OFFER, ART BY RUBY LUBAND
GIVE US A BREAK: Exploring International Students’
Challenges During University Holidays
an international first-year from Taiwan. “I couldn’t apply to stay in a dorm. I had to find a place to live for a month to move in and move out… it wasn’t cheap but it still was a lot cheaper than flying back home.”
This experience is a common problem for international students on the cusp of financial stability who don’t qualify for Tufts’ competitive financial aid requirements.
Even for Tufts students who are able to obtain housing over breaks, the experience isn’t always a pleasant one compared to that of their peers who can return home. Especially for those who rely on Tufts’ housing and food stipend, staying on a closed campus for the winter holidays can
“During the [winter] break it feels like there’s no one on campus,” said Nyankpani Kesson Abdul-Quddus, an international first-year student from Ghana. “I remember just being in my room all day. I walked downstairs and then none of the lights [were]coming on because no one [was] downstairs. There [was] no one to talk to… I didn’t see anyone for a long time,
Besides that, you have to spend your own money.” He concluded by saying that “it limits your ability to get into Boston that much and really find something fun to do.”
For Tufts’ international community, schooling in the US isn’t just a financial challenge, but a legal one as well. Students need to apply for visas in order to legally enter the country and study here.
“I haven’t gone home yet,” Liu said. “I’m a bit anxious about going back. I’m not 100 percent sure of what I need to do for my visa yet. I’m also not sure what I need to do for my tax filings. I’m a bit anx ious about if I’m doing it right or if I’m doing it at all.”
renew their visa in time to finish their education. “People do make the choice to stay for all four years and not see their family,” said Smagulova.
These anxieties aren’t just isolated to the Tufts community either. Across the US, there has been a growing surge of F-1
dles it really well and really quickly.” These sentiments were shared by Lucas Chua, a sophomore from Hong Kong who reported that “it was really nice actually.”
However, other students hope to see more from the International Center.
Moreover, not all visas are created equal. As Yerkezhan Smagulova, an inter national first-year student from Kazakhstan, ex plained, “I feel really priv leged com pared to my peers who come from countries around mine because there are certain visa issues. [Some] only get a one-year visa, so for them, leaving the country is a big ger deal than for me who has a four-year visa.” She expanded on how “you can get it renewed every year, say it expires, you don’t have to leave the US,” as the visa is only an entry docu ment that does not restrict recipients from overstaying. However, getting back into the US with the proper documentation after a student visa has already expired is hard “and you can’t unless you renew your visa, which is a long process.”
As a result, international students on one-year visas often must decide between staying in the US for all four years or returning home and risking not being able to
of student visa. In 2022, of 631,807 applications for F-1 visas, 220,676 were refused. This surge was a result of tightening immigration policies initiated under President Donald Trump and upheld by President Joe Biden.
Responses to the support Tufts has provided for international students navigating the visa process have been mixed. The International Center is the primary
For example, both Smagulova and Liu expressed hopes of receiving more oneon-one and small-group support. During first-year student orientation, “they gave us a mandatory session, it was like 200 or 300 international students if I remember correctly,” Liu said. “I just don’t think that’s as helpful as going more detailed, like maybe having five or six students or even one-on-ones.” Smagulova also mentioned how “it would be nice if we had advisors from the International Center [or] if we could be split up into cohorts and we could talk to our mentor or maybe an older international student.”
Year after year, Tufts boasts about their increasingly diverse incoming student bodies. However, international students have noticed strains in the current system’s attempts to respond to their progressively complex needs, weakening the foundations of the institution’s global-minded mission.
DESIGN BY RACHEL LI, ART BY JAYLIN CHO
IN LIEU OF
By Emma Selesnick
Some of my fondest memories from when I was younger are grounded in the early morning dentist appointments my mom would take me to. Waking up, the house was still dark and quiet, and cool air crept in through the back window. I would stand, tippy-toed, on the black tile and watch my reflection in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. Over the years, I watched as the bouncy-haired, bright-eyed girl looking back at me morphed into a frumpy teen. There were things that stayed the same too: the rumbling of the coffee pot from down in the kitchen, the sojourn at the corner gas station, the 15-minute drive to the office. Some days we’d stay quiet as Mom let me flick through the radio stations, some days we chatted about crushes, and some days we’d talk about my dreams. It was nice to have such an easy routine. Until this past December, it had been a while since we’d driven those 15 minutes down the road together.
Quickly pricking me with the needle of the IV, the surgeon didn’t tell me to count backward from 10 like I imagined he would. In fact, I can’t remember the last thing said to me before my head clunked heavily back against the seat. 40 minutes later, a hygienist was leading me across the hall, pinching my arm as we walked to steady my groggy self. Sweat gathered under my new blue shirt—the same blue as her scrubs. She sat me down in a small, red-walled room, in a blue armchair covered in the sanitary vinyl you see in every waiting room or nail salon that squeaks under your legs as you try to find a comfortable seat. My dad came in, giggling as he watched me fuddle with the chair, as if I was learning how to sit again. All I have from the procedure and those moments
after are pieces of foggy memories I’ve stitched together, supplemented with what my parents told me over the next couple of days.
“I have a secret.” I held my hands cupped against my mouth as I whispered, “I’m queer.”
It’s hazy, but I remember my parents’ smiley nods as I went on, telling them about my unrequited crush from school. I then, obviously, proceeded to proclaim to the entire office that “EVERYONE AT TUFTS IS GAY!”
My parents laughed and quieted me down. Everything seemed very casual. Not a “big deal,” which is good, because that’s not what I ever wanted my coming out to be. It was embarrassing though. I don’t know if I was conscious enough to feel that way in the moment, but in hindsight, the whole incident definitely was. I think I was reluctant to forfeit the stubborn rapport I’d established with my parents in recent years as a defense from their needless questions and involvement. It makes me happy knowing that I probably felt more free at the time, speaking so crudely. With one fewer pestering thought in the back of my head, my anxieties granted me a spare moment of vulnerability with my family—reminiscent of those from when I was young I never planned on coming out to my parents. I always figured they would just understand. But when I was home for Thanksgiving, I found myself having to hold my breath or catch my tongue before slipping up and saying something that sounded “too gay,” like delineating the reclamation of “cunty” in queer culture. Despite my family being, as I often joke, a very queer-presenting one, an uncomfortable rift was suddenly between us, with an
unconquerable disconnect spanning it. With 99 percent of the people in my life at Tufts being queer, my university bubble is inevitably permeated by the respective culture. Still, I had never realized how much queerness had defined my experience and identity at school until I was back home in New York.
I feared telling my parents because I would be left vulnerable to that impending sense of doom that comes with getting older and with change. I don’t want my parents to see me as a little kid, but I also don’t want to be a different person than the one they’ve always known and loved. This piece of myself, though always there, felt like yet another new variable capable of pushing me further from them.
With every effort to acknowledge that we are all a part of the same whole, I am also always looking for a way to discern myself from my family. I want to be myself and I want to be one of them. I’m slowly learning, however, that becoming an adult is just allowing for the collective embrace of our individual differences. Together, we chip at those little characteristics that make us who we are uniquely meant to be, refining them until we find where they fit.
It’s a lot like losing your wisdom teeth. We all go through it. Painfully. Clumsily. We give up old parts of ourselves to make room for what is to come, to accommodate the new people we collect as we move through life and the new bits of identity we uncover.
In many ways, I think I’ve grown to be a lot closer to the little girl I used to be, the one I used to look at in the mirror before those early appointments. With a mess of coils on her head, she dressed herself in pink tutus and stripey tights and twirled
WISDOM TEETH
in circles across the soccer field. I’d like to think I carry that same spirit with me as I walk around campus now. Maybe my coming out was just another layer being shed, only to reveal that little girl. Shameless and free.
It’s a lot like losing your wisdom teeth. We all go through it. Painfully. Clumsily. We give up old parts of ourselves to make room for what is to come, to accommodate the new people we collect as we move through life and the new bits of identity we uncover.
Nothing much has changed since telling my parents. My mom sat down with me shortly after to remind me of the belonging that will always be waiting for me when I step through our front door. She continues to make the occasional questionable comment—promising to pay for my “gay wedding”—and I remain baffled by her sincerity. If nothing else, her loving resolution affirms that I will always be that little girl to her.
As I’ve shared this story, friends have asked if I knew I was going to come out when I got my wisdom teeth removed, and I truthfully have no response. Usually, I am someone who believes that everything happens for a reason. In this case, I don’t know how much of a role my conscious self played as opposed to fate. I think it was a conversation bound to be had between me and my parents. And since I never imagined how it would happen, perhaps it was always destined to unfold under the veil of anesthetic.
Zionist Philosemitism Has Got to Go
By Anonymous
Trigger warning: Mentions of white supremacy, anti-Arab racism, and antisemitism
On September 20, 2023, US President Joe Biden stated that “without Israel, there’s not a Jew in the world who’s secure.” The statement professes a deep cynicism about American antisemitism that is the culmination of the ideology of Zionist philosemitism. Zionist philosemitism is when Western countries justify their support for Israel by claiming it is necessary to protect Jews while sustaining the same colonial systems that cause antisemitism. Zionist philosemitism, which prompts American gentiles to wear the Magen David in solidarity with Israel, assuages the guilt of Western powers over their colonial pasts while supporting the ongoing colonization of Palestine. This philosemitism is in reality a form of white supremacy that harms Palestinians and does nothing to stop actual antisemitism.
Equating Jews and the state of Israel is a major aim of Zionist philosemitism. Not only does dismissing anti-Zionists as antisemites protect Israel, but equating Jews and Zionism allows Western powers to achieve absolution for past antisemitic crimes by supporting Israel. Before World War II, state-sponsored antisemitism was the norm in many countries—for example, the US turned away refugee ships full of Jews fleeing the Holocaust, claiming Jewish immigrants threatened national security. Antisemitism still runs rampant in the United States, from right-wing figures spreading the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory and Neo-Nazis groups marching through major American cities. However, as the primary supporter of Israel, the United States government is allowed to stand against antisemitism while actually enabling it.
Using this logic of Zionist philosemitism, because Biden supports Israel, he cannot be antisemitic. Biden’s fatalistic remarks imply that since antisemitism outside of
Israel is apparently a constant, Jews are responsible for their persecution. Biden’s remarks also reproduce the dual loyalty myth: the idea that all Jews are connected to the state of Israel. But because Jewish loyalty, in the eyes of Zionists, is linked to the state of Israel, Biden’s unconditional support for the genocidal Zionist regime disqualifies him from any antisemitism.
Philosemitic Zionism’s attempt to absolve Western powers from guilt for past atrocities became crystal clear when Benjamin Netanyhau, the current Prime Minister of Israel, dabbled in Holocaust denial. Netanyahu claimed that Hitler only wanted to expel Jews and that Palestinians convinced him to murder Jews, an ahistorical claim that primarily functions to incite anti-Palestinian racism. However, it also shifts the blame for the Holocaust away from Europe and obscures non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
Despite being associated with Judaism, Christian evangelism is another cornerstone of philosemitic Zionism. Many Christians support Israel because they believe Christ will only return when all Jews have returned to Palestine, at which point Jews living in Israel will be massacred. This mania—which, unlike “from the river to the sea”, is actually a call for genocide—has crept into the mainstream Zionist movements. Christians United for Israel is the largest pro-Israel lobby group, and one of the speakers at the November 14, 2023 March for Israel John Hagee. Hagee is a raging antisemitic Christian Zionist who believes that Adolf Hitler was a Jew sent by God to punish other Jews for disobedience.
Germany’s state-sponsored philosemitic Zionism has managed to top that exhibited in the US, as Jewish anti-Zionists are attacked by “antisemitism commissioners” working for the German government, few of whom are Jewish. The belief
that the country that committed the Holocaust knows more about antisemitism than the descendants of its victims is the culmination of philosemitic Zionism. But because Germany supports Israel, it cannot be antisemitic, Zionist philosemitism posits—even as Germany speaks over actual Jews and the fascist Alternative for Deutschland has become the second largest party in Germany.
These are only a few examples of how Zionist philosemitism is, in reality, openly antisemitic. Richard Spencer, a leading American Neo-Nazi, supports Israel and calls himself a “white Zionist.” Though the attitudes of the American far-right towards Israel are divided, Spencer’s support for Israel is not entirely unique. While many fascists support Israel because they want a genocidal ethnostate in their own countries, Zionism is also convenient for antisemites because it encourages Jews to leave Western countries to settle in Palestine. In fact, Arthur Balfour, who made British support for Zionism explicit in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, was a well-known antisemite who wanted Jews to leave Britain for Israel.
The weaponization of the Holocaust is another cornerstone of philosemitic Zionism. As a Jew whose family history is marred with antisemitism, I am acutely aware of the devastating impact the Holocaust had and continues to have through generational trauma. Nevertheless, philosemitic Zionists seek to portray the Holocaust as a unique historical event, unparalleled in history, and a crime committed solely against Jewish people.
There are several issues with this framing. First, we cannot divorce the Holocaust from the history of colonialism. Germany’s practices during the Holocaust were informed by Germany’s genocide of indigenous Herero and Nama people in
Namibia. Secondly, portraying the Holocaust as somehow worse than any other genocide provides some sort of moral superiority to Western powers. Yes, the Unites States was founded on a genocide so massive it cooled Earth’s climate.Yes, Western powers are currently supporting a genocide in Palestine. But because the Holocaust is viewed as being on a higher plane than other genocides, according to Zionist philosemitism, the same Western powers can maintain moral security knowing that they either opposed the Holocaust or have apologized for it since. Besides, they have redeemed any complicity in the Holocaust by supporting Israel. To be clear, I am not trying to compare one genocide to another. But just as it is impossible to morally compare genocides to each other, it is also impossible to put one on a plane above the others.
Zionist philosemitism also obscures non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust because recognizing non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust forces Western nations to grapple with the current oppression they inflict. Roma people, who were persecuted just as fiercely by the Nazis as Jews were, are still overtly discriminated against in many European nations. Recognizing the ongoing persecution of Roma people is inconvenient for a European establishment that has little incentive to do so. Additionally, linking queerphobia and antisemitism in pre-war Germany portrays modern-day queerphobia in a light uncomfortable for many Americans. The overlap between queerphobia and antisemitism began in Nazi Germany, where homosexuality was viewed as a Jewish plot to subvert young boys. Just as Jews were considered a foreign enemy subverting Nazi Germany, because the Nazis linked masculinity and the state, gay people were seen as similarly threatening. Nowadays, many of the tropes leveled against Jews are also leveled at queer people—that they’re grooming children, they violate traditional Christian values, and, in the case of gay men, they’re overly effeminate (in the early 20th century, Jewish men were emasculated in antisemitic media and were even accused of menstruating).
Germany, the citadel of philosemitic Zionism, has reused antisemitic tropes against Palestinians. A recent parade in Cologne represented the concept of antisemitism with a float consisting of a hook-nosed
woman wearing a keffiyeh, with “hatred” and “violence” being portrayed as dogs wearing collars adorned with the Palestinian flag. The reuse of antisemitic tropes to attack Palestinians demonstrates how philosemitic Zionism is primarily a form of white supremacism, a system in which Palestinians are primarily victimized.
Part of the antidote for Zionist philosemitism can be found in the concept of “Doikayt.” Developed by the Jewish Labor Bund in the early 20th century and Yiddish for “hereness,” Doikayt means staying and fighting antisemitism at home rather than immigrating to Palestine. Doikayt refuses to allow Western powers to cheaply absolve themselves from the responsibility of fighting antisemitism by supporting Israel. Doikayt recognizes that Jews are a diasporic community and that building a Jewish ethnostate in the Holy Land helps nothing except white supremacy. Doikayt understands that antisemitism is not a societal concept, but rather a system of oppression that can be demolished.
The idea of collective liberation is also crucial to opposing Zionist philosemitism. Western powers seek to use Jews as expendable foot soldiers in the colonization of Palestine. Allying with other marginalized groups to fight colonialism is both the only ethical option for Jews and the only way to ensure our long-term safety. While Jews shouldn’t need any reason to oppose Zionism other than a revulsion to
colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, the fact that antisemitic tropes are recycled by Zionists to oppress Palestinians highlights the need for intergroup solidarity.
Collective liberation also means centering Palestinian voices and understanding that Palestinians are the primary victims of Zionism. While philosemitic Zionism is deeply antisemitic, it is Palestinians, not Israelis or American Jews, who are currently experiencing genocide. It is particularly important for Jews to speak up against the genocide in Palestine because the genocide is being committed in our name. However, Jews do not have any special wisdom on Palestine by virtue of being Jewish. Additionally, we should recognize that Palestinians, not anyone else, are the primary protagonists in the struggle against Zionism. Still, ending the occupation of Palestine will hopefully strike a blow to Western colonialism that will eventually lead to the liberation of all people, not just Palestinians.
By Emily Pham
Closer to the Other Side
Ekphrasis: a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art
Canadian artist Matthew Wong died by suicide on October 2, 2019, at age 35. The painting See You on the Other Side was one of his last, following his brief, albeit prolific, career in the visual arts.
I first came upon this painting in Wong’s retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts. Pieces from his collection Blue were on display—all done in his signature style of pointillistic, incessant mark-making. While the whole room was swallowed in colorful intensity, See You on the Other Side resided quietly in the corner. I came upon it last in my second hour-long tour of the gallery. Technically, the painting consisted of the usual motifs in Wong’s paintings: a lonely figure, abstracted landscape, and a starry sky, with the addition of a bird-like figure and house in the distance. And yet, coming across the lonely figure sat with their back to me, I felt like I was looking at myself peering across this great expanse toward home. Like that moment when I first saw myself in a mirror, I was transfixed and frozen in time, walking back and forth, going up and down the image, grasping at trying to remember my own semblance.
Perched on an edge folding into itself, me and you, we’re alone and yet, no amount of vastness can collapse this distance between you and I. It is dawn, hues of fluorescent foliage fleeing the sky, but next to it, the day has also dawned into evening; beaded freckles and stardust carving out the deep blue darkness. I am back home, where I first grew up, when I first learned my ABCs, and when I first witnessed the universe from above take flight and my spirit along with it—we were always troubled children.
I’d like to think of Wong’s relationship to color as akin to that of the changing seasons. If Blue were the dreamlike remnants from a winter slumber, See You on the Other Side is that liminal space delivering us from
hibernation to
spring.
At the edge of eternity and impermanence, the soil turns gray in the summertime, its nutrients and minerals condensing into cavernous reserves that will later be used to water itself. The ground beneath me has long entered a deep slumber, its porous cracks humming a gnarly grumble as it exhales phosphorus yellow through its openings. The earth is preparing itself for the calamity of spring. It will be soon before spring comes to reap what it has sowed, what it is owed.
The seasons work a bit differently here, as opposed to there. Cyclically, autumn is still followed by winter, spring by summer; what comes around, though, is abundance and loss in great tenfold. Not too far behind that are the vestiges of winter, its phosphorescence trailing off into the autumn moon. The autumnal evening makes its presence known in small rivulets, pulsing and fragmenting the sky. Summertime sprinkles it in fine beads of stardust. These are the markers of time. Here, how we tell time is in the simmering heat from combusting stars and the pungent odor of sour decay.
See You On the Other Side called out to me before I was fully aware of the circumstances of Wong’s life and death. The great, vast expanse of white was both grounding and alienating in the same way I could never articulate the distance between home and belonging. Coming into adolescence far and away from home in Vietnam, there was always a troubling, melancholic chasm between selfhood and the family. I was not home where family was, nor is family home where I was, in the States. Belonging only became a thing in recent memory, when my siblings and I had to learn how to love from scratch. To think all that anchors your gravity and being is as formless and absent as white tint, practically begging for substance and color, Wong managed to depict where I’d been living, feeling, and belonging in one framed space. I later learned, to my
surprise, this same blank space was actually the unpainted canvas beneath the painting peeking through.
Not too far in the distance, winter has gotten ahold of one of the trees, its petals flowering and teething meekly like fresh caught clam shells when first opened—their soft, mushy insides frantic, frightened, and bent out of shape as if they’d been exposed out in the open. This is the treachery of life, it ensnares you into its grips and forces you awake until you’re convulsed, repulsed beyond measure, and flailing tepidly with the wind.
My fixation with tortured sea creatures extends to the seafood industry—why uproot and displace people and things from places they were never ready to leave? I remember feeling sorry for crabs at the local market my mom would take me to. Their jagged claws twisted and bent in all sorts of unnatural directions, the grooves of their shells splintered from mishandling, their sheepish legs trembling and groveling on what little ice left behind after a hectic day. All of this, and they’re still painstakingly imbued with the ability to breathe in a cemetery of their own non-breathing peers. Why be smothered in this suffocating abundance of air, matter, and energy when it’s all that you’re inert to? This happened to you, too. We both fell victim to it.
Wong would paint solo figures in his landscapes in full rapture and veracious color, always chasing after the condition of duende: a “state of tragedy-inspired ecstasy” tinted by death and morbidity. Through its sculptural mounds and organic forms, See You on the Other Side expressed a tacit solitude in passively observing one’s own life. Its proximity to Wong’s death punctuates and ruptures its existence in such a way that I couldn’t help but acknowledge that it had embodied the spirit of duende as an extension of Wong’s mortality. My experience of it, too, was punctuated upon becoming privy to this context. The painting no longer just expressed my relationship to
home and selfhood, but also my relationship to Matthew Wong, the artist, and my loss annexed to his loss. It’s a vexed kind of one-sided intimacy. These pages exist so I could imagine myself speaking through him and to him…
Over there, you’re at home. Home is a rudimentary place, where my English collapses. So speaking to you, I modulate my syllables to another register, disassemble my consonants and vowels and exchange them for spoken word, in hopes that they’ll reach out to you:
You see, me.
Over there and under where. I’m siloed out from painting. Mountain tops and hills transcend placing and time in concealing us. You’re sequestered away in this house or home, neither here nor there everywhere all at once staring. Back at me through your window veneer, do you, see the strokes I laid out for you? Curvatures informing valleys conferring time and space and continuum oh so vast. So wonderfully color me terror. Blues in confusion. I. Made this just for.
You not me.
On the other side of this painting are not things capable of being seen. I wished and wept you could but. My palette ends here, the wind carries it with you. Do my utterances mind you? We look back at each other while you stare at my back I left this blank space, here. For you.
Loss is incoherent, disorienting, and I saw myself lost in it the first time I saw this painting, the second time upon learning of Wong’s death, and the third time in his ghostly afterimage, trailing in these words. Is it possible to grieve within yourself a death long overdue before coming up against somebody else’s? My grief superimposed onto Wong’s, I’ve been searching this whole time to locate a blank space through which I could articulate myself. Perhaps a
signal of my own hollowness, I’ve always felt more comfortable slipping under the pretenses of somebody else’s voice to claim my imitation of them as my own. I’m no artist, no writer, just a spiritual, habitual impersonator. And now I’m in search of ways to frame this void in my own psychic scenery. I’d sought to concoct all sorts of alchemized English, disruptive syntax placements, and configurations exposing the idiosyncrasies of what it’s like to learn to belong in another language; all in the hopes of making it clear that it was me speaking to you and not Wong.
I’m re-articulating loss in non-linear terms to at least feel that I’m closer to him than I would be if I were to describe this painting at face value. And though they refuse to speak for all that Matthew Wong was, is, and represents, I feel more assured knowing that these pages at least tried to speak from a place nearby.
I’d like to lift my petals. Up. And take lightness with flight. Stork has come. Blood red, orange bright here for me. Here for spring up and beyond away from darkness to light. To life. To nights. I spend uttering, murmurs, in my own well of traces. Appearances. And shadows. Frost bitten inside out, places thawed and melting and salivating in this torrid heat. Seasonally, I color the what, has been to could have been. Here. I am. Ready again to float into these trailing, silences.
Perched on an edge, folding into itself. Me and you we are falling into this blank space.
See you on the other side.
DESIGN BY KAYA GORSLINE ART BY CHEYANNE ATOLE
By Jillie McLeod
Let’s Romanticize: The Ideal Language Experience
It is no secret that Tufts has one of the most rigorous language requirements compared to its peer institutions. The majority of the 11 NESCAC schools do not even include a language requirement in their core curriculum, and the ones that do require at most three semesters (or equivalent) of foreign language study. However, the rigorous nature of Tufts’ requirement is a testament to the institution’s and students’ commitment to global education.
As Spanish Language Program Coordinator Juan M. Escalona Torres said in a written statement to the Tufts Observer, this requirement of “learning a language is about making oneself vulnerable, accepting errors and learning from them, challenging our own limits,” which is the ultimate goal of language learning.
Students enrolled in the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts must complete three foreign language courses along with three advanced courses in the same language, the study of an additional language, or the study of a culture. Despite grumblings around campus about the requirement, many students continue to pursue language into the upper-level courses, even when they could stop and take a culture class or two in English instead.
Interest in continued language study is largely due to efforts from the language departments, particularly the Romance Studies Department, to emphasize the importance of developing language proficiency and cultural literacy of the places students study. Tufts welcomes this depar-
ture from traditional language learning to a cultural-political lens.
“In college, we get to focus a lot more on the nitty-gritty political things or culture things. We get to study a bunch of different Spanish-speaking countries, which has been nice as opposed to in high school,” said Emily Bartolone, a first-year student continuing her Spanish pursuits from high school.
As students move up through level 4 and on to level 21 of their given language, a shift in content occurs from textbook work toward a deeper focus on culture. As Bartolone pointed out, many students who have had language experience in high school find a very different curriculum and focus once they get into the classroom at Tufts—one that is much more tailored to the interests of the globally-minded students of our community.
The Romance Studies Department is cognizant of this appeal and tries to plan their curriculum accordingly. AnneChristine Rice, the French Language Program Coordinator, explained the French curriculum progression in a written statement to the Tufts Observer, “French 1 and French 2 focus on everyday life. The goal is to function on a daily basis in a francophone country. French 3 and French 4 introduce more complex topics based on short readings and films.” The French 1 to 4 progression is meant to be an expansive overview and introduction to the French language before students go on to exercise their newly learned skills in meaningful
ways. Moving into the upper-level courses, Rice said “French 21 is a course where you use your language skills to discuss cultural topics. We also keep in mind that by the end of French 22, students need to be at a level where they will succeed in a Frenchspeaking university.”
Tufts Global Education offers many opportunities for students to study elsewhere during their undergraduate experience. 40 percent of students take advantage of these programs in either semesterlength or full-year studies and those who choose programs where a foreign language is spoken must complete the six class (1 to 22) sequence or equivalent before going.
Escalona Torres confirmed that the Spanish course progression setup is similar. He explained that the shift from Spanish 4 to Spanish 21 “is a shift in gears from focusing on building the language system to developing more complex interpersonal skills in the language in an academic context.”
Both coordinators emphasized the importance of taking the language learned in the 1 to 4 level progression and applying it to cultural, historical, literary, and conversational contexts as students gain confidence and familiarity with their chosen language in the 21 and 22 levels.
Sometimes, though, students struggle with engaging in the cultural aspects of the courses that interest them because they lack the language foundation required.
Rachel Taylor, a junior, started at French 1 in her first year at Tufts, and has since continued her pursuit of the lan-
guage. Now, in her French 21 class this semester, Taylor is being challenged by the cultural topics her professor is teaching.
“It’s a lot. We’re talking about an abortion law and I don’t really know any words involving laws and that kind of stuff because those wouldn’t have come up [before].”
However, the cultural aspects of learning French also inspire her to continue her studies: after visiting France over the summer, she described how “being immersed in the culture made me really want to speak [French] properly. I can read and write fairly well but my speaking skills are severely lacking.”
The transition to discussing more complex cultural topics is often easier for students who have pursued a language in high school before coming to Tufts due to many more years of exposure to their chosen language, whether through grammar, cultural studies, or other opportunities to converse. It is inevitable, as Tufts students come from many backgrounds, that some might struggle with this transition. Even for students who struggle, Rice affirmed that “all our language courses teach new material while solidifying the foundation. That way, every student is given the chance to fill in their gaps while developing new skills.”
These gaps become more apparent as students move through the language progression.
Junior and former Spanish TA Nicolas Cordova described in a written statement, “When I was a TA for Spanish 4, many of the students seemed to perform the same
and all felt comfortable with the material and level of the language they were being exposed to.” By the 21 level, the gap between those who had high school experience and those more recently pursuing language was exposed for the first time. “For Spanish 21, performances varied greatly because I had students that would carry the recitation conversation for the entirety of class time while other students wouldn’t participate and seem to struggle,” said Cordova.
Even in the intro-level courses, students are entering the classroom with a wide range of abilities. Taylor felt that “starting at [French 1] was an easy transition for me because I’ve done it in high school. So, relearning the grammar was fine. I know some people that were very unhappy because of how quick it went because they hadn’t spoken [French] at all.”
Having the opportunity to speak casually in a different language is valuable for vocabulary growth and confidence building, as well as just making language learning more fun. For students without the opportunity to practice casually, language acquisition can take longer. Something that Taylor wishes she had was a person to speak conversationally with. “So long as I keep speaking it, I think my language progresses, but there’s really no other situation [besides class] where I’m speaking. If I had friends who spoke French in a different situation it would be different.”
In attempts to facilitate students’ engagement with language and culture, the
language department advertises extracurricular events outside of the classroom such as film showings, game nights, and conversation tables throughout the year. These events allow language learners and native speakers alike to come together, connect, and interact with the language in a more casual way outside of the classroom.
Both the Spanish Department and the French Department have been working on addressing student concerns. Escalona Torres said he would be “working alongside other course administrators to restructure the curriculum with the goal of establishing a new set of course objectives, reimagining how we do assessments, and strengthening the cohesion between levels.” Rice was also pleased to report that the French epartment would soon unveil exciting changes.
Escalona Torres is working to bring a hands-on teaching philosophy into the classroom as well. He aims to “compel students to use the language in meaningful ways so that they can make form-meaning connections and commit the language system to their long term memories.”
While change is on the horizon, it is clear that students and faculty have similar goals for the romance department in mind. Cultural studies are the pillar of a comprehensive curriculum. In a written statement to the Tufts Observer, Romance Studies Department Chair Nina Gerassi-Navarro explained that “It is not just about being able to get from point A to Z or order[ing] what you want at a restaurant when you are traveling. It is about understanding the deep-seated values of a culture, formed by history, literature, language, geography, economics, and politics.”
NOT-SO-GOLDEN HUMOR AT THE GLOBES
By Kate Weyant
Comedian Steve Martin once said, “Comedy is not pretty.” This year’s Golden Globe Awards, an annual ceremony recognizing achievement in motion pictures and television during the previous year, proved this to be too true. Comedian Jo Koy hosted the ceremony, and his opening monologue was just terrible. As a member of the Asian American Pacific Islander community, I was beyond excited for a Filipino comedian to host, especially considering the Globes’ tendency to consistently vote white and the historic number of AAPI nominees this year. Yet, he completely bombed. When his jokes weren’t flatout misogynistic, they were oddly sexual and met with awkward laughs at most from the Globes audience. Even the jokes that weren’t wildly offensive were just… not funny. Let me say first that if you enjoyed Koy’s monologue, all power to you. However, the media (and millions of other people, including myself) would disagree with you. So, why did so many people find Koy decidedly offensive, but also, unfunny? Has society just become too sensitive? Koy opened his monologue with praise to actor Meryl Streep and comedian Ali Wong, then launched into several jokes about the Barbie movie. “Oppenheimer is based on the 721page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project—and Barbie is about a plastic doll with big
boobies… The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet—or what casting directors call ‘character actor.’” The audience grimaced at these jokes, looking disappointed and annoyed.
In satire, humor is about “punching up” at power, as opposed to “punching down” at the disenfranchised. Christopher Weyant, political and editorial cartoonist for The New Yorker and The Boston Globe, works with satire daily. Political cartooning is political satire through the use of visual and verbal hyperbole to highlight a political position, policy, or situation that they find unjust or an abuse of power. He said, “Koy was doing satire; satire is a different kind of humor—it has a point. You’re lampooning or satirizing a position to show an inequity. There’s nothing inherently funny about making fun of the little guy, but we all love to make fun of the king and get away with it.” In Hollywood, the “little guy” has oftentimes been women, as the industry is notorious for its suppression of their voices. A recent study showed that men still make up the majority of directors, writers, and lead actors in the film industry. A measly 4.3 percent of directors of top-grossing films from 2007 to 2018 were women. Koy’s demeaning jokes represented exactly how necessary the Barbie movie was. As opposed to “punching up” at Oppenheimer, for example, he “punched down” at Barbie, a movie that, despite its explosive box office success, was still the underdog. Barbie was about the impossible standards, oversexualization, objectification, and misogyny that women face in a patriarchal society. It’s almost impressive how he managed to unintentionally prove the entire point of the movie with his jokes. The reductionism was more than disappointing, revealing not only his lack of comedic skill but his own sexism. Offensive jokes aside, his other material was just not that funny, either. Here was his attack on Succession, a dramedy television series about dynamics within a family that owns a business conglomerate: “The one thing that [Succession] taught me is if you’re a billionaire, pull out. None of them are gonna be like you. They’re gonna be a bad version of you; just pull out. There’s billionaires in here… Leave it in,
whatever.” Aside from the fact that this is just uncomfortable to listen to, from a comedy standpoint, it also just feels like a stream of consciousness. Satire requires a certain rhythm to hit the joke in a way that provokes surprise and laughter. Humor is centered around the element of surprise; it takes a skilled comedy writer to know the audience and use that knowledge to craft the right timing for a joke. He did try to “punch up” by poking fun at the rich; however, there was no punchline, no element of surprise, no place for a reaction. His other jokes followed suit, and he chose to uncomfortably target The Color Purple, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Barry Keoghan’s genitals. When Koy realized he was floundering, he blamed the other writers of the monologue and the amount of time he had to come up with the jokes: ten days. Not only is defensiveness a bad look, but I think college students worldwide can agree that ten days is a generous amount of time to complete any assignment. In fact, we’re lucky to get ten days’ notice. Making excuses mid-monologue is pitiful.
In contrast to Koy, comedian and actor Ricky Gervais has hosted the Globes five times—clearly his comedic skill strikes a chord with the public as he’s been invited back multiple times. He’s known for a style of ridiculous putdown comedy that definitely crosses lines. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he explained his humor, saying, “Do I pander to the 200 privileged egos in the room, or do I try and entertain a global audience of 200 million people sitting at home who aren’t winning awards?” He understands that jokes don’t exist in a vacuum and revels in stripping these obscenely wealthy people of their power and glamor for just a few moments. For example, take the following bit by Gervais: “In this room are some of the most important TV and film executives in the world. People from every background. They all have one thing in common: they’re all terrified of Ronan Farrow. He’s coming for ya. Talking of all you perverts, it was a big year for pedophile movies. Surviving R. Kelly, Leaving Neverland, Two Popes.” Ronan Farrow is the investigative journalist who helped expose sexual abuse and assault allegations by film producer Harvey Weinstein. His jokes received
much more laughter than Koy’s because they follow a distinct guideline for humor. Calling out pedophilia in Hollywood (and in the Catholic church) on such a public stage utilizes the element of surprise and the American hobby of making fun of the king, intentionally addressing what people avoid. In this next joke, he deftly managed to make fun of the gender pay gap in Hollywood without attacking women: “All-female remakes are the big thing… And this is brilliant for the studios, because they get guaranteed box office results and they don’t have to spend too much money on the cast.”
Gervais tackled truly sensitive topics with crudity but didn’t have to strike the disenfranchised to be funny. He was able to create shock value without actually offending. In contrast, Koy was unable to achieve either objective: make audiences laugh hard or address sensitive topics deftly. Koy’s usual comedy addresses topics such as his Filipino heritage, parenting, and cultural background—and he is typically funny when drawing from his personal life. This half-celebrity roast, half-political commentary was clearly not in his wheelhouse, which goes to show the tedious nuances of this type of comedy. Anyone can find something funny, and anything has the potential to be funny. But satire has rules, and the difference between Koy and Gervais’s jokes illuminates that well. Koy not only kicked the underdog, leaving a sour taste in audiences’ mouths, but his comedic technique in other jokes simply failed to make audiences laugh. In an era of cancel culture, humor, especially satire, needs to be crafted with more thought. However, in these tumultuous times, humor becomes a refuge. Comedians are crucial in today’s society— laughing at those in power lowers their platform. However, it’s important that we learn how to take on humor. There’s a fine line between insulting and pushing the envelope, and Koy joked as if he hadn’t read (or understood) the news in years. His monologue was a reminder that satire is a delicate art, and, if not mastered, comedy can actually be quite ugly.
This is a Temporary Home, M y
By Chloe Cheng
Praying to the glow-in-the-dark stars that adorn the ceiling I have hoped would cave in.
Knotted in the sheets of this bed that suffocated me, I let it engulf me until I was nothing but a wrinkle in the fabric, a dent in the foam.
I have never been one to fantasize about the future. Still, I swallow my medication with water from a chipped glass, stained by yesterday’s lipstick.
This is a temporary home, my love. You will paint the walls of some other bedroom when you save up the money to buy one.
Sit in this sadness for a minute longer, then make your bed, get dressed. The world is waiting for you.
The reek of vomit—I was hopeless. At eighteen, my feet dragging behind me, I stumbled, intoxicated, through the hall to the bathroom every night.
At twenty-one, scrubbing dirt out from under my fingernails, a work in progress, half-sober, trying to eat well. In the dark, I cup a match, hiding from the draft of a broken window.
Misery lingers in dust on the floor and furniture, threatens to choke me with each breath I take— I do my best to not disturb it.
I carefully tuck the disintegrating chairs under the dining table, the chairs I used to throw, the table I used to hide under, my finger trailing behind, tracing the grain of the wood.
This is a temporary home, my love. You will paint the walls of some other bedroom when you save up the money to buy one.
Sit in this sadness for a minute longer, then make your bed, get dressed. The world is waiting for you.
These four walls won’t be my home forever; I’ll grow up and move into a new house, sleep in a new bed.
I’ll gaze through the window at the endless stars above a sill that’s covered in picture frames, kept company by the faint scent of lavender.
I’ll get a mug to hold my mornings, milk and sugar let it kiss the table and decorate it with coffee stains.
Es, honestamente, very difficult a expliqué —lamented my new friend, Fernando in mixed sputterings of Spanish, English, and French. 12 years old and tormented by my inquiry:
Where are you from?
Overwhelmed by déjà vu, I attempt to answer my own question.
Is home the Pottery Barn bookshelf adorned with shiny bronze—trophies of my high school memories
The twin bed where I gossiped with my oldest friends, cried over my first heartbreak, and opened my Tufts admissions letter. A home warmed by the thrills of female friendship, capricious teenage romance, jumps for joy with a teary-eyed dad.
Could it be the yellow kitchen? where my mother taught me to cook, todo a ojo with lifting floor tiles and chipping paint, remnants of abandoned renovations. Or a basement with tattered stuffies, mismatched Lego sets and an abandoned Gameboy, a beer-stained sectional and Marketplace mini-fridge, silent bystanders to countless clandestine high school parties.
ma maison was left on the streets of Paris, inside the old boulangerie with its owner had my order memorized, a Molière monologue: croissant amandes et un expresso, avec ceci. spent at Café Chez Gladines their colorful chairs and equally vibrant menu by a balade through lush gardens, adorned galleries, or historical libraries.
home the sunny corner of Somerville I share with my best friends?
Is home the nautical-themed bedroom shared with my late brother? walls lined with symmetrical sailboats, desk crammed with notes in his scrappy handwriting, and closet where his clothes are left hanging, many still with tags. The last place I will affectionately be called pumpkin
The last place I will see his blue eyes.
The last place I will hear his raspy voice or his infectious giggles, consequence of my sister’s stories full of fanciful characters.
¿Es mi hogar el apartamento en Argentina?
Where my family of nineteen reunites each Christmas, interrupted shouting made louder by rumblings of cumbia and chaotic patterings of young Bebuno, evidence of our growing genealogy. Midnight conversations and hyperbolized storytelling fueled by empanadas de carne, alfajorcitos de maizena, y botellas de Malbec.
patchy sage green paint masked by elaborate gallery walls, black tea in colorful ceramic mugs, chocolate croissants left to proof on the stove. camaraderie with noisy downstairs neighbors, borrowed condiments prompt harmonious homemade meals.
home the beat my heart skips when I el lunfardo in the streets of New York, baseball caps on the beaches of Punta del Este, smell the faint aroma of patisserie in Boston?
home is budding friendship a young boy whose eyes, like mine, with linguistic fervor and cultural dissonance.
By Caroline Abut
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