Vol. 4 Issue 1
SPRING 2014
22
On Yale Time:
A Slice of Yale
10 Victorian and Modern Life:
a {photographic} dichotomy
Vita Bella Editor-in-Chief Claire Zhang
LetterEditor From the
Artistic Director Katrina Yin
Managing Editors Djenab Conde Amanda Chan
Layout and Design Catherine Shih
Staff Photography Daniel Raynor Wa Liu
Special thanks to Generation Progress for their generous financial and structural support. Want to get involved? Contact us at vitabellamagazine@gmail.com
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Before the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it must shut itself into a cocoon, trapped in darkness for weeks, months, even years. The features in this issue of Vita Bella! are a little darker than what I had originally had in mind for the theme of metamorphosis. When I conceived of the theme, I had been thinking of the promise of winter metamorphosing into spring – new life, green buds, flowers, sunshine... I had forgotten that change is inseparable from loss, that in growing and metamorphosing, we must give up the caterpillar part of ourselves, and that the process of that giving up is often difficult and very dark. But from the long darkness, the mature butterfly emerges in all its winged glory. In the pages of this issue, you will discover the rich stories that color the lives of the students around you, the struggles and hardships that have allowed them to become the people they are today. Some of us carry these stories in our own bodies. Some of us relive them through memory. Each person we come across on campus is colored by the transformations they’ve experienced. In this issue, I ask you to stop and admire the colors of each individual’s wings, perhaps think about where those colors might have come from, and reflect on the beauty of your own colors, born from intense darkness, but no less beautiful for it – perhaps more beautiful for it. With Love,
Claire Zhang
Vita Bella|Spring 2014 contents
Editor’s Note
2
Inked
4
Porn Story
8
Amanda Chan
Eric
Victorian and Modern Life: a {Photographic} Dichotomy
10
Mindfulness
16
Black Box
17
Daniel Raynor
Nicole Wells
Cups of Tea
20
On Yale Time
22
Black Hair Woven Insecurities
26
Americana
28
Lucas Sin
Crossing Cultural Boundaries Eno Inyangete
Allie Krause
18 Karolina Ksiazek
On the Cover Photographer
Bobby de la Rosa Model
Daniel Raynor
Zenab Keita
Bobby de la Rosa
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INKED
By Amanda Chan | Photos by Wa Liu
Students share the stories behind their tattoos... ulous – terms, and they each had their own A summer later, after my freshman CHRIS TOKITA : I’m interpretation in my mind. On my arm, I have year, I got another tattoo at the same place, from Los Angeles, and I got [my tattoos] them at a tattoo shop in Alhambra in California, which is just east of Los Angeles, just outside the city. I’m half-Japanese, so I knew I kind of wanted to do something relating to that part of my culture... Even before I found a tattoo shop, I knew I wanted what they call kanji [a system of Japanese writing using Chinese characters]. After graduating high school, I knew I was going to go across the country to college, and college is supposed to bring a lot of personal change and whatnot. I wanted to remember the values that I held dear at that time. So I kind of chose three – kind-of neb-
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chie and meiyo, which is “wisdom” and “honor.” On my chest, I have yūki, which is “courage.” I guess that idea was, I wanted to remind myself of who I was because I knew I was going to go through a lot of challenging times, which I can now say I have. These were little reminders to myself about why I’m here. So I got referred to this tattoo shop because they’re known for this specialty where they do the characters, but make them look like they’re made of brushstrokes. I thought that was really cool. I ended up meeting with the tattoo artist. We went back and forth on an email thread first, and then eventually I went in and got my arm and chest done.
but this was in Latin. It’s luctor et emergo, which means “struggle and emerge,” to wrestle and overcome, something along those lines. I’d gone through a really tough year in terms of things going on at home. I found out my mom lost her job, and then my dad, who was kind of the stable breadwinner, lost his. This was all during the middle of the recession. It was this weird feeling – to have gone home for winter break and come back, and then getting an email from my dad that’s telling me, “I didn’t want to tell you while you were home, but I lost my job of twenty years.” I’d finished the summer here doing research in the STARS Program, and I was feeling like
into this. Two weeks later, my friend and I decided to go to the art museum one afternoon. We just dropped by the tattoo parlor to ask about the price... The receptionist is like, well the next available time slot would be in December... Then this guy wanders out from the back room where they actually do all the tattoos, and he’s like, wow is that your design it’s super awesome. The receptionist said, “Oh well, Kyle, are you free in the next three months?” He checked his calendar, and said, “I’m actually all booked until September.” Then he looked at me and said, “the only time I’m free is right now. The reason that I’m standing here is because my next client cancelled on me for the next hour slot.” I said I was just coming in to get a price quote, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get a tattoo. He said, “Well I guess if you want to do it now we do it now, or else you can’t get it this summer...” It took an hour. My friend got her Hawaii tattoo, which took 5 minutes. And then we went to the art museum as we’d originally planned. Except I had a huge tattoo that I had not been expecting to get that afternoon. Q: So would you consider getting more tattoos in the future? It’s definitely addictive. As I said, if you belong to the category of people who think your body is a blank slate you can add on to, where’s the limit to when you stop adding on? If any of my friends came up to me and said, “Hey I think I’m getting a tattoo, do you want to go to the tattoo parlor with me?” every single time I’ll be tempted to add something somewhere.
I at least got through the hardest part of it. I wanted to capture that feeling for other points in my life... A lot of times I’ll be really stressed out and overwhelmed, but then I’ll know that if I keep my nose to the grindstone, I’ll come out okay.
AUBE REY LESCURE: [My first tattoo] suposedly represents the harmony of proportions... It was this idea that in Ancient Greece, artists or sculptors would sculpt faces and statues to this proportion because aesthetically, it’s the most pleasing. It’s the epitome of beauty. If it deviates in any way, it would be less aesthetically pleasing. I thought it would be a cool concept to have this proclaimed – just the pinnacle of aesthetic perfection. I actually drew it myself. I calculated it. It’s obviously imperfect because I tried to approximate the ratios, and it’s not the actual ratio itself. My second tattoo is very different from the other one. My first one was very simple and geometric. I wanted a more complex, substantial tattoo the second time around. It’s different orbits in ancient Greece and Rome – it’s a recurring theme, right? People used it to measure time and space and use it as a navigation tool. I wanted something blueprint-y and travel-related. Q: So did you get that one in France as well? I actually got this one in the U.S. last summer. My friend is from Maui and wanted a tattoo of Maui on her wrist, a very simple line tattoo... I started thinking about it over the course of the next week and thought, I’d totally want to get another one. I chose the design – I actually drew it myself and then [the tattoo artist] redrew it
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ELLIE DUPLER: My mom and I used to live in a really run-down trailer. It was pretty bad, but it was the first house we ever owned. It was just the two of us, so it was a special thing. Over the years, she saved up money, and we did little improvements on the property here and there, like building a fence around it or adding a garage. It used to be really bad. Eventually, we built our own house on it... These are the coordinates to the house that we built. They’re in her handwriting... She didn’t know I was going to get it, so I saved up pieces of paper and stuff that she’d written numbers on – when she would write me a letter that had my address on it, stuff like that. Then I cut out all the numbers, put them together, and shrunk them on the computer to make them all the same size. It was all in her handwriting. Q: You said this was in last September. How long had you been thinking about getting it? Was it a spur-of-the-moment thing? I feel like the longer I’m away from home, the more I appreciate everything that my mom did to get me here. She was a single mom, and it was rough. The more appreciation I have for home, the more I miss it and like it and realize that I had a pretty good childhood. Over the summer [in Ghana], I came up with this idea of her handwriting and stuff like that. By the end of the summer, when I got back here, I was pretty sure I was going to get it. Q: So you said that your mom was really excited about it even though she didn’t know? So I have my tragus pierced, and [my mom] thought it would be cool if she got her tragus pierced. During Christmas break, we were sitting on my bed talking about our piercings. She asked, “Where did you get yours?” I responded, “Oh yeah this place in New Haven, the same place I got my tattoo.” And then she was like, your what? Then I showed it to her and she cried.
Crow people – I’m not sure where it came from – but there was a man who found this image. And he decided to superimpose it on a new war shield because this one was really old and he wanted to start fresh. So he put this image on a war shield, [which] were very important to the war culture of the Crow Nation. He gave it to my grandparents in the seventies, and they’ve had it since. When my uncle Junior decided to go to college to get a business degree, they decided that the war shield would be a really good way for him to signify starting anew as he went off on his own and did his own thing with this schooling. So they gave it to him and gave him a Crow name, and he’s had it since. But I think when he was traveling a little bit, he decided that he wanted this image to be turned into a tattoo. The tattoo artist kind of modernized it a little. The image on the original war shield was very detail-oriented. There were claws and footprints coming off the bear. So [my uncle] got it modernized and then got the tattoo. He has it on his left shoulder, and then my mom decided that she wanted to get the same tattoo. So it’s become kind of this family tradition. What the tattoo means in terms of warfare and how it was created for the war shield – it basically translates into “bear coming
“Then I cut out all the numbers, put them together, and shrunk them on the computer to make them all the same size. It was all in her handwriting.” out of its cage into a wall of bullets to save its people,” which basically means “no fear.” It was really empowering for Crow war parties back when they used it. After my mom got it, I thought it was kind of cool. So then I came to Yale and got really empowered as a Native activist here. I thought, it would be really cool for me to get the tattoo that my uncle and mom has. So now it’s our family tattoo. I got it last summer and just fell in love with it. It’s a really good way to keep me grounded as well as to push me forward. Me and my brother got it on the same day. I have it on the same spot my mom has it, and he has it in the same spot my uncle has it.
ROSE BEAR DONT WALK: I’m from Montana, and my heritage is comprised of the Crow Indian
MAHIR RAHMAN: My dad’s kind of a storyteller dad. He’d tell you everything about his parents and himself
growing up and about their parents. The stories pass down, so I’m the next chain in line. I need to learn how to make some good stories or Nation and the Bitterroot Salish Nation. Both are in Montana. My last else I won’t really be a Rahman. One of my favorite stories is a story of name is Bear Don’t Walk, and it relates to this tattoo more within the my grandpa, who was fully Persian. He was a traveler. There were civil wars in Africa at the time, and [my grandmother] was a refugee and Crow side of my family – Bear Don’t Walk was my great-grandfather. they married and they came over. They travelled across Asia into the The actual image of the tattoo was imprinted on a war shield of the
subcontinental area into what would end up becoming Bangladesh and created a family on their own without actually getting to know the area and the language and everything. It’s really interesting to see that somebody like that existed in my family. He was not just a nomad, but also a savior. I really wanted to meet my grandpa. Unfortunately, that was not the case. He died when my dad was a kid... What my dad and my stepmom say is that my nuances are very similar to the nuances that my grandpa had. But I’ll never really get to know how similar our nuances are. It’s a little sad... I was planning on at max getting a few [tattoos]. The first one I was going to get was one that would represent my family very well. And that tattoo happened to be a family coat of arms that my grandpa carried with him for years on end... I have my family motto at the top, then my family name in the center. And different things that represent Persian culture and the identity that my family carried for years... Not only is it a tool for me to have my family close to my heart, both figuratively and literally, but also the fact that I came from somewhere. I know that I don’t need to have that, but it’s nice to know that I can trace my lineage, at least to a certain extent, simply through a coat of arms.
DILLON THOMPSON: You know those yellow Livestrong bracelets? It’s that across my back right here. I got it in October of 2012. I’d been thinking about getting one for a long time. I knew that I wanted one, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted. So I was kind of waiting for something. I didn’t want to get one just because I wanted one and have it be something stupid and like, in five years I regret it. October last year, I finally decided to go through with it. I got it done right in New Haven... Q: How did you make the decision to get the tattoo that you did? I’m the youngest of four boys in my family. My brothers and I have always been really close. We’re a really tight-knit family. So I wanted something to do with family. And my second-oldest brother – his name is Brandon – him and I are really close. He’s actually one of my best friends. I’ve always looked up to him, and he’s always been there for me to give me advice and help me through things. Now he’s 28. When he was in college, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and had to go home for a semester and get treated for that. He battled it, got the treatment, and has been cancer-free for seven years now. When I got to the age that he was when diagnosed, I sort of got it to show solidarity with him. If you see
people who have the pink breast cancer ribbon... it’s kind the same idea. The pink ribbon – Susan G. Komen – is the biggest charity for breast cancer, and Livestrong is the biggest charity for testicular cancer. Q: Was he happy with it? He was really happy. I asked him permission before I got it. He’s got a couple tattoos. I sort of explained it to him, and he was like, yeah, that sounds really cool, I’d be really honored if it has something to do with me.
“It’s a really good way to keep me grounded as well as to push me forward. My brother and I got it on the same day. I have it on the same spot my mom has it, and he has it in the same spot my uncle has it.” P7 VITA BELLA | SPRING 2014
PORN STORY
By Eric
T
he first gay men I ever see are a pair of porn stars. I’m sure they’re not the first gay men I’ve actually encountered, but they’re the first I know are gay. I’m 13. It’s a hot day in the middle of summer, no school or camp or piano lesson to fill my afternoon, and I’m struck by the urge to learn how men have sex with each other. My dad is at the office, my mom and brother are in the yard gardening—I hear their voices wafting through my open bedroom windows. The house is mine. I pull the cotton curtains closed, and search Google for “gay sex.” Randy Blue, according to its slogan, is “home of the best Hardcore Gay Porn videos.” A few clicks bring me to a set of minute-long trailers for newly released scenes. I’ve never imagined anal sex before—let alone seen it—but I sense that what I’m watching Chris Rockway and Reese Rideout do in these short clips is supposed to be an important part of my life. It will be a year before I visit a porn site other than Randy Blue.
school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and find I am the only gay man: I’ve finally cracked open the door, only to see an empty room. In college, that room is suddenly filled with sweaty gay men grinding on each other to Rihanna and Beyoncé. I listen to friends tell stories of nights in other people’s beds, or of plans to have sex in the library stacks. I watch an endless series of crushes choose someone else, someone older and likely more experienced, while I retreat to my dorm room and watch porn. Confronted with real opportunity, I have no idea what to do: Randy Blue only showed me what happens after the clothes come off. My freshman year isn’t entirely devoid of sexual encounters: I find Aladdin’s tongue down my throat on Halloween, and an actor’s hand on my cock to keep away the January cold. But it’s not enough. I must be doing something wrong, I think. I should be doing something more. That summer, I decide I need to both give and andy Blue is the narrative I inherit, the narrative receive oral sex. I’m convinced that my inexperience is I get off to all throughout high school. I don’t self-perpetuating. Once people start having sex, I reahave any gay relatives or family friends to offer me son, they keep having it. Ergo, I need to start having guidance, so my role models are porn stars and movie it—by any means necessary. characters. The second camp is divided neatly between Without any immediate gay friends or enough those who have sex—Brokeback Mountain, Latter confidence to find a sexual partner in person, I go onDays—and those who had it, but now have AIDS— line. I make a new email address, and begin browsing Philadelphia, Longtime Companion. To be a homosexthrough the world’s largest collection of penises on ual, I learn, is to put emphasis on the last three sylla- display: Craigslist’s Men for Men personal ads. bles. Promiscuity will be my only option. Until I come out, there’s no pressure to make the ’m quickly struck with the dilemma of how to choose story my own. The closet may be isolating, but its my Prince Charming from this sea of winking cocks walls provide a convenient buffer from sexual presand naked torsos. The posts range from the humorsure. In 11th grade, I attend a single meeting of my ous (“you walk in and find me in the sofa, naked”) P8 VITA BELLA | SPRING 2014 P8 VITA BELLA | SPRING 2014
R
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frightening (“if you’re a Sub I can tie u down first spread eagle on the Rack and torment you”), each accompanied by at least one picture of the person’s primary sexual organ. I click through dozens of these proud genitals, until: “Sucking cocks right now in my apartment. Close to Northtown along University. You must be 20-25 and disease free. No BS.” I send an email to the listed address, and two minutes later a reply appears in my inbox. “I’m Mark,” it reads, “Do you have a picture?”
a tiny alcove for a kitchen and a mattress on the floor. Mark offers me a beer and I accept. I don’t like beer, but I want something to hold. We talk about nothing on the couch. He comes from a school he describes as “hippy” and “in the mountains.” There were a lot of drugs, he says, and not a lot of school. He’s impressed that I go to Yale. I briefly considered not telling him, or lying, wondering just how much it’s wise to reveal. I picture the photos I’ve sent him staring back at me in twenty years from the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Bitter take the number 9 bus down Selby Avenue and ex-lover speaks out against frontrunner candidate; spend the entire ride staring at the dome of the nudes sink hopeful campaign.” State Capitol, just visible above the tree line. I learned We’re talking, and then we’re blowing each other, on a sixth grade field trip that there are four golden our clothes in lumpy piles on the floor. His cock is horses standing at the base of the dome. I prefer not shorter than I expected, and stubby. I handle it like a to think about why I’m on the bus, so I think about blunt object. I put my mouth on it, and try my best to those horses. imitate the porn actors I’ve watched for years. Only The bus passes a bakery where my mom used to buy we have more shuffling, and more talking, and it’s loaves of spelt bread. At the sudden sight of the famil- not at all like I’ve imagined, and I want to finish the iar, I pull the stop cord. Inside the bakery, I realize it second I start, but I wait until he finishes, which merwould be impractical to show up for sex, or to return cifully is only a few minutes. I wipe his seed off with a home carrying a warm loaf. I buy a blueberry muffin towel and immediately get dressed. instead, and with it, a chance of escape. “We should do this again sometime,” he says. “Where were you?” I imagine my roommate asking. “Oh, you know,” I’ll say nonchalantly, “I just popped don’t have a story for what happens after the porn out for a pastry. I wasn’t at all going to have sex with a ends. The actors cum, the scene fades. Nothing I’ve man I’ve never met to match a sexual standard that’s watched tells me that the bus ride home will be cold, all in my head.” and lonely. I have no reference for shame. I’ll hold up my muffin triumphantly. The films I’ve seen don’t tell me that the rate of HIV transmission for unprotected oral sex is greater than y phone rings. I want to turn back. I want to zero, or that I’ll panic and think he lied about his staboard another bus and ride it to the last stop. I tus. I’m not prepared to look at my gums in the mirror want to— and check for cuts, or for the dread that will accompa“Hello?” I say. ny every cold I get for the next two years. “I got off at the wrong stop,” I say, looking down at When I do get tested, I almost run out before my the muffin in my hand. It’s not entirely a lie. results are ready. “Positive for life,” I think. It would be I follow his directions, continuing towards the Capi- better not to know. Only the volunteer’s warm smile tol dome and the four golden horses. and the thrift store below the clinic keep me in the I almost miss him on the street, until he calls my building long enough to learn I’m clean. I hold onto name. In the seconds before we meet, I examine him my certificate of status like it’s a winning lottery ticklike I might a celebrity, trying to match his appearance et. I finally have permission to forget. into the frame of my expectation. Does he look like The story I knew told me that I didn’t need love if I his pictures? Is he older, fitter, shorter, hotter? I can’t had sex. It said I should take the number 9 bus down tell. I realize he’s stuck out his hand. Selby Avenue on a Saturday afternoon, because no one “I’m Mark,” he says, “How was the ride?” would find me beautiful unless I knew how to blow them. If someone had told me the untruth of it all, ark makes me laugh with a story about his had said that I have more to offer than my body and friends and an adopted iguana. Then, effortlessly, that I can ask for more than a body in return, I don’t gracefully, he kisses me. We undress each other and think I would have believed them. Who is the boy to share a taste of warm ecstasy, after which we relax, question the story, when it’s the only one he knows? naked, and talk about the good life. This is how I imagined our encounter might unfold. This is nothing like what happens.
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he carpet outside his apartment is green and smells of mildew. There is wood paneling and light pink wallpaper superimposed with roses. It makes me think of old women. Inside, there’s only a couch pressed against one wall, P9 VITA BELLA | SPRING 2014
Victorian
{
& Modern Life }
A Photographic Dichotomy
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Photography by Daniel Raynor Lucy Fleming, Marianna Gailus, Jade Harvey, Jez Marston, and Manny Valle
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make conscious and deliberate decisions to do so.” As a specialist in the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and the Himalaya, Professor Andrew Quintman of the Religious Studies department often deliberates with the BY Nicole Wells e run on schedules. Our days are loaded issue of students’ mindfulness, explains what a state of with lectures, seminars, sections, meetings, mindfulness is:“It is like looking at the sun on a cloudy practices, volunteering, working, and meals day. The sun is occluded by snow clouds, but as soon as with anyone from suitemates to President Salovey. the clouds are whisked away you see the sun was always Everything can become so bounded in schedule that we there; it is not that the sun comes out, it has always been feel as if we are just ‘going through the motions.’ Stress right there, you just didn’t see it before,” he said. can increase to such an unstable point that we lose sight “In the same way, our awakened nature, or Buddha of who we are, or what we are doing in every moment. nature, is always there it’s just that through lifetimes of We are a culture that heavily believes in continually lifetimes of mental habituation you lose sight of that. So pushing through the pain and hiding any weakness, but in any given moment, you can feel awakened. Awakenwhat happens when pushing through is no longer ing is not something outside, it is not some great working, or even safe? Perhaps looking out of experience that somehow erupts from withour culture for remedies or methods to ease “Anything can be in-though it sometimes is described like the pressures can bring us back to being the meditation; it is about that. In some traditions, it is the mere fact of composed students that we can be. the quality and attitude being aware, or being mindful, in this very Buddhism is a religion predominantly prac- that you bring to the moment that we are in now, which constiticed in the East. Its principles and practices, tutes awakening-and that is a very powerful opportunity.” however, have recently been gaining popuidea.” larity in the West as more and more people seek If the image of meditation is popping into your to incorporate these techniques in their daily lives to mind, then you are right and wrong in thinking that increase their wellbeing. technique is synonymous with mindfulness. Seonjoon Reuben Hendler, a senior in Calhoun College, is clarified, “Mindfulness is a way of engaging and being, the creator of YMindful, a community on campus that rather than a specific technique in and of itself, so there meditates together. His idea of mindfulness revolves are a number of ways to promote mindfulness and some around the state of being focused and present in your of them happen in the context of meditation.” life experience, while maintaining open curiosity and There are many diferent types of meditation; as acknowledgment of one’s feelings and sensations. Hendler said, “Anything can be meditation; it is about According to this definition, how well do Yale students, the quality and attitude that you bring to the opportuconsciously or unconsciously, practice mindfulness? nity.” Seon Joon Sunim, who graduated from Yale in 2002, Sitting meditation, walking, eating, washing dishpractices the Dharma and is now a Buddhist advisor at es, frisbee throwing, all of these activities can be done Yale. She said, “I would say that Yale students are very through meditation. As long as one keeps their mind open to the practice of mindfulness; however, how well focused on whatever activity they are performing, and are they actually practicing mindfulness? That’s open to thinks about exactly what they are doing in that particdebate. I’ve seen that students often react to the pressure ular moment, paying attention to the sensations around at Yale to succeed academically and otherwise by pushthem, then they are exhibiting mindfulness. The goal is ing themselves beyond the boundaries of physical and to avoid “monkey mind,” a Buddhist term meaning a mental health. That is not mindful, even if they know mind that is all over the place. full well how hard they’re pushing.” So, pause-slow things down, reflect on the actual Sunim also added that literal time spent to “touch reality. Within the crowded schedule, pencil in time base with ourselves” and understand how we are feeling for yourself to relax and take a break. Be aware of your is necessary to maintain a healthy state of mind. experience at Yale. The moments really do go by rapid“The intense level of activity and work on the Yale cam- ly, and instead of spending them in a stressful blur, take pus often results in people rushing from one thing to the time to be attentive and present in every second. another, with few opportunities to stop and ground. We can give ourselves those opportunities, but we need to
MINDFULNESS
W
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I loved the way you put it on your eyes for the drag shows. Pink, no, rose on your face that lit up the sky. You would shade your cheeks, dust your chin and paint your lips in bright hues. And from your lips back up to your brow, you looked sweet. And you were mine and that was that, all of the time. Now, I stand over your still body and wonder why there’s no makeup today. You are in a black box sculpt for some dead man. And you are now dead. Your face is shades of brown, black, and grey and the look you wear is cold, calm, and dry. But the I stand over skin on your neck is soft. this frame of bones skimmed light, through and flesh that are meant to stained church glass, be you. I don’t let my hand fall onto makes sheets of yours, but they must be stone cold. color: golds, These very hands that were once warm, blues, reds, and that greens. All is would press against mine. These very still. hands that would brush my face, hold me, touch me, grab, pinch, grip, squeeze, tug, pat, pet, pull me out for a dance. The trance, the daze, the haze, of you and I. Your body!
Quick, is how it went—that’s what the voice on the phone had said. What does that even mean? When that poor girl found you on the white tile floor— lab 203—gas tube in your mouth. Was that quick? Did you foam at the mouth, with tears in your eyes and your hand in your pants? Was that quick?
Black Box
By Lucas Sin Illustrations by Wa Liu
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Crossing Cultural Boundaries Photography by
Eno Inyangete Models
Ida Tsutsumi & Frankie Costa Cooper Stainbrook & Madison Alworth Rachel Phillips & Nickolas Brooks Amanda Farrell & Ari Zimmet
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MEMOIRS of a
Thousand Cups of Tea
BY Allie Krause Photography by Christine Hong
chapter 1: Strawberry
London, England, September 2000 The new millennia brought around the announcement of my father’s new job. Much to my mother’s annoyance, the apartment we had been fixing up was put on the market, as a new life in a new city lay stretched ahead of us. I was sad to leave friends behind in the Big Apple, but this sadness could not match the excitement I felt at the prospect of moving to London – home to the Queen, beefeaters in tall black hats, black cabs and big red buses navigating its twisting streets. That, and the fact that my father had promised to take me to a Spice Girls concert in England, though to my eternal chagrin, they broke up the summer we arrived, thus crushing hopes of attending said concert. Years spent reading picture books depicting young girls like myself, only English and blonder and much more sophisticated, daintily sipping brightly coloured tea from porcelain teacups – strawberry tea, to be precise. Now, it was my turn.
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chapter 2: earl grey
ascot, England, November 2010 It was raining again. After a decade in England, this dreary forecast was no surprise, but the sense of frustration was overwhelming. I wanted to be outside running in preparation for my impending half-marathon, but had no desire to get soaked through in the freezing downpour so characteristic of this time of year. Over the past years, I had become awfully British, even shedding that “ghastly American accent” my first headmistress had so detested. Along with a grudging acceptance of rain, I had also cultivated the archetypal dry humour and innate understanding that one must always form a civilised queue, no matter how barbaric those present – barbarians who, we must assume, are foreigners and therefore do not know any better. I sat in the kitchen of my boarding school house, resigned to my indoor fate, and poured a splash of milk into my steaming cup of Earl Grey.
chapter 3: English Breakfast New Haven, USA, September 2011 Within a week of arriving in the States, I had already begun to seriously question my choice to attend university here. For starters, the only available tea was Tazo–an abomination to tea everywhere if there ever was one–and my peers’ lack of maturity when it came to dealing with many of the new experiences university has to offer. I lost count of the number of times in that first month I walked drunken friends home and held people’s hair back as they emptied the contents of their stomach into–and sometimes to the side of–the large porcelain bowls of the toilet. I longed for home. The most beautiful relief came in the form of a package from my father filled with English Breakfast tea and Walkers’ Salt &
chapter 4: Jasmine
New Haven, USA, February 2013 Not enough sun; little food; an unshakeable sense of exhaustion; a pit in my chest that quickly became a crater, a soul-crushing loneliness, that nothing seemed able to fill. I tried to fill it with jasmine tea; cup upon cup upon cup, hoping its antidepressant, anti-anxiety properties would somehow help me get through the semester, one day at a time. “Don’t mind me, I’m just feeling the rough/riding the struggle bus/sophomore slumping.” I was allergic to pity, and it was easy to make my unhappiness seem funny – it made it easier for people to swallow. It was a spell of too-deep introspection, and I measured
chapter 5: Builders’
Clonmellon, Ireland. January 2014 In spite of the cold, the sun shone bright over the wintry fields, cows meekly grazing at the pale green grass before us. The whole clan was perched on the fence, mugs of too-strong builders’ tea in hand, reminiscing over events of the past year. They had brought a whirl of life, death, joy, heartache, successes, regrets, and tea. Always tea. We wondered whether we had been changed at all. Remembering we were British, we laughed at the almost-seriousness of our naval-gazing. As our shadows grew long behind us, the breeze became a biting wind that turned our cheeks rosy and in the last orange glow of day I drained the last of my drink. I stared down into my mug, whose walls are stained with the memory of a thousand cups of tea.
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8 am
10 am
Part 1: I Value My Rest
Dreaming -8:00 Each time I press snooze I intend it to be the last one before I start my time lapse project with some interviews at the dining hall. Instead, I dream that I’m dragging my suitcase across Amsterdam and riding a rollercoaster to see the city from above. I get kidnapped and then saved, and I find my way home inside Google Maps.
Runrunrunrunrun -9:35 It’s bad that my phone says it’s 9:35, because I have a 9:25 class and I’m in bed. I get my shit together, and stuff two Polish cookies in my mouth on the way out. The Morning Seminar - 9:47 As my class finishes up a video clip of a naturalization ceremony, I drag a wooden desk from the corner of the room to the seminar table. Items on the floor keep getting in my way. I keep mouthing sorry to the girl next to me.
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12 pm
Wandering Minds -10:45 I peek at the laptops of the student to me—the guy on my right is trans an entire book from Spanish to Eng on Google Translate. The girl on m has her screen split between her n and her iCal. A girl across the table spends a really long time smelling hair. I watch her the whole time.
Things Are Going On But I’ Home - 11:15 Ideally I would have captured during this mid-day period. Bu instead, I plop on my couch a stare at my phone for a while make a curry dish over rice. I tell if it’s bland, or if my nose just too stuffy to let me taste t ridiculous amount of spices I into it. If my leftovers last long than my cold, I’ll find out. I tal my mom on the phone for alm an hour. My uncle died two da ago and she’s flying to Polan later today for the funeral. I m coffee, bundle up, and take o bathroom trash as I leave.
Karolina
On Yale Time 2 pm
by Karolina Ksiazek 4 pm
Part 2: This is actually the Yale Time Lapse but it starts in the afternoon. Sorry.
Cross Campus - 2:12 I walk in circles around campus several times before I get the courage to talk to ts next somebody. A girl slating carrying a cello tells me she just finished glish an eight-page paper she didn’t know my left about until yesterday. I ask her what she notes was thinking about right before I intere rupted her. She says: “I was just like, her God, this hood is so big but it’s keeping me warm.”
’m At
d Yale ut and e. I I can’t is the put ger lk to most ays nd make out the
6 pm
8 pm
Thinking About My Uncle - 4:13 I record a voice memo on my phone: I’m thinking about how, when Wojek (Uncle) Pawel was here—oh, there’s a UPS freight truck in my way—when he was here I showed him the libraries in JE. And it was 3:00 on a Sunday so they were just filled with people studying and it was really quiet and it was really awkward when we walked in. He asked how much we paid them to pretend they were studying.
Ashley’s Ice Cream - 2:32 It’s a birthday party! Three girls are eating ice cream, which is a great thing to do on a Wednesday afternoon. They’re freshmen, and they’re really excited about being suitemates next year. Blue State Coffee - 3:00 I sit in Blue State for half an hour without buying anything. In front of me a guy and a girl talk for the entire half hour about the design of a letterman’s jacket. Behind me, a student shows up late for some kind of a meeting, in which he and an adult talk about famous people, and Wales. JE Lower Taft Library - 2:21 The only person in this part of the library is my friend. In whispers he tells me, “I’m just trying to finish an application. I kind of left it to the last minute. It’s due at 4:30, but I have a class at 4.”
Tuning - 5:00 Someone is tuning a violin in one of the JE practice rooms. I listen for a while before heading to the dance studio. I choreograph for a little but mostly I dance just for fun. Afterwards, I call my mom again but she’s rushing to pack so she can’t talk long. We talk about how it doesn’t feel that he’s dead. We joke around a little.
Old Campus - 5:06 The men’s Frisbee team is practicing on Old Campus. One person on the team tells me they’re working on tossing in the wind. I talk to a guy sitting on a bench wearing inline skates. He says: “I was just thinking, How do they throw the Frisbee when it’s windy out? And they’re making pretty good tosses every time. I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
Payne Whitney Gym - 3:21 In the lobby, there are a bunch of students studying, and two girls in the corner are talking about summer plans. Outside, I catch a guy as he crosses the street. He tells me, “I’m just heading to rowing practice. It looks like the women’s team is waiting for the bus. We’re indoors today beP23 VITA BELLA | SPRING 2014 cause it’s so windy and I was just confused about why they’re still taking the bus out to the boat house.”
4 pm
6 pm
8 pm
Part 2: This is actually the Yale Time Lapse but it starts in the aft
Durfee’s - 3:45 A freshman girl is buying strawberries. She tells me, “I’m just super exhausted. I basically screwed up during my lab today. I want to be a chem major and I want to do research, so I’m just kind of frustrated. Coming from Pakistan, where it’s supposed to be your goal to be perfect, to know what you’re going to do in the future, it’s just hard over here when people are telling me how they don’t really know what they’re going to do in the future. Even though I know that I can do whatever I want to do, there’s this thing in my head that like, perhaps I want to become a doctor, but maybe I was just fed that from the beginning ... Oh God! I just told you so many things!”
Danceworks -7:45 I have the most disc I wake up I hardly kn late to dance practic out where I am by th semester I’d realized effort than most peo trying again. Someti though.
Old Campus - 7:52 I stop a group of guy One of them acts as were technically talk talking about TV Sho Ball Z. And sports. A political problems, es really like them, but
Yale Station - 3:51 I ask a girl what she’s doing and she tells me the obvious—that she’s opening her mail. But she points out a flyer she got about moving – “I’m a senior, and I was wondering how they knew I was a senior.”
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Dinner - 6:00 I eat dinner in Berkeley with a friend and discuss a creative collaboration on a film project. There’s a hard pink thing in my Apple Jacks, but the experience is good overall. I’m too shy to talk to strangers in front of my friend, so I go to the JE Dining Hall. A friend is there and we strike up a conversation. Eventually I ask him the usual questions— what are they talking about? Intellectual property and online education. Is this meeting business or pleasure? “It’s always pleasure with Matt,” he tells me with a wink. “We play footsie under the table.” After I talk to them, I send my mom at least three text messages telling her I love her. I try to squeeze in a quick phone call before her flight but it doesn’t work out.
Karolina
On Yale Time
ternoon. Sorry.
10 pm
concerting nap and when now where I am. I’m too ce and still haven’t figured he end of it. Earlier in the d I was putting in less ople and I’d vowed to start imes I still sleep through it
ys coming back from Buffalo Wild Wings. s the representative, and tells me: “We king about how cold it is. We were also ows. We were also talking about Dragon And Georgia, and their really ridiculous specially with their governor right now.” I I feel bad keeping them in the cold. Bass - 8:33 I hear that UNICEF is hosting an anti-study break where people don’t pick up their phone so I head by to take some pictures, but it’s really quiet in there. I just end up having a whispered conversation with a girl that was in my Arabic class last year. On my way out of Bass I run into one of my housemates.
by Karolina Ksiazek
12 am
2 am
4 am
Part 3: Enough for Tonight
Woads - 12:01 I’m not feeling social tonight. I spent the first half of the semester trying to get people to hang out with me but I care a lot less now. Still, I know I can’t leave Woads out of this piece so I head there on my way home. A remix of “We Found Love” is playing, and there’s no line. I see a friend of mine hanging out with two other girls outside. On my walk back home I pass a lot of people that I know. I wish one friend a happy birthday, and then pass another friend who doesn’t notice me. Another guy I know is talking to some people on the corner of York and Broadway. I overhear the sentence: “I can’t believe you biked home naked.” I pass several guys leaving Broadway Rehearsal Lofts. I peek into Ivy Noodle—only one customer is there; he sits at the bar. There are a lot of people that seem to be heading to Toad’s and I have to constantly remind myself that I don’t want to go. A car is parked outside of Alpha Delta Pizza with the hazards on. I jaywalk across Howe Street to get to my house. The Last Time the Wind Pierced Us - 12:20 My housemates are also tired and we talk about how much the wind took out of us. Helen says something about how it hasn’t been since Sandy that the wind really pierced her that way. Angelica dreams of outdoor barbecues. When they go to bed, I collapse on my favorite couch. Woads closes in eight minutes so I’m sure they’ll be playing Don’t Stop Believing soon. I bet there’s a lot of people doing homework now, quite a few people having sex, doing drugs, drinking, probably someone is crying. There’s a Dramat show going up this weekend so I’m sure those folks are up late getting ready. And I’m sure there’s still someone awake at the YDN building.You can imagine it, I’m sure. My plan has me interviewing people on Old Campus at four in the morning but by then I’m fast asleep.
WLH - 9:00 Not wanting to interrupt anyone, I wander through the halls and let the sounds of an extracurricular medley blend in my ears. There are three a capella groups, an improv group, a student giving a bombastic speech to an audience of two, and several study groups each occupying a classroom. It reminds me of the Why I Chose Yale video, and it is really, really magical.
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Calhoun Buttery - 10:00 I can’t tell if the buttery is open or not tonight, but there are a few guys playing pool.
W O V INSECURITIES E N
BLACK HAIR:
BY Zenab Keita Photography by Ruoxi Yu
“Long, black hair like Pocahontas. Long, black hair like Pocahontas.”
Five-year-old me desperately wished those words on every set of birthday candles I came across, mine or not. I dreamt of wearing my hair in a high ponytail that flowed down my back in a waterfall of black curls and swayed briskly when I jumped rope. The closest I ever came to that dream were braided tresses that my mom would braid into my hair every few months. But every time the braids came out, my natural hair would sit atop my head—wild, short, and kinky—a stark contrast from my favorite Disney Princess.
“Just a few more minutes. I know it burns, but we want to make sure it works.”
My mother whispered that in my ear, rubbing my back as I sat on the toilet tearing up, pleading for her to douse my head in cold water. I first straightened my hair with a children’s hair relaxer when I was six years old and continued doing so every eight to ten weeks. Although it helped make my hair more manageable, the pain of literally burning my scalp with sodium hydroxide, the relaxer’s main ingredient, was unbearable, and the length I desired was still nonexistent. Nevertheless, when the treatment was
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done and my hair was styled in two high ponytails of tight, springy curls, I never felt more beautiful. My hair went from being thick, coarse, and “nappy” to smooth and thin. For that, the pain was worth it.
“I only liked you because you had braids.”
Montrell, a boy I liked in fourth grade, yelled this out to me on the playground during a game of tag and then ran off to play with Keyona, another, lighter skinned classmate with naturally curly, long hair. I cried with my head nestled in my arms on my desk for the rest of the school day. Keyona is black and Native American. This moment added fuel to a fire that had subliminally been burning within me for years.
“I wish I was mixed. Then I’d have long, black hair. Then I’d be pretty.”
My hair fantasies growing up were very particular. I did not want white hair or Hispanic or Asian hair. I specifically envied black girls with long hair, like Keyona, and the majority of them happened to be of mixed ethnicity, whether directly through a non-black parent or generational Native American, Caribbean, or Hispanic heritage. In my nineyear-old eyes, the particular ancestry was not important. I just knew that I was mostly Guinean and my African roots
S
made my hair ugly and undesirable, which made me ugly and undesirable. This insecurity was upheld by not just Montrell’s playground declaration, but also everything around me. All of the black boys in my elementary school gravitated towards the seemingly prototypical mixed girls with naturally smoother, longer hair over the girls with “nappier” hair or braids, giving them their extra snacks or chasing them on the playground. In addition, every girl on television I perceived as pretty was also mixed with long hair. I looked at Tia and Tamera Lowry on Disney Channel’s Sister, Sister, Lark Voorhies on Saved By the Bell, and Tatyana Ali on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as hair idols—all of whom are of mixed descent involving white or Native American heritage—and I yearned to have their curly and silky hair. Even my own mother, who is partly French, had sleeker, longer hair than me.
“How did I get so unlucky, I thought, to have
the majority of my gene pool come directly from African roots?”
I became obsessed with pointing out this very obvious variance between the girls I badly wanted to be and myself—obsessed with proving that unless I was mixed with long hair, I would never be considered beautiful.
I needed to change something immediately, but I knew that I could not change my heritage. I also knew my hair could not grow overnight. Or could it?
“Human hair or synthetic? We have 12”, 14”, and 16”.”
I stood dumbfounded in front of the Asian cashier as she asked me what length and type of hair I wanted. For years, I had entered the beauty supply store and saw the wigs and packages of hair strung cluttered on every wall, assuming they were for older ladies that had lost their hair, never thinking I would be purchasing my own bundle at fourteen-years-old. My older sister was with me. At that point, she had never thought to add extensions to her hair, for hers was even shorter and coarser than mine. Up until then, as a sophomore in college, she had worn only braids since the moment she entered middle school. She, too, struggled with accepting her hair and hid behind synthetic tresses. However, she went to a historically black college and had seen what other black girls did when they couldn’t have naturally long hair; they just purchased it and glued it in. Growing up, I always served as my sister’s guinea pig for everything, and hair extensions were her next experiment.
“Why can’t you just wear your hair out?”
My boyfriend unknowingly put me on the spot with this question two summers ago, when I told him I wanted new ban…” extensions for my birthday. We had been dating two years, In 2003, Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams made a hit and he had never seen my natural hair. It was the first single called “Beautiful”, where Snoop Dogg made two time I confronted the reality that I had completely abanreferences that favored long hair within his lyrics. I was an doned my real hair length and texture. For five years, I impressionable seventh grader at the time, desperately had not let my natural hair show for more than a few days wishing I were one of the gorgeous vixens in the music at a time, until I could get it braided again or add extenvideo, imagining my middle school hallways to be the Bra- sions. I refused to. Whenever I wore my real hair, I lost a bit zilian beaches where the models slowly strutted. Just like of confidence, like I had lost my ability to grab people’s in elementary school, I believed if I had “long, black, and attention. curly hair like I was Cuban” or Indian or anything but black, I did wear my hair out that summer, but I didn’t like it. I I would be beautiful. felt naked. Wearing extensions is something I won’t relinBut this was no longer only my insecurity, perpetuating quish. Perhaps I do wear weaves for the wrong reasons—to itself based off of my own observations. This was also pop satisfy improper societal pressures to be something I’m culture, and overall society, feeding into the belief that not. To be the girl that Montrell preferred to chase or the black women of mixed descent with longer and smoother woman Snoop Dogg wrote an ode to. Maybe. Regardless, hair are more desirable. Snoop Dogg, a multi-million dollar I have made progress. I have grown to love my African recording artist (with an apparent affinity for beautiful heritage. I no longer envy mixed girls. I accept that my hair women, as this song reveals), purposefully chose to spectexture will never change and my hair is “nappy”. I have ify this type of black woman. He and many other rappers even stopped getting relaxers. These insecurities took a continuously define beautiful or “fine” women as having long time to develop and will take equally as long to break a hair pattern and a complexion that allude to non-black down to the point at which I am fully comfortable wearing heritage. my natural hair. Until then, at least I am happy with myself. With social pressures like music and the media reinforc- I am the same face I have always been, just with longer ing the beliefs that impaired my self-esteem, my braids hair. Most importantly, I feel beautiful. Finally, I have beand my relaxed, neck-length hair only furnished anguish. come Pocahontas.
“Hair long and black and curly like you’re Cu-
SPECIAL THANKS TO : AARICA WEST, DJENAB CONDE, SEYI ADEYINKA, ASHLEY ISON, DEBORAH OYEYEMI, NYASHA SARJU, YAA AMPOFO, ARRICE BRYANT, BETHEL ASSEFA, CAMARA COOPER, PATRICIA OKONTA ITA ELLA | SPRING 2014
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Americana Photographer: Bobby de la Rosa Models: Elif Erez, Emily Cable, Catherine Shih
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THINGS DO NOT CHANGE W E C H A N G E HENRY DAVID THOREAU