Wash U & St. Louis

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

POLITICAL

REVIEW 32.4 | May 2020 | wupr.org

LO U I S W A S H U & S T.

Table of Contents 6

The Invisible Struggles of Refugees During the Coronavirus Kyra Sadat Ruben

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A Plan for the Worst Connor Warshauer

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Theme Art Shonali Palacios

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Serendipity Merry May Ma

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Habif in the World of COVID-19 Christian Monzรณn

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Life, Death, and the Economy in COVID-19 Ranen Miao

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Productivity and Pandemic: Reflections from a Wash U Senior Hanna Khalil

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Coronavirus's Effect on the Undocumented Malar Muthukumar

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Theme Art Nishi Mani

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Wash U Could Make Missouri a Swing State Again Elena Murray

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How Public Schools Can Better Fight Food Insecurity Salil Uttarwar

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Energy Use and the Coronavirus Clare Grindinger

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Fear Gabriela Senno

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Privilege and COVID-19: Reflections from Case 131 Harper Lane

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National

International

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Points on a larger trajectory: PruittIgoe and the Coronavirus pandemic Megan Orlanski

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The Slowlest Death Claudia Bermudez

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Theme Art Merry May Ma

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Art in Times of Crisis Rachel Olick-Gibson

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Helping our Community in a Post COVID-19 World Andrew Leung

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The Iraqi Impasse Aruni Soni

Editors' Note Executive Directors Christian Monzón Megan Orlanski Ishaan Shah (Emeritus) Editors-in-Chief Jon Niewijk Rohan Palacios Hanna Khalil (Emeritus) Sophie Attie (Emeritus) Design Director Catherine Ju Staff Editors Jaden A. Lanza Max Lichtenstein Features Editors Nick Massenburg Design Leads Leslie Liu Jinny Park Programming Director Liza Sivriver Treasurer Clare Grindinger Web Editor Adler Bowman Web Assistant Editor Yanny Liang Front Cover Haejin An Theme Spread Haejin An

Dear Readers, The spring semester is about to end on a note that none of us expected. All of us are removed from the people, places, and activities that fill ordinary life. This absence gives us new perspectives on the communities that we’re missing. Some of us are surprised by what we miss the most; others are realizing the opportunities we didn’t take. So despite the fact that many of us are nowhere near Wash U or St. Louis, we have an unusual focus with which to write about this community.

For many writers, the sudden end to the semester prompted nostalgia and reflections on the meaning of being at Wash U in St. Louis. In her article, senior Hanna Khalil considers the moments she may have taken for granted amidst the constant pursuit of “productivity.” Connor Warshauer attacks the question surely on everyone’s mind: what will student life look like in the Fall? Looking to the future, Kyra Sadat Ruben demonstrates how Wash U students can help support some of our community’s most vulnerable members, the thousands of immigrants and refugees who call St. Louis home.

Understandably, this issue of WUPR is also characterized by the uncertainty wrought by the pandemic. In a haunting poem, Gabriela Senno explores the physical and mental toll of fear. Finally, Rachel Olick-Gibson examines the history of art in times of crisis, a study that feels increasingly relevant.

This strange semester will also be the last for our WUPR seniors. We would like to sincerely thank our senior executive team, Ishaan Shah, Hannah Khalil, and Sophie Attie. During their year leading the publication, WUPR has dramatically expanded its expectations for who its writers are and who it can reach. We also thank our other graduating executive members, Max Lichtenstein, Liza Sivriver, and Clare Grindinger, for the many hours they have put into this publication. We will miss all their faces and ideas, but we know the things they have given us will help us take WUPR into the future with warmth and purpose.

So whether this is your first or last year of Wash U, we hope this issue gives you new ways to think about this community. In this time of crisis, please stay safe however possible. If you are able, consider contributing to the Wash U crisis response fund or to mutual aid networks in your community. And remember, everything is political, even Zoom.

Sincerely, Rohan Palacios & Jon Niewijk Editors-in-Chief

WU Political Review

The Invisible Struggles of Refugees During the Coronavirus Kyra Sadat Ruben

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motions of disbelief and distress are rocking the Wash U community as the coronavirus pandemic forces virtually all undergraduates to return to our childhood homes and transition precipitously to online instruction. Uncertainty surrounding work and housing arrangements, an inability to see loved ones, and restricted movement detrimentally affects our health and emotional well being.

Although this has been emotionally and physically draining for us, immigrants and refugees are suffering even more. And unfortunately, this may not be the first time that their lives have been turned upside down.

Our city is home to the third-fastest-growing foreign-born population in the country as of 2019. An overwhelming 68.22 percent of this St. Louis demographic are not yet US citizens, and a stunning 77 percent do not own their own homes. Though the St. Louis Housing Authority has temporarily halted evictions due to the pandemic, it is unsure how long these housing security measures will be in place. In the meantime, lower income citizens and immigrants legally authorized to work in the US will receive a stimulus check- provided they are not married to an undocumented immigrant.

Migrants lacking social security numbers are not eligible for government-issued COVID19 relief funds and neither are their US-citizen spouses, despite undocumented immigrants paying approximately $13 billion to social security in 2019. Undocumented immigrants and refugees who lost their job or means of commuting to the coronavirus (public transit is heavily relied on) may have no way to earn an income before the eviction halt is lifted. For these reasons, the nonnative residents of St. Louis, particularly non-citizens, are amongst the most vulnerable members of our community. Immigrants and refugees would have nowhere to turn if not for the local organizations created to advocate for their rights.

The International Institute of St. Louis is a

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nationally acclaimed immigrant service and information hub which currently has 6,674 clients and has sponsored nearly 25,000 refugees since 1979. They provide translators, counseling, housing aid, childcare and more, giving their clients the tools needed to build a new life (4).

Due to the temporary closure of the IISTL, these invaluable resources are now completely inaccessible to those whose lives depend on them.

To refugees fleeing situations of war, extreme poverty, and even torture, resettlement in the United States should be as seamless as possible. The reality that awaits these refugees is far from it: American political and academic institutions show them little mercy and the “American Dream” becomes a fight to the death. They strain to keep their head above water, the system having determined their failure before they even began to swim. The IISTL, in collaboration with the Care Access For New Americans mental health referral system and the St. Louis Mental Health Board, works tirelessly to help the foreign-born community through their challenges (5). For those who suffer from migration-related trauma, quarantine may trigger feelings of grief and despair; yet, this pandemic has erected a barricade between immigrants and the health resources that their lives depend on.

I think most of the student body can relate to feelings of fear and anxiety surrounding the state of the world and a desperation for our lives to return to ‘normal’. Out of state students may be feeling more disconnected from St. Louis than ever. Nevertheless, this pandemic gives us an opportunity to mobilize on behalf of marginalized groups whose struggles are being exacerbated by COVID-19. In fact, despite the barriers enforced upon them, immigrants and refugees continue to advocate for others in a way that has never been done for them; in 2018, despite making up only 13.7% of the U.S. population, 35.2% of our home health care aides and 28.5% of our physicians were immigrants. Working on our front lines, immigrants are essential in the

battle against Coronavirus, and as they continue to fight for us we must ensure that their basic human needs are met. I know that we can emerge from this crisis with a renewed dedication to do better for the next generation of immigrant and refugee children.

There are ways to get involved within the Wash U community through the Legacies for Immigrants and Refugees club. Members tutor immigrant and refugee students through the IISTL After School Program and work with adults studying to take the US citizenship exam. Unfortunately, this semester’s work was cut short, but while Wash U students have been able to continue our education online, students in the ASP have been cut off from their main academic and emotional support system. English Language Learners and low-income students without technology will be set back months by the cancellation of summer education programs. Legacies is partnering with the IISTL to fundraise money and host a drive for new or used tablets to ensure that refugee and immigrant students can engage in the IISTL’s Teen Summer Learning Program. For more information, please contact kvruben@wustl.edu.

Kyra Sadat Ruben ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at kvruben@wustl.edu.

Wash U & St. Louis

Artwork by Shonali Palacios, staff artist

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WU Political Review

Habif in the World of COVID-19 Christian Monzón, executive director Artwork (right) by Natalie Snyder, staff artist

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set my Monday morning alarm for 10 A.M. It goes off, and I decide I want a few more minutes. Slowly, a few minutes turn into a few more hours. To wake myself up, I go on Facebook, and then Snapchat, and then watch a few YouTube videos. I skip my first class because after all I learn nothing from virtual classes.

Looking at my phone, I see the time: 1:30 P.M. But for some reason, I cannot convince myself to get out of bed, and find myself absorbed on my own thoughts, focused on the gray sky outside, unable to escape the cold, hard, reality of isolation in my home.

I begin to feel guilty—not everybody has the luxury of quarantining themselves in a home where they can feel safe, with their family, and with the resources to engage with their education. Not everybody has a family where both parents still have their jobs, and nobody has Coronavirus.

And yet, no matter how much I remind myself of my privilege, my lingering inability to concentrate or stay focused never subsides.

Privileged or not, mental health affects every student now isolated in their homes after Coronavirus stole our semester, our economy, and in some cases our loved ones. While Wash U’s campus offered accessible—albeit imperfect—mental health resources, some students not only lost access to their main source of counseling and medication, but returned home to loneliness, greater stress, and uncertainty. While all of us learn from home, however, COVID-19 has exposed Wash U’s mental health resources for their shortcomings and inadequacies.

For example, Habif has a page about mental health and coping with isolation during COVID19. Its page contains several links to different websites helping students cope, and warns students about anxiety, uncertainty, depression, and even PTSD. Habif’s page contains helpful information—it warns students about risks and even offers guidance for supporting themselves and others. Yet upon examining some of their advice, the website, rather than being helpful and informative, feels unhelpful and inaccessible.

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While all of us learn from home, however, COVID-19 has exposed Wash U’s mental health resources for its shortcomings and inadequacies.

It ignores, first and foremost, stressors unique to underprivileged students—students who disproportionately need greater access to mental health resources. Zoom and virtual coursework expose the different stresses that students face in COVID-19. One political science course at Haverford College demonstrates the staggering inequalities the different challenges present in less-privileged areas. According to The New York Times, while “one student sat at a vacation home on the coast of Maine,” and “one young woman’s father, a private equity executive, urged the family to decamp to a country where infections where falling,” other students faced steeper challenges. “Another [student] struggled to keep her mother’s Puerto Rican food truck running” and “another student’s mother in Russia couldn’t afford the plane ticket to bring her daughter home.” Crowded homes, failing businesses, financial insecurity, and limited access to healthcare all contribute to intensifying stress and deteriorating mental health in low-income areas.

During COVID-19, such struggles result in a greater need for care. Crisis Text Line and Empower Work, two text hotline services for people in crises, reported increased usage by low-income people due to coronavirus. Before the pandemic, 20% of Crisis Text Line’s users were below the poverty line, a number that rose

to 32% by April 15. Simultaneously, 40% of Empower Work’s users are low-wage workers.

Meanwhile, Habif’s mental health resources fail to address stressors unique to certain populations, and its advice hardly seems applicable to certain situations. Telling someone to “stay positive” in self-isolation, for example—actual advice from Habif’s website—seems insulting to say to someone who might have lost their job or who lacks proper health insurance.

Moreover, nothing on Habif’s COVID-19 page indicates any emphasis on helping low-income students receive treatment or offering students remote counseling services. Students face much larger obstacles to mental health treatment at home than on campus, and not simply financial ones. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Institute of Health, most United States citizens hold stigmas against mental illness that lead to embarrassment, shame, and disgrace upon acknowledging one’s own mental illness. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities says that existing stigmas particularly prevent populations of color from seeking proper treatment. When students face isolation and depression at home, sociocultural and financial barriers stop them from attaining the resources they need. Since schoolwork adds to the already large stress of returning home, Habif should actively offer online counseling sessions and help students acquire proper treatment.

Hard-working, committed psychologists and counselors work in the Habif Health and Wellness Center. Their COVID-19 mental health page contains useful advice and helpful warnings. But the loneliness, exhaustion, and depression from the Coronavirus demand more than just advice and warnings—they demand action and treatment.

Christian Monzón ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at Christian.monzon@ wustl.edu.

Wash U & St. Louis

"Eleven skylines that aren't St. Louis, but one that is."

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WU Political Review

Productivity and Pandemic: Reflections from a Wash U Senior Hanna Khalil, editor-in-chief (emeritus)

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arm afternoons sitting on Mudd Field, picnicking on Art Hill or strolling down the Loop. Readings that didn’t really matter anymore, lazy mornings with my roommates, and final adventures exploring the parts of St. Louis that our too-busy schedules had not allowed for up to this point. This is how I had imagined the final six weeks of my senior year: a utopic, golden haze of sunshine, friendship, nostalgia, and little responsibility. With 3.75 years of grinding and a completed senior honors thesis behind me, spring break was to mark a transition into my reward: the final 42 days of the supposed best time of my life.

Like many other members of the class of 2020, that expectation has crumbled down into a new reality as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, I am back home in the same bedroom I had in high school, motivating myself through a few hours of Zoom classes each week. My friendships have turned long-distance overnight, and my access to sunshine is restricted to the very intentional daily walks I take in an effort to otherwise self-isolate as much as possible.

I know that in so many ways I am extremely lucky: I have a safe home to come back to, parents who can work remotely, health insurance, and few responsibilities outside of keeping myself and my loved ones safe. For these things, and so much more, I am grateful. And with that acknowledged, I, like so many seniors, still can’t help but feel like something special was stolen by this pandemic. Not just time, but the time that was to make all of the previous late nights and sacrifices “worth it.”

My last six weeks of college were going to be about the relationships I had at this institution, not my classwork or resume. But now that those relationships have been scattered across the country, what I am left with is a lot of empty time to sit with these feelings of loss and reflect on this attitude. When I think about why the cancellation of these weeks feels so painful, I realize that I had rationalized my moments of being

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Now that we are severed from the material structures of Wash U that allowed for academic success, and the social lives built around them, what lessons can we learn about our values moving forward? overworked knowing that this reprieve was in sight. For me, sacrificing nights with friends to work on my senior thesis was made more understandable knowing I had this transition time ahead. Others justified cancelled plans to study for the MCAT or LSAT in the same way. Even more generally, a celebratory finish would make four years of hard work truly worth it.

None of us did anything wrong—naturally there are busier times in life when a deadline is on the horizon. It’s not our fault that we didn’t predict a global pandemic. And when I look back, of course I am proud of the things I have accomplished through hard work and the ways I have grown as a student and leader. But why does it feel like we put all of our proverbial eggs in the basket of six weeks? What does this say about myself, my relationship to work, and school, and people? If I had known, would I have done things differently?

As I look back on my four years at Wash U, I realize that these questions are not unique to the current moment, but are ones I have dealt with throughout my entire college experience.

From the first days of Bear Beginnings, we are warned to find a balance between the academic

expectations of our institution, our burgeoning social lives, and our personal health. But now that we are severed from the material structures of Wash U that allowed for academic success, and the social lives built around them, what lessons can we learn about our values moving forward?

Seniors in college are not the only ones reckoning with similar questions. The COVID-19 crisis and the adaptation to stay-at-home orders for those privileged enough to do so have brought reconciliation with new standards of productivity, ideas of being a good worker, and self-care.

On the one hand, some have promoted the message of “making the most of quarantine.”

From social media influencers to employers to some annoying friends on Facebook there have been declarations of taking advantage of “all of this free time” to read the book that has been lying on your bedside table, learn to sew, finally take up yoga, or learn how to make sourdough bread—all, of course, while maintaining a full work or academic schedule from the supposed comfort of your own home.

But there has been pushback to this narrative as well. Across social media, people have

Wash U & St. Louis

recognized the flawed logic behind such statements. Apparently, even in times of global crisis and peril, we must create, produce, or accomplish in order to be deemed “good” and “worthy.” This attitude assumes an idealistic quarantine environment void of shared space with children, the need to take care of immunocompromised relatives, or simply being anxious as the world experiences unprecedented changes. Acknowledging these facts, mental health experts have reminded us, as put in a recent headline from the Washington Post, “It’s Okay to Not be Productive During a Pandemic.”

Many Wash U professors have also been equally kind and supportive, knowing that their students do not have the capacity to engage with their syllabi in the same ways from home. Beyond the personal, there are also political implications for rejecting the need to pretend that all is normal.

Acknowledging that it is okay to work less and to slow down can be a small form of resistance to a neoliberal logic always demanding that we not only push ourselves as far as we can go, but that we feel guilty when we don’t.

But, as I look back at my years at Wash U, I wonder why it has taken a pandemic for this conversation to come to the forefront. Over-extended

Ironically, Wash U has both pushed me the farthest I have ever been pushed, while also being the place I have started to challenge these ideals.

Perhaps we can, to some degree, replace grinding with caring, producing with restoring, achieving with enjoying. schedules are regularly admired, encouraged, and glorified at the expense of mental health, a decent sleep routine, or the joys of simple leisure time. At this school, students schedule in hour-long blocks to catch up with a friend, have their laptops constantly open during coffee breaks, and casually refer to the fact that they need to grind over the weekend—a word literally referring to the physical maneuvering of machine parts, not of human beings. I have done all of these things, aware of how much I have internalized discourses of worth and production. Ironically, Wash U has both pushed me the farthest that I have ever been pushed, while also being the place I have started to challenge these ideals.

The best decision I made at Wash U was to use my nine yearly free therapy appointment sessions at SHS. In that space, I began a process of slowly un-learning perfectionism and the need to go, go, go that I share with many of my peers.

I have learned about self-compassion, mindfulness, and separating my worth from my work.

Needless to say, it has been a bigger source of learning than any seminar or lecture. Now, it feels that I am being asked to put all of that learning to the test in this strange end of a senior year, as we have all been forced to slow down in ways we did not choose.

a day to celebrate our accomplishments with family and friends: a time to acknowledge our sacrifices, challenges overcome, long nights, and the amazing achievements that came as a result.

I still want to celebrate those things, and hope that my class can find ways to do so despite being unable to come together on May 15th. But I also want to celebrate what I am continuing to learn about caring for myself. I hope that we can all embrace this weird, disruptive time as an opportunity not to grind, but to re-evaluate what we have called normal for so long. Now that we can’t have these six weeks back, how will we treat our relationship to time and people in the future? Perhaps we can, to some degree, replace grinding with caring, producing with restoring, achieving with enjoying. Maybe, when the moment comes for Wash U students to come back to campus, those returning can take some of the “pause” forced on us by self-isolation into the vibrant relationships and activities awaiting them. Perhaps we can all find a bit of these lost six weeks in the every day.

Hanna Khalil ’20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at hannakhalil@wustl.

For many seniors, graduation would have been

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WU Political Review

Artwork by Nisha Mani

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Wash U & St. Louis

How Public Schools Can Better Fight Food Insecurity Salil Uttarwar, staff writer

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xposure to nutritious food is something many of us, as university students, take for granted. Dining halls, from which we can get a balanced meal at the swipe of an ID card, are littered throughout campus and restaurants and supermarkets are not far away.

Unfortunately, our privilege of having access to a diverse range of food options is not one shared by many St. Louis City residents. The 2019 Missouri Hunger Atlas reported that 23.3 percent of people who live in St. Louis City are food insecure, meaning that they do not have consistent access to safe and nutritious foods, whether due to financial reasons or physical distance. In other words, almost every 4th person, on average, you see while in the city may not know where their next meal is coming from.

Insufficient access to nutritious food is especially damaging for children. Children who grow up food insecure are likely to suffer from slowed physical and psychological development, require much more frequent hospitalization, suffer from chronic diseases in the future, and develop behavioral problems such as ADD, depression, anxiety, and trust issues. Many live in food deserts, regions where nutritious and diverse ranges of fresh foods are difficult to find, causing these issues to amplify. Despite this, there is one place children can go and get a guaranteed, healthy, and, often, free meal: public schools. For this reason, it is essential that students are properly nourished at schools due to the consistent access to nutritious foods they provide.

I recently had the opportunity to talk to a St. Louis City public middle school employee about the issue of food insecurity for the school’s students. She stated that a large portion of the students grow up in food insecure households in food deserts. Due to difficulties accessing fresh food, these students consume a large amount of highly-processed, unhealthy foods from corner stores. She continued to describe how their lives at home translate to their food consumption behaviors at school; the school provides free,

nutritious meals to many students, but students rarely eat them due to mandatory inclusion of healthy, but unappetizing foods such as wholegrains. Students tend to throw away the majority of their meals and eat vending machine food instead. For breakfast, the students would throw away fruits and only eat the items served with syrup. During lunchtime, the cafeteria salad bar is rarely touched, but when it is, the students only consume lettuce, dressing, and cheese, throwing away the tomatoes and cucumbers that are included.

She largely attributes this behavior to a lack of exposure to a variety of foods and a lack of knowledge regarding proper nutrition. Due to many students living in food deserts, they simply are unaware of many foods due to a lack of access. The employee gave me an example of this; some students were unaware that cabbages can be purple or that grapes could be green. When shown a purple cabbage or green grapes, they would have difficulty identifying them. She continued by discussing her experiences taking some of her students to a nearby supermarket. She recalled how the students were shocked that the store had a deli inside of it; they had never seen a food market that sold freshly prepared food.

The Missouri Coalition for the Environment describes healthy food consumption as reliant on pricing and affordability of food, geographic access to food, access to cooking tools and knowledge, cultural relevance (i.e. one’s familiarity with a food), and nutritional knowledge.

Though public schools can’t change their students’ home addresses or socioeconomic standings, schools can improve health outcomes by implementing nutrition education and exposure to new kinds of foods in their curriculums at school and by finding a better compromise between providing meals that are healthy and meals that the students will actually eat.

exist and the importance of nutrition to their developing bodies, students have no incentive to change their unhealthy diets. Literacy about how to make the best choices for one’s body is key to encouraging young kids to make healthy choices independently. By implementing lessons about concepts such as food groups, eating in moderation, and reading and understanding important information like nutrition facts labels, students could become more aware of how their diets influence their bodies. In addition, exposing students to new foods, whether through trips to supermarkets or in-class demonstrations, can help a student familiarize and normalize themselves with healthy foods they may not be comfortable with. By associating proper diets with improved academic and athletic performance, instructors could further motivate students to eat healthier options. Furthermore, by adjusting the legislature that mandates inclusion of healthier food options in school lunches to having more appealing options, schools can better incentivize students to eat their meals. Including options such as white bread or processed fruits, though a compromise, can reduce food waste and serve as a stepping stone towards healthier habits.

Public schooling is a service that is funded to provide basic necessities and securities that students may be deprived of home. Schools are often the only places many children are guaranteed a nutritious and filling meal. By implementing nutrition education and changing laws regarding health requirements of meals, public schools can better utilize the resources provided to them to help nourish students that are food-insecure and build the foundation for a life of healthier food consumption habits.

Salil Uttarwar ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at suttarwar@wustl.

Without awareness of the variety of foods that

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Megan Orlanski, executive director Design by Jinny Park, design lead ccording to theorist Charles Jencks, the death of modern architecture can be traced to a specific date in time: July 15, 1972. On this day, Pruitt-Igoe, a public housing development in the Desoto-Carr neighborhood of St. Louis, was publicly broadcast as three of its 33 buildings were razed to the ground. The remainder of the development would eventually become rubble by 1976, and would be the first public housing project to be destroyed. The video footage of the demolition is haunting.

Concrete structures come crashing down, collapsing in on themselves and releasing dust into the surrounding air, as if confirming ambiguity in which there was once clarity.

Pruitt-Igoe, originally built between 1954 and 1956, was an ambitious public housing project financed under the Housing Act of 1949.

Originally conceptualized as a segregated housing development, in which the Pruitt side was for black residents only, and the Igoe side for white residents. However, in 1954, with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board, Pruitt-Igoe

became an integrated development.Initially, Pruitt-Igoe was positively received by tenants, and original advertisements show green spaces and clean facilities where neighbors interacted with one another and formed almost a community of individuals cohabitating this development. In a way, Pruitt-Igoe shortly after its construction represented some of the utopian ideals of the 1950s.

However, the already prevalent wave of ‘white flight’ to suburbs in St. Louis very quickly began to pose problems for Pruitt-Igoe. According to The Guardian, while, “Its 2,870 units reached a peak of 91% occupancy in 1957, a figure that would plummet below 35% by 1971, when just 600 people remained in the 17 of the complex’s buildings that were not yet boarded up.” While the development had been constructed under the premise of providing partially subsidized housing to low-income individuals in Desoto Carr, its occupancy and demographics changed rapidly. According to Black Past, “Pruitt-Igoe by 1960 had become an overwhelmingly black

project occupied by many of the city’s poorest families.”As Pruitt-Igoe faced increasing vacancies, it also faced an increasing loss of its source for funds to cover maintenance of the buildings.

While the government paid for the construction of the complex, the cost of maintenance fees came from the tenant’s rent, and as the buildings had fewer and fewer tenants, fewer funds were available to cover the cost of maintenance.

chronic conditions such as diabetes are more prevalent in Native American, African American and Hispanic individuals than whites according to the National Institute of Health. Chronic conditions tend to make individuals more susceptible to Covid-19.

Eventually, the buildings fell into disrepair, with heaters, air conditioning, elevators, sewage systems all malfunctioning. Along with the lack of maintenance came crime, including vandalism, robberies, and violence that perpetuated the housing project.

“By the early 1970s, Pruitt-Igoe had come to symbolize municipal indifference to African American poverty, budget constraints for affordable housing, and cutbacks in social programs and education that service African American communities.” according to Black Past.

The eventual bulldozing of the complex was a culmination of failures on various fronts. It was a failure on the part of both St. Louis and national housing policy to account for the increasing vacancies in the complex and offer assistance to cover maintenance costs. It was a failure of the utopian ideals that the complex was originally built upon but had now crumbled. More importantly, it was a failure of the public housing and governmental agencies that had constructed this complex and had also constructed this nation, that had willfully ignored the needs of Pruitt-Igoe residents.

Many would go on to blame the tenants themselves for the failure of the complex, citing that they were the ones who allowed it to fall into disrepair and incited crime. But, the collapse of the Pruitt-Igoe project was a massive physical

manifestation of structural inequality that had come to its breaking point, revealing the cracks in institutions and in the concept of modernity.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the Pruitt-Igoe development and the subsequent documentation of its demise. I can’t help but think of the dust clouds that emerged from the rubble in Desoto-Carr. Our current state of affairs seems to be exposing the cracks in our foundations, our institutions, not unlike the cracks that led to the failure of Pruitt-Igoe.

Most obviously, we have seen how the American healthcare system is straining under the massive influx of Covid-19 related hospitalizations. There are simply not enough facilities, PPE equipment, healthcare workers, and other supplies to deal with the exponential increase in hospitalizations.

According to the Boston Globe, large healthcare facilities are planning to or have already cut 30 to 50 % of ‘non-emergency’ procedures, leaving people with chronic conditions without or with limited access to the care that they need.

This brings forward another issue, the fact that

It has become evident that Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting minorities in the United States. According to the CDC, 33% of individuals hospitalized for Covid-19 symptoms are African American and according to Johns Hopkins University, 34% of Covid-19 related deaths are African American individuals, compared to 13%, the proportion of the national population that is African American. In an interview with NPR, Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League said, "Every major crisis or catastrophe hits the most vulnerable communities the hardest."

He attributes the disproportionate effect on minorities on the prevalence of chronic conditions, as well as lack of access to healthcare facilities and also the fact that many of these individuals work in essential industries that prevents them from working from home.

Additionally, issues such as stress contribute to the development of chronic issues and the ability to fight disease, and according to the Pew Research Institute, African Americans and

WU Political Review report being much more stressed about Covid19 than white respondents. Yet, while these mounting issues show evidence of structural inequalities that are now being highlighted more than ever, these issues have been present in this country long before this pandemic arrived. Still, people continue to blame minority communities for having higher occurrences of chronic illness and Covid-19 related complications.

institutional discrimination prove that racism is systematic, and continues to this day, proves otherwise. Pruitt-Igoe and Covid-19 are points in a larger narrative of injustice, and when those of us who are privileged understand that this is not a passive process, but rather an active one that stems from oppressive forces, we move towards a more just society.

Megan Orlanski ’22 studies in the College of Arts &

In reference to low-income communities often having limited access to healthy food options, Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative said: “If people wanted fresh vegetables and salads and tofu, stores would provide them.� Arguments like these have been applied to justify why minorities face higher risks of illness, are more likely to live in low-income areas and countless other consequences of institutional discrimination.

Sciences She can be reached at morlanski@wustl.edu.

It is opinions like these that put the blame on minority communities that are the subject of persistent income gap disparities, public health disparities, housing bias, discrimination, and countless other forms of both institutional and non-institutional racism. These persistent racist ideas show that the cracks in our institutions and society today may not be so different than those that affected Pruitt-Igoe.

This signals both the presence of underlying racism that was present prior to the coronavirus outbreak but also shows the speed at which many in this country will turn to hate and pointing the blame at minority communities in times of crisis. The world may be undergoing a crisis we have never experienced before, but considering Pruitt-Igoe as a moment in the larger trajectory of U.S. history, the ways in which hardship comes to disproportionately affect minority communities is not new. At this moment when it seems as though we have reached the end of modernity, where it seems as though we may collapse as those project buildings did, there is an urgent need for a reevaluation of the foundations of our institutions and our society.

I come from a place of privilege, where I never had to face the issues that African Americans have faced and continue to face today. For those who think that the disproportionate effects that the Covid-19 pandemic has on African Americans is coincidental, the centuries of Image (one) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and (two and three) courtesy of Flickr.

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Wash U & St. Louis

The Slowest Death: Charities Claudia Bermudez

W

ith each day, more discoveries are made which expose newer ways in which the coronavirus is, either directly or indirectly, impacting the lives of every single person on the planet. One of the worst impacted groups—which usually gets some of the least coverage—is international charities.

High levels of anxiety, hope, instability, and joy have marked this time as we see how pockets of society try to band together against this pandemic and support each other any way they can.

While many heartwarming tales of charity and funds supporting vulnerable communities during this time have emerged, not much attention is being paid to groups that rely on international support to survive.

TASSEL (Teaching and Sharing Skills to Enrich Lives) is an international NGO focused on delivering aid to the people of Cambodia following the Khmer Rouge regime in the form of education, psychological support, medicine, and financial aid. Every summer, TASSEL hosts 4 opportunities for dedicated volunteers to travel to Cambodia and deliver medicine, money, education, and emotional support to the people of Cambodia. This time is crucial for the NGO since it permits volunteers to give in-person instruction without technical difficulties, lets volunteers distribute medicine and approximately 5,000 articles of clothing to around 100 elderly villagers every year, inspires volunteers to work hard, and is a great source of joy for struggling families—who would normally receive visits from volunteers—and for the Cambodianbased volunteers of the organization. We also make important emotional connections with our students. On one trip, I was touched by my students pooling their resources to buy me a cupcake for my summer birthday. Needless to say, the ability to host these summer volunteer opportunities is crucial for the overall health of TASSEL. Aside from this crucial summer service, TASSEL also heavily relies on its spring semester teaching program to provide aid to the people of Cambodia. Every week, hundreds of TASSEL volunteers give online English instruction to

With each passing day, more discoveries are made which expose even newer ways in which the coronavirus is, either directly or indirectly, impacting the lives of every single person on the planet. students from ages five and to past 18. This English education is crucial for the students who need to speak English in order to obtain a college degree.

With the new reality we all face in this pandemic, none of the regular key activities that TASSEL sponsors can take place. Travel restrictions ban volunteers to travel and give in-person aid, which means that Cambodians won’t receive as much medicine or clothing as past summers. The TASSEL sponsored local volunteer opportunities, which await the foreigners’ visit to boost morale and interactions that inspire everyone to work harder, can no longer take place. Additionally, the closure of the country after cases were discovered in cities six hours away from Battambang Province—where all the TASSEL schools are located—led to all public schools in Cambodia shutting down. Since the impoverished families of TASSEL students don’t have a way to attend class at their homes, these students are now missing the last two months of their TASSEL school year. Because of social distancing measures and travel restrictions, TASSEL students will have an extra five months this year where they will not be able to learn

from a teacher.

The coronavirus also presents huge issues for vulnerable populations in terms of work. While the most highlighted issue is how workers will support their families on limited income, this issue ripples to the children of working families as well. In countries like Cambodia—where families will not receive a stimulus check from the government—families face more dire financial situations. In turn, children may not even return to school once social distancing guidelines are lifted because they will have dropped out to start working to make up for the lost income. If this is already a regular practice in vulnerable regions, it’s likely that this will happen on an even greater scale once the pandemic passes.

What’s worse is, if it weren’t for the people in the big cities traveling to rural parts of Cambodia, the people of the rural parts of Cambodia would most likely have never even been exposed to the virus. However, because of inadequate measures by governments and individuals all around the world, everyone is now scrambling to try to contain the virus. Unfortunately, these reactive—rather than proactive—measures to stop it are too late to halt the long-lasting ripple effects the pandemic will have, especially on vulnerable populations. Not only are they more likely to succumb to the disease, but they also have less financial means to defend against it.

The long-lasting effects are going to impact both the individual and larger organizations—such as charities, like TASSEL. In order to help these vulnerable populations, it’s important to remember to donate to international organizations that help areas of the world where there are even more vulnerable populations than in the U.S.

Claudia Bermudez ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at claudia. bermudez@wustl.edu.

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WU Political Review

Artwork by Merry May Ma, staff artist

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Wash U & St. Louis

Helping our Community in a Post COVID-19 World Andrew Leung, staff writer

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n 2020, the world has turned into what could serve as a backdrop to a dystopian science fiction novel I read in middle school.

Unnaturally quiet metropolitan hubs, shuttered retail businesses, and empty school campuses are now the norm, as well as overwhelmed hospitals and long grocery lines. And while there isn’t an alien invasion or major international conflict, the effects of a global pandemic will impact most of us in some way long after the virus is contained.

The news has focused on the health-related impact of the virus: lack of testing, hospitals under strain, and the continued attention on keeping the public home to stop the spread of the virus. This coverage is justified given our country is still in the stage of the outbreak where public health is a priority to flatten the curve. But as the country hunkers down, there are growing concerns about the economy’s resilience and ability to bounce back in the coming months.

With a record 22 million unemployment filings in the past four weeks, as well as small businesses struggling to file for the payment protection program, there is growing potential for a weaker post-pandemic economy.

It may be more difficult to see this first-hand when most people are stuck at home. Unless we are directly affected by the illness or lost wages, it is likely we’ve only seen the mile-long lines for food banks or shuttered businesses from our screens. The detachment from the outside world has put everyone in a bubble, initially as a public safety measure.

The question remains whether the bubble is popped once a sense of “normalcy” is regained.

From a student’s perspective, a university life post-COVID-19 may have a larger focus on student health and safety. One positive opportunity with this focus may be the impact of mental health in response to a crisis. Hopefully,

a greater emphasis is put on students’ emotional well-being; for many of us, it may be the first time experiencing a crisis as impactful as the September 11th attacks, when the oldest of us undergraduates hadn’t started kindergarten yet.

But with this care for student health and safety, it may interfere with the university’s interactions with the St. Louis community. It may be possible for large organizations like Campus Y, which host volunteer programs helping children in the greater St. Louis are, to integrate health protocols within their programs to allow students to continue their mentorships and volunteering. Campus Y, in partnership with the YMCA, may have a broad network with the resources to safely restart volunteer activities. With the breadth and diversity of service organizations students are members of, it is unknown what guidelines may be put in place in the future and how that impacts participation.

Student outreach, nevertheless, mostly relies on students. And with the news cautioning everyone to limit contact with others, it may be discouraging to venture off-campus as often, assuming we return to campus in the near future at all. This belief is not ill-intentioned, as it is important to consider one’s personal health with the current situation. But it is also a good time to reflect on our position and how privilege plays a factor in life during and after the pandemic. It’s reasonable to infer that the greatest impact that many students will face from the current school closures is one of inconvenience, whether that be having their belongings locked on campus, or missing face-to-face interactions with friends.

But for many students, individuals, and families, they are encountering more difficult hardships.

The abrupt closure of campus disadvantaged students who did not have residences they could easily return to, with some facing situations where their on-campus residence may be the only place to stay. Loss of compensation also factors in for individuals whether they belong to the WashU community or not.

That’s the situation: the pandemic is limiting our ability to help a community that needs it more than before.

But as schools and businesses have adapted to remote working and online classes, using technology to continue our efforts to impact the community in a good way has manifested itself.

Multiple online fundraisers to donate money, food, and personal protective equipment have been able to support those who are food-insecure, healthcare workers, and first responders on the front line against the pandemic. The university said it has pledged $100,000 to the St. Louis Community Foundation, and support for the WashU Crisis Response Fund has grown from several student organizations. Student leaders have worked to have the funds aid both students and employees affected by the pandemic, as it is important to consider the multiple groups that have been negatively impacted. In any case, I am optimistic in seeing what student groups will do in the future to provide support, especially to members outside the WashU community.

We may be undergraduates at WashU, but we are more than students. We are members of the St. Louis community, so thinking about what we can do to aid others in the future is a great way to reflect on how we value each other. Even starting small, like showing gratitude to those helping fight the outbreaks or to the friends helping us fight the boredom, goes a long way. From there, engaging in volunteer efforts can be another way to show support for those who are facing hardships in these times. It is critical that we continue to show our humanity as our community slowly heals.

Andrew Leung ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at andrew.leung@wustl. edu.

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WU Political Review

A Plan for the Worst Connor Warshauer Artwork (right) by Shonali Palacios, staff artist

C

OVID-19 has already uprooted Wash U’s 2020 Spring Semester, with in-person classes canceled for the remainder of the semester and most students sent home. Wash U has also shifted Summer classes online, and grim as it may seem, administrators and students should begin planning for the possibility that the pandemic may continue to pose an insurmountable obstacle to in-person classes in Fall 2020. The CDC predicts a second wave of coronavirus cases, and most infectious disease experts warn that cases may rise following the removal of social distancing restrictions.

Hopefully, some combination of restrictions on large gatherings, pervasive testing, contact tracing, and experimental treatments will limit the danger of a second wave and allow for in-person Fall classes. As a university community, however, we should plan for the worst.

Another semester of mandatory online coursework seems unacceptable. Social science research shows that online classes do not adequately replicate classroom instruction. GMU Professor Spiros Protopsaltis and Skidmore Professor Sandy Baum found that online learning leads to worse outcomes than classroom instruction, and exacerbates socioeconomic disparities. A Brookings report surveying existing literature found the same.

Frankly, however, we don’t need statistical research to know that learning from a bedroom cannot possibly rival learning in a top tier, 169acre facility designed expressly for education.

Online education isolates students from their learning partners, including both professors and other students. Zoom enables rudimentary lecturing and discussion, but it cannot replicate the experience of listening and asking questions in real time. Nor can Zoom simulate the experience of studying with a group of other students, books collectively strewn across a common room table. Worse, students lack access to Wash U’s world-class facilitates. While social science and humanities students might make do without smart boards littered across campus, science and engineering students cannot possibly

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master their disciplines without labs and Sam Fox students cannot learn without their studio spaces. Wash U’s many partnerships within the St. Louis region, so often touted by the university, have similarly been stripped from students.

Online learning shrinks the Wash U bubble to the size of a computer screen.

Even if online education could overcome these pragmatic barriers, the emotional toll of online learning frequently overwhelms students. Most students have built-in support structures at Wash U, both through campus mental health facilities and other students. Expecting equal levels of learning from students whose only remaining support comes from their family ignores the crucial role that in-person networks play in students' lives. Similarly, the lack of structure makes motivation and maintaining a strong work ethic extremely difficult, even for students who make every effort to stay engaged.

Particularly for incoming First-Years with no experience managing college coursework, the challenge of beginning on their own may prove too much.

Note that I do not intend to criticize the university’s current policies. No safe alternative existed to shifting to online classes for Spring 2020, and the university deserves credit for trying to make online learning as effective as possible in dire circumstances. Looking forward, however, it’s clear that the university cannot force students to choose between paying Wash U tuition prices for a virtual semester and dropping out.

One alternative to shifting to a mandatory semester of online classes would be canceling the semester or postponing it until Spring.

While this proposal may be preferable to online classes, it has serious flaws. Some students may intend to graduate in a four-year timeline, or not wish to take so much time away from their studies. They may have financial motivation to graduate as soon as possible, even if they didn’t have to pay for the canceled semester. Canceling a semester also has serious logistical difficulties.

The university would find itself with 1,783 more

students than normal competing for housing and class space the next Fall, as the Class of 2021 would not graduate until December 2021.

In the face of such poor options, the university should emphasize providing students as many choices as possible. Each individual student has unique circumstances and preferences, and either mandating online classes or a deferred semester will be to the detriment of some.

Only individual students know which group they fall into, and so they should be allowed to choose the best path forward for themselves.

Moreover, this pandemic has already taken so many choices away from students, like the rest of the population. Offering students options on how to proceed will ensure that students feel the university has done right by them and reassure them that the university holds their best interests at heart.

I propose that Wash U offer an optional and discounted online semester in the Fall with an extremely flexible leave of absence policy designed to make individualized postponement as workable as possible. The goal should be to minimize the number of students who enroll in online classes to avoid worse learning outcomes, while retaining the virtual semester as an option. Toward that end, the online Fall semester should be opt-in only, and students should be reassured that they will face no penalty for skipping the semester. The administration and individual academic departments should guarantee students the ability to participate in traditionally year-long programs, like senior theses.

The University should offer a full First-Year orientation in the Spring, and emphasize to incoming First-Years that their true Wash U experience begins on campus.

A key element for ensuring this proposal’s workability is offering a significantly expanded Summer program in 2021, designed to mirror a Fall or Spring semester as closely as possible in terms of expected course offerings and courseload. In the best-case scenario for both students and the administration, Fall and

Wash U & St. Louis

likely be accommodated. If absolutely necessary, the university could announce to potential super seniors that they may not have guaranteed housing in Fall 2021.

Some of the most troubling objections to my proposal regard the expanded Summer semester’s jarring impact on faculty, who typically have the summer off for research. Hopefully, faculty will welcome the substitution of the Fall for the Summer and conduct their typical Summer activities in the Fall while teaching the Summer.

Faculty should also receive bonuses for the schedule adjustment, which would further complicate the school’s financial situation, though not detrimentally.

Summer semesters would effectively switch roles, with the Fall offering a limited selection of online courses and the bulk of students returning for the Summer. A high-enrollment Summer semester benefits students by allowing for a greater variety of classes, an academic and social atmosphere mimicking the school year, and an opportunity for seniors to graduate as close as possible to on time. It offers parallel benefits to the administration, expediting the return of lost revenue and minimizing the number of additional students forced to return in the Fall.

Many reasonable objections can be made to this proposal, the first being financial. If relatively few students choose to enroll in the online Fall Semester, the university would see a dramatic decline in tuition and pre-college summer program revenue at the same time as it loses significant housing, dining, and patient services revenue. Yet in 2019, tuition accounted for a mere 12.5% of the total revenue. In fact, the university still would have made a profit in 2019 even with

no tuition revenue at all. Although the figures for 2020 and 2021 will surely be quite different due to the loss of other revenue from the pandemic, tuition fees will not make or break the school’s ability to pay its expenses. More importantly, Wash U would not really be losing its Fall tuition revenue, but deferring it into the Summer. Given the university’s significant endowment reserves and typical yearly margins, this delay in revenue should be an acceptable price to pay for a vastly improved student experience.

Another potential worry would be enough members of the Class of 2021 opting to remain at the university for Fall 2021 such that the university would lack the faculty or housing space to accommodate them. I suspect that if the Summer semester was advertised and operated properly, very few class of 2021 members would actually stay on past that summer. Certainly, that number would be small enough that classes could accommodate them. Although I lack sufficient data on Wash U’s surplus housing each semester, the small influx of super seniors could

Finally, effectively replacing the Fall semester with a Summer semester would preclude students from taking on internship opportunities in 2021, either deterring enrollment or requiring students to miss out. I don’t see a silver bullet on this issue. Academic departments can help by loosening restrictions on counting internships for credit so that students feel empowered to seek employment at a remote or St. Louisbased internship concurrent with their classes.

The career center can help students find remote or safe in-person opportunities in the Fall, even if classes cannot return. Ultimately, however, some students will inevitably pass on a Summer semester to take on an internship, while others will make the hard sacrifice of an internshipless Summer. All the university can do is give students that choice.

The objections presented here are serious, and none can be easily dismissed. Operating on my proposed schedule would not be easy, nor painless, but pandemics are not known for being easy or painless. Given the dearth of alternatives, Wash U should do everything it can to give students options for how to proceed in unprecedented times. That means offering, but not encouraging, online coursework while building out an appealing Summer alternative. If that option still seems like a worst-case scenario, that’s because it is. It’s still possible, maybe even likely, that the pandemic will be under control by Fall and this article will be nothing more than a dispiriting waste of time. Let’s hope so.

Christian Monzón ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at Christian.monzon@ wustl.edu.

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Serend ipity Merry May Ma Artwork by Merry May Ma, staff artist Design by Catherine Ju, design director

Look forward, Merry May, yes, now.

Last October, I got into the habit of chasing the setting sun. Riding my bike forward as fast as I could, I felt my fast punching heart, the speedy wind crossing through my hair, and the blurry sceneries I left behind. I fixed my eyes at the sunset, resisting to move away. The sunset moved closer and closer like a dolly-in shot. I couldn’t help but think that nature was the best art created by God. I forgot about time, until night poured blue and black ink onto a light-blue paper. I gazed at the vanishing sunset and felt more confident about life. How I wished this beautiful scenery could last forever.

When the pandemic initially hit St. Louis, I found myself spending the Spring Break with my friend Sarah. We were worried about people coming back from different places outside the city after Spring Break then the second day, an email from our headmaster relieved our worry. Spring Break was extended; but new concern arose as we realized that we might need to rent a house before May. In the first few quarantine days, I felt like I was living inside a comedic disaster movie filled with

cheesy special-effects. I was stressed that I had not stored enough food for me to cook and ponder upon the question that “To wear or not to wear a mask? It's a question.” I was scared that my immune system was weak, and every time I felt something grumbling inside, I thought I was infected. I put my hands around my stomach, murmuring “My lung, oh my lung, are you OK?” I received hundreds and thousands pieces of information, and constantly took advice from online health professionals, my family and friends.

They were as, or even more, panicked than I was.

“Drink water every 15 minutes.” They said, “Wash your hands, and wipe the surfaces around you with 75% alcohol wipes.”

“Do you have enough vitamin C to take ?” They asked, “Enough N95 masks and rubber gloves?”

“Don’t go out and meet people, will you?” They urged, “Just stay inside and I know you know how to be happy alone.”

Undoubtedly, there are many constraints in my life. I can’t ride my bike to go anywhere freely, but, what a big deal? Instead of riding my bike wandering about, I play ping pong inside. I can’t eat out with my friends, but I can still talk with them online. While seeing each other through screens, I can still feel our pumping hearts and the bright smile that radiate our love for each other. I have an unprecedented amount of free time, so I can focus on doing things that matter to me. I missed a friend who travelled to another country so, so much, and coincidentally enough, I met someone who shared a similar soul with that old friend. We talk for hours without noticing the passage of time. I’ve even caught up with my culinary skills and cooked him a feast after hearing some good news from his career. I am very lucky.

relieved my stress and my online-learning journey began. I like all of my classes, and I will keep liking them whether they are off or online. I am fortunate enough to be madly in love with film analysis, and watching films with friends is a huge joy. I have also begun to paint the changing sceneries outside my window in the study room, and I am amazed at the rare beauty I haven’t paid much attention to before. The pink blossoms burgeoned within one night, and during a first-year zoom class I was TAing, a guest speaker asked everyone to look around. I looked up, and the riot of pink colors mixed with light green brightened my heart. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Beautiful because of the coming spring. Breathtaking because of my ignorance of its bloom.

There is a large green lawn outside my dorm that I haven’t gotten time to enjoy. It reflects glistening lights when it is sunny. It is an immense playground for carefree kids who are no longer concerned about being physically restricted.

I often lie down inside one of the green chairs to read, relax, and reminiscence. My mind is set free, traveling to the edge of the universe. Roy. T Bennett once said that “Nothing can disturb your peace of mind unless you allow it to.” What is the better way to get through the uncharted waters? To recognize one’s spiritual needs and care for one’s soul. By comprehending the fear and concerns one has, and avoiding thinking too negatively, one can gradually maintain a peaceful balance inside again.

Last semester as a “fresh sophomore,” I once mocked the term “sophomore”, saying it meant “suffer-more.” Now, I don’t think I suffer. The situation is tough, but I can adjust my mindset to look at the bright side.

Focus on the present, Merry May, yes, now.

Merry May Ma ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at liangboma@wustl.

Several follow-up emails from Residential Life

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WU Political Review

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National

Life, Death, and the Economy in COVID-19 Ranen Miao Artwork (left) by Lindsay Wang

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ess than three weeks into the economic shutdown spurred by COVID-19, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said that he’s “all in” to risk his life for the economy. Like many Americans agitating to reopen the economy, Mr. Patrick has accepted that it would cost human lives, especially the elderly and immunocompromised. He essentially does not care.

COVID-19 has unveiled the deepest hypocrisies of American society: how people who claim to be pro-life would willingly kill thousands for an uptick in the stock market. It feels absurd to have to make the argument that people are more important than profits, but it is an argument that needs to be made because our nation’s moral conscience is so vacant that we do not seem to understand what “2.2 million deaths” actually means.

I live in a New Jersey town less than 20 miles away from New York City, where Tens of thousands have died and over 100,000 cases have been reported. The pandemic has taken the lives of teachers, transit workers, postal workers and police officers in the city as they continue working as essential employees. Hospitals are building makeshift ICUs as they struggle to manage wave after wave of hospitalizations, and bodies are now being buried in a mass grave on Hart Island. These numbers of COVID-19 are more than statistics: they represent countless unheard stories of fear and pain. It is the daughter who waited on the phone with her father for hours while he died in a hospital room alone. It is the couple, married for 51 years, who died 6 minutes apart. It is people standing six feet away from one another as they mourn their loved ones at a funeral where hugs are not allowed.

This is what happens when we ignore scientific guidelines to continue social distancing practices. While New Yorkers continue suffering, state officials in Florida have reopened their beaches, and mobs in multiple states demand their states reopen as well. These requests

ignore the scientific reality of COVID-19 and how it moves “easily and sustainably” between people, according to the CDC. Social distancing will not be easy: a Harvard study from April found that social distancing may continue until 2022. It means that many will continue struggling with unemployment and economic instability. Many will miss the old way of life, the intimacy of human touch, or the festivities of large gatherings. But these sacrifices must continue to preserve the safety of our communities’ most vulnerable.

This is not to downplay the economic harm caused by COVID-19. In the past month, 22 million Americans have lost their jobs, rivaling numbers from the Great Depression. A Goldman Sachs survey found that of 1,500 small business owners, 50% wouldn’t survive another three months of quarantine, and as of April 16, the $350 billion Small Business Loan Program was officially depleted. Graduating seniors will be entering the worst job market since 2008, which will likely hinder their financial prospects for a decade.

But economic woes are not the same as lives lost. To say that older adults ought to volunteer as tribute for the sake of economics is to make the ageist argument that the lives of those over 65 matter less than economic prosperity for younger generations. It reflects our dedication to unrestrained production at the expense of human pain and suffering. Holistically, calls to reopen the economy represent the dehumanization of unbridled capitalism which treats workers as machines in the relentless creation of wealth, even when it risks their lives.

COVID-19 has also revealed how the wealthiest, those lobbying most heavily for an economic reopening, don’t value preserving human life when their net worths are at stake. This structural inequality persists in the workplace, where

working class Americans must go to work or face the possibilities of eviction, starvation, and death. If anything, this pandemic should force us to question policies which have failed so many Americans: why is healthcare coverage tied to employment? Why do 78% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, preventing people from surviving if they don’t work? Why is it acceptable to advocate for thousands to die, against scientific recommendations, for the the economy?

This should be a call for us to remember the humanity of those we typically neglect.

Undocumented migrants are now marked as essential workers because without their labor, we would not produce enough food. Nonetheless, undocumented workers were denied stimulus checks from the federal government, and are still terrorized by ICE. Prisoners have been particularly impacted by COVID-19, necessitating the release of thousands of prisoners across the country. However, in places like the Workhouse, hundreds of legally innocent prisoners are still detained, exacerbating the risk of COVID-19 transmission. These considerations should persist even after the pandemic ends to pursue more humane policies.

It is not easy to sacrifice for the collective good, but we need to now more than ever. Policies protecting the most vulnerable, like eviction freezes, ending student loan payments, and mandates to continue providing utilities are necessary to ensure nobody is left behind. Most importantly, continue social distancing, and urge your representatives to conform with health guidelines.

Don’t capitulate to calls asking you to sacrifice your grandparents for a paycheck. The only place where you should be “all in” is your house.

Ranen Miao ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ranenmiao@wustl. edu.

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WU Political Review

Coronavirus’s Effect on the Undocumented Malar Muthukumar

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n March 27th, 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The legislation contains over $2 trillion in economic relief for the United States amid the current coronavirus crisis. This stimulus package includes direct payments to American families to help them weather the challenges brought on by COVID19, such as unemployment. The CARES Act gives much-needed relief to many American families across the nation, but it notably leaves one large group out: undocumented immigrants.

The coronavirus does not discriminate based on legal status–it affects undocumented people just as much as anyone else. Despite his usual rhetoric surrounding undocumented immigrants, President Donald Trump seems to recognize the difficulties that many undocumented people are facing due to the virus. When asked about how they would survive the crisis without aid, he responded “It’s a really sad situation, and we are working on it. I will tell you I’m not going to give you a hard and fast answer because I just want to tell you it’s something I think about.”

Unfortunately, the president’s supposedly sympathetic thoughts have not translated into actual aid for the undocumented. According to California Governor Gavin Newsom, 10% of California’s workforce is made up of undocumented laborers.

Although they paid over $2.5 billion in local and state taxes last year, they are unable to obtain neither unemployment insurance nor any federal aid from the CARES package. Recognizing the need for aid, the state of California has made undocumented immigrants eligible for payments from a $125 million coronavirus disaster relief fund.

Many undocumented immigrants pay federal taxes, though they do not have social security numbers. How is this possible? Undocumented immigrants can obtain “Individual Tax Identification Numbers” (ITINs) from the IRS. ITINs are tax processing numbers that allow people without legal status to pay federal taxes. ITINs are used

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not only by undocumented immigrants, but also by others who are lawfully in the country but not eligible for social security numbers. According to the American Immigration Council, these people include foreign national students who qualify as US residents, dependents or spouses of US citizens or lawful permanent residents, and dependents or spouses of foreign nationals on temporary visas. ITIN holders pay taxes, but they are not eligible for the same benefits that people with social security numbers are.

This has important implications for who receives stimulus checks from the CARES Act and who does not. People only receive stimulus checks if they have filed income taxes using a social security number. This means that anyone who has filed taxes using an ITIN is not eligible to receive federal aid from the CARES stimulus package. It is not just undocumented immigrants themselves that are unable to receive stimulus checks, but also other members of their families. If an undocumented person has dependent children with social security numbers, their children will not receive the typical $500 payment. Also, if a married couple files a joint income tax return, and only one of them has a social security number while the other has an ITIN, they are usually not eligible for a stimulus check. This problem is impacting not just undocumented families, but also the families of legal immigrants. For example, my cousin is in the US on a temporary work visa and has a social security number, but his wife only has an ITIN because she is the spouse of someone with a temporary visa. This has caused not only her to be ineligible for stimulus checks, but also him and his children, even though all of them are in the United States legally.

According to the Pew Research Center, there were an estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States in 2017. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the US economy heavily depended on undocumented labor. Now, as “essential workers” are asked to continue leaving

their homes for work, many undocumented people find themselves at the front lines of the coronavirus response with no governmental protections. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security has released a list of “essential critical infrastructure workers” who they recommend local and state governments should keep working.

The list includes healthcare workers, those who work in the food industry, agricultural workers, and transportation workers. Since these areas of work depend heavily on undocumented labor, a disproportionate number of undocumented people are being asked to put themselves in danger.

According to data from the Pew Research Center, undocumented workers make up 53% of hired farm labor, 15% of construction labor, and 6% of transportation workers. It is sad that it takes a pandemic for the federal government to see undocumented people as “essential”. Interestingly, ICE has decided to “temporarily adjust its enforcement posture” by focusing on “public safety risks and individuals subject to mandatory detention based on criminal grounds”. It is possible that this decision was taken for reasons other than the fact that undocumented workers are more crucial than ever to the US economy, but it is nevertheless an interesting idea to consider.

Undocumented immigrants are currently facing a myriad of issues, such as lack of access to unemployment benefits and having to continue going to work without adequate personal protective equipment or effective social distancing measures in place. However, the exploitation and suffering of undocumented people is nothing new – the pandemic has simply magnified existing problems.

Undocumented people have always been one of the most vulnerable groups in America, and the federal government is treating them with the same uncaring attitude they always have.

Malar Muthukumar ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at malar. muthukumar@wustl.edu.

National

Wash U Could Make Missouri a Swing State Again Elena Murray , staff writer

B

elieve it or not, Missouri used to be a swing state. It’s hard to imagine given its clear current lean toward the Republican party, but for presidential elections between 1904 and 2004, Missouri went for the winning candidate in all elections but one, regardless of whether they were a Democrat of Republican, a conservative or a liberal But things have changed in recent years. Few political commentators seriously consider Missouri to be a swing state anymore, and the last presidential election in which Missouri went for a Democrat was in 1996, for Bill Clinton. Of the last three presidential elections, Missouri has been wrong twice, voting in 2008 for John McCain and in 2012 Mitt Romney instead of for Barack Obama. With these recent incorrect predictions taken into account, the state of Missouri now has a voting record similar to that of Ohio, Nevada, and New Mexico. Its voting accuracy is likely to get worsen. What happened?

One factor is demographics. As the country’s immigrant and minority populations have grown, Missouri’s whiter population less and less closely resembles the nation as a whole. While the rest of the United States became more racially and ethnically diverse, Missouri remained largely white. Missouri—a state no longer representative of the nation in its entirety—is thus no longer as accurate in predicting the national trend in presidential politics. Additionally, Missouri’s two largest cities—Kansas City and St. Louis—have declined in population as manufacturing jobs have left the state. And not by a little—the population of St. Louis is currently less than it was in 1900, and has declined by nearly two-thirds since its peak in the 1950s. While Missouri may have represented the nation as a whole throughout history, the decline in its proportion of urban residents makes it less accurate at indicating national trends. Not only is the composition of Missouri’s population unrepresentative, but where it lives is as well.

Central to any rebound for the city of St. Louis is Wash U. Perhaps the glory days of Missouri and St. Louis are over. Having recently lost our city’s beloved football team, it can be difficult to see a path to revitalizing what was once an industrial center and the historic gateway to the West.

But Wash U in particular may present a path forward. As one of the largest employers in St. Louis, the continued success of Wash U as an institution is a critical and stable lifeline for the prosperity of St. Louis. Wash U is already gaining increasing national recognition as a top research university with a massive endowment, expanding its reputation as a “Harvard of the Midwest.”

While we students may laugh at this Olin-esque marketing phrase, such branding could be key in revitalizing not only St. Louis, but Missouri as a whole, potentially restoring its status as a swing state in presidential elections.

I’m going to engage in an optimistic thought experiment for how Wash U might bring about St. Louis’s revival.. Let’s consider one possibility: Chancellor Martin is one of the best chancellors Wash U has ever seen. Throughout his tenure, tuition declines, low-income student enrollment soars, and Wash U’s reputation expands to the point where it is a standard recipient of applications from the nation’s top students. The students, drawn by the beautiful campus, welcoming Midwestern environment, rigorous academics, and top-notch research opportunities, enroll en masse. Admissions become more competitive, creating a cyclical interaction in which competitive admittance signals a

strong academic environment, enticing more students and students of higher caliber to apply, thus making admissions even more competitive.

Wash U truly embraces its nickname and becomes the Harvard of the Midwest. The chief focus of the massive eight-billion-dollar endowment shifts to investment in local businesses, offering incentives for former Wash U students to set up shop in St. Louis. Careful investing combined with the brilliance of the top-class Wash U students and their university-sponsored startups brings success to their companies and economic revitalization to the area.

The returns on Wash U’s investment cushions the endowment even more, providing further opportunities for development.

As the first few start-ups grow into success, St. Louis’s population expands dramatically. For the city, tax dollars grow, funding a complete re-design of public transport with a focus on clean and sustainable energy. St. Louis emerges on the national scale as a liberal hub, attracting young adults and immigrants determined to make it their lifelong home. St. Louis and Chicago become the twin cities of the Midwest and competitive statewide elections return once more to Missouri. And the revival has one institution to thank: Washington University in St. Louis.

It may not happen now, or in a few years, or ever.

But imagination is the driver of innovation and progress, and picturing Wash U at the center of both the revival of St. Louis’s and the re-emergence of Missouri as a player in presidential politics—that’s an appealing thought. We can turn it into a reality.

Elena Murray ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at elenamurray@wustl. edu.

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WU Political Review

Energy Use and the Coronavirus Clare Grindinger, treasurer

I

’ve been off and on with the whole “zerowaste” thing. As introduced to me by Lauren Singer, known through her Instagram handle as Trash is for Tossers, zero-waste as a lifestyle is more than simply refusing plastic straws and composting food—it is completely giving up plastic and unsustainable materials. That means the milk bottle you buy at the grocery store and the latest Amazon order coming to your mailbox. It’s a privileged and idealized solution to a massive problem, but it’s something I could afford to do to make a difference.

I had found items that I would swap for my daily unsustainable choices, like a bamboo toothbrushes and reusable utensils. My friends started to notice every time I would use my handkerchief or my stainless-steel lunch box, but there were some single-waste items I simply couldn’t give up, like certain packaged foods at the grocery store. With this pandemic, I felt like any attempt to shop at local farmers markets, to avoid plastic wrap when picking up vegetables, or using reusable bags were unobtainable goals.

Additionally, as I’ve had the chance to reflect and refine my routine with the coronavirus, I’ve realized how I’ve been boxed into two choices: try to self-isolate sustainably or support local businesses by giving into the necessary cleanliness of single-use gloves, cups, and plastic covers that comes with buying coffee down the street or dinner from the local Italian food restaurant so it doesn’t go out of business.

I wonder about a lot of things with this pandemic and sustainable choices are really the least of my worries. Instead, I worry about the rise in gun sales and the expected increase in child abuse and interpersonal violence from the economic

Employees are commuting less, and thus using less gasoline and jet fuel.

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With this pandemic, I felt like any attempt to shop at local farmers markets, to avoid plastic wrap when picking up vegetables, or using reusable bags were unobtainable goals. distress and self-isolation, not to mention the rising number of people unemployed or directly affected and taken by the disease. There is a massive threat of increased surveillance, especially for communities of color and ICE raids on undocumented folks.

I spoke to my dad about writing this article, trying to break down this sustainability conundrum, and he mentioned how with almost everyone in the United States self-isolating, he assumed energy use was going down. Employees are commuting less, and thus using less gasoline and jet fuel. One Wired piece writes: “In China alone, the economic slowdown has kept 200 megatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere,” and since almost 30 percent of US emissions are due to commuting, we can assume a similar significant drop in CO2 in our atmosphere. Additionally, recessions seem to come with a downturn in energy use. On the other hand, The New York Times recently released a report that, on a larger scale, food waste is going up and even places like food banks and other charities are maxing the amount of food they can store. Thousands of gallons of fresh milk and 1 million pounds of onions are dumped into huge ditches on farms, despite the increased amount of spending on groceries. Additionally, at home people are streaming more online videos and interacting via video conferences and thus, affecting energy use merely by streaming, not to mention the increase of energy spurred by device charging.

The pandemic is also taking its control of the energy supply, with the energy drained from the overcrowded hospitals and ventilator use.

As Earth Day comes around, I am reminded more strongly this year than ever about the beauty and the necessity of the great outdoors. While I’m stuck at home, staring at a screen, I long for the days when I can lay on the grass with my friends, soaking in the sun together. Sometimes I get caught up in the small choices I make, like whether to use that plastic water bottle, but with coronavirus I realize that, although small choices matter and have an effect, they’re not the biggest thing I could be doing to support my local community. The pandemic made clear which small choices matter most-- it’s supporting local businesses, maintaining personal relationships, washing hands, and staying inside and safe that matters now. This pandemic, like others before it, have complex effects on our environment and it will change our behavior in the future. In the future, I’m ready to explore—go hiking with my friends, camping with family, and even venture out into the zero-waste lifestyle. But right now, I’m not going to worry about energy and, instead, suggest for those who have the privilege to, stay home and shelter down because this, too, shall pass.

Clare Grindinger ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at cgrindinger@wustl. edu.

FEAR Gabriela Senno

Photo by Reshad Hamauon, staff Design by Catherine Ju, design

artist director

Fear wakes up sweating, simultaneously hot and cold, too delirious to tell the difference.

He quietly gets up, dresses, and waits at the exit of his modest home, looking forward, into a community he once thought he knew, now unrecognizable.

Fear idles, works up the nerve to leave, & holds his breath. Breath. Breathe is what they told him.

Fear, however, could not breathe, his chest a knot, incapable of being unfastened by even the most decorated of sailors. Where his back meets his neck, muscles tense, the weight of his thoughts too overwhelming to carry.

Fear hears his heart pounding between his ears, worrying if this is a typical biological behavior. | Anxiety, his cousin, fell ill a week ago. Fear thought, I only just saw her, beginning to speculate if the sickness will eventually find him too.

Fear, close to the hospital, is surrounded by sirens, every three minutes another one seems to sing & another one & another one & another one.

Panic, his father, sits inside the siren.

Fear is exhausted of being alone, so he lurks near passersby, clinging to the leftover dregs from previous interactions. Stomach grumbling, hungry for connection, Fear’s loneliness grows, becoming a void too big to fill, permanently unsatisfied.

Fear, numb from repeated exposure to his own strife, notices he is crying when he sees remnants from tears, dropping to the ground below.

Fear, only making it to the end of his street, retreats.

Fear does not listen to the news anymore, but even still, Fear cannot sleep at night.

Gabriela Senno ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at gabisenno@wustl.edu.

WU Political Review

Privilege and COVID-19: Reflections from Case 131 Harper Lane Artwork (right) by Lucy Chen

W

hen my flight from London to Chicago landed, I had a friend pick me up from the airport rather than either of my parents who are both high-risk for coronavirus.

Even though I knew there was no chance I had the virus, fear made me cautious. My mom being 63 years old, took all the CDC recommendations as Gospel and immediately banished me to my bedroom for 14 days. Each day, I FaceTimed my friends, complaining of my solitary confinement and boredom.

The day after I got back from the UK, a friend I had been visiting came down with a brief fever and was able to secure a COVID test but was waiting on results. I began to realize that my family needed to implement the strictest measures possible in case I was an asymptomatic carrier, but, I maintained hope that she merely had the flu or a different mild virus. On the third day of confinement, my joints began to ache and my throat became mildly raspy. As someone who has always been fever-prone, I panicked at joint pain because it was a dead giveaway for a fever. By the end of the third day, I was running a low-grade fever and decided to see if it persisted before calling a doctor. I woke up the next morning with a 101-degree fever that continued to rise throughout the day and a headache that made it painful to move my eyes across my room. I spent this day on the phone with my primary care provider, the Cook County Department of Public Health, a local hospital, and Northwestern Hospital physicians. In conclusion, I did not qualify for a test in Illinois even though I had been travelling and had all the primary symptoms.

The next day, I woke up revived and with a normal temperature! Although still in isolation and not feeling perfectly healthy, I was actually functioning somewhat like a human, unlike my feverish comatose state the day before. That afternoon, I got a call that my other friend in London had recovered but had tested positive for the virus. My stomach dropped. Around

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Not knowing who else to ask, I typed into Google, “when to call 911 COVID-19.” On the other side of the second floor, 12 feet of social distance, my parents sat watching me struggle to catch my breath unable to move an inch closer to my bubble of contagion.

4:00 p.m. I began to feel sluggish and cold, my face lost color again and my chest grew tight. A second wave of symptoms, hitting harder than the first. After I Googled calling 911, my family decided to drive (in separate cars) to a hospital an hour away which had been rumored to have tests. After providing my preliminary information, a nurse in a hazmat suit guided me into the emergency testing tent that had been set up outside of the Evanston Hospital. Alone, I waited in a sweltering make-shift examination room separated from other patients by hanging bed sheets. Lit by a fluorescent lamp, I listened to distant coughs from patients around me while I waited for a doctor.

As I talked to four different physicians, each well covered in protective gear, I couldn’t help but think of their families at home. As the virus has only gotten worse since my time at the hospital, I wish I had thanked them even more and given them even greater reassurance of how grateful we are on the outside. There, I was finally able to get a test because I had contact with a known positive case. The next day, I got a call from the hospital saying that I had in fact tested positive for COVID-19 and that I would be contacted by the Department of Public Health to ensure the rest of my mandated quarantine and communication with known contacts. That evening, I was cited as Case #131 in Illinois, a title that I feel strange to own.

Despite our vigilant efforts, first my dad and then my mom both came down with the virus as well. After multiple attempts, my dad was able to secure a test due to his symptoms and known contact with a positive case. With a history of heart attacks and cardiac difficulty, my dad was admitted to the hospital after his second wave of symptoms made it difficult to breathe. But, thankfully, after receiving some treatment for his lungs, my dad has been able to make a full recovery. My mom, as she had feared, was hit harder than either me or my dad. Because of her severe

National

condition, she was not eating, drinking, or getting out of bed throughout the day. Luckily, her primary care physician placed her on a critical watchlist and gave my dad and I explicit directions on how to care for her at home and called our house three times a day to monitor her condition and make appropriate recommendations for her course of treatment. Each day, I sat in my room across the hall making sure I could hear my mom; if she went more than ten minutes without coughing I would sneak into her room to make sure she was still breathing. In another great blessing, after nine days of bed rest and close monitoring, my mom was on the upswing and has since made her way to a near full recovery. COVID has been one of the scariest challenges my family has had to face, so much so that it’s actually difficult to write about my experience with it. It sounds so stupidly cliché, but it seriously has left my family feeling more full of gratitude than ever before.

As important as it is to share my story, it's even more important to recognize the privilege embedded in my experience with COVID. Although it took perseverance, we were able to get access to tests in Chicago, just a few miles from the Cook County Jail where there are over 500 reported cases and less than adequate healthcare available to inmates in close quarters.

As of now, the virus has cut short the lives of six inmates who would have received treatment at the same hospitals my family and I visited.

Furthermore, black Chicagoans in general are dying six times faster than white Chicagoans from the virus. Reflecting on my story, it’s easy to trace my privilege throughout, from being able to self-quarantine at home, to getting tests, to the medical care my parents received. Although it was no doubt scary and challenging, at the end of the day we always knew we would get the care we needed.

As a city with a long history of racial segregation and inequality, it’s an expected disappointment

that Chicago’s coronavirus looks this way. Black families in Chicago, and the rest of the country, are facing a much more daunting virus than white America because they are living in a system not built for them. As the President works to silence voices citing these issues, such as the Surgeon General Jerome Adams, we must not likewise ignore the reality Americans are facing.

The most dangerous lie being perpetrated about coronavirus is that it affects us all in the same way. It doesn’t. As it tears its way across the country, the virus exposes and exacerbates the inequalities that already existed.

If I could get one thing across to you as someone

who has actually had corona, it’s this: please above all else, do not forget why our lives have changed so drastically this semester. Yes, it sucks that we’re now all attending Zoom University. Yes, it sucks that we can’t leave our houses or see friends. Yes, it seriously sucks that we missed out on all the great events we had planned for this time. But please, remember that while you are in quarantine, the world is suffering from much more than boredom right now.

Harper Lane '21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at hlane@wustl.edu.

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WU Political Review

Rachel Olick-Gibson, STAFF WRITER Leslie Liu, DESIGN LEAD

From top to bottom: Pablo Picasso, Guernica; Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California; Frida Kahlo, Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick; Marc Chagall, White Crucifixion; Mohamad Hafez, Homeland inSecurity

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Art has played a vital role in humanity’s experiences with hardship. Throughout history, artists have illustrated the unique challenges the most vulnerable members of our societies face in times of global, national, and communal crisis. Major crises often result in the rise and fall of political ideologies and shifts in the balance of power between nations. In light of the current global pandemic, I would like to reflect on the critical work past artists have done in crises to expose the social, physical and economic hardships the disadvantaged endure and to help societies reimagine the course of their fut-ures based on this pain. The work of artists during this time of self-reflection (heightened by our current state of forced isolation) will both reflect and determine what ideas prevail as a result of this catastrophic but formative period in global history.

International Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is considered to be one of the most powerful anti-war paintings in history. Picasso painted this piece in response to the bombing of Guernica, a town in northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The governments of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy aided the Spanish Nationalists in the bombing.

In tones of grey, harsh angles and the geometric distortions of Cubism, Picasso portrays war through the suffering of inn-ocent civilians. The focal points of this piece are a weeping woman, a woman with a dead child, and a horse.

In this profoundly powerful, 20-foot-long mural, Picasso illustrates excruciating hardships of the Spanish struggle for freedom and its toll on civilian life. Picasso painted this piece for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris and subsequently toured the piece around the world in order to spread its message. Art critic Jonathan Jones stated that Picasso “was trying to show the truth so viscerally and permanently that it could outstare the daily lies of the age of dictators.”

Guernica will permanently exist in our memory of the 20th century for its ability to force the viewer to feel the pain of injustice for themselves.

Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ surrounded by contemporary imagery of the Nazi persecution of European Jewry. Chagall painted this piece in 1938 right before the outbreak of World War II. This painting emphasizes Jesus’ Jewish identity in an attempt to link the suffering of Jesus with that of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. In this painting, Chagall replaces Jesus’ traditional loincloth with a Jewish prayer shawl and his crown of thorns with a headscarf. The mourning angels surrounding the crucifixion are also adorned in traditional Jewish garments such as schmattas, kippahs, and shtreimels. The halo surrounding Jesus’ head is reflected in the light that surrounds the menorah at Jesus’ feet. On either side of the crucifixion scene, Chagall depicts the devastation of pog-roms, including the destruction of a shtetl with refugees fleeing by boat and by foot, a temple and Torah burned to the ground, and a mother comforting her child. The scenes depicted reference the destruction of

synagogues, Jewish homes, schools, and businesses on “Kristallnacht,” also known as “The Night of Broken Glass.”

On this night, between November 9 and 10 of 1938, nearly 100 Jews were killed and 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps. Chagall chose his subject matter with his intended audience in mind. He didn’t need to tell Jews what was happening in Europe; they already knew. Instead, Chagall translates the significance of these events to a Christian audience, alerting the world to the persecution and suffering of the Jewish people.

American Artists during the Great Depression had to grapple with the idea that Western-style democracy may have failed. Capitalism had not produced the economic prosperity it had promised, and other prominent political ideologies were gaining appeal both in America and abroad. Artists of this time attempted to both depict the hardships faced by the American people and define their own political perspectives on the crisis.

Photographer Dorothea Lange worked to call attention to the economic adversity faced by the rural poor. As an employee of a New Deal program designed to provide aid to and raise public awareness for farmers, Lange documented the lives of migrant formers forced to move west as a result of the Great Depression and the devastation of the Dust Bowl. During this time, Lange captured the image of Florence Owens Thompson, a starving mother desperately trying to feed her seven children. Entitled Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, this image became an icon of the Great Depression and one of the most famous photographs in history. Lange took this photograph of the byproducts of capitalism while working for a government program aimed at healing these hardships. Lange’s employment by this New Deal agency demonstrates the American’s government’s newfound willingness to adopt more social welfare policies in order to ensure the continued survival of the capitalist system.

Frida Kahlo’s childhood was set against the backdrop of a violent revolution, social upheaval, and nationalist fervor. The 1910– 1920 Mexican Revolution resulted in the end of dictatorship in Mexico and the est-

ablishment of a constitutional monarchy.

By the time she was twenty, Kahlo was a member of the Mexican Communist Party.

She was also a part of the Mexicanidad movement, a movement that combated the cultural destruction of colonialism by attempting to revive the indigenous religion, customs, and philosophy of ancient Mexico. Each of these movements played a role in Kahlo’s art as she engaged with themes of capitalism, exploitation, feminism, and sexuality in response to the nationalist revolution of her childhood. Kahlo painted Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick in 1954, yet she died before she could complete the painting. In this piece, Kahlo depicts herself being lifted up to heaven by two large hands, symbols for Marxism. Kahlo wears a leather corset, a reference to the orthopedic corset she wore after she broke her back in a tram accident. Kahlo was also diagnosed with Polio as a child and both of these ailments fueled her critiques of the healthcare system. In this painting, Kahlo is strangling an eagle, in reference to her continued criticism of the exploitive relationship between Mexico and the U.S., a country she identified as the ultimate capitalist oppressor.

Mohamad Hafez is an architect and artist whose work tells the story of the Syrian refugee experience. His exhibition Homeland inSecurity consists of a series of actual refugee suitcases. Each of the suitcases models the experience of a Syrian refugee who has fled their destroyed homeland. The exhibit incorporates a mixture of these suitcase pieces with sculptures of surreal Middle Eastern cityscapes, constructed of intricately carved stone mixed with modern metal wiring.

Hafez’s imagery and materials evoke the history of a once stunning and flourishing civilization now eradicated by the destruction of war. In his work, Hafez confronts the loss of his homeland while simultaneously attempting to spark empathy for Syrian refugees amongst Western audiences. Hafez’s work called attention not only to how we perceive Syrian refugees but also to the experience they fled: a civil war that has become the largest humanitarian crisis of the 20th century. Hafez describes his art as a “way to talk about a story and a pain of a civilization in ways that news channels [do] not.”

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WU Political Review

FX Harsono, Burned Victims

Images courtesy of Mohamad Hafez, Marc Chagall, the Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Google Arts & Culture, and MoMA. Rachel Olick-Gibson ’21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at rachel.olick-gibson@wustl.edu.

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During the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, Indonesia faced mass food shortages and unemployment, resulting in widespread rioting and protests. The country’s ethnic Chinese population came to serve as Indonesia’s scapegoat. ChineseIndonesians were beaten, raped, and over 1,000 were killed. Under President Suharto’s authoritarian rule, discriminatory laws ensured that Chinese-Indonesians remained second-class citizens and reports surfaced that Suharto’s regime allowed and even encouraged violence against this minority. The work of FX Harsono, a Chinese-Indonesian artist, calls attention to the violence of Suharto’s New Order government, particularly its treatment of the Chinese-Indonesian minority. In Burned Victims, a mixture of performance art and installation, Harsono set fire to five wooden sculptures in the shape of torsos, then walked around the burning wood with a placard that read “Riot.” This work commemorates the deaths of over a hundred Indonesians trapped in a shopping mall and burned to death by a mob in May of 1998.

Through his art, Harsono criticized both discrimination against ChineseIndonesians in the wake of this financial crisis and the authoritarianism of the Suharto regime.

Despite the fact that many of these artists championed and criticized different political ideologies, they called attention to the evils of society, fought injustice, and contributed to their societies’ political dialogue. They all attempted to imagine a future in which their nation, community, or the world at large could emerge from crisis stronger and better equipped to ease human suffering. I hope that the art created in the midst of stay-at-home orders will comment on the nationalism that has led countries to battle for lifesaving resources, the mistreatment of Chinese-Americans, the faults in our prison, healthcare, and education sys -tems, and the danger of discrediting the truth. I hope that this art will help us conceive of a future where governments and citizens put compassion and equality above politics and profits.

International

The Iraqi Impasse Aruni Soni

I

’ve been off and on with the whole “zerowaste” thing. As introduced to me by Lauren Singer, known through her Instagram handle as Trash is for Tossers, zero-waste as a lifestyle is more than simply refusing plastic straws and composting food—it is completely giving up plastic and unsustainable materials. That means the milk bottle you buy at the grocery store and the latest Amazon order coming to your mailbox. It’s a privileged and idealized solution to a massive problem, but it’s something I could afford to do to make a difference.

Unbeknownst to you, dear reader, quarantined in the shelter of your home, is that about seven thousand miles away, in Iraq, there exist a throng of apoplectic protesters refusing to return to the sanctuary of their homes because they have yet to triumph in a battle; a battle against systemic corruption, sectarian auspices, and political bartering. A battle they do not intend to lose.

Fatigued by the clandestine operations of foreign powers and furious with the corrupt web of patronage within their government, Iraqis took to the streets in October 2019 to voice their indignation. What began as a cry for better services and a termination of corruption morphed into a sweeping rejection of the system. As protesters continue to congregate despite the COVID-19 curfews, it remains unlikely that their demands will be met.

The Backstory In September 2019, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, with his lips zipped stubbornly shut, demoted the Iraqi citizen’s beloved commander of elite counterterrorism forces to the Department of Ministry. The controversial decision ignited allegations of purging a coalition that threatened Iranian-backed politicians. As social media platforms erupted with criticism, the popular uprising quickly ballooned into a major threat to Iraqi leadership, rattling the political elite.

The government’s violent response towards civilians has induced a moral uproar. Rebels are already vexed by the siphoning off of oil revenues to the upper echelons of society, leaving

little for education, job creation, and infrastructure. PM Mahdi resigned on November 29, 2019, but the ensuing ethno-sectarian division between the parliamentary blocs has paralyzed the legislature.

A Trip Backstage While Iraq has been maturing as a democracy, the political dynamism of the system functions much like a nondemocracy. As in nondemocratic regimes, corruption becomes a feature of the market, a means to appease the leader’s allies to maintain his own power. Other than corruption, the ruler resorts to taxation, foreign aid, or revenues from natural resources (in Iraq’s case, oil). This philosophy is one of the many in Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith’s The Dictator’s Handbook. In a nutshell, their Machiavellian analysis of political systems is that good policy need not mean good politics.

Iraq’s leaders have kept the elite satisfied by taking from the Iraqi people, but this corruption has become so rampant that it has pushed the population beyond its tipping point. The uprising has been fueled by the prospect that civilians have so little to lose that they are undeterred by the possibility of punishment. Perpetrator research can provide the rationale behind how a country’s own security forces can turn their backs on their own citizens—in light of the stunning momentum of the recent uprisings, courts have labeled violent suppression as “acts of counterterrorism” to justify the killing and maiming of rebels.

Popular uprisings, however, remain unsuccessful without the support of some kind of elite or foreign power, which the Iraqi citizens do not have.

for the new candidate to implement their manifesto of systemic changes.

Come Back Home, America?

Ever since the rise of the Islamic State (or ISIS), U.S. troops have utilized the Arab state as a tool to promulgate its anti-Iran sentiments, reflective in confrontational Trumpian foreign policy.

In light of the recent protests, U.S. embassies in Iraq have faced attacks from Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and the assassination of Qasem Soleimani has only amplified anti-American sentiments.

While the United States should not remain in Iraq long-term, sudden withdrawal is not the answer either. The U.S. should take the opportunity to profit off of continued engagement and adopt a more diplomatic policy towards Iraq by helping to stabilize the unconsolidated democracy through investment, trade and scientific exchange. If history, like the Marshall Plan 70 years ago, has taught us anything, it is that sidelining the need for primacy and focusing on rebuilding the fractured political system will serve as a much better use of U.S. power in the long run.

Conclusion While the outside world is battling a panic of an unknown degree, the Iraqi people are battling a world of panic inside themselves. Think back to the wounded rebel, the threatened politician, or the homesick U.S. soldier.

Feels pretty good to be the reader, doesn’t it?

Back to the Future Mahdi is currently back in office as a “volunteer absentee” managing governmental affairs until a new government is formed. With the current coronavirus pandemic coupled with a sharp decline in oil prices threatening to increase the country’s budget deficits, and Mahdi’s de facto continuation of power bringing the Iraqi protests to an all-time high, Iraq currently teeters at a critical political precipice. Demonstrators in Tahrir square declared that they will accept any leader except Mahdi and allow for enough time

Aruni Soni ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at aruni.soni@wustl. edu.

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