WEEKEND

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2016

THE PRACTICAL PATH SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS AND ACADEMICS AT YALE

//ORIANA TANG //B3

PRAYER

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PASSION

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PASSPORT

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FAITH AT YALE

BLINDEST DATES

JOURNEYWOMEN

Katie Martin speaks with students who have become more religious during their time at Yale.

The long-awaited results of our blind date set-ups are in...they’re sweet, and a little salacious.

Sofia Braunstein talks to fellow women about the thrills and contradictions of traveling solo.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND VIEWS

CARDBOARD SUITCASES ZHAO

// BY ALICE ZHAO I love packing. I love packing so much that even now, just thinking about it — the unzipping of the suitcase, the careful piling of clothes, the layering of underwear and the sorting of socks, the lining of shoes in a neat row, heel to heel — I wish I could fast-forward to that moment: the end of the semester, the day before I leave, even better if it’s late at night, edging near morning.

It’s a treat, in a way. After a hard day’s work, a hard week’s work, a hard month’s and months’ of work, the burden is finally lifted and there is nothing more to write or recite or memorize. It’s just the room and me. I’ll open my computer and switch the browser to Netflix, click on that specific show I always watch. I’ll open the closet, open the wardrobe, open the drawers, start the process of choosing, gleeful. Which shirts, which shorts, I’ll even check the weather, once, twice, weigh the fabrics in my palm, think about the look of them, the feel of them, in Arizona, back at home. There’s this moment when I’ll look outside and it’s late, and the show’s still going on in the background, and I’ll feel happy and calm — surreal will almost describe it. Surreal, a sense of floating.

A sense of being unbound.

I don’t know why, then, it should be different when boxes are involved. A suitcase, really, is just a fancy box with zippers instead of tape to seal, and storage is really just a collection of cardboard suitcases. It shouldn’t be such a problem, but now I’m thinking about the end of this semester, and I hate it, I resent it, I want to pause before it or maybe fast-forward through it all, go back to the original suitcase and the original sorting.

Part of it is the finality, I suppose.

The weight of choosing what to keep, what to bring, what to give to friends,

sell to strangers, throw away and forget about — hopefully. There are objects that I’ve saved, decided to hold on to for whatever reason. And now, I have eight boxes that most things must disappear into — the important things, that’s the logic. I have to choose which memories are the most significant, which deserve to be sealed away, which to resurrect next fall. I believe that when I first made the choice of not throwing away this movie ticket stub, or buying that particular shirt, I had an attachment. I can’t believe that attachment has faded.

Packing like this is cruel.

I’ve always been a sentimental person — and sometimes this sentiment is pleasant, the feeling of nostalgia, the tingling in the stomach, the welling of emotions from some unexplored, unknowable place. Yet, other times this sentiment is needy. This sentiment clings.

I just can’t let go.

The crux of it, then: There are blouses on hangers that I have never worn, books on shelves that I have never opened, organic chemistry kits and cartons of mechanical pencils and expired medicines lying around my room. Before this end-ofthe-year packing, I can always think to myself, “Sometime.” Sometime I’ll dress like that, sometime I’ll read like that, sometime I’ll do this and that — and now, choose. Most of the time — and this is what I hate — I know that I won’t accomplish whatever I’ve been diddling with.

I like to think that I’m getting better at this — at this type of moving-on packing — with age. I’d like to believe that one day, I’ll be able to understand this leaving and this lump in my throat and this necessity, truly understand it to the point where I feel no pain.

And yet, I don’t get tired of imagining where I could have taken these objects, where I could’ve gone with them, what adventures we could have had and could not have had. These things are just things, that’s true. But, I think about where they are. I think about where they’ll go. I think that maybe someday we’ll both meet again, under strange circumstances — but it’s all right if we don’t.

I like the idea of it being unknown.

Contact ALICE ZHAO at alice.zhao@yale.edu .

// SONIA RUIZ

Life on High Street SABHARWAL

// GAYATRI SABHARWAL

I live in a two-story house on High Street, right next to the Yale Center for British Art. Like many other juniors, I packed up my residential college suite and moved off campus at the beginning of this year. In my case, however, moving off was a slightly more remarkable event than usual, simply because I’m a girl who decided to move into a house with three boys.

My parents wondered aloud why I had “no girls to live with.”

I received confused questions

from friends and sometimes bewildered looks from complete strangers when I told them about my housemates. I was often met with an amused laugh, followed by the phrase “that’s so funny” in a softer voice. Less often, I was asked more directly, “Do your parents know you’re doing this?”

I suspect that, had I been a guy living with all women, I wouldn’t have received these kinds of questions. But I think the proportion of one woman

to three guys seemed rather alarming to a lot of people.

I admit this dynamic is an anomaly, based on what I’ve seen on and off campus at Yale.

But I knew without a doubt that I wanted to move into the house with James, Paul and Photos — all wonderful people who are now three of my closest friends. I never questioned the gender ratio nor bothered much about what many people said. All that mattered was that I got along well with them.

But while many people found my housing choice strange, others were somewhat intrigued. To some people, living with all boys made me a “unique person,” someone they wanted to get to know better. Interviewers for societies would pay closer attention when I told them I was the only girl in my house. My living situation had become a conversation starter at parties, interviews, sometimes even at my workplace: “She goes to Yale!

// KATHERINE XIU

FRIDAY APRIL

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THE AESTHETICS OF DISSONANCE WLH 309 // 1 p.m.

Diss’ my jam.

And she lives with all boys!”

Regardless of how I felt, I was the “chill girl.” Since I lived with guys, people assumed I was many things: fun to hang out with, quirky, different. But at the other end of the spectrum, some people called me outright “crazy.”

Whatever other people’s perceptions may have been, whatever stereotypes they warned me against, they haven’t fully captured my own experience over the past year.

Living with the boys has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in college — something I had somewhat anticipated, but not entirely foreseen when I signed the lease.

I was told to expect cold pizza and beer for dinner.

Instead, my housemate James turned out to have the cooking skills of a sous-chef. Together, we ate scallops, mashed potatoes, steak — always leaving enough of an appetite for conversations about our days. I was told to expect a messy house with dirty floors. But I was often the one making the mess, while my housemates were the ones who were obsessed with cleanliness.

Don’t get me wrong: There are some clear disadvantages to living with James, Paul and Photos. I don’t readily have someone to borrow scrunchies from, or to share makeup or dresses with. But this has only made me more self-sufficient, and has also increased my personal stock of hair bands and bobby pins. When accessorizing wasn’t a problem, guys that I was romantically seeing sometimes seemed intimidated or driven away by the rather constant presence of three male friends in my home and life. But in retrospect, that was just an efficient way to sieve them out.

Jocularity aside, my housemates are genuine and sensitive people who have impacted me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Sometimes, when my parents visit my off-campus

house, they laugh about how I should learn from my housemates.

Over the year, the house has become more than just a living space or an accommodation.

It’s a dynamic extension of Yale’s residential college system, providing both responsibilities and experiences that I typically wouldn’t have had in a dorm.

One rainy night last fall, I got locked out of my own house.

In characteristic fashion, I first attempted to scale the back wall of my house, with no success. Then I tried breaking in by opening my bedroom window from outside, but it was too high. Finally, I somehow managed to circumvent the security of my locked door and window and tumbled into my room, landing on the floor. I lay there with no desire to stand up for about five minutes. And in those moments, smiling sheepishly to myself at my own stupidity, I felt a strange sense of belonging, an almost foolish sense of security and permanence.

Like many fellow students, I think about the spaces that make Yale home, about how unfamiliar places gradually become “home.” Discovering this home — my off-campus house on High Street — was possible only because I didn’t get tangled up in gender expectations. In general, living off campus with the boys has been a trailer to real life: grocery shopping, dish cleaning and breaking stereotypes.

I’m sure that I’m at an advantage. That when I graduate and move to New York City, I’ll be better positioned to live with people of any gender.

Or maybe I’m wrong, and my situation was special, and I’ll just never find anything comparable.

Either way, James, Paul, Photos and I will always have this home to remember.

Contact GAYATRI SABHARWAL at gayatri.sabharwal@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Aretha Franklin College.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND MAJORS

BY THE NUMBERS

// BY ORIANA TANG

D

On a bright Saturday afternoon in April, approximately 70 students, professors and administrators gathered in the sunlit Levinson Auditorium of the Yale Law School for a panel fea-

turing Jeff Hobbs ’02, author of the best-selling “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace,” and his former suitemate Thomas Hocker ’02. Chatter and laughter filled the room as people waited for the panel to begin, but the light atmosphere belied a more serious purpose. Hobbs and Hocker, both Yale grads, had returned to campus as part of the

DiversiTea speaker series, a collection of talks from experts in various fields aimed at addressing issues of diversity in science, technology, engineering and math.

The discussion was an emotional one. His voice subdued, Hobbs told the story of his friend and roommate, Robert Peace, who was the subject of his book.

Peace was a molecular, cellular and developmental biology major at Yale from an economically disadvantaged Black family from Newark, New Jersey. Although his father was convicted of and imprisoned for murder and his mother worked long hours to make ends meet, Peace transcended these difficulties and was accepted to Yale, where his

PROPERTY VALUE AND MAJORS Median home property value

YALE $661,052

U.S. $186,200

academic and social success primed professors and peers alike to believe that he would eventually be able to break from his family’s situation. But Peace, after returning home, was ultimately killed dealing drugs.

During the reception following the discussion, I approached Hobbs to ask him about his decision to study English. The panel had rekindled my struggle over deciding what to major in: whether I should honor stability or passion, STEM or the arts.

“I didn’t say this during the panel, but people’s comments did make me wonder whether studying English was a product of my family’s financial situation,” Hobbs told me. “I knew they would support me even if I wanted to go into nonprofit work, so I just did what I liked and was good at. I didn’t feel the same pressure as Rob maybe did to do something useful with a laid-out career path.”

It’s been more than a decade since Hobbs, Peace and Hocker graduated from Yale, but designations of “useful” and “useless” still feature prominently in public perceptions of various majors.

STEM majors, most seem to believe, set out on a linear path to success (e.g., medical or graduate school or high-paying corporate jobs) and economics classes churn out majors who go on to make millions from Wall Street.

On the other hand, humanities majors meander, their heads in the clouds. From Forbes to The Daily Beast, lists of “Most Valuable College Majors” and “Worst College Majors” proliferate on the Internet.

But how much truth actually lies in the correlation of major and career? And what kind of a role does socioeconomic class play in students’ choice of major? ***

INCREASING HOME VALUE

Lower home values correlate to more majors in the sciences

Higher home values correlate to more majors in the humanities

// AMANDA HU

FRIDAY APRIL

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THE ART OF BLACK DISSENT YUAG // 1:30 p.m.

An exploration of photography and graphic art depicting African American civil rights and liberation struggle from the early 20th century to today.

A 2015 study conducted by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found that the difference in lifetime earnings between the highest-paying major (petroleum engineering) and the lowest-paying major (early childhood education) is over $3 million. Splitting majors into seven “supergroups,” the study notes that STEM majors have the highest entry-level median wages — $43,000 a year — after graduation, while arts, liberal arts and humanities majors have the lowest at $29,000. These differences are compounded over time with minimal shifts in relative ranking: by midcareer, STEM majors see growth to $76,000 a year, retaining the top spot in terms of median earnings. Arts, liberal arts and humanities majors make

$51,000 a year and have moved up to second-to-last place, replaced on the bottom rung by teaching and serving majors ($46,000 a year).

The study’s results are fairly consistent with popular thought: learning STEM in a technologically blooming society would reasonably lead to lucrative careers, while arts and humanities are considered by most people to be an indulgence. This logic is reflected to an extent among the Yale population. A survey of 995 members of the class of 2016, conducted for the “Econometrics and Data Analysis I” course (ECON 131) and led by student Sara* ’18, used home value as an indicator of class.

Dividing majors into five categories (humanities; social sciences; language; selective majors such as global affairs or ethics, politics and economics; and science and quantitative reasoning), the researchers found the most significant correlation with home value among science and humanities majors. Students with low home values, the study found, gravitate toward the sciences.

Humanities majors, on the other hand, tend to come from highervalued homes. For the rest of the majors, there was no significant correlation between home value and field of study. *** But the path to achieving financial stability through any major is especially difficult for low-income students, who come into Yale saddled with disadvantages resulting from the quality of their secondary schooling or work-study commitments. Matthew Massie ’17, a history major, notes that the consequences can extend into the classroom.

“Lower-class students who earned diplomas from public schools can feel less confidence participating in class discussions or approaching professors for meetings,” he said. Indeed, Yale’s student population features an unusually high proportion of students — 44 percent, a number that has stayed relatively consistent over the years — who received their secondary education in private schools compared with the national 11.3 percent.

The need to take on student jobs to make up the student income contribution also plays a role in producing feelings of discomfort among low-income students.

“Students who don’t have to sacrifice sleep in order to earn money are able to pay more attention in class,” Massie explained.

“I’ve had to come to section having finished none of the

WKND RECOMMENDS: Edward Bouchet College.

SEE MAJORS PAGE B8

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND FAITH

MORE THAN EVER, GOD AT YALE // BY KATIE MARTIN

In 1977, sociologists David Caplovitz and Fred Sherrow wrote that higher education was a “breeding ground for apostasy.” In 1983 another sociologist, James Hunter, claimed it was a “well-established fact” that education “secularizes.” In 2014, more than a quarter of American incoming college freshmen answered a UCLA survey stating they had no religious preference, up from just 15 percent in 1971. In 2013, a Trinity College survey of American college students described this group as showing a “remarkable degree of indifference to religion.” Closest to home, in 1951 William F. Buckley Jr. ’50 dedicated an entire book, “God and Man at Yale,” to the godlessness of the Yale education.

But some Yale students haven’t succumbed to the charms of secularization. In fact, during their college years, many Yalies deepen their faith, finding in religion both solace from the stresses of college life and a way to break free of the Yale bubble. *** I tell Alex Garland ’17 that I work at Saint Thomas More, so he asks me if I’m Catholic and looks surprised and a little disappointed when I tell him that I’m not. I’m disappointed too, I say — and I’m not being facetious. I’m envious of Garland’s openhearted faith and the earnestness with which he tells me that “being more devout probably makes life at Yale easier because it ensures there’s always a place I can turn to when I need help.”

Garland came to Catholicism while at Yale, and finds his faith to be a respite from the stress that Yale’s constant bustle tends to cause.

“There’s always a place where I can go and get away and focus on other things, and when you make time for that it actually becomes very relieving,” he said of the Mass he attends at STM. Elena Gonzalez ’15, who also converted to Catholicism as a Yale student, agreed, saying her faith “brings a peace to her life that she never could have before imagined.”

“Yoga and meditation have their spiritual roots in Hindu-

ism,” Ashesh Trivedi ’18, president of the Hindu Students Council, said, “so I’ve started practicing those with a genuineness and faithfulness that I never had. And that’s been a real tangible improvement in my life. I feel more at home, I’ve become a better person.”

“I started going to the Episcopal Church at Yale because they sent me a free hat in the mail,” said Micah Osler ’18, who grew up in a family with a “very mixed level of devotion.”

But he continued attending weekly services as a “respite from the difficulties of my freshman year,” and this year became the co-chair of the congregational council.

Osler also sees religion as an escape from Yale’s “cult of ego.” He said students here often succumb to the idea “everything that matters in the world is either within the eight blocks of campus or can be accessed via Metro-North.

And church really takes you out of that. It beautifully shows you just how small you really are, which is helpful when you’re assuming that your problems in life are the only things that matter.”

Mujtaba Wani ’17 agreed, saying he thought “most Yalies would be a lot better off if they took a break every day, not necessarily to pray, but to think about what they believe in.”

aware of the tenets of my faith and my fundamental belief in them than I ever had been when I was in high school, and going to church was what I did on Sunday mornings as a prerequisite for pizza afterwards.”

Luke Peilen ’18, co-gabbai, or service assistant, at the egalitarian minyan at the Slifka Center, said that his “religion is significantly more accessible at Yale than it is at home.” Because of restrictions on driving and electricity use, Peilen said he can’t practice his religion to his preferred degree while at home because he is “unable to make the necessary modifications.”

He noted that his family “can’t shift their schedule to not drive on Shabbat,” but Yale’s pedestrian-friendly campus makes his practice feasible.

Wani also finds his faith easier to practice on campus.

“Religion is more accessible on a college campus than it is in the suburbs. At home, I’d have to drive somewhere to go to mosque. But here, everything is 45 seconds away.” He added that though his parents are happy he has become a “better” Muslim, “there are times when they say, you know, come on, it’s a hassle to keep halal.

It’s not that they don’t want me to, and I could see them doing it as well, but it’s a slight thorn in their side sometimes.”

***

***

Religion can also be a way for students to connect with the families and communities they left at home. Assistant University Chaplain Maytal Saltiel noted that “students have left their home communities and are making decisions on their own about what communities to join, how to think about God and our complicated world.”

Trivedi said he joined the Hindu Students Council in October of his freshman year because he was “trying to find home.” Though he said he did not find his intellectual community there, he described the HSC as a “source of comfort” and a “good place to root my faith.”

Osler said that after attending church at Yale, he “became on some level much more

On another level, religious communities serve to bring together like-minded individuals, forging friendships for those who choose to enter them.

“You can be faithful and believe in God from your room,” Peilen said, but “the practice of the religion is what brings community. There’s something about communal prayer that is a very meaningful experience. Slifka on Saturdays is very clearly a very close-knit community. We’re all there for the same reason and even if we’re not very good friends outside — though many of us are — for the time that we’re there, there’s an incredible connection.”

Garland, on the other hand, found a Catholic community before he found his Catho-

lic faith. “My contact with the Catholic Church started at Yale,” he said, “through contact with friends. There are a large number of very smart and engaging Catholics in the [Yale Political Union], and they helped me challenge and explore my faith.”

Gonzalez had a similar experience: “Through my involvement in the pro-life movement and the YPU, I found that many of my closest friends with whom I was spending the most time were Christians who often challenged me on my beliefs.” *** No student I spoke to described a hostile response to their faith from any Yale student, professor or staff member. Some even found that their academic growth, with all due respect to Buckley, prompted spiritual growth as well. “I’ve worried about pushback,” Osler said, “but it’s never once happened.” Garland noted that “the opposite of faith is not hostility,” saying instead that Yalies who do not practice a religion tend to be “largely apathetic” toward religiosity in general.

Wani commented that “if people perceive you as being religious, they give you a space of respect. Because part of secular liberalism at a place like this is ‘you do you.’ People say, ‘You can be something I think is wrong,’ but they’ll let you go about your business without telling you that you’re wrong.”

However, he noted that “in a place like Yale, for a person to be a declared atheist is more socially acceptable and seems more intellectual than to be devout. I think that’s a part of the secular culture of academia.”

As for this tension between academic and religious beliefs, Peilen noted that “most of Judaism is in conflict with itself. So obviously I’ve run across ideas that differ from my own, and that’s the point.

Judaism is a very conversational religion, a very interactive religion.” Osler says he’s encountered academic opinions that make him “uncomfortable,” but “that was true before my faith developed.”

Trivedi says the Directed Studies program prompted renewed interest in his faith and culture. “We were talking about all these countries with incredible intellectual histories, and then I realized — I’m from one of those countries!”

In contrast, Wani said that his faith had prompted tension between him and one of his professors. “I took a class where the professor would always tell me I needed to ‘put on my scholarly hat’ and ‘take off my religious practice hat.’

And I don’t agree with that. I don’t believe in leaving your religion at the door.”

Gonzalez agreed that the Yale community, though not openly hostile, can be dismissive of faith: “At Yale, most of my negative encounters involve people considering me somewhat of an interesting relic to be analyzed sociologically, rather than considering Catholicism and Christianity in general [as] a valid school of thought that can be honestly engaged with.” She found that being devout at Yale “really requires you to not be complacent and to be firm in your beliefs in the face of aggressive disagreement.” *** Ultimately, many students saw their spiritual development as a natural result of entering adulthood. “I think part of becoming a better and more mature person is growing in every aspect of your life, and one aspect of that is religion,” said Garland. Saltiel agreed, saying that “developmentally, college is the time when many people work through their commitments to religious and faith traditions.”

“In one of my classes, a professor was saying people become more religious as they age, and I found that really interesting. I buy that,” said Wani. “As you mature, [you] lose [your] more outlandish ideas. Tea gets cold,” he joked.

“My dad always told me that when I was older, I would understand,” said Trivedi.

“Fair enough, father. You won this round.”

Contact KATIE MARTIN at katherine.d.martin@yale.edu .

In fact, during their college years, many Yalies deepen their faith, finding in religion both solace from the stresses of college life and a way to break free of the Yale bubble.

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HOLI

Swing Space // 4 p.m.

We’re promised over 400 lbs of colored powder and (unclear how many lbs, hopefully 1000) samosas

WKND RECOMMENDS: Grace Hopper College.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ARTS

E VA C U AT E T H E

// JACK BARRY

DZANA-FLOOR // BY JACK BARRY

The cold spring air blew past my face as I strode over to the Morse-Stiles Crescent Theater.

A lone Salsa Fresca wrapper blew past me in the opposite direction. “Go back,” it seemed to say.

“The breeze is too crisp. The night is too barren.” I ignored the burrito wrapper and charged forward, pounding past the establishment formerly known as G-Heav, past Lou Lou, past J. Crew. I did not know what to expect. I had made the mistake of never attending a Dzana show. I last attended a Yale performance in the spring of 2015, and I was a younger man in those days. I entered the theater, found a seat and waited for the show to begin.

The theater was dark as the night. The empty stage seemed

cavernous, but then a thumping beat began. The space slowly came to life as the lights gently grew brighter and brighter and the performers slunk onto the stage.

The dancers created a V-like formation, drawing the eye to the center point of the stage, and then burst into motion, moving in all directions at once. Their legs and hands filled the vertical space in an intricate series of steps and claps as the women repeatedly dropped low to the ground only to pop back into the air moments later. The routine built in energy as each row of dancers gradually joined in, until the entire troupe was moving as one to the beat of the music. As quickly as the explosive energy of the dance had built, the stage went dark and the

performers exited to the wings.

A single spotlight shone down on Ian Irungu ’19, the emcee of the evening. Ian riled up the audience and encouraged clapping and shouting as he contextualized the night’s performance, providing background on the songs heard throughout the evening.

A series of high-energy performances commenced as the performers clapped, stomped and swayed through a series of songs.

Costume changes highlighted key moves of the dances, accentuating the performers’ crisp motions. After the large opening number, featuring the entire cast of Dzana, a succession of playful and powerful all-female dances continued until the dancers each raised a hand on the final beat of

the Nigerian song “Girls Night Out,” as if preventing the audience from leaning off the edge of their seats any farther.

In the next number, two dancers, Mallet Njonkem ’18 and Sarah Heard ’18, emerged from the shadows of opposite sides of the theater and met at the center of the stage. This dance, more intimate than any previous performance, marked a deliberate change of pace for the show.

Njonkem and Heard circled each other across the stage until they were united in a climactic series of complicated steps at the center. Their sultry moment quickly ended as the lights faded and the rest of Dzana joined them onstage for the final dance before intermission.

The house lights went up and a small group of dancers, led by Alex Leone ’18 and Téa Beer ’17, entered the stage. They called the audience to their feet and walked them through the first four moves to the next dance. Other dances joined the stage and cheered, calling out particular audience members for exceptional effort or adeptness at mastering the moves. I participated and my hips burned with the flames of a sedentary lifestyle.

The second half of the show began, and was a notable departure in tone from the first half of the performance. Their moves were more confident and more aggressive. Irungu recommended the audience add the final songs to their “really good time” (read:

sex) playlists on Spotify, and indeed the choreography of this dance communicated a sense of confident, powerful sexuality.

Dzana’s Afrogroove show is fun, exciting, powerful and sexy.

Their appeal comes from their effervescence and mastery of difficult footwork. The dancers make the grinding hip thrusts and complex dance moves seem playful and effortless, but the audience attempts at intermission demonstrate that this is clearly not the case. For anyone looking to warm up before the less than balmy temperatures of Spring Fling, Afrogroove is the only place to be at 8 p.m. tonight.

Contact JACK BARRY at john.c.barry@yale.edu .

October Project Releases Album Packed With Yalies // BY DAYRIN JONES

Collaboration and mentorship are the key components to the latest release from October Project.

October Project, fronted by Yale alumni Marina Belica ’81 (vocals) and Julie Flanders ’81 (lyrics and vocals), and led by Emmy-award composer Emil Adler (music), is a band known for their trademark harmonies and transformative songs. For their latest release, they came to Yale to recruit a choir of undergraduate singers to record a category-defying and almost entirely a cappella recording.

Adler, along with Morse alumni Flanders and Belica, had been invited to speak about the band’s career in music at a Morse Master’s Tea, from which they became inspired to embark upon a new sort of alumni-undergraduate project. This inspiration culminated in the recording of “The Book of Rounds: 21 Songs of Grace,” an album combining the voices of Yale singers and the music and mentorship of seasoned veterans to create a new and original collection of musical rounds. The resulting recording fosters a “community across distances of time,” connecting Flanders and Belica with recent

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graduates, such as arranger Keiji Ishiguri ’11, and current students.

Ishiguri, a former pitch pipe of the 2010–2011 Whiffenpoofs, contributed the arrangements; working from the original rounds written by Adler (music) and Flanders (lyrics), Ishiguri created sophisticated settings that can be enjoyed by singers and listeners alike. Along with Ishiguri’s arranging skills, the vocal stylings of current undergraduates Lucy Fleming ’16, a former Redhot & Blue pitch and current pitch of Whim’n Rhythm, and current Whiffenpoof Spencer Bokat-Lindell ’17 can be heard throughout the tracks. October Project had no trouble finding talent on campus to lend their voices and skills to the album, drawing from the many singing groups on campus, including Belica’s former a cappella group Redhot & Blue, which she directed during her time as a student.

“The Book of Rounds” is innovative not only in its multigenerational approach, but in its mission to bring listeners and singers to an elevated state. The band considers each round “a fugue of positive messages.” Flanders’ lyrics repeating throughout Adler’s overlap-

ping melodic lines are intended to transform the mind and heart of the listener. Whether assuring the listener of the unwavering comfort of home, or encouraging feelings of belonging and significance, each song tackles a universal feeling in way that is tender and personal. When listened to from beginning to end, the album abounds with positivity that seeps into the mind and soul.

Released on Sounds True in November of 2015, the recording has enjoyed a wide audience (including a review in the April issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine) and caught the attention of choirs across the country. This coming November the live world premiere of all 21 rounds will be performed in Austin, Texas,

by Chorus Austin, an ensemble composed of more than 150 voices. That same month the Yale Camerata will perform a few selections from the album here in New Haven. Later this semester, the percussive track “Joy” will have its premiere by the Yale Music in Schools Initiative’s glee club, a group consisting of advanced singers from New Haven public schools. Belica, Flanders and Adler are delighted that so many ensembles are

¡OYÉ! 10TH ANNIVERSARY BLOCK PARTY

// COURTESY OF DAYRIN JONES

excited to perform the rounds, from community choirs to professional groups. While each group’s interpretation may differ from each other or from band’s

original concept, October Project welcomes them all. Each rendition is another step forward in extending the Yale musical community and the reach of “The

Contact DAYRIN JONES at dayrin.jones@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS:

La Casa // 8:30 p.m.

¡Performance groups! ¡Piñatas! ¡Poetry!

Book of Rounds” and its positive messages.

Henry Roe Cloud College.

PAGE B6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND TRUE

PAGE B7

LOVE

BLINDEST DATE

I

n between the date WKND solicited Blindest Date applications and today, most Yalies gained, then shed their winter coats and cuffing-season buddies. With Spring Fling on the horizon, Yale prepares: to show off our legs (coincidentally, the Blindest Date application deadline also marks the last time WKND shaved), our alcohol tolerance and our fresh, single, ready-to-bemade-out-with faces. What is Spring Fling, if not a celebration of warmth, youth and singledom? Still: as you weave your flower crowns and wrap up the stitching on your fake Theta fanny pack, WKND asks you to think back to a much colder time, a time when we needed to cuddle for warmth, a time when we watched rom-coms inside instead of slinking to Woads

in our skimpiest skirts, a time when, in short, we chose to believe in Love.

Because the following bachelors and bachelorettes also believed in love, they embarked on the blindest of dates — those arranged by WKND voters based on the answers questions that dug as deep as “What is your ideal date’s favorite beverage?” So much time elapsed between our winners’ victories and their actual dates that a handful had forged outside relationships with other, non-WKND plebeians.

Yet WKND’s own love for love wrested these dates into existence, despite opposition from schedules, the universe, fate and the YDN business team. Read on to experience (alongside our bachelors and bachelorettes) love gained, love lost and lots of dessert.

BACHELOR & BACHELORETTE: ELIOT LEVMORE AND SARA TABIN SARA’S TAKE:

Although I had stopped being a bachelorette in the two months between winning Weekend’s Blindest Date and receiving the date money, Eliot and I decided to take full advantage of the situation anyway and get fancy desserts at Maison Mathis.

Being compelled to spend $20 on food is every bit as wonderful as it sounds. We met for the first time within the whitewashed walls of the European-inspired cafe.

He looked very sharp in his cardigan while I, coming from a workout, was clad a tank top and baggy shorts.

We perused the pastries and eventually decided on a macaroon each, one piece of cheesecake and a small mousse, in addition to a pot of chai tea. Both members of the Yale Political Union, we passed the “date” discussing politics and soon discovered that we had very different first principles.

Regardless, our mutual satisfaction with the macaroons and slight disappointment with the mousse, which was not entirely finished, was shared.

Contact SARA TABIN at sara.tabin@yale.edu .

ELIOT’S TAKE:

National Geographic’s “The Joy of Food” details the power of food to create and define communities. In short, food brings people together. This blind rendezvous was neither my first nor last meeting with a member of the Party of the Left with whom I had previously not even exchanged passing glances; I had the unequalled pleasure of “hacking,” as YPU meetings are called, with others, one even on the same day. But their very name betrays that none of those others meetings was as downright pleasant as my “date” with Sara at Maison Mathis, and it seems clear that the relevant difference was the goatcheese tart. Talking politics and trying to make a friend is one thing; doing so over tea and sumptuous treats is

quite another. Between bites, we pondered age gaps in the dating pool, exes, a past YPU debate about abortion and the über-gentrification of Aspen, Colorado (my turf) and Park City, Utah (hers). Disagreements were cooperative rather than competitive or hostile; it would be impossible to become upset in the presence of triple-chocolate mousse. Maison Mathis, to be sure, is a reasonable locale for a first date. But dessert makes everything more congenial. Perhaps Maison should advertise its food as an icebreaker for business meetings, or its sidewalk seating as the perfect place for a few deep breaths and a macaroon.

Contact ELIOT LEVMORE at eliot.levmore@yale.edu .

// MARGARET GLEBERMAN

// YALE DAILY NEWS

BACHELORETTES: ELENA KAGAN & MARGARET GLEBERMAN ELENA’S TAKE:

The day of the date, my roommate emailed me and asked if I could take over her blindest date because she had a conflict. I said yes easily — I had nothing to do, and found the idea was exciting.

So, about four hours later, I walked speedily back from a meeting, already late. It was a good thing that I had to rush; I didn’t have time to worry about what I was wearing or get nervous.

The only concession I made to nervousness was a stop by my room to take off my army jacket, which I worried would come off too casual.

Of course, when I arrived at the corner to meet Margaret, she was wearing an almost identical jacket, covered with an awe-inspiring collection of cool pins. I had a good feeling already.

She had in mind for us to go to an ice-cream place that I had never been to.

After we got our ice cream, we decided to walk around

FRIDAY APRIL

29

rather than find someplace to sit. As we walked, we talked about our majors, our classes, our favorite books.

Conversation was easy, and she was fascinating to talk to. I liked that she was an architecture major who wasn’t planning to become an architect. Apart from being extremely relatable, it showed a cool kind of independence and self-knowledge. We continued talking as we walked around Yale buildings, looking for interesting spots and pretty views. Eventually we took out the copy of the “36 Questions That Lead to Love” that WKND had provided us. Both of us had actually done it before, and, while we didn’t get very far in the questions, we were able to learn a lot about each other pretty quickly.

We kept getting sidetracked from the questionnaire in the best possible way, as we asked follow-up questions and talked about our lives.

MARGARET’S TAKE:

We used the remaining money to go buy several coffees and hand them out to people around campus. It was such a nice idea — perhaps too nice, because people were convinced we were trying to drug them. The people who did take coffee seemed very happy, and it made the evening feel particularly special.

We had to wrap up the date quickly, because, ironically, I had to go work a copy shift at the News. So, we spent the last few minutes talking about our lives, our plans and what we still wanted to accomplish at Yale. I, as usual, spoke too passionately about religious studies and babbled on, but it didn’t feel awkward or forced. Like the rest of the date it felt natural and pleasant. As we said goodbye, we both agreed it had been a really fun date.

My date with Leni was honestly one of the better first dates I’ve had the pleasure of being on. The circumstances of our date were such that neither of us had explicitly signed on to the whole experience — I volunteered, as the former roommate of the editor of this lovely publication, and Leni came in place of her roommate. So thank you to Katie and Caroline for this serendipitous opportunity!

The blind-date awkwardness dissipated pretty quickly once we were equipped with ice cream, questions and the whole of campus available to walk. Our conversation was, I think, a good mix of answering the New York Times’ fall-in-love clickbait questions and talking of our own accord.

Highlights include: walking as high as we could in HGS, the delicious coffee ice cream from the dairy and hearing Leni beautifully articulate the role religious discourse plays in her life. Lowlight is that one guy who demanded to know if the free coffee we offered him was dark roast or not.

Contact ELENA KAGAN at elena.kagan@yale.edu .

Contact MARGARET GLEBERMAN at margaret.gleberman@yale.edu .

AFROGROOVE

Morse/Stiles Crescent // 8:30 p.m.

The day WKND got our groove back

WKND RECOMMENDS:

BACHELORS: WAYNE ZHANG & JACK BARRY WAYNE’S TAKE:

On Feb. 22 — a week after Valentine’s Day, the purported deadline for all WKND blind dates to take place — I received an adorable, if apologetic email from WKND’s editors stating, “It’s taken us a bit longer than expected to iron out the details of your dates … so to avoid having to rush everything, we’ve decided to push all dates to next week or the week after.”

“No matter!” I thought to myself. “A week is nothing!” Over a month later, on March 28, I received another frantic email with the subject: “Blindest Dates: WKND has not forgotten you & your quest for love (plz read & respond asap).” When2Meets were disseminated. More emails ensued on April 5, April 11 and April 15.

And just when I was beginning to think that true, eternal love was no match for the GCals of overachieving Yalies, WKND (bless their souls) finally arranged a date for the night of April 16.

Needless to say, anticipation

had built. I decided to show up five minutes late at our meeting location (the statue that everyone pees on at Old Campus), and was still completely unaware of any date’s details — except an ominous email earlier in the week which said “You don’t know what you’re doing ;) but your partner has a plan!”

My date introduced himself as Jack.

He’s the type of guy that says things like “hip” and “funky” and “fresh,” and it comes across as endearing instead of excruciating.

The type of guy that impresses you by boldly and unashamedly flaunting his 1/512 Cherokee heritage. The type of guy who can get away with writing an advice column by making up and answering his own questions because no one actually writes to him needing advice. He’s handsome.

While swiping blissfully drunk youngsters into 12-Pack’s hot-tub party, Jack and I tried four distinct times to build a fire in Saybrook’s courtyard, and eventually

SATURDAY APRIL

Yung Wing College.

30

built a steady flame using copies of WKND as kindling. (Our empirical findings that WKND burns better than The Record or The Herald must be a metaphor for something ;)) Conversation flowed. Marshmallows were roasted, s’mores were made and wine was drunk.

At one point, while sitting by our fire in the courtyard, our (apparently mutual) friend Henry Zatarain ’18 came up to us, and stated that he was making a documentary about night life at Yale.

“Give me your take!” he stated.

“We’re on a blind date!” we responded.

Completely unaware of the TVsitcom, meta nature of his ensuing question, he then probed, “Oh, really!!! How’s it going?!?”

Jack and I turned to each other and without skipping a beat, launched into playful on-camera banter, starting: “I think it’s going well!” And that’s all you need to know.

Contact WAYNE ZHANG at wayne.zhang@yale.edu .

JACK’S TAKE:

I was in a liquor store 15 minutes before my date began, frantically searching for a screwtop bottle of red wine. Saranya, confidant and liquor store clerk, stood behind the counter and advised on how each wine would pair with s’mores. As we debated the combination of a merlot with marshmallows, she recounted her last blind date, “a total and complete disaster.”

Sensing my panic, she offered me a pep talk and a shot of liquid courage.

Filled with newfound confidence, I headed to the meeting point to find my date. In the daylight, the Woolsey statue on Old Campus is a hub of activity, but under the cover of darkness, it transforms into an ominous mass of shadows and urine stains. WKND Editor Coryna Ogunseitan ’17, the mediator of all contact between my date and I, had warned me that he seemed “concerned” in his messages. I was not sur-

SPRANG FLANG

Old Campus // 3 p.m.

Drink water, kids.

prised — the spot was eerie and reeked of piss. By 9:03 p.m., I was convinced that he had been scared away and I would soon be sharing screw-top wine with Saranya. But then 9:04 p.m. arrived, and so did Wayne.

I was stunned by how handsome he was. We stared at one another for a few moments, before each blurting out “hello.”

Wayne had an easy smile and greeted me with a hug. I silently prayed that I didn’t smell like pee as we embraced. I stood on my toes to seem taller and squeezed him close. He felt nice to squeeze. Wayne wore a sport coat and slacks — he clearly had a different date in mind than what I had planned. Soon after meeting, we were stripping bark from logs and splitting branches to make kindling for a fire for s’mores. It was a cool but clear night, and I had set up a fire pit in the Saybrook courtyard. In hindsight, this was not the best idea. Despite the significant amount of sparks fly-

ing between Wayne and me, it was a struggle to ignite the (literal) fire.

As the night grew colder, Wayne and I grew closer. I capitalized on every opportunity to inch nearer. I had wrapped my faux fur blanket around Wayne soon after he began to shiver from the cold; he immediately made a “Game of Thrones” reference. It was not the first or last time he referenced GoT during the night. Wayne was funny, delightfully charming and endlessly interesting to chat with. His stories about unzipped pants at graduation, lax bros with a rat-poop problem and animal-print Speedos kept me laughing throughout. After he told me he lived in Indiana and had a cornfield in his backyard, I almost grabbed him and kissed him on the spot — but I waited until the end of the night to actually do that.

Contact JACK BARRY at john.c.barry@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Wilma Mankiller College.

PAGE B8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND MAJORS

WHAT MAKES SENSE // BY ORIANA TANG

MEDIAN INCOME STEM VS HUMANITIES ENTRY-LEVEL MEDIAN WAGES

$43,000

MAJORS FROM PAGE B3 reading as a consequence of working so much.”

In STEM, these struggles can be even further compounded. Majoring in science or engineering is “understood to be a good economic investment,” says Tony Scott ’17, a chemistry major. But such students may lack skills and knowledge that were conferred to those who attended top prep schools. Students from such backgrounds sometimes struggle to keep up in introductory “weedout” lectures graded on curves that force students to compete with each other for good scores. And Scott, like Massie, cites commitments to fulfill the SIC as a demand on time that could be better spent on other activities. For those in STEM, these may include opportunities to attend optional review sessions and to work 10 to 20 hours a week in a research lab, a graduation requirement for most science majors. “Though many students do it, I know several who have dropped their dreams of becoming a doctor simply because working 20 hours a week left them unable to complete coursework,” said Scott, who is involved with the Students Unite Now in their effort to end the SIC.

$29,000

MID-CAREER MEDIAN WAGES

$76,000 $51,000

*** Beyond financial stability, practical considerations like the pressure of potential employers’ perceptions can factor into students’ decisions to take on a STEM major. Cameron Yick ’17 is a computer science and electrical engineering major who helped found YaleMakes, a club that hosts workshops on intersection points between STEM and design arts. Yick never considered majoring in the arts or humanities despite enjoying nonSTEM seminars.

“I’ve assumed that the types of companies and problems that I’ve wanted to work on would require a science degree,” he said. “Additionally, I felt that if I wanted to work on a startup before having industry experience, having a technical major might help with attracting cofounders.”

Indeed, the pressure of such practical considerations was part of Sarah’s motivation in studying the correlation between class and major for ECON 131. “[As a first-generation American,] it was always understood that your parents made some sacrifices in coming to America,” she said. “Having the opportunity to see whether or not there was any truth to that notion was pretty exciting.”

This was a sentiment that resonated with me. While I do not come from a low-income household, I have always felt an obligation to honor my parents for all they have given up so that I may have the life I have by taking on a major that could lessen their financial burden.

But majors aren’t perfect predictors of future financial success, or even of career. According to the Final Destination Survey on the class of 2015 compiled by the Yale Office of

SATURDAY APRIL

30

// AMANDA HU

Career Strategy, only 39 percent of students said their area of employment was “highly related to their field(s) of study,” while 12.8 percent said it was “not related.”

Julie Schwarz ’16, for instance, is an English major who will be going into medicine after graduation. “I chose English because I loved the small courses, had great professors early on and really loved the content and the analytical skills I developed,” she said. She doesn’t see a conflict between the two fields of study.

“Mostly [English] has improved my critical thinking and analysis skills and exposed me to key works of literature that our culture developed around,” she said. “[Majoring] in the humanities and being premed … requires you to do more different types of work and think in different ways. This is something most of us are or should be doing as students at a liberal arts college.”

Others might disagree. Sarah described a discussion among lowerincome students in which one such student expressed frustration that Yale perpetuates the idea that everyone here has “equal access to a liberal arts education.” In truth, he felt that he didn’t have the choice to study whatever he wanted — rather, he was obligated to “[study] engineering so that one day his child can study art.”

Hobbs lit upon a similar idea when speaking of his roommate. “Rob was really creative and, like most Yale students, liked expanding his mind by taking classes in fields of study outside of MCDB,” he said in a phone interview, “but he probably didn’t

have much room to do that because of his financial burdens.” As much as Yale encourages students to explore areas they might otherwise shy away from through distributional requirements, many disadvantaged students still feel like they are forced to keep their forays into new and less “practical” fields of study small. *** The correlations the ECON 131 survey found can perhaps be blamed in part on general notions of a major’s practical application in the workforce. Stefanie Markovits, director of undergraduate studies in English, said many parents ask their children to justify their choice to study English.

“We have to work against the stereotype that English majors can’t find jobs afterwards,” she said. She pointed out that while some majors have followed the expected path into academia or journalism, others have gone into finance, law or medicine.

“The ability to think clearly and to articulate ideas with precision and elegance comes in use almost everywhere,” she said.

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies professor Maria Trumpler GRD ’92 identified a similar phenomenon among children of “immigrants who may be unfamiliar with WGSS and would like their offspring to pursue law or medicine.” Such parents tend to believe that studying WGSS will not lead to conventionally stable careers, instead pigeonholing their children into obscure

YALE BAROQUE OPERA PRESENTS: XERSE

stratifications of academia. Perhaps contrary to those beliefs, however, some WGSS majors do go on to work in law and public health, as well as journalism, social advocacy and other areas that “[try] to ‘change the system’ both in the U.S. and abroad.” “Often those majors go on to do amazing advocacy work for the communities that they came from,” Trumpler said.

Likewise, majors associated with high post-graduation earnings still yield students who go into less lucrative careers, like nonprofit work. The perception that the major in economics is aimed at making money is not entirely false, according to economics professor Christopher Udry.

But, he added, “[It is] profoundly misleading in that it misses essentially everything that I find interesting about the subject.” Of the students who wrote senior essays with him and with whom he has stayed in touch, many have ended up in Ph.D. programs, consulting, law school and “sometimes the financial sector.” But others have gone on to volunteer with the Peace Corps and Teach for America. *** Across the board, it seems reductive to point at financial reasons as the only motivations for students to take on certain majors. Almost all interviewed students said that even given the means to major in a different area, they would stick with what they have.

“I chose MCDB because in high

school I always loved biology,” said Jake Roy ’19. “I probably wouldn’t change my major even if I didn’t have my parents’ support because I think MCDB is the best way for me to achieve my goals.”

Hobbs agreed. “I don’t want to take away from the idea that Rob was really passionate about science,” he said in a phone interview. “He loved it.” While Peace may not have had as much room as wealthier students to expand his mind by exploring outside of STEM, he still cared about what he was studying, Hobbs explained.

Ultimately, the correlation between socioeconomic situation and major is undeniable. The weight of responsibility to fulfill financial obligations is a difficult one to escape for most low-income and first-generation students, an unfortunate reality that lies counter to the romantic ideal of the liberal arts education. But the reality may not be as dire as the numbers make it appear, and the choice, in the end, does not matter as much as it may seem. While I haven’t come to any conclusions regarding what direction I want to take, there is solace in knowing that the path I end up on is not the be-all and end-all of the rest of my life.

Reflecting on where his friends from college have ended up, Hobbs noted that majors of all variety went on to find success. “They’re all living good lives now,” he said.

WKND RECOMMENDS:

University Theatre // 3 p.m

Sibling rivalry wreaks havoc on eve of Persia’s invasion of Europe.

Contact ORIANA TANG at oriana.tang@yale.edu .

Elga Wasserman College.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B9

WEEKEND TRAVEL

A WORLD OF ONE’S OWN // BY SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN A few weeks ago, my mother sent me an article about two Argentine women in their early 20s who were murdered in Montanita, Ecuador in late February. The town where they were staying is a mere 20-minute walk down the beach from Manglaralto, where I will be spending two months this summer.

The day my mother sent me the article, I was about to buy my plane ticket to Quito — I’d been looking forward to making my plans solid at last. But while I’d been blissfully drafting an itinerary for my time in Ecuador, my mother was fretting about my safety as a young female traveler.

For the rest of that day, I researched the story of the two Argentine women more fully, familiarizing myself with their faces and the identities of their suspected attackers. A latent fear — which I had quelled since traveling in Latin America last summer — began to re-emerge within me. *** Traveling alone as a woman can be seen as an act of defiance, a break from the traditional script of women’s need for protection from and by men.

“Whenever I would talk to my parents about places I wanted to travel to, they would always immediately talk about how dangerous it is to travel as a woman,” recalls Skyler Inman ’17, a veteran of solo travel and a staff reporter for the News. Although her upbringing conflicted with her deepseated desire to travel, Inman chose to confront her fear of the outside world when she studied abroad in France after her junior year of high school.

“It was the most formative experience of my high school years — my youth,” Inman reflected. “I didn’t know I was brave before I traveled.”

For Kelsi Caywood ’18, traveling alone gave her greater freedom to take charge of her own experience abroad.

“When you get lost, it’s more of a sense of organic exploration, as opposed to the combined interests and travel habits of someone else. It’s nice to have the quiet reflection that is only allowed when you’re [traveling] by yourself,” Caywood said.

She remembered crying when she saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time.

“It was so overwhelmingly grand,” she explained. “It’s not something I ever thought I would see or go visit.”

Raquel Brau Diaz ’18, who traveled alone to Prague, Amsterdam and London over spring break, expressed a similar sentiment. In traveling solo, she found an opportunity to make the most of her time and accomplish what she found to be most important.

“I don’t really like to do tourist Top 10 sites,” Brau Diaz said. “I mostly like to walk around neighborhoods, specifically those that have special significance or culture.”

She particularly enjoyed the opportunities she had to speak with locals and other travelers whom she met at coffee shops or while roaming the city streets. On one occasion, Brau Diaz encountered a fellow street-art enthu-

siast while gazing at a particular mural.

She laughingly recalled how the man, a highly devout Catholic priest, placed the street art into a religious context.

A deep conversation about spirituality ensued.

There’s a certain freedom that’s only readily available when one travels solo without restrictions or inhibitions from a fellow traveler — without the need to compromise. As Kira Tebbe ’17 put it, “You don’t have to ask anyone permission to do anything.”

Tebbe took advantage of this freedom to discover and delve into a love of Icelandic music. Last June, she embarked on a five-day stint in Iceland without any plans or intentions. In her wanderings, Tebbe stumbled upon an enormous record store.

“I don’t know anything about Icelandic music besides Björk. Can you show me some great artists?” Tebbe recalled asking the shop owner.

The shop owner sat her next to a record player and, after asking Tebbe about her musical tastes, picked out several artists. Tebbe spent two hours in the store listening to them. She still regularly plays the two records she bought on that spontaneous excursion. *** Unfortunately, this freedom of experience can arguably be hampered simply by virtue of being female. Every woman I spoke with had dealt with uncomfortable confrontations which peppered their generally positive experiences abroad.

Last summer, Delaney Herndon ’17 traveled to Morocco for a Yale studyabroad program. On a free weekend, she found her way alone from Paris’ 16th arrondissement to a museum near the city center.

“I felt very empowered figuring out a city on my own,” Herndon recalled.

But there were moments when Herndon felt uncomfortable exploring on her own.

“Catcalling is a global phenomenon,” Herndon quipped. Although she was singled out by men in both Morocco and Europe, her ability to respond or defend herself was hampered by language barriers. In Morocco, it was only when she was able to swear in Arabic at the men who taunted her that she was able to gain a sense of confidence.

Catcalling had an especially negative influence on her experience in Rabat. “I didn’t want to go out alone at night because I didn’t have anyone to go with. It made me less comfortable with exploring,” Herndon said.

Being a woman can often come with a sense of vulnerability. No amount of confidence or supposed comfort can eliminate the fact that some men view women as sexual objects.

Inman’s most terrifying experience abroad occurred during a spontaneous skinny dip in Tel Aviv.

“I was just floating around on my back, and I stood up for a second to see the shadow of my belongings on the beach — my clothes, cell phone, wallet,

everything — and realized it was larger than it should have been,” Inman said.

She recalled realizing that a man was going through her things, and she had no idea what to do. “I ended up shouting at him as I ran out of the water. He ran away and didn’t take anything, except for maybe a few shekels. I felt so dumb.”

At times, the liberation so central to the experience of traveling solo must be relinquished in favor of safety.

Once, when traveling in a taxi in China, Caywood was forced to call a male friend to her reluctant rescue.

She realized that the cab she was in was traveling in the opposite direction of her homestay and, although she communicated her address to the driver multiple times, he refused to correct their direction.

“That sense of [lacking] control was very debilitating and discouraging,” Caywood said. Eventually, she phoned her friend and had him converse in unintelligible Chinese with the driver.

Her friend managed to convince the driver to take her home.

The experience still comes to mind whenever she travels abroad.

At the same time, the objectification and sexism faced overseas may not always be foreign. “My experiences traveling haven’t been that different from my experience as a women in general,” Tebbe said. *** For other students, being a woman abroad did little to color their experience.

As Brau Diaz wandered through the streets of Prague in search of murals from the emerging street art scene, she gave little thought to any impact of gender on her experience.

“I’ve never felt that being a woman has ever hindered my experiences,” Brau Diaz said. When traveling, her main concerns revolved around logistics and loneliness.

But the fact remains that the term “solo female travel” elicits the assumption that being female changes the innate experience of exploration.

Many concerns regarding solo female travel fall into the same vein as instances of victim-blaming in sexual assault cases. The constructed narrative of women as traveling targets only serves to reinforce a culture that teaches women to be fearful, not powerful; cowardly, not confident.

“When you are a young woman traveling alone, you spend a lot of time talking about being a young woman traveling alone,” noted Julia Gilbert ’18.

While it can be positive to acknowledge the empowerment that comes from independence, the emphasis on traveling alone as a woman can also point at detrimental societal assumptions.

“There are a lot of problematic things wrapped up in these conversations, particularly those centered on women’s safety abroad: how women’s bodies are seen as objects of violence; how other countries are seen as sites of criminality or backwardness; how for

women, simply leaving home is seen as taking undue risk,” Gilbert explained.

With the emergence of the trend of female solo travel, it’s possible that these assumptions will eventually dissipate as it slowly becomes a norm, not an aberration.

For all of the women I interviewed, the benefits of traveling greatly outweighed any safety concerns or negative experiences they had had.

Inman noted that while travel can be occasionally scary, it’s made her more at home in the world than afraid.

“I am stronger and safer in the world than I was trained to think I was,” Inman said. “I realized that I could get myself and out of tough situations, that I could rely on my own strength, knowledge and language skills, allowing me to move through places I had never been before.” *** Travel experiences inevitably differ from location to location. Most of the women I interviewed came from America and had only been to Europe, Asia and Northern Africa. More developing areas, such as South America and sub-Saharan Africa, may present radically different challenges.

Brau Diaz attributes her lack of anxiety while traveling alone to the fact that she was traveling in European countries with more liberal attitudes toward feminism. Similarly, Tebbe chose Iceland as her destination because of its reputation for accommodating female travelers.

Preparation and knowledge of your destination make all the difference.

“Be very conscious about where you book your accommodations and [about] traveling late at night,” Caywood advised.

Inman, too, recommended reading about and researching one’s destination before traveling.

“I was always very defiant about the way people talked to me about being safe while I traveled. You have to realize that there are places where it isn’t safe to go alone as frustrating as that is, you have to be aware of yourself and your situation.” Inman said.

She noted the importance of maintaining a balance between boldness — taking advantage of opportunities — and trusting one’s gut in potentially dangerous situations. *** That night, I was determined to buy my plane ticket to Quito. As I typed in my credit card information on the airline website, I couldn’t help but picture myself in the situation of the two women in Montanita. But as I pressed the button, the images in my mind evaporated.

The one-way ticket appeared in my inbox. I reviewed my itinerary again and added another destination. All that’s left is for me to pack my bags.

Contact SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN at sofia.braunstein@yale.edu .

// SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN

SATURDAY APRIL

30

GONG MEDITATION CONCERT

PWG Main Exercise Room // 4 p.m.

Meditate away your Spring Fling hangover with the soothing sounds of gongs and singing bowls.

Jane Bolin College.

PAGE B10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

THE BEST WORST MUSIC // BY IAN GARCIA-KENNEDY If you asked a random person on the street what the best time period for music has been, you’d get a pretty wide range of answers. Maybe they’re a classical music aficionado, and their answer would be the late 1700s or early 1800s. Maybe they partied at Woodstock, and their answer would be the summer of 1969. However, most of them would probably not say the late 1990s or early 2000s. This period is regarded as something of an artistic wasteland, populated by Britney Spears and boy band flavors of the month.

However, there is one musical genre that I personally remember fondly (while also admitting that most of its output was objectively terrible). I am, of course, talking about the movement known as pop punk. It’s a hard genre to define exactly, but you probably remember it from kindergarten.

They were all-male bands whose compositions featured quasiedgy lyrics that also served as theme songs for kids movies.

Smash Mouth’s “All-Star” (and theme for Shrek) is probably the gold standard. Since many of these songs are awful, I would like to save you the trouble of having to wade through sonic sludge to get your instant fix of elementary school nostalgia. So without further ado, I present you the best pop punk songs in existence.

“Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger is a good place to get

started. The band is completely forgotten, but the song is one that I guarantee you would remember.

It’s the one with the lyrics that go, “I’m not sick, but I’m not well.”

The song really is a pretty great pump-up anthem, and it’s fun to spot the obscenity in many of the references that you missed out on when you were six.

Next would have to be “All the Small Things” by Blink-182. Like almost every pop punk song, it has an up-tempo beat along with mindless, borderline nonsensical lyrics. But this song in particular is also special because I remember being seven years old and thinking that one particular line was the height of romance: “She left me roses by the stairs.” Maybe it’s nostalgia, or maybe my ideas about love truly haven’t evolved since I was seven, but that lyric still gets me.

Perhaps there’s no better example of the genre than Sum 41’s “In Too Deep.” Mindless?

Check. Theme song for some Nickelodeon TV movie? Definitely. So simple a six-year-old could understand the lyrics? You betcha. But it’s still a fun song.

Sure, no one at Pitchfork is ever going to admit to liking it, but it is an earworm.

“1985” by Bowling for Soup is a song that actually deserves a little more analysis. I’ve tried to avoid the lofty artistic proclamations I usually make in reviews because to think about these songs that

much would be to think about them way more than any of the musicians ever did. But “1985” is surprisingly brilliant, lyrically speaking. Listen to the generically catchy beat, and you’ve got yourself any other brain-dead teen anthem from this period.

But listen to the words, and you actually have a deeply melancholy take on life after the party has ended. The middle-aged female subject of the song, Debbie, is a modern-day Madame Bovary, longing for her youth and trapped in a life of quiet desperation. It’s less “Dawson’s Creek” than it is “Death in Venice.” For a more appropriately downbeat take on a similar subject, listen to “Laura” by Bat for Lashes, whose titular protagonist is a spiritual cousin to “1985”’s Debbie.

So there you have it, the four least-bad pop punk songs of the period. No one would ever accuse any of these songs of being great art, or even particularly good art (or even art), but they are all a part of our collective cultural childhood. There’s also something goofily enjoyable about them. These songs take us back to a time before people took pop seriously, and before people wrote think pieces about music videos. But then again, actually thinking about these songs would kind of defeat the purpose.

Contact IAN GARCIA-KENNEDY at ian.garcia-kennedy@yale.edu .

// SONIA RUIZ

Closet Confidential // BY LUCY FRIEDMANN Have you ever seen the movie “This is 40”? Well, I have … too many times. And although it’s supposed to be a reflection on the inevitability of getting older, I find that it captures just as well the quintessence of being young. One of the most poignant of these teenage moments centers on the oldest daughter tearing everything out of her closet, unable to find a single piece to wear for the day. At the top of her lungs she screams, “Mom, Why can’t I get new clothes? … Nothing fits me!” While I hope most of you have grown out of pulling such tantrums, the stress of getting dressed in the morning is still a reality, especially when you can barely see your options in the ever-too-small dorm closets. How are you supposed to manage? With the next school year looming, the issue of closet space needs to be solved. But here are a few tricks to make our miniscule space fit even the

most expansive wardrobe.

1. Invest in quality hangers. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, with clothes falling all down or sticking out in random places. It’s important to buy slim hangers that grip well. What’s the point of hanging clothes if they don’t stay in place? Uniformity of hangers will also allow for more space.

You’ve been there, scrambling to hang up a shirt before heading to class, grabbing the nearest hanger at your disposal, even if it’s not the type that you typically use. No more. Pick a style, stick with it and stock up on extras. Not only will such a strategy provide you with more room to hang clothing, it will also make it easier to look through your wardrobe when deciding what to wear in the morning.

2. Buy a shoe rack. If you open my closet at the moment, a sea of sneakers, sandals and slipons will come pouring out. This

situation needs to change. My roommate tried to keep all of her shoes in a box on the floor, while I bought a hanging shoe rack in which to stuff all of my wares.

Caution: Do not attempt. If anything, the box idea is better, but both solutions have their fair share of problems. Where do we put our “frat” shoes, the ones that are perpetually dirty and are worn only on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights? You don’t want them to touch your nice shoes and potentially ruin them. And how are you to see all of your shoes in the morning, to choose the pair that goes with your outfit of the day? The best bet, I think, is an old-fashioned, on-the-floor shoe rack. Stick it in your common room, off to the side, next to a wall. Not only will it keep nice shoes clean, but it will also allow for full view of options.

3. When in doubt, roll it out.

When I went to Israel one summer, I had to stuff a month’s

worth of clothing into a suitcase; such a feat seemed almost impossible, until I learned this handy trick. Neatly fold clothing and then, using both hands, roll the fabric evenly until the piece looks like a nicely rolled pastry. This tactic makes it so that a small space can fit much more than usual. Although I have yet to inaugurate such a system into my own set of drawers, I plan to do so next year. No longer will I have to deal with clothes barely fitting into my bureau, falling out the back of an opened drawer and emerging dusty when I finally manage to retrieve it.

4. If you really need extra hanging space, try a rolling clothes rack. The only issue in buying one is the question of where to put it. The common room? Maybe, but then everyone who walks into your suite will have access to your wardrobe. The “single” life may be more conducive; if you have a

spacious single, you could easily store it in your room. However, most of us will never see spacious accommodations at Yale.

If you want to keep a clothing rack in the common room, try covering it with a nice piece of fabric, to keep your wardrobe neat and contained.

5. You’ve heard this one before: downsize. We all have clothes that we never wear, just sitting in the closet, hoping to see the light of day. I always think that I’ll need them at some point, but I never do. If you haven’t worn a piece of clothing in at least a month-and-ahalf, send it home. Or, if that’s not possible, just remember not to pack it for the fall. Make some mental, or even physical, notes.

Keep these tips in mind as you start packing up your closet for the summer and planning for the next school year!

Contact LUCY FRIEDMANN at lucy.friedmann@yale.edu .

// KATHERINE XIU

SUNDAY MAY

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EVA HESSE (2015) YUAG // 2 p.m.

All the latex and fiberglass you ever wanted in an art film.

WKND RECOMMENDS: Mary Goodman College.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND FILM

TRIPPING,

EATING, FORGIVING, EXPERIMENTING // BY ZAINAB HAMID

Sitting in a gaudy furniture store was a woman with hair made of cotton candy.

She began to pull off chunks and swallows each piece, bit by bit, until she was left bald and dazed, staring in a mirror.

In devouring parts of herself, the woman seemed to symbolize the destructive consequences of addiction, or perhaps narcissism. This compelling yet slightly unsettling narrative describes Biancia Boragi’s ART ’17 “Cotton Candy,” one of the eight experimental shorts featured at the Yale Student Film Festival this past weekend.

Made by students from four different countries, including Iran, Lebanon and Germany, the experimental shorts at YSFF offered an exploration of themes ranging from self-destruction to the banality of daily life. The films included animations in various media such as watercolor and clay, as well as video footage.

“Nerves Most Spoiled” by Virginia Commonwealth University student Andy Gottschalk kicked off the screening. Animated with experimental media and narrated poetically, the film explored the suffocating quality of leisure time. Clay animation’s colorful visuals contrasted sharply with the narrator’s intentionally dull tone. Within minutes, Gottschalk powerfully demonstrated how summer, a time dominated by idleness, is sometimes

crippling. His film was equal parts unsettling and enlightening.

“Nerves Most Spoiled” set an appropriately eerie tone, and the following shorts did not disappoint. Sam Kirchoff, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee graduate student, created “Bike Trip,” a live-action short that captured the tranquility of the outdoors through a poetically fragmented travelogue. University of Tehran student Motahreh Ahmadpour’s “Redpoint,” which included footage of machine-like objects representing beating hearts and brains, intricately displayed how powerfully love affects our bodies. “Dispersion”

by Adam Dargan, a student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, provided an entrancing, computer-generated representation of nature. Brightly colored peaks, ridges and forests dissolved in 3-D space, resulting in a slightly bizarre yet calming viewing experience.

Also of note was “Forgiveness” by Rima Irani, a student at Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in Lebanon. A captivating, surrealistic journey through the recesses of a woman’s mind as she sat in a hypnotherapy session, the film explored the damaging effects of abusive familial relationships. As the title suggests, the woman was only freed from her anxiety after forgiving those responsible for her childhood trauma.

I left the screening feeling simultaneously fulfilled, stimulated and mildly confused by some of the more abstract showings. While some of the shorts’ messages were immediately clear — consumption and destruction in “Cotton Candy,” consequences of idleness in “Nerves Most Spoiled” — others were harder to access. “Dispersion” and “Red Point,” for instance, both required close attention to discern central themes: Confused viewers were held hostage until the very end when the payoff was satisfying, but questionably worth it. Although each of the films succeeded in provoking the viewer to think about important concepts, some such as “Nerves Most Spoiled” achieved this end using unsettling animations and disturbing sounds, while others like “Forgiveness” provided a more pleasurable viewing experience.

The experimental film block at YSFF showcased the value of cinematic innovation, not only in filming techniques but also in storytelling structures. In a market where every other movie is an extravaganza of CGI and conventional hero narratives, an experimental short like “Cotton Candy” stands out as a refreshing break from the norm.

Contact ZAINAB HAMID zainab.hamid@yale.edu .

T H E G R A D U AT E S // BY VEENA MCCOOLE

// COURTESY OF TRAVIS GONZALEZ

Concluding last weekend’s Yale Student Film Festival, five senior-thesis films — the work of graduating seniors in the film & media studies major — screened at the Whitney Humanities Center. Diverse in production style, theme and concept, each film left a lasting impression despite their approximately half-hour lengths.

Nick Henriquez ’16 provided a visually dim recollection of a hazy evening in the city with “All Night Blue,” while Travis Gonzalez’s ’16 “Over Dinner” and Henry Wolf’s ’16 “The Perfect Fourth” each interpreted family dramas in vastly different ways. Eric Nelson ’16 imbued copious humor into an iconic portrait of the risky, toxic culture on Wall Street in “Lavender.” Lastly, and perhaps most memorably, Michelle Mboya ’16 transported viewers to Kenya with “The Camel’s Back,” a heartfelt quest for freedom and happiness shot against a backdrop of sweeping scenic beauty.

All Night Blue The afternoon’s first film depicted the melancholy brought on by the darkness of evening.

Though musical transitions felt a little melodramatic, the the-

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matic threads holding the film’s short scenes together left a lasting impact. A jaded radio DJ who plays late-night blues meets a beautiful woman with a bruised face, supposedly from a car crash.

Unsure of whether she has suffered a concussion, and therefore wanting to prevent her falling asleep, the DJ accompanies her on a series of coffee-fueled, late-night adventures. Of course, a trip to the emergency room at Yale-New Haven wouldn’t be half as exciting as an overnight exploration that falls apart just as it starts to get going. A scene filmed in “TDHeav” is momentarily distracting as the audience draws parallels between the fantasy world of the film and the reality of their campus surroundings. Much of the storyline evolved through the subtext of what was not said.

The film explored the notion of missed connections on multiple occasions, creating a mood of irretrievable loss from being just a few seconds too late.

Over Dinner Gonzalez’s piece provided a touching insight into the tensions that underlie a family dinner uniting three generations. With an

aesthetically pleasing retro vibe consistent across costume and set design, it is not hard to imagine the stills composing this short film as well-composed photographs.

Technological paradoxes that both alienate and bridge the different generations are embodied in the presence of an iPhone and a plastic handheld digital poker game.

Both petty and serious, this film is a mature perspective on family life glossed over by juvenile distractions and material gifts. Serious conversations unfold at kitchen tables. A daughter disciplines her mother about putting too much whipped cream on her son’s slice of pie. Although literally mundane, a second thought reveals the complexity of intergenerational family relationships as performed in this film by three accomplished actors. An argument that quickly becomes a shouting match seems to escalate out of nowhere, and the film then descends into an unhappy tableaux, landing the audience back in reality with a thud. Viewers arrive at the sobering realization that happiness is often fleeting and artificial.

Lavender A hilarious snapshot of the sub-

2 FISTS UP: WE GON BE ALRIGHT (2016)

stance-filled lives of young businessmen, “Lavender” was reminiscent of the themes in “Wolf of Wall Street” and left the audience in raucous laughter. Two men experiment with “sexual LSD,” which supposedly guarantees the world’s best orgasm. The main character’s drug trip is brought to life through psychedelic videography punctuated by cuttingedge snap transitions — and the bros’ trip leads them into unexpected territory. The belly laughs were prompted by both the sparse, punch line-filled dialogue as well as classic “bro comedy” in the style of “Animal House” or “The Hangover.” Filled with crude teen pop culture references and teenage-boy humor, “Lavender” was a risky foray into a difficult style of humor that could not have turned out better.

The Perfect Fourth The awkward, idle drifting while your friend and his/ her family fight in front of you is pretty universally relatable. What isn’t, though, is being a complete stranger in a house you’ve never set foot in while a family is both grieving and discussing the practicalities of their newly deceased

son’s belongings. In “The Perfect Fourth,” Wolf harnesses his characters’ and the audience’s discomfort and turns it into equally uncomfortable “I-shouldn’t-belaughing-at-this” laughter. When shopping on Craigslist goes utterly pear-shaped and a boy shows up at the house of a family who has just lost their son to buy his guitar, he gets roped into a series of intense family conversations that prompt laughter and tears in equal measure. The script is free from thighslapping jokes; it is the accuracy of painfully awkward situations that could easily unfold in any of our lives that makes for authentic laughs.

The Camel’s Back Young Suzy clutches a crumpled page torn from a magazine, depicting an azure ocean and a sandy white beach: Diani. She has a day to live, according to the fortune teller, and is determined to find her paradise with her loyal little brother Mark by her side. The final film, “The Camel’s Back,” was a tranquil and nostalgic portrait of childhood, illness, family and the search for physical and spiritual bliss. Laced with feminist statements and the harsh reality

Contact VEENA MCCOOLE at veena.mccoole@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS:

Whitney Humanities Center // 7 p.m.

Film screening followed by a discussion between Spike Lee and Dean Holloway.

of growing up, the intersection of a young teenage girl’s depleting innocence and older men’s predatory confrontation is always a hard pill to swallow, especially when told through the naïve and tender voice of a young girl. Suzy’s independent spirit is inspiring, and her fearlessness is seemingly ignited by the social forces that oppress her.

Most impressive was the film’s cultural authenticity, which extended to the characters’ language — Kiswahili was spoken throughout the film and furnished with English subtitles. Mboya included adequate footage to set the scene in which the narrative unfolds, but did not use the picturesque Kenyan plains as a filmmaking crutch. She took great care to acknowledge the inherent relationship between her characters and their environment, but by no means was the film merely a montage of scenery.

The script was a work of art itself, and the moving final scene left viewers in the hope that in another world the siblings found their paradise, resplendent in Mboya’s dreamy cinematography.

Not a Slave Owner College.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE //CATHERINE PENG

I MMIGRATING TO // BY EVE SNEIDER

K

aren Tei Yamashita’s writing transcends

A N OT H E R T I M E

boundaries, and so does she. She is a novelist, playwright, satirist, researcher and professor

— a real genre-bender — with ties to all four corners of the globe (or, at least three of them). She has lived and

worked in the United States, Brazil and Japan. Her works range from a series of 10 novellas on the Asian-American movement, “I Hotel,” to “Through the Arc of the Rainforest,” a book that she claims bears resemblance to a Brazilian soap opera. WKND sat down with Yamashita last Wednesday to discuss home, family and getting lost in translation.

Q: Where is home for you?

A: Home right now is in Santa Cruz.

It’s more mobile than it used to be.

It’s wherever there’s a hot shower.

You know, I’m at the age where I need a hot shower. But I enjoy travelling.

Q: Do you feel like the way you look at things or the way you write changes depending on where you are?

A: I didn’t think so, but of course travelling is really influential — I had to see through the eyes of people who live in other places. I think that experience has been really interesting for me. When I really first started to write in earnest I was in Brazil, and I was studying the Japanese in Brazil, and I was trying to figure out through what lens they were seeing the world and their lives. It was very interesting for me because immigration [to Brazil] is younger than immigration to the United States.

So, my grandparents came [to the United States] in the late 19th century. The people who started to immigrate to Brazil started in 1907 or 1908. The majority of them arrived in the 1920s. They were a later generation of immigrants. So the people my age were all nisei [second-generation Japanese immigrants], where I’m sansei — I’m already third-generation.

I thought, you see things very differently because your parents are issei [first-generation], you have a relationship to them which is kind of Japanese, very much what my parents had with their parents.

Q: Tell me about your family.

A: Well, now I’m writing about it, but I think I’m writing about it also

“ I THOUGHT HOW SHOULD I HONOR THAT TIME THEY SPENT AND THE DESIRE THAT THEY HAD TO IMPART THEIR STORIES? ”

because there’s an archive of material that my father’s family left …

On his side there were seven siblings, and they’ve all died. So my cousins and I found all this stuff that they left, and there were letters and documents and all sorts of material, a lot of photographs. I’ve been forced to take a look at what happened to my family and what their stories are through the things they said. What was interesting were the letters they wrote to each other. We started to pull the letters together and just arrange them chronologically. Now as a book you can read what Tom wrote to Kei and Kei wrote back to Tom, and Tom wrote to his other sister. Or my aunt, who loved to type, she would type to everybody: Hey Gang! She had these carbon copies and just folded them up and sent them out.

Q: Did you know most of the people who were writing and receiving these letters?

A: I knew all of them. Now they’re dead, I’m reading their letters, and I’m going, oh my god, how funny. They’re really funny stories. [I read about] their relationships as brother and sister — they were always kids with each other.

They were still themselves, but [not as I knew them]. I think that’s the sensation I had when I was in Brazil: that I was meeting my parents when they were my age. It was very strange. And when I met the issei who were in Brazil, I had this funny sensation that I was meeting my grandparents at a younger stage in their lives — more vital, more active [physically and] intellectually. Because I couldn’t speak to my grandparents. I didn’t know what their intellectual life was so we didn’t have that kind of relationship. But I met these people and I had long conversations with

them about what they read. And I never had a conversation with my grandmother about what she read, or what she was interested in. I had conversations with issei people in Brazil about transformative things.

Like, this guy told me, “The most transformative thing was when I read Rousseau.” What?! You know?

And then I said, well, what about that? It was amazing. I never had that relationship with my grandparents.

Q: What would you say you’re trying to accomplish, or for whom, when you sit down to write?

A: When I first did [my] first project, I interviewed so many people, and I don’t know what they thought I was doing. In the beginning I was kind of doing an anthropological project, but I didn’t know what that was because I was just an undergraduate. But I thought it would lead to some kind of graduate schoolwork … I didn’t know.

But when I introduced myself I guess I said, “I’m a writer and I’m interested in the story.” Or, I don’t know what I said to people, but they started to tell me stories. And I would just write them down. After you interview so many people, and they have a sense that you’re gathering this material, I had a heavy sense of responsibility to finish a project that reflected their history because they spent so many hours telling me their stories. And I thought, how should I honor that time they spent and the desire that they had to impart their stories? Because in many cases, these were people who immigrated and nobody cared [about their stories]. Their children didn’t care, or they didn’t ask. So I thought, well, I guess this is my role. My role as a writer is to preserve your stories or at least to honor them in some

way. That’s part of the reason why my writing is the way it is. It has to do with a sense of responsibility; there’s something that I can do. I’m not very good at much else! I often talk to students, and we’re doing some project and they’re thinking, well, I’m going to do this project, I’m going to interview my grandmother and write it down. And I say, is there anyone else doing this in your family? And they say, no, maybe my aunt is interested. And I say, so, do you think that’s your role in the family? And they say, yeah, I think it is, because nobody else cares about what happened.

Q: What’s your favorite word, in Portuguese, English, Japanese, or all three?

A: There’s a word that I have been writing about. It’s Portuguese, it’s saudade Saudade is really nostalgia, or longing. But the Portuguese and the Brazilians render it very specially. So I’ve written about that. I once was talking to a Brazilian friend of mine and she said, that word cannot be translated, it’s a very special word. And I thought, are there words in our language that cannot be translated? Absolutely. It can’t be translated, she said, so you have to keep talking around it. But it’s very, very intrinsic to the Portuguese ideas of self and travelling. It’s overromanticized and totally overused.

I think the Portuguese are probably sick of it. But as a country that sent off its people, first to colonize the world but also to sail and to explore, there’s a sense of loss when you send these folks away and they never come back. So this [word connotes] missing place and people and home.

Contact EVE SNEIDER at eve.sneider@yale.edu .