In graduate school, a few colleagues of mine told me about their ties to radical activist groups in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino enclave on the east side of Los Angeles. They were always careful to add a disclaimer to their stories, however. Though these colleagues also came from working-class immigrant households and held similarly … Continue reading COVID-19 for the Absolute Beginner, Volume Three: Privilege in a Pandemic, and the Path Forward
COVID-19 for the Absolute Beginner, Volume One: Answers to Some Common Medical and Health Questions
I know that all of us have been inundated with an overwhelming amount of information in the past few days regarding the global coronavirus outbreak. The internet is a scary enough place to begin with, even without every news outlet in existence reporting on a global pandemic. But I know that many of us have … Continue reading COVID-19 for the Absolute Beginner, Volume One: Answers to Some Common Medical and Health Questions
Back to the Herd: Last Names & Patriarchal Law
When I got married, I was feeling rebellious. I was engaged to a man who, like me, was from North Carolina. We were both the first children in our families to get married. Our parents were itching for a big event. My partner had also internalized many cliches of the millennial wedding industrial complex—particularly the … Continue reading Back to the Herd: Last Names & Patriarchal Law
On Love, Or How I Turned My Decade-Long Mental Health Journey into a Listicle
Part Four of the Dinner Party Special Edition Outtakes & Excerpts Series. Dear readers, may I present to you, a rather incomplete, but no less impressive list of various things that happened when I finally decided to stop hating myself: Relatives started asking if I got taller because I wasn’t slouching in an attempt to will … Continue reading On Love, Or How I Turned My Decade-Long Mental Health Journey into a Listicle
On Speed
Part Three of the Dinner Party Special Edition Outtakes & Excerpts Series. I once worked in a restaurant where the customer had to be greeted within seconds of approaching the bar—or else our manager would rush over and drop a menu, smiling almost aggressively as if to make up for my supposed negligence of their … Continue reading On Speed
SGV
Part Two of the Dinner Party Special Edition Outtakes & Excerpts Series. I’m back in the San Gabriel Valley to have dinner with a good friend. Ivy—she’s just moved back from two years teaching English in Korea, and she’s living temporarily in our hometown of Arcadia while contemplating her next move. I live only about … Continue reading SGV
Enjoying the In-Between
Part One of the Dinner Party Special Edition Outtakes & Excerpts Series. I sat with my back against a hundred-year-old grave marker, eighteen years old, the promise of liberty as a soon-to-be-college-student pumping adrenaline through my veins. Michael kept close. He knew the graveyard creeped me out a little. It was February and a few … Continue reading Enjoying the In-Between
Coping Isn’t the Goal: Jameela Jamil and the Violent Narrative Against Women’s Bodies
On a cold November morning halfway through my sophomore year of high school, I was sitting in a hospital examination room feeling an acute sense of relief when a doctor told me I was not allowed to go out for basketball season. I’d lost too much weight to make physical activity viable. This relief was … Continue reading Coping Isn’t the Goal: Jameela Jamil and the Violent Narrative Against Women’s Bodies
On Form N-400
This essay was originally published by the literary journal Rock & Sling in Vox, a special edition issue on the 2016 presidential election. You can get your hands on this issue, as well as the upcoming Vox II: American Identities by visiting their online store. “You can color in the bubbles for me,” Courtland offered, sliding the ballot across … Continue reading On Form N-400
A 9/11 Story
Historical amnesia is dangerous. It’s a phenomenon that wreaked havoc in the immediate post-9/11 aftermath and continues to rear its ugly head in the current political climate. Today, we share with you a moving story by native New Yorker and psychology blogger Jessica Taylor on that fateful day sixteen years ago, when she was just seven years old. … Continue reading A 9/11 Story
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