It’s shocking to think that by now we are more than halfway through the semester, rushing toward finals at a rate that feels almost as fast as you can flip through this magazine. Personally, looking through everyone’s contributions has been a much-needed reprise from a jam-packed schedule, the commitments of school and extracurriculars, and the constantly looming pressure of building a resume that will maybe get a second glance from an employer once I graduate. I just want to say that as a copy editor, nothing is the same as the first read. I’m sure our art director, Caroline, experiences a similar feeling in regard to our art submissions. I mean, our team of volunteers is incredible. I’m continually amazed at the level of talent, skill and commitment that our contributors bring to this magazine.
Our theme “April Showers Bring May Flowers” was suggested by Scott Carso, a volunteer who wrote about the Earls Burns Miller Japanese Garden on campus. So many volunteers had been pitching ideas about various changes they had personally experienced, were watching occur on campus or believed needed to take place, and this theme was able to perfectly encompass all those pieces: from a look into how realistically accessible campus is for those who use wheelchairs to criticism of censorship in education for elementary students to shedding light on the changes coming to the USU with
Anyways, that is all. I hope you enjoy reading this, just as much
Jensen Puckett, Editor-in-Chief editorinchief@22westmedia.com
Sofia Carlos, Managing Editor managingeditor@22westmedia.com
Natalie Comfort, Lead Copy Editor copyeditor@22westmedia.com
Caroline Bae, Art Director artdirector@22westmedia.com
Kacey Acosta, Advertising Manager advertisingmanager@22westmedia.com
Caroline Bae, Art Director
Mia Bishirjian, Distribution Manager distributionmanager@22westmedia.com @eunhasumyeon
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Disclaimer and Publication Information: 22 West Magazine is published using ad money and partial funding provided by the Associated Students, Inc. All Editorials are the opinions of their individual authors, not the magazine, ASI nor LBSU. All students are welcome and encouraged to be a part of the staff. All letters to the editor will be considered for publication. However, LBSUstudents will have precedence. Please include name and major for all submissions. They are subject to editing and will not be returned. Letters may or may not be edited for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and length. 22 West Magazine will publish anonymous letters, articles, editorials, and illustrations, but must have your name and information attached for our records. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 500 words. 22 West Magazine assumes no responsibility, nor is it liable, for claims of its advertisers. Grievance procedures are available in the Associated Students business office.
From what I remember of home, there were always palm trees, mountains that stretched across the horizon and the warm feeling of sunlight that invigorated life across the Coachella Valley. For 24 years, I called the place of white sands home. Today, I am heartbroken how empty it feels to be there. I had spent almost my entire life in Palm Springs. Today, I reside for the first time outside of my home area. I am now a part of the American urban sprawl of Long Beach. I look at how life has changed and how I’ve changed as well. Everything I had thought about living in the city was true and now I look back at my life from the first day I realized I was living in the big city.
I drove to Long Beach the night prior to my move in date at the dorms to stay at a friend’s house. It was to make the move easier on me since I did not know what to expect. It really hit me that I was in Long Beach when I saw the city skyline at night. Here was this magnificent city, an entirely different world, just a mere two hours away from where I was staying my entire life. All around me were cars, cars and even more cars than what should be humanly possible. Getting anywhere was an extra ten minutes to find parking. I refuse to pay for something the city itself creates by not making public transport better. There is food everywhere. Five of everything. I can find anything to do because if it isn’t here, there’s ten
more over in LA. Goth night clubs, gay bars and thrift stores that sell obscure things I didn’t know existed. And I see more buildings than I do grass. I rarely see a lot of trees. Nature is a decoration rather than the environment we’re in. I see homeless people all the time and there is trash and just endless buildings as far as the eye can see. There is only ever silence in the dead of night, even then only rarely. But there are a lot of opportunities here. More than I ever had in Palm Springs. Sure, it is much more expensive. But some day, if I work really hard, I too will struggle to afford basic amenities. And as shitty as it all feels sometimes, I do actually like it here. Because as much as I hate all the noise, and how crowded it feels, and the
insane price gouging, there’s community here. Though I volunteered at a transgender health center to meet more trans people in Palm Springs, I was still alone. You see, for most of the trans people there, I was the first and only openly non-binary person they had ever met. And when you are in an area where you can only ever be seen as one of two options, man or woman, it can be hard to be seen as who you are. To be honest, I always felt alone in Palm Springs. The problem with living in such a touristy area is how superficial everything can feel. Sure, I can walk around holding hands with my girlfriend and feel 100% safe and see some of the most flamboyantly gay people I’ve ever seen and pride flags on
every building year round, but ultimately, life there is not meant for the locals. It’s for the tourists. The only time I didn’t feel this way was when I would be out in nature. To me the long stretch of sand, desert bushes and rocks are more beautiful than any forest. I have sand in my veins and it pains me that my love for my home is now as empty as deserts are stereotypically portrayed. There is life there, but life that can’t sustain me anymore. I’ve grown as a person, far much more than anyone, even myself, could ever have predicted. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a home for someone else, just that it can’t be a home for me anymore.
Long Beach has grown on me. And I hate it. But I don’t regret starting to like it. And although driving through traffic bloated roads pales in comparison to the long winding roads with nothing but desert to view for miles, I could get used to it. There however is the issue of figuring out my future plans for where I should live. I still don’t have a long term home. My living situation revolves around how I can afford the dorms each semester, but I would like to have a place I could call home someday. Some place where the sands and palm trees remind me of the home I’ve left behind, and the ocean reminds me of the home I’ve gained. After all, taking the parts of life I enjoy from the desert is what makes me feel whole with what I’ve lost and what I hope to gain. Being able to evolve with the times but not forgetting lessons from the past is key to growth.
Adaptability is an essential aspect of survival in a desert, and it appears I carry that part of my old home with me. There’s a lot I would like to bring with me from the desert. To not only brighten my life, but also enlighten others with the gifts the experience of living there has taught me. As I have learned here, it is the people I yearn to live with. The environment, as tranquil as it can be, is absolutely desolate if there is not a soul who I can laugh with. And as painful as it is to realize the place where I thought I would forever call home is but an empty wasteland to me now, I am happy knowing I can find home in the arms of people I can love. I find love in my friends, my roommates and my community. For love is what makes a home a home.
As a first year student who’s dorming, I found the move extremely freeing and exciting! I wanted to recount my experiences. I felt it would be fun to tell how a day of a dorming student goes. But before I get into the juicy stuff, I must share some context. This is the very first time I’ve been on my own. I’m not too far from my family, close enough that I’m able to see them every weekend. My family and I felt this was the best call, since we do not want to deal with a traffic nightmare everyday. Despite being separated from my family, I’m not completely by myself. I share a room with one roommate. This was very new to me; I’m sure it was the same for my roommate. I’ve always lived with my family. I’ve been with these people my entire life. I could walk freely in my undies (oh the freedom!) and groove out while listening to music. So going from that… to my new living situation was tough. I had a hard time at first, but I adjusted.
My schedule from this semester and last semester have changed a bit. Last semester, I was undeclared, but I geared my classes for the veterinary science or marine biology route. However, this semester, I became an art major. I went from doing loads of work for Chem 90 and Math 113 to spending lots of time on a few art projects. There were lots of differences in my day to day life from this semester and last semester too. Like beforehand, I had Friday off for the majority of the semester. I also started my day earlier due to my 8 am class, however that also meant that I got out earlier in the day. It isn’t like that anymore, I have class everyday. For this article, I had to choose whether I want to share a day from this semester or last semester. This semester seems like the better choice, since I’m actually living it.
Anyhow, let’s get to it! Shall we?
Monday it is! On this day, I have two classes with about a three hour gap in between. This day starts at 7:50 am. My first class starts at 9 sharp, so I have about an hour to get ready. My roommate is still sleeping around this time, so I have to be quiet. Although… sometimes I accidentally close my closet door or the shelves too hard. Whoops.
In the “residential village” I live in, we have a communal bathroom that is shared between my suite and another suite. It’s basically 14 people sharing one bathroom. You’d expect it to be crowded, surprisingly, it isn’t! At most, 4 people are in there. At 8 am, I’m usually there by myself with one or two people quickly entering and leaving. I first wash my face, then wash my teeth, and finally, use the bathroom. I feel so refreshed after leaving, especially if no one entered!
After my bathroom trip, I chose the clothes for the day. Personally, I love to wear something comfy, yet functional. Jeans, a short sleeved tee, and a warm sweater are my go-to items for this weather. I also usually do my bed after dressing. Afterwards, I grab a quick breakfast like yogurt or a rice cake. After that, I’m off to class! I pack my backpack the night before, so I don’t worry about it in the mornings! It also helps since I take the shuttle to class. I’ve tried to take the shuttle before 9:00 am and after 8:30 am since I don’t want to be late. I’m able to get a seat on the bus if I do this! I also like to make small talk with one of our building’s custodial staff. She’s friendly, so I like saying hi to her. Although, sometimes I end up getting behind schedule because of this! It’s better to be prepared, so going to the shuttle stop early is better.
When my class is over, I get back to my dorm
around 11 am. Unlike last semester, I’m not able to get breakfast. I can’t sacrifice my beauty sleep, so I have to make do with my yogurts. I drop my bag and head on over to the dining hall. I’m lucky that I don’t have to wait for the dining hall to reopen since lunch time starts at 11 am. On Monday, I eat lunch by myself. Although, for dinner, I eat dinner with my roommate if she’s available.
I never know what I’m going to eat. I could download the menu, but where’s the fun in that? When registering, I got the 10 meals per week pass. It’s the most basic pass, but it serves me well. The dining hall is basically an all you can eat buffet. The employee swipes you in and bam! You’re free to eat! These past three months (as I’m writing this) have been somewhat cold, so I like to get a cup of latte from the coffee machine. I think the coffee machine is one of the best features the dining hall has to offer! If you’re dorming next semester, I recommend the cappuccino or the latte for the cold days. Tea and the other options are good too.
After eating, that usually leaves me with an hour and a half to rest before my next class. I’ve done many things during this period. Like going to Whaley Park (I totally recommend this), or running errands at Target and the bank or cleaning my dorm. For the sake of this article, I will talk about cleaning. I never imagined I would say this, but cleaning is nice (and also necessary). It’s very important to keep your room clean and orderly. If my room were a mess, I would be unable to concentrate! I’m sure it’s like that for many people too. I like to plug in my headphones and play music before getting started. I love listening to Spanish songs because it’s nostalgic and helps me get in the mood!
If I haven’t done it already, I first do my bed. Just doing the bed makes the room seem nicer! After that, I like to get everything off my desk and wipe it down with wood cleaning spray. I wipe down all my stuff before putting it back in its place. On certain Mondays, I also like to clean our minifridge. I empty it out and clean it with a multi-purpose cleaner. I make sure to put perishable foods back in immediately. I also like wiping down any shelves and windows too. Normally, it takes up all my time which is nice. By 1:25 pm, I’m waiting by the shuttle stop to get to my next class.
When I get back, I like to rest in my bed for a bit. I remember being taken aback when I saw my bed for the first time. I knew that the beds were really tall thanks to watching dorm tours and checking official photos. I was prepared. However, seeing it in person is different. The bed is ginormous! Anyways, getting on is easy thanks to my step stool. With my blankets and plushies, my bed is super comfy! I try not to do homework on it, so I go to my desk whenever I need to complete it.
I spend a majority of my time at my desk. The desk that’s provided to us is really nice. It has two big and one long cabinets attached to it, it has a flashlight underneath another shelf. I can store lots of stuff. As I mentioned before, I spend a lot of time here. On Mondays, I work on my sketchbooks for class or on notes. I try to concentrate, but it’s hard sometimes. Many of you readers might find your phone very distracting. To me it is. Instead of studying, I end up watching Netflix while munching on some snacks or scrolling social media. Some Mondays are more productive than others. But hey, cut me some slack! Mondays, am I right?
I hope this article gave you some insight of a student who’s dorming on campus. I had lots of fun writing this article. I may have been busy, but this was a fun experience! Both writing and dorming haha! Oh! One small thing before this article ends. If you’re currently dorming or planning to dorm, please treat the staff with respect! They are the ones who make sure we’re living comfortably.
Thank you to 22 West Magazine for letting me share a day of a dorming student. Thank you to “Kikayoh” for creating a lovely visual to go along with my work. Thank you especially to the readers! As PBS would say, “This was made possible by…[readers] like you!” If you’re currently dorming or planning to dorm, please treat the staff with respect! They are the ones who make sure we’re living comfortably.
Thank you to 22 West Magazine for letting me share a day of a dorming student. Thank you to “Kikayoh” for creating a lovely visual to go along with my work. Thank you especially to the readers! As PBS would say, “This was made possible by…[readers] like you!”
Picture yourself walking to class. In the morning, campus is typically cold and crowded. Skateboards and scooters ride by, cutting you off and getting a little too close for comfort. You make your way up the ramp from lower campus to upper campus. It somehow gets steeper every morning and you’re more exhausted than you’d like to admit by the time you get to the top.
But you’re not done there. You continue your trek getting misted by the water from the fountain in front of Brotmall Hall. From behind the Go Beach sign, you squeeze yourself between the gap to save a few seconds of walking. You go up the escalator (when it’s working), grateful for the quick rest, before continuing on. You maneuver your way around upper campus- climbing the sets of stairs that liter the campus, fitting yourself through shortcuts and trudging up the hills around the quad. By the time you reach your seat in class 15 minutes later, you’re tired. Now imagine that you can’t do half these things. You can’t walk the ramp because it’s too steep so you have to find an alternate route around it. There’s no way for you to go up the escalator or stairs by the University Student Union, so you have to wait an extra few minutes for the elevator. You have to avoid all stairs on campus, so the paths take you around the backs of buildings and through hallways you didn’t know existed. This more than doubles your time from the parking lot to class.
After an electric skateboarding accident in September 2022 this is the route that Josh Licata, a 21-yearold junior, had to take when he returned to campus. “I am patient zero for this injury,” Licata said. “I don’t have a case to follow. If you break your arm, they’ll say you should be recovered by a date. I don’t have that.”
LicataWhen Licata had his accident he shattered his entire knee joint. During his reconstructive knee surgery, he had eight screws and a plate installed in his leg. Because his surgery was so intense and his recovery was so unpredictable, he spent four months of his recovery in a wheelchair.
When he began returning to classes again, he quickly noticed how much more difficult it was to get around when he couldn’t do it on his own two feet.
“That main pathway on campus . . . it’s quite a steep incline,” Licata said, referencing the pathway in the quad outside of the science buildings. “I wasn’t able to go up it because it was just too tiresome, so I wouldn’t take the main pathway. I would go between the liberal arts buildings and the path in front of the bookstore.”
The Long Beach State campus offers wheelchair accessible pathways, but the walkway that Licata is referring to as ‘too steep’ is one of those. In fact, as he looks at the accessibility map of Long Beach State’s campus, he points out multiple highlighted routes that he would avoid and even a few unhighlighted routes as ones he would take.
He brings up a few more examples of the challenges he faced while on campus. The wheels on his wheelchair would get stuck in the cracks between the sidewalk by the liberal arts buildings. The handicapped accessible door on the front of the Molecular & Life Sciences Center sometimes doesn’t open when the button is clicked, making it impossible for handicapped students to get into the building without help. There were times when Licata would have to phone a friend in order to get inside of a building or to certain spots on campus.
Licata mentions his friends and family as a huge help to him during his time in a wheelchair, and even now as he continues to recover by using crutches. His mom helped him get to and from school everyday and set up his wheelchair, and his friends were always there when he needed help moving around campus. He makes sure to bring up the kind treatment that he received from Long Beach State’s students around campus.
“One time in the library the elevator was full,” he said. “This one girl saw me and got out of the elevator because it was packed. She was like ‘Here, you can take my spot’ and she took the stairs.”
This instance is just one example of the kindness that Licata felt from students on campus. From doors being held and people being cautious to stay out of their way for him, Licata believes that the students have shown him lots of courtesy and compassion on campus- something that he is very grateful for.
Still, campus is littered with paths and hallways that claim to be accessible, yet prove to be a challenge for those who need them most. Case in point, even the Bob Murphy Access Center has stairs in front of it. An “accessible campus” needs to truly be accessible to all students- which is more than just adding the ramps and paths needed for these students, but to do the work to make sure that they are consistently working and are not isolating.
Today, Licata is still in the midst of his recovery process. Though he has a long way to go, he is hopeful about life post-accident. He doesn’t plan to let his accident stop him from skateboarding again in the future.
“You either get back up or you never ride the horse again,” Licata said. “For me, I’m going to get back up.”
The University Student Union has been a fixture of campus life at Long Beach State University for decades. ASI is now looking to upgrade the building through their Future U project. The Future U project aims to renovate and expand the USU as LBSU’s population has outgrown its central hub for campus life and socializing. A main component of the Future U campaign is to include student input throughout the process of planning the new USU.
The Future U project is using the “alternative consultation” process throughout the planning and renovating of the USU. This is in place of a referendum process, which would have required a “yes or no” vote on Future U in order to be passed. According to ASI’s Future U website, the alternative consultation
process is designed to “...(1) engage large portions of the student body; (2) educate students on the issues and components of the USU project; and (3) gather information that will shape the improvements to the USU.” So, essentially ASI wants students’ input during the renovation of the USU.
Since the Future U project is centered around student feedback and input, ASI has used different methods for outreach and engagement from students.
“Our engagement goal was 15,000 and our numbers, to date, are 17,816, which includes events and the University Dining Plaza showcase attendance, tabling, presentations, and survey responses,” said Taylor Buhler-Scott, Associate Director of Programs and Communications at ASI.
Despite Future U’s outreach efforts not all students know what the project is. Eduardo, a senior economics major, and Christian Peel, a third-year creative writing major, were both unaware of what the Future U project is.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of Future U,” said Peel. “I couldn’t even tell you if I’ve seen an advertisement on it.”
Peel was asked about the likelihood to take the survey from Future U. He said that he would have possibly taken the survey if it was a survey from his professor but he probably would not have taken the survey if he did not have prior knowledge of it. Students like Eduardo mentioned that they felt as though there were other uses of what the Future U project could have potentially used the money for, in terms of the USU: flushable toilets and faster elevators to start, paper towel dispensers that aren’t broken half of the time, pipes, amongst other things as well. Students had also mentioned, anonymously, that the escalators and its functionality was also a concern they felt needed to be met prior to any large scale renovations by the Future U project. While there is a need for a system upgrade for the University Student Union, a consensus amongst students is that there are simply other things within the USU that need their attention.
Students from lower campus have also stated that they weren’t aware of the USU and its location prior to other students explaining it as a hangout spot. Many expressed their frustration with a tuition fee raise for a building that had not been something that would be an impact on those students that spent most of their school days in the lower half of campus, and rarely, if ever, came to the upper campus. Even for the students who are familiar with the Future U campaign, some hold concerns about the project. “I’m the first one to jump on the bandwagon of these facilities suck and I would like them to be facelifted,’” said Jacob Ingram, a graduate student at LBSU and the general manager at 22 West Radio. “But we don’t know how much a renovation of the union is going to cost, we don’t know how much they’re projecting that the student union fee is going to go up by, we’re not seeing a timeline.”
One of Ingram’s concerns lies with what he feels is a lack of transparency on ASI’s behalf about what the fee increase is going to fund in the new USU. Ingram expressed that he believes ASI does want students to give feedback about what they want but also feels
that the project is about raising the USU fee. The USU fee is a mandatory student fee that contributes to the maintenance of the building, provides programs and services, and pays off the mortgage/debt of the building. This is something he believes will be raised regardless, due to the amount of responses ASI is receiving from attaching incentives to students participating in the Future U campaign events. As for the USU fee, it is projected to go up by approximately $240-270 when construction is completed. However, the projected fee amount is not exact due to the project concept and design not being finalized yet. How and when the renovations and expansion of the USU will unfold is something that ASI is unsure about as well.
“What the phases will be, what is phase 1, how many phases there are, those are things that are not known at this point in the project because that would be after it’s approved, after we are starting to know exactly what the project will be, exactly what the building will look like,” said Buhler-Scott. “Then we can identify how many phases and what those dates of phases will be.”
Throughout the renovations, ASI is planning for construction to be done in phases to ensure other parts of the building are still operational. This includes Beach Pantry which Buhler-Scott said will still remain open throughout renovations.
One of the motivations behind renovating and expanding the USU are the long lines at the food
“How and when the renovations and expansion of the USU will unfold is something that ASI is unsure about as well.”
court. If you’ve been in the USU to get food you know exactly what I’m talking about. There are limited food options and because of this the lines can get very long. The reason behind lack of food places is looming an escalator trip up from the USU, the University Dining Plaza.
Since the pandemic began it was closed for an extended period of time and currently is operating as the Future U project showroom. This has left students questioning why this space is not being utilized for food service.
“The infrastructure failures in the UDP make it even more challenging to do food service in that building,” said Buhler-Scott. “The building needs to be demolished and rebuilt to be fully operational” The rebuilding of the UDP would be the expansion aspect when redoing the USU. Additionally, BuhlerScott said the goal is to build more floors on the UDP. It’s important to keep in mind that this is the goal
that the current renderings of the new USU show. The renderings on ASI’s Future U website are only projections of what the new building may look like, the actual USU could be very different from what is currently being shown.
“One thing about this process is nothing is final,” said Buhler-Scott. “We are not presenting images and a layout and saying this is it. The final will be what we can do feasibly with the cost and also the footprint that we have.”
Another reason listed on the Future U website to renovate the USU is that infrastructure and major systems are failing. In 2018 ASI did infrastructure improvements on the mechanical and engineering of the building called the MEP project. However, they could not update the plumbing. The MEP project served as a temporary fix to extend the lifespan of certain systems but now those systems’ lifespans have been exceeded. Buhler-Scott also said that
sometimes upgrading certain system’s cost might not make sense compared to the cost of a renovation or rebuild.
With all of the feedback from Future U events and surveys, ASI is currently gathering the data and analyzing it to see what students want the most out of the new building. Their goal is to have the analysis complete by April so the project can be finalized by April or May.
So, why should current students who are most likely not going to experience the new USU care? As Ingram said, the notion is to leave the campus better than we found it. We hold the power of influence over the next generation of CSULB students. It’s up to us to voice what we truly want out of the USU. What we say now will determine the type of USU future students get to experience. The future of the USU rests with us.
by Terrance Hayes
With the abundance of music videos and films and the like adorning the internet, it’s hard to remember and appreciate the days of literature – unless you’re an English major. Deeper within the department’s millions of books lies the literary journal RipRap, which publishes poetry, plays, flash fiction, short stories, nonfiction, and visual art. This year, RipRap is releasing its 45th edition, themed after the phrase “The Other.” According to co-editor-in-chiefs, Kiana Martin and Guadalupe Barragan, they were “bouncing ideas off of each other” when they developed it, with social media manager Athena being credited with the idea.
Originally founded in the 50s, RipRap has undergone two name changes, starting as Hornspoon, then Gambit, and finally, since 1979, RipRap, and is maintained by a mix of MFA and English students, led by current faculty advisor professor Lisa Glatt, with her position being drawn from the MFA program’s fulltime faculty for two-year terms. She oversees two co-editors-in-chief, MFA in poetry Kiana Martin and MFA in fiction Gudalupe “Lupita” Barragan. As a literary magazine, RipRap allows current English students to explore the behind-the-scenes work of the publishing world. “Some of our graduates work solely in publishing and some of them work in publishing in addition to their own
writing,” professor Glatt explains.
Observant watchers of the catalogs and schedules will find that RipRap is new as a listed, credit-granting class, in the form of ENGL 496A/496B: RipRap Literary Journal - Producing a Literary Magazine. Professor Glatt explains that this change “gives the editors credit where credit is due” by acknowledging the skills they learn and the time that they devote to the magazine.
RipRap itself differs between semesters. In the fall semester as ENGL 496A, the team mainly focuses on promoting the past year’s issue and opening their submissions, which are drawn from the entire nation. In the spring semester as ENGL 496B, they shift towards reading through submissions, which is a collaborative effort through the senior and junior editors, alongside various readers. Once they make their final selection, the options are sent up to the editors-inchief, who are the final acceptances and denials.
Once completed, the magazine is advertised through a virtual reading and free copies to literary nonprofits and bookstores. With relaxed COVID-19 regulations, RipRap plans to host an in-person launch party on Thursday, 4/13, at SALA in Long Beach. Confirmed details will be shared on our Instagram (@riprapjournal), where they’ll also announce campus tabling and virtual readings of the book.
Editor-In-Chief: Kiana Martin
Kiana Martin is a second-year MFA in poetry student. For her, poetry mixes visual and verbal beauty to communicate, but beyond that, it can “create an experience through languages, like an act of magic.”
Before her MFA, Kiana Martin was a freelance journalist and writer in Los Angeles with multiple lines of work, including managing editor in lifestyle and beauty magazines, writing for various companies, writing blog posts and forewords. However, she soon decided to apply to LBSU’s MFA to develop her craft and teaching, coming onto RipRap last year as a junior poetry editor.
Throughout all of this, Kiana’s love of poetry has never faded. Whether at Long Beach Public Library, workshopping with high schoolers or teaching through the nonprofit California Poets, Kiana has tried to “expose kids to poetry and to also make it a relevant part of their lives.” Through reading and editing RipRap’s submissions, Kiana has developed her own skill in finding what works and what doesn’t in the complex world of literature.
After her MFA, Kiana plans to continue her literary teaching while developing a novel-length poem based on a mathematical formula “that mimics the process and experience of memory within the body.”
She hopes that more people can see RipRap “the way we see it, as editors working on it” as a collection of great pieces representative of the local LA area.
“From my students to the kids I tutor, to my friends, family members, the cancer patients in my chemo group, etc., I bring my passion for writing everywhere I go. RipRap gives me a platform to refer them to,” Guadalupe “Lupita” Barragan explains.
Joining LBSU’s MFA community, she recalls that she wanted to create a group of vignettes, which is now the basis for her thesis. Like Kiana, Guadalupe is a second-year, having joined RipRap last year, working as flash fiction’s junior editor in order to gain some knowledge in the editing world, since she had none prior.
Still, she praises her team and Kiana in particular for their work and effectiveness together, though there’s still some challenge “in finding the amazing writers in our community.” After her MFA, she plans to use her experience teaching ENGL 100 and ENGL 205 – respectively Intro to English Composition and Intro to Creative
Writing Fiction – at the community college level, while simultaneously furthering her thesis into a full novel.
Back in the third grade, Caesar Gonzalez recalls turning in short stories rather than homework, and was fortunate to have a teacher that read those stories and encouraged his writing. At that time, his stories were violent tales featuring subjects such as haunted houses and monsters, which were inspired by ’90s video games like Mortal Kombat and Doom.
However, at his community college, a chance encounter in a professor’s class led him to switch to poetry. In around two weeks of poetry, Caesar encountered “plainspoken poets, people like Charles Harper Webb and Jeffrey McDaniel,”
and from there, his first poem was when he was 25 as a gift to his mother. Over the years, Caesar has recognized his metaphor laden thought processes and succinct speech, both of which are especially useful for poetry.
Before RipRap and his MFA, Caesar recalls him and his five friends running a gallery out of their homes. “We would have an art show and feature writers and bands and, you know, artists of all different kinds,” he says. He also sometimes had writer’s groups outside of academia, where they would meet up over wine to discuss literature.
Despite not having had prior editing experience, he enrolled in RipRap after finding it in the list of classes. Still, his past experience in podcasting has made him a valued addition to the team, having been able to interview LBSU’s Patty Seyburn and UCLA’s Brian Kim Stefans in their Spotify and Apple Music podcasts, The Rip Rap Podcast. In brief, Seyburn spoke on the publishing world of poetry, while Stefans described the different communities of writers, including the distinction between west and east coast.
After his MFA, Caesar plans to return to Rio Hondo to teach poetry or composition, as that east LA area is still his community, one of marginalized peoples. “It’s a lot of voices that don’t get recognized usually, and I’d really like to work in that community and empower those voices,” he says.
As a child, Ariel Smith recalls writing stories while homeschooled by her mother, but she originally placed it just as a hobby rather than a career. “I was a marine biology major, previously, and I was very committed. I was supposed to go to a different university to follow marine biology,” she says. However, a gap year made her realize that she needed to do creative writing, that, in spite of her many passions, writing was her prime one.
Before RipRap, Ariel wrote for various literary publications, 22 West Magazine and the Daily 49er, but her friend, the current junior poetry editor Terran Noreyko, was “raving about her experience in the class,” leading to Ariel signing on for short stories. However she switched to nonfiction when an opening appeared, which she particularly enjoys for its honesty and truth.
As an editor, Ariel has enjoyed the challenge of discussing and examining her team’s different perspectives on their submissions. Through it, she’s also expanded her roster of writing communities beyond just 22 West and the Daily 49er.
After graduating this semester, Ariel is planning to be flexible with her timeline, but ultimately recognizes that she needs to work. Still, she seeks to publish a book.
“As a literary magazine, RipRap allows current English students to explore the behindthe-scenes work of the publishing world.”
Written by Scott Carso Photography provided by Jensen Puckett and Caroline Bae
The Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden is one of the many hidden gems on the LBSU campus. Whether the name sounds unfamiliar or rings a bell, many students might not actually know where it is, how to get in or how much it costs. I would like to shed some light on those questions and help make this amazing place on campus more accessible for students who may not know all of the details. When I imagine the Japanese garden I think of it being between the Hillside and Parkside dorms; it’s not blatantly advertised so it’s easy to forget about when rushing to class or frantically looking for a parking spot before your morning class. But it is somewhere you can go and leave smiling knowing it is a part of our campus that you can always return to. I wanted to share what the garden means to me as well as some of the changes that it has undergone since I first visited in 2018.
In different times of my life and my academic career the garden has meant different things to me. But one thing that has not changed is the way I feel when in the Japanese garden: an overwhelming peace, difficult for me to articulate into words. At times I am reminded of different sensations I have felt in the garden: seeing the stillness of the pond water without a single ripple or if you were to feed the koi fish the chaotic energy as they fight for your attention, thrashing in the water making their best case for why they deserve that piece of the food; the bridges, both as architectural wonders and the way the wood sounds under my feet; the memories of the friends I ran into there or made plans with to go together for
a photoshoot or to unwind after taking a midterm exam. The plants, trees and shrubbery make me feel human; it’s a momentary escape from the stresses of school and life.
To attend the Japanese Garden you need a reservation beforehand which can be made either on their app “CSULB Japanese Garden” or on their website portal at https://japanesegarden.innosoftfusion. com/. Reservation slots are usually available Tuesday to Friday from 10 am- 5 pm and Saturday to Sunday 9 am- 1 pm. Reservations are currently free to make! This may be subject to change, but the best way to check for the most up to date information is either the app or the Japanese Garden website portal.
As I previously mentioned, coming back consistently to the Japanese garden over the course of several years has led me to tie up a lot of different memories and feelings into it. Even before I was planning to write this article, I felt a visit to the garden had been long overdue and writing this gave me an excuse to go take a few hours from my hectic schedule to recharge in a place I find calming. Ironically, because of the heavy rain and inconsistent weather we’ve been experiencing these past few weeks (I guess March & April showers will bring May flowers!), I have not been able to visit the garden as much of it is outdoors and uncovered.
Being able to laugh at yourself and not take everything always so seriously is crucial. Having a physical location that you feel safe, calm and at peace is a priority, but I think creating your own safe space anywhere is an amazing thing to be able to do. Some-
times looking for the bright side of a rainy day and putting effort into trying to have a positive mindset leads to much more personal happiness than dwelling on things that are out of our control. Being able to enjoy the rainy days and splash in the puddles and laugh at yourself when the situation is something that all you can do is be sad about it can make you sit back and laugh at how much pressure we all put on ourselves and others.
I have found this intentional shift in mindset has helped me deal with situations or times in my life where it was raining. Times where I had a plan or an idea of how things would go or how I wanted things to go and for whatever reason out of my control they did not go that way. Laughing isn’t the only thing you could do: you could hang out with a friend you haven’t seen in a while or join an extracurricular activity, volunteer or find a way to maybe help someone else who is also having a hard time, or just call it a day and take a rain check and put on pajamas and wrap up in a blanket and enjoy a nice book or show. Having a time or a place of peace is so important for self-preservation. At times it can feel as if we have the weight of the world on our shoulders; everyone’s experience is different but I think that having to worry about grades, finances, figuring out a major, a career path within a field, family responsibilities and so much more it is a lot for one person to deal with. That is why I think creating a space where you feel happy, safe, and calm is so important for life to be personally sustainable.
Written by Natalie Comfort
Illustration by Jadyen Arana
when i wake up in the morning, my mouth tastes like metal and my eyelids stick, and my skin feels stitched through my sheets into my mattress
i used to call this emptiness, but now i recognize that it is the opposite, there is too much to make sense of, and there is no emergency stop, no brakes, no off switch, no time to process
when i walk home at night, everywhere i have been before feels foreign, unnatural, like a familiar movie scene that has gone off course in a dream i violently try to fit pieces together, each experience, hot and bright from friction, scraping past one another, until every sensation has been worn down into a grain of sand, becoming formless, indistinguishable from each other
You want to know the easiest way to break a school rule without getting expelled? Go read The Breakways, a graphic novel about an all-girls soccer team. That’ll show Big Brother!
According to the American Library Association, this novel was banned in the 2021-2022 school year in all elementary schools at a Houston school district because it discusses issues regarding gender identity, puberty and race in ways pre-teens can digest—truly a menace to society.
Unfortunately, this graphic novel is only one piece of a very large puzzle in the recent crackdown on educational materials here in the USA. You may think California is exempt from this due to its liberal population, but in reality, the censoring and editing of education is a nationwide problem.
There is the argument that some content is too controversial for ordinary audiences and young students, so censorship is a necessary evil. However, censorship has graduated into manipulation, as by omitting certain truths, the large gaps are then filled in with appalling misinformation. For instance, one of the most prominent lessons we are taught as children is the origin of Thanksgiving: we learned how the pilgrims and the “Indians” (as the correct term, Native American, is not generally discussed) joined in a peaceful communion and they all lived happily ever after. While genocide is a difficult term to explain to children, why do we need to tell them how Thanksgiving started at all?
Because children are still developing and very vulnerable to manipulation if you tell a child early on a false history, they will believe it without challenge or protest. In this way, false histories are perpetuated for generations. Even when the truth is revealed, it is still white-washed, as much of the abhorrent brutality which occurred is still hidden, and only upon conducting deep research are the heinous acts of colonizers revealed. And history books which do detail these intense traumas are, of course, banned by schools.
History is not the sole manipulated subject. Any concept or teaching which falls outside the white, heterosexual, cisgender norm is perceived as dangerous—and in a way, it is.
Nonconforming educational subjects threaten the established societal hierarchy and regulations. Those who benefit from the current system of power are fully aware of this. Comprehensive, inclusive and non-whitewashed education would provide people with essential knowledge, which would significantly empower us. This is why the elite have stuck their grubby fingers into our education—they cherry-pick all the information which portrays them as saviors and omit the mountains of information that doesn’t, in order to keep us ignorant, thus undermining our own power. Then, they use children as a shield to cower behind. “We are doing this for the sake of the children!” they proclaim, “We must not let them be exposed to our previous crimes, so that we may continue to commit those same injustices against them!”
The way modern education is dictated and structured serves to strengthen our ignorance and allow for embellished, harmful doctrines to be implanted in our minds before we are mature enough to question the quality of content we are being force fed.
For example, many classrooms forbid the teaching of LGBTQ+ content. The primary reason- which is very unreasonable- for this prohibition is that children will become confused and corrupt. However, oftentimes, people know from childhood their own sexual orientation and gender identity, and it is precisely this banning of vital knowledge that confuses the children. A child can know that they
are queer, trans, etc., but they become confused because they have no means of articulating it, for the word that is integral to their identity is verboten. Children can understand, however, the implicit societal message: you are not welcome here. The lack of knowledge conveys the doctrine that any nonconforming persons are outcasts from society, which generates low self esteem and feelings of isolation from society, harming a person internally. The fact is, the children were never the concern, but rather the religious ideals fashioned by old white men centuries ago were. For some reason, the latter is seen as more worthy of preservation, at the cost of thousands of human beings’ dignity and soul.
Not only are we woefully misinformed, but we are also instructed to despise those facts that challenge the status quo. Whenever the opportunity arises for necessary change in educational settings, a massive uproar ensues, and the misinformed, hateful people the corrupt education system spat out are the ones who vehemently protest any change. While the powerful devise a feast of deception, their star pupils dutifully carry out their dirty work.
Essentially, we are indoctrinated into the adoration and dependency of ignorance.
The issue is only exacerbated when we ban books in educational settings. In Florida, new legislation has legalized the criminalization of containing banned books in classrooms; staff are warned that if they do not examine their bookshelves and replace all books with “state-approved reading,” they can face felony charges. Basically, teachers face prosecution for doing their job: educating kids. Banning books and enforcing heavy, unjust penalties on educators discourages honest and profound conversations about societal flaws that could help stimulate methods of effective change. Books explore a variety of complex issues in intellectual ways, and serve to electrify audiences; they challenge and reconfigure our own values, beliefs and preconceived notions about not only ourselves, but our social environments. Subsequently, we are enlightened as to the flaws pervading our society and seek the appropriate action to engender necessary change, and the specific routes we take are influenced and guided by the material we read. But when books are banned, and by extension, their “controversial content,” we remain stagnant and ignorant.
Also, the censorship of education violates our intellectual freedom and our freedom of thought and expression. By forbidding the discussion of essential topics in classroom settings (from elementary to college), the end result is, effectively, the intellectual degradation of at least one generation. Ignorance of knowledge integral to life—history, gender and sexuality, etc—only ruins any intellectual potential we innately possess. The books which discuss information nonconforming to the current status quo become verboten as well, completely violating our individual right of thought and expression. In fact, the only education we are provided on these subjects is that we must vehemently despise them, and we may only express our thoughts on the matters by protesting any potential inclusion in both curriculums and life outside of campus.
So, read everything you are told not to! Engage in (respectful) conversation about redacted history and forbidden identities! You’d be surprised how much we don’t know we don’t know, and these conversations are vital for the growth of intellectualism in our communities. We cannot allow ourselves to read from blacked out texts or state-approved scripts, for fear of simply devolving into another cog in the machine. Knowledge is power, and it’s about time we take our power back.
Honestly, Long Beach State was not where I thought I was gonna end up. I’m from the middle of nowhere in Texas and I had big dreams to go to New York City. lol. I woke up one day in quarantine and decided I wanted to switch it up and go to Ssouthern California. CSULB was the only school I applied to here and I was excited to be living in the great county of Los Angeles. If I told my freshman self what I was doing with my life and everything that has happened since August 2020, my freshman year self would be shocked and confused. My current self is also still confused on life and processing all that has happened here, but she’s okay with it now. So, let’s take a look back on what’swhats happened to me in the last 2 plus+ years, brought to you by Cal State Long Beach State.
My whole life growing up I was told college was gonna be the hardest thing ever and how important it was. I think it is important for some people, but it doesn’t have to be for everyone. I also think how hard it is is subjective. I don’t think we should continue to scare future generations into making college the biggest, scariest thing ever. Since being here, I’ve learned sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s not. Some majors have a lot more or less work than others. What is hard for one person may be easy for another so comparing struggles is the worst thing to do. Some people graduate and some don’t. Some make all A’s and some, like me, may not do the greatest every semester. Some people join clubs and some want to just keep to themselves. I thought I could never change my major or try different departments in college, but I finally realized it’s good to. The point is, we’re all out here struggling and that just looks different for everyone. Shoutout to Long Beach for helping me realize that lol. Iit would have been nice to not have put as much pressure on myself my whole life, BUT I’m happy I at least know now.
Hmmm, what are some other things I’ve learned?
OH. The stingray shuffle. My freshman year was during COVID and everything was pretty strict, so me and my friends spent a lot of time outside at the beach. Apparently, stingrays are for sure real and they for sure hurt. I knew they were real but I had literally only heard of them being caged up in aquar-
iums. Growing up with the Gulf of Mexico as my closest beach, I was used to warm, but dirty, water and occasional jellyfish. I was always told “if a jellyfish stings you, you’re supposed to pee on it.” So when I was told to do the stingray shuffle I didn’t know what it was. Also, there’s literal stingray seasons??? Like, definitely never thought about that. Long story short, a bunch of my friends got stung and then all I thought about was Steve Irwin, so it’s safe to say, I now know how to do the stingray shuffle. If you’re from out of state and didn’t really go to do the beach growing up like me, LEARN THIS lol.
There are lots of fun things that I’ve realized while being at Long Beach. I’ve learned to always carry pepper spray and have my guard up everywhere. Growing up, I could roam around my town and safety was never something I had to think about there. I’m not saying I came here expecting it to be super safe, but I guess I wasn’t expecting how much different it would be. Being afraid in my dorms of the people getting arrested outside was not on my radar. I mean, it just only happened twice, but I only lived in the dorms for 3 months. It may not seem like a big deal to others and now it’s not really to me, but when I first moved here it was a shock.
The petitioners. Wow. That’s what we need to be warning future college students about. Rain or shine, they are outside and they don’t care if you have no time or all the time in the world, they want your signature. Some of the petitions, I would love to learn more about and maybe even sign, but when I’m on my way to class and either don’t respond or say I have class, it’s pretty inconvenient when they continue to follow you for a bit and pester you. I know that isn’t just a Long Beach campus experience thing but I’ve learned how to deal with that here and learned that people can have no shame in their petition tactics.
This was kind of all over the place on things I’ve learned by because of coming to Long Beach, but I have learned a lot and my life has been all over the place. I never know whats happening and honestly, I don’t think I ever will. I came here pursuing photography/ acting and now I’m getting a degree in journalism and American Sign Language. I wanted to work
in film and photography literally since I could talk and now I’m doing things a lot differently. I think the best thing I’ve learned at Long Beach is that change is a good thing. A lot of times it may not feel like it but overall the changes I’ve had have shaped who I am and the path I’m on. Even the ones I didn’t like, I see now that they were good. So, it’s okay to change your mind about what you want to study, whether or not college is for you, the people you spend your time with, literally about anything. All of these things may seem simple, but I wish I knew them before I did. I guess that’s the college journey though, learning and changing. Growing, one might say if they were being a little cheesy… anywho, Live, Laugh, Long Beach Love
“Growing up with the Gulf of Mexico as my closest beach, I was used to warm, but dirty, water and occasional jellyfish”Written by Jensen Puckett Illustration by Helen Ho
It was a Thursday night. I was leaving my evening class, Riddles and Mysteries, where I had been ruthlessly critiqued on my cryptogram and trekking the way back to my car. I had my hands shoved into my pockets as cold Long Beach air bit through my weak windbreaker. My phone was still failing to get any service on campus, so I was trapped listening to “Hey Ya” by Outkast on loop. It’s a good song, but maybe this was not really a “Hey Ya” moment.
The escalators on the side of the USU were still not working from when I watched them break this morning under the weight of students on every step. I carefully shuffle down the steep steps (I have this fear of tumbling down them and then no one’s around
to help, so I’d just have to wait there until morning, or until the wolves get me).
I make it down safely–or so I thought–when I see a group of figures approaching me. They’re far off, but they look much smaller than they should. I hear the tiniest little synchronized snaps, and from the shadows emerges a bunch of possums in the coolest leather jackets you’ve ever seen. The possum in the front seems to be the leader, with a little toothpick in his mouth.
“Who are youse?” the possum asked in a sneaky little voice, gesturing at all of me.
“I’m a third year art major,” I say out of default.
“What’s all this then?” I hear from a much gruffer
Illustrations by Tricia Vuvoice behind me. I turn to see a different gang of raccoons in clean pinstripe suits. The lead raccoon is smoking a big fat stogie (or cigar for those not in the know).
“Big Rick,” the possum said to the raccoon, “this here ‘ooo-suu’ is our turf, take you and yours back to the library.”
“I’m sorry to say, Polly,” said Big Rick, “But this ‘ooo-suu’ is under new management.”
I began to wonder if they were talking about the Future U thing, but once they started hissing at each other, I caught on that this wasn’t really discussion time.
They started racing towards each other, and I
was still in between them. To me, their scuffle was a cartoonish cloud of critters scratching and biting at each other. I tried to inch away against the wall, but a sudden raccoon doing a sick ass roundhouse hit me and I tumbled over the side of the balcony. The last thing I remember is the critters going “ooooh” and “yikes” and “eugh.”
What I woke up to was more jarring than waking up to a statistics class that’s all of a sudden talking about what crimes they’ve witnessed on campus. There was a squirrel peering over my face. It’s teeth were horrible and its breath smelled like Sbarro’s. I brushed it off and sat up. I was sitting in the middle of what I can really only describe as a bustling little goblin and creature night market. There were dozens of little stands of creatures selling their wares. Imagine Week of Welcome but the pathways are 80% more walkable.
Now this is where I assumed that I must have been at a seedy, underground night market somewhere under the school because of the things these creatures were selling. In a corner of the market, I saw the old statue of Prospector Pete. His once bronze exterior now withered and greened, and various coats were hanging from his empty form. At a stall run by some sort of rat, there was a car with about one-hundred parking tickets stuffed under its wind-
shield wipers. He was auctioning it off to some little yappy dogs that were apparently leaving for a trip to Minnesota (based on their shirts and luggage tags that were very Minnesota-based). Another, slimy little creature, was selling coupons for Carl’s Jr and Subway saying, “If you’re paying to eat garbage, you might as well get a discount!” There was also that guy that tries to get you to buy a subscription to the LA Times.
I finally got up (before this was just hunched over in a horribly disfigured slouch) and walked over to a booth advertising new stuff. The new stuff there being tons of Future U standees and vague pamphlets and posters. There was concept art with a diverse student body walking around a big, futuristic building. There I found Big Rick, the raccoon from earlier, smoking a new fat stogie.
“Ahh. You’re awake. Care to make a purchase for this fine Future “Oooh” memorabilia?” he said.
“I don’t even know what it’s about,” I said. “Buddy,” he said in his gruff mobster voice, “Neither do we.”
“Excuse me,” said a voice, “Any chance ya got some paprika?”
I turned around to see who was speaking, and it was Steven Spielberg, notable kinda-almost-alumni of Long Beach State University. He was dressed in a generic post-apocalyptic shroud and shawl sort of garb.
“Wow!” I said. “Steven Spielberg! You went to LBSU.” “I don’t know what that is,” he turned and left, apparently not needing paprika anymore.
Big Rick smiled and nodded after Steven. Wistfully, like there was a history there. Then Polly (the possum, if you’ll recall) walked up with an arm full of promotional material for the screening of “Bros” from last year, including chapsticks.
“Hey! I’m supposed to be selling to the student!” he said. “You wanna buy one of these?”
Polly and Big Rick now stalked toward me with their wares. There was a lot of tension and an air of competition. I feared that if I chose one of them, the other would be mad enough to chew at my face and give me rabies (and I don’t know if Student Health Services treats that for free).
I had to think of a way out of this that would appease both.
“Look guys, you seem rad, but I don’t have any money outside of my FAFSA. But if I did, I would totally spend it on this,” I said. They seemed disappointed, but appreciated the compliment sandwich. “Exit’s that-a-way,” Polly said, pointing his thumb behind him.
I walked out with an awkward little wave and followed the sign to an escalator. An escalator that wasn’t working.
Imagine if we introduced ourselves as our stereotypes: “Hello, I’m a terrorist.” “Nice to meet you, I’m a lazy job-stealer, and my friend here is a seductive dragon lady.” Absolute nonsense, right? However, too often in the media, this is exactly how people of color are represented. That is, if they’re represented at all. It seems that people of color are at a crossroads: either accept false and harmful representation or don’t get represented at all and see the same bland white savior on your screens and in your readings over and over again.
While recent events, such as diverse casts in shows, make it seem like racism in media is healed, the fact is, we have only recently begun to tackle the behemoth that is white-dominated poc representation. Even when POC are cast, oftentimes, the racially diverse characters are actually intended to mask the fact that the writing team is composed of all white people who echo and reinforce their narratives through the voices of POC characters.
Now, before anyone asks, no one hates white people. What deserves hate is the persistent ignorance of those in power who benefit from the multi-generational subjugation of entire nations of people and continue to augment, distort or completely erase the voices of those people altogether. Not all white people are bad, and many are allies of POC communities. However, this harmful behavior is most often demonstrated by white people.
Illustrated by Phyke SorianoFor instance, the 2008 film, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, included Middle Eastern people and their culture at the forefront of the movie. However, not only was there only one Middle Eastern cast member (whose only purpose was to be sexualized by men), but all the writers and producers of
pointed Middle Easterners because we are made to appear dumb to the entire world. The World Cup is a time to highlight what makes us unique, not mangle it.
On the other hand, there is the issue of being absent from the narrative altogether. The top songs on Billboards are by white artists. The books we read in class are predominantly by white authors (with maybe one book by a black author conveniently in February). The awards given to films and television shows have a majority white cast (with one token character that is a side character). This propagates the lie that POC have nothing to offer. This also allows our stories to be written for us. As a result, we are either scrubbed of our heritage and culture until we are as white as snow, or embellished beyond recognition to become the monster that the white male savior battles and the innocent white woman flees.
the film were white. While the movie is a comedy— so certain aspects of the plot are exaggerated—as a Middle-Eastern woman, I felt embarrassed watching it. Its main source of comedy was embellishing and emphasizing stereotypes about Middle Easterners in an offensive way to generate shock value. This misrepresentation goes beyond films; the 2022 popular World Cup song, “Tukoh Taka”, which has gone viral for how awful it is, has successfully upset and angered the Middle Eastern community due to how it portrays us. The appalling song lyrics disap-
What is shown in the media is echoed in our individual and communal realities. On an individual scale, POC face microaggressions or hostile behaviors from others. Community-wide, POC are the subject of hate crimes that—at most—receive thoughts and prayers as a pitiful excuse for reparations. Both communally and individually, depending on the stereotype, either an unreasonably high amount is expected from us or nothing at all due to an assumed lack of work ethic. We are never perceived as simply human or held on equal scales of judgment, and subsequently barred from entering social circles or moving up in the socioeconomic scale because
“There has been a lack of quality control and as a video producer, I can realize that some of the shit I was making wasn’t that good.”
of the heavy influence of false and unjust stereotypes. All these issues are further reinforced, and sometimes arise from, our absent representation or misrepresentation in society.
Growing up in America, I learned from a young age to never see someone like myself represented in a positive—or even neutral—light. If someone like me was to be shown, it was an ugly terrorist with thick accents and low intellect. I would eventually internalize these inaccurate, one-dimensional caricatures. It would be years before I would begin unlearning all the societal messages I had been spoon-fed about my own culture.
And I know I’m not alone in this. Model minority, job-stealer, border-hoppers, doomed criminals, stupid and unpatriotic foreigners—these are all incredibly detrimental and blatantly false messages that were devised by the dominant group in power and sustained through the media. This is exactly why there is an urgent need for more POC voices in the content we consume. If every door is closed, we
must kick it down and introduce ourselves, because why wait for an opportunity when we can make our own? We do not have to live within the confines of a rigid binary, deciding whether we should be grateful they at least represented us or grateful they didn’t ruin our images by displaying appalling lies about our communities. We should be the pioneers of our own stories, the innovators who change repetitive and false societal representation.
We can follow in the footsteps of the trailblazers before us: Toni Morrison, Khaled Hosseini, Rami Malek, Min Jin Lee, Michelle Yeoh, Aretha Franklin, Selena Quintanilla, Guillermo Del Toro—these are just a handful of the people who have forged their path in the entertainment industry to bolster the strength of POC voices in the content we consume. We can take advantage of the media as a social tool for activism. It can be our conduit for sharing cultural struggles or delights and traditions, personal stories intertwined with our ethnic heritage and more. Since the media has been wielded against us for so long, a device for
social control by keeping minorities “in check”, we can take back our power by making the media work for us. With minority voices leading the way, the only limit to what we can achieve is our own imagination.
Given that racism is still heavily prevalent in the creation of media, it may not be easy to become involved on a massive scale. But, it is not impossible, as evidenced by the increasingly diverse voices represented on a wide level today. Even altering the formula and practices of local media in your community is a great start with the potential for significant change.
It is essential that we use our voices to change the social atmosphere of how POC are perceived in the media, and by extension, in life. Without POC, the same banal stories are displayed on loop. We can be the creative minds behind the next generation of stories. And more importantly, we will get to do it right. There can be no innovation without representation.
Throughout the pages of this magazine are the petals of the Deutzia flower, which represents rebirth and renewal in the language of flowers.
This month’s theme focuses on current topics and situations and the hope that they can improve in the years to come. The color scheme this issue, blue and pink, represents both the “showers” and “flowers”, respectively, as well as the past and future. They represent our student body, eyes open and looking towards the future.
Caroline Smith, Writer
Coco Hernandez, Writer
Darya Jafarinejad, Writer
Gia Krupens, Writer
Jensen Puckett, Writer
Keanu Hua, Writer
Michelle Lin, Writer
Natalie Comfort, Writer
Scott Carso, Writer
Sofia Carlos, Writer
Vivien Gray Valoren, Writer
Abihail Ortega, Artist
Diana Kathrina Trinidad, Artist
Helen Ho, Artist
Jadyen Arana, Artist
Julie De Leon, Artist
Krizzha Dee, Artist
Phyke Soriano, Artist
Tricia Vu, Artist
