04.22.21

April 22, 2021 | 34st.com

DEFYING INVISIBILITY

Yet another professor prepares to depart from the Asian American Studies program. Can it survive without more support from the University at large?

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Letter from the Editor ON BURNOUT, STUDENT JOURNALISM, AND THE NEED FOR BOUNDARIES

3 WORD ON THE STREET COVID–19 and Dating

4 EGO

Meet Sigma Eta Pi, Penn’s Entrepreneurship Fraternity

11 FEATURE

Asian American Studies at Penn

19 ARTS

Introducing Tavi Kim, a Mixed Media Artist

22 UNDER THE BUTTON

Beatrice Forman, Editor–in–Chief Chelsey Zhu, Campus Editor Mehek Boparai, Culture Editor Karin Hananel, Assignments Editor Lily Stein, Features Editor Denali Sagner, Features Editor Hannah Lonser, Special Issues Editor Julia Esposito, Word on the Street Editor Kyle Whiting, Music Editor Peyton Toups, Deputy Music Editor Kaliyah Dorsey, Focus Editor Emily White, Style Editor Eva Ingber, Ego Editor Aakruti Ganeshan, Arts Editor Harshita Gupta, Film & TV Editor 2

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s the academic year winds down and we cram our heads with new theorems and theories, the most important lesson I’ve learned is a simple one: It is okay to quit things.

During my first year at Street, I profiled Vivian Dai (C ’19), a cognitive science major and marathon runner turned Teach For America Fellow. Her most sterling piece of advice was “to quit everything as soon as possible.” Even now, reading her words of wisdom still feels counterintuitive, a sneaky piece of reverse psychology reminding me to do everything and to do it well. Why quit something if you love doing it? Why quit something if you’re good at doing it? And, most importantly, why quit something if the work you’re doing is meaningful, even if that meaning comes at the expense of yourself?

There are a lot of reasons for quitting, none more valid than the other. But the reason we give ourselves the most self–deprecating shit for is perhaps the most earnest of all: We quit because we’re burnt out.

Burnout, the type of all–consuming exhaustion that feels like an engine sputtering on a highway, proliferates among journalists.

The Columbia Journalism Review once dubbed 2018 “The Burnout Year,” for its particularly incendiary news cycle that forced journalists of color to constantly report at the nexus of their identities and the institutions committed to harming them. “Burnout has long occupied a kind of mythical, worst-case scenario, future destination in my mind,” writes Alexandra Neason, speaking to what feels like an accepted truth in my small universe. Burnout is something you stave off through perseverance. An inability to fight it is little more than personal failure.

Fast forward to 2021, and there are guides to fighting burnout (whose best tips include decluttering your computer and cutting down your screen time), yet there appears to be more journalists than ever hitting pause on their careers to rest. This month, StacyMarie Ishmael and Millie Tran, two women of color and higher– ups at the Texas Tribune, stepped down from their positions as editorial director and chief product officer, citing mental exhaustion. And just last week, Megan Greenwell, the editor of WIRED, announced she, too, was stepping down from exhaustion.

Nowhere among these reasons is there a lack of determination, of know–how, of passion. There’s just a simple lack of capacity.

Our bodies and brains are not meant to do what is asked of BIPOC and non–cisgendered male journalists on a regular basis: To

Isabel Liang, Design Editor Alice Heyeh, Street Design Editor Mia Kim, Deputy Design Editor Quinn Robinson, Deputy Design Editor Jesse Zhang, Street Multimedia Editor Caylen David, Street Audience Engagement Editor Features Staff Writers: Sejal Sangani, Angela Shen, Lindsey Perlman, Mira Sydow, Amy Xiang, Pranav Mishra Focus Beat Writers: Rema Bhat, Kira Wang, Jean Paik, Gabriella Raffetto Style Beat Writers: Naomi Kim, Matthew Sheeler Ego Beat Writers: Maddie Muldoon, Nick Plante, Fernanda Brizuela, Saranya Das Sharma, Lily Suh Music Beat Writers: Emily Moon, Allison Stillman, Nora

34TH STREET MAGAZINE APRIL 22, 2021

check our identities at the door, yet do reporting nuanced reporting on police brutality, systemic racism and misogyny, and the failures of our newsrooms to support us.

Make no mistake: This problem is not confined to the walls of professional publications. Every day of the week, you can find reporters and editors at the Daily Pennsylvanian and Street working until one day rolls into the next to ensure that you know how to get vaccinated, whether the University is owning up to its past, and less pressingly, how you all can take care of yourselves. Most of us don’t get paid, and those who do likely make cents per hour if someone were to calculate it.

This semester alone, aside from leading Street, I’ve been asked to create a company wide demographics survey, roll out a fellowship program, explain the need for student stipends, and lead trainings on reporting etiquette and anti–racist writing — all while taking classes and working, the way many of us do. Most days I am chained to my computer. Yes, these are roles and responsibilities I’ve taken on with glee and honor; I am tremendously proud of how far this organization has come over the past year in recognizing the duty it owes to marginalized communities on campus. But I’m also painfully aware of how far we must continue to go.

After internally recommending that the DP at large do more to prioritize and take care of its staff’s mental health, including setting curfews and limits on working hours, I was told by a superior that my team at Street “should work weekends, even if they’re not used to it” because others have in the past. This statement is not one I take personally. It is endemic of a larger problem: Young journalists feel they must work harder than they were yesterday and the person next to them because that’s what our industry looks like from a distance.

If college newsrooms are to take mental health and burnout more seriously, the publications we look up to need to model that behavior firsthand. Otherwise, many of us will be quitting our careers before they start.

SSSF,

Bea

Youn, Evan Qiang, Walden Green Arts Beat Writers: Jessa Glassman and Avneet Randhawa Film & TV Beat Writer: Arielle Stanger Staff Writers: Meg Gladieux, Aidah Qureshi, Jillian Lombardi, Kathryn Xu, Alice Heyeh, Phuong Ngo, Aria Vyas Multimedia Associates: Dhivya Arasappan, Sage Levine, Sophia Dai, Sophie Huang, Samantha Turner, Sudeep Bhargava, Sukhmani Kaur, Alexandra Morgan Lindo Audience Engagement Associates: Kira Wang, Samara Kleiman, Stephanie Nam, Yamila Frej

Contacting 34th Street Magazine: If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Bea Forman, Editor-In-Chief, at forman@34st. com. You can also call us at (215) 422–4640. www.34st.com ©2021 34th Street Magazine, The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. No part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express, written consent of the editors (but I bet we will give you the a–okay.) All rights reserved. 34th Street Magazine is published by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc., 4015 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa., 19104, every Thursday.

Copy Editor: Brittany Darrow Cover Design by Rebekah Lee

The only high I need is from whole milk -Brittany Darrow

WORD ON THE STREET

Sitting On a Bench With a Stranger He was my soulmate—until we met. | JULIA KAFOZOFF

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our months into quarantine, I started using a dating app. After a few too many pandemic– themed one–liners that made me regret my decision, I came across a guy with big, bushy eyebrows. Polite, attentive, and serious, he had graduated a few years ago. His profile was classy, mentioning books and cooking. He had an unusual name, which left me wondering where he might be from.

Once we got to talking, the conversation was slow and almost overly formal. I found myself glossing over his messages.

But a week later, while preparing for an upcoming internship, I remembered he'd mentioned that he'd majored in economics. From the little that we’d talked, he seemed smart, and something told me to reach out and see what I could learn from him. I asked if he could explain a couple concepts to me and share any books or mailing lists.

He sent me a string of voice notes, explanations, and links. “You're 19 and getting men to do things for you,” he said. “You’re dangerous.”

I smiled to myself. That’s when I knew I would talk with him.

He was originally from the Balkans and was in high school when his family immigrated to the United States.

He told me that he couldn’t speak English at the time.

The girls in his class giggled and called him Viktor after Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian quidditch player from Harry Potter. The boys preferred to call him Drago, the Soviet boxer from Rocky IV. Nobody bothered to learn his name.

Listening, I couldn’t help but think of my own brother when my family immigrated to New York. I wasn’t born yet, but I imagined him, a wide–eyed 7–year–old, equipped with only Bulgarian in an American classroom.

“I’m so sorry,” I told him.

“That’s alright,” he said, laughing. “I couldn’t understand them anyway.”

I quickly discovered that we had a lot more in common than just our cultural backgrounds. We’d share blues and soul playlists only to find that we were already listening to

Illustration by Sriya Choppara the same artists anyway—the ones we were sure nobody else knew about.

Across politics, history, and philosophy, we asked similar questions and answered them in similar ways. We’d quote the same movies, make the same jokes, and borderline finish each other’s sentences. I felt like I had finally met someone who understood me as I was, without translation. He’d joke that we were basically the same person, but that I was “a younger, prettier” version of him.

Over a month later, as I approached the Wanamaker Building right by City Hall, I saw a masked man standing in the distance. He gave me a wave, and I knew I was in the right place.

Nervously smiling under my mask, as I came closer, I realized three things: He wasn’t as tall as he’d said, he had an unattractive walk, and his cologne threatened to give me a migraine.

I had five seconds to process that the same person I had found such solace and connection in for the past few weeks was the same man standing in front of me.

And that same man in front of me was someone I didn’t feel drawn to whatsoever.

The chemistry just didn’t render in person. Chirping trivialities at each other, we crossed the street and started the painful journey to The Franklin Fountain ice cream shop in Old City. I realized that I, too, was very likely missing the charm he'd probably imagined in me.

Ice cream in hand, we arrived at Independence Square, found a corner in the shade, and sat down on opposite ends of a bench.

Now that there was distance between us, I didn’t notice his height or walk or cologne anymore. As we sat back and slipped into conversation, the anxious small talk gradually melted away, and I slowly recognized the same guy that I’d spent weeks getting to know. Soon, we were totally at ease.

I enthusiastically painted caricatures of my siblings, my parents, and my best friends. He told me about his friends from childhood and the town he grew up in along the coast. He pulled out his phone and showed

me ancient Greek temples standing against island sunsets, and I wistfully told him how I wished I could have grown up in as beautiful of a place. He assured me that it wasn’t all a fairy tale. There was a war when he grew up, and it turned his city into a war zone. He admitted that he wouldn’t have minded growing up like me, in boring suburban New Jersey, instead.

I told him it reminded me of the proverb, “May you live in interesting times”—and how it was actually a curse.

He laughed and revealed that he was just about to say the same thing.

As the sun began to set, we figured we should head back. The moment we got up from the bench, though, I was reminded again of his bad posture and piercing cologne, and he felt like a stranger again. I kept my distance, looking up at the city buildings. He was rigid and quiet, too.

When we reached the intersection, we wished each other a safe ride back home and parted ways. I sat in the front seat, buzzing from the high of leaving my house for the first time in months.

The next night, he sent me a message saying that he had thought about it all day, and he realized he was “looking for something different.”

Although saddened, I was relieved that I completely agreed.

We wished each other the best and agreed to meet up again and catch up when all of this was over.

“He was my soulmate,” I told my friends, laughing.

“Until we met.”

I later wondered if the isolation of the pandemic had allowed for too much imagination to get in the way of reality. I wondered if any of this would've happened had we first met in person.

But while I was walking down Locust, looking around at everybody sharing space under the sun for the first time in a year, I realized it didn’t matter.

In times fraught with worry, distance, and control, we should welcome serendipity whenever it looks our way. Even if it’s not like we imagined. Even if it’s as brief as an evening on a park bench.

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Attention Aspiring Entrepreneurs:

Has Arrived at Penn Penn’s first entrepreneurship frat seeks to bring community to our pre–professional culture. | LILY SUH

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n fall 2020, amid the COVID–19 pandemic, co– presidents Kunal Abichandani (E ’22) and Avni Ahuja (E ’22) opened a chapter of Sigma Eta Pi (SEP) to form a co–ed community of diverse Penn students with a shared love for innovation and creativity.

Founded in 2010, SEP has maintained a national presence in colleges across the country, including campuses like Stanford, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California at Berkley. As of now, Penn’s chapter of SEP is not technically a fraternity, but rather a colony—at least until it finishes initiating its first class in May. By the summer, it will be Penn’s first (and only) entrepreneurship fraternity.

When asked what inspired them to bring SEP to Penn, the co–presidents say their reason was simple: They felt there was a need. “In terms of grants, professors, alumni, clubs, and programs, there's just so much opportunity [at Penn] for people to be able to work on their companies and really explore. But what we found missing was a social community where people of all backgrounds and experiences could go to figure out what they were interested in and find a support network of peers that would encourage them to pursue whatever they were interested in,” Kunal says.

Kunal adds that being an entrepreneur can be lonely.

“In an environment where there's a lot of professional focus, it can be isolating to want to do something different.

We were like, ‘Why isn't there a more social community that's focused on meeting new people across different majors?’”

In response to this question, Kunal and Avni decided to start SEP and foster a space on campus where they could create a collaborative bound together by a shared passion for entrepreneurship.

“As of right now, SEP represents over ten different majors and multiple different programs like uncoordinated and coordinated dual degrees. Our goal was to create as many intersections of different disciplines and interests as possible so that you come across people you don't otherwise meet on campus,” Kunal says. “Now, I'm friends with people that are studying [Life Sciences and Manage4

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ment], Spanish, art history, and chemistry. As a computer science and design major, I would have never met these people.”

Penn is home to many different viewpoints, perspectives, and interests. Logically, this is because the student body is the combination of an engineering school, a nursing school, a business school, and the College. However, there's often a lack of intersection between these areas.

“There's just a lot of siloing at Penn where students in one school will mostly interact with people in that school, which has its benefits for personal use, like in a business school where a business network is really helpful,” Avni says. “But with entrepreneurship, where you want to know as many people as possible across a lot of different areas of the school, how can we bring together places that had previously been very stringently siloed?”

This year was not only SEP’s first year of recruiting members but also a strange year for recruitment across all of Greek life due to the pandemic. Uncertainty clouded how recruitment would run. However, Kunal and Avni were both amazed by their pledges' ability to actively engage in the process.

“It was hard over Zoom to create a culture of having fun, especially with the random people that you've just met. But entrepreneurship is inherently collaborative,” Kunal says. “Even though everything is online, we've somehow managed to create this culture where we're all willing to be genuine and open about our opinions. I think that's opened up to being very vulnerable.”

But Avni explains that they were nervous about recruitment, knowing that as the first SEP class, their pledges would set the tone for the rest of SEP's time at Penn.

“Our criteria was, ‘Will they make a great friend now and a great founder later?’ I think we did a great job of recruiting exactly those types of people,” she says.

In order to see the creative side of the applicants, one of the activities that the prospective SEP pledges had to complete was an entrepreneurship challenge where they had to come up with 100 ideas to produce a product or company that centered around a collection of 10,000 paperclips.

Photo Courtesy of Anvi Ahuja

Sigma Eta Pi

“We got to see how they work in a team and how they come up with ideas, because a big focus of ours is that we're putting together really cool people who are really passionate, creative, and imaginative,” Avni says. “It is less about prior experience and more about if you have that kind of can–do attitude, or if we see you becoming a really great founder one day.”

While some fraternities and sororities recruit people based on how they will fit into the particular reputation of each individual organization, SEP leaves room for experimentation and does not look for a specific type of character. Avni jokes that she was probably the first person to drop Greek rush in her year since she only rushed for five hours before coming to the realization that she wanted to be part of an organization that prioritized individuality.

Because SEP is new and exists without restricting structures, it "[creates] a culture where you can mold whatever version of the frat you want it to be,” Kunal says. “We encourage everyone to take initiative and really be a leader in creating an experience for other people.”

By cultivating a supportive environment that transcends the entrepreneurial focus of the frat, SEP delves into personal connections between its members. Avni says that their creative members have “a lot of pluck, initiative, and commitment to the organization.”

Unlike other entrepreneurship clubs that already exist at Penn, SEP works to establish a strong community by emphasizing fun social events alongside pre–professional experiences. “I'd love to see SEP create a culture that disrupts the status quo and makes it exciting and a desirable thing to be an entrepreneur and to take risks to do something different outside of a set structure,” he says.

Although this is just the beginning of SEP’s presence on campus, Kunal and Avni look toward the future with high hopes for their fraternity.

“I think there [are] a lot of students on campus that have these amazing ideas, skills, and interests, but might be scared to take the next step,” Kunal says. “I really hope that SEP turns out to be the community that encourages and pushes people to actually take the next step and make a bigger impact than they could have imagined.”

EGO OE F GTOH E W E E K

SARAH SIMON HOMETOWN: MAJOR: ACTIVITES:

Dallas, Texas Criminology and political science University Honor Council, Terrance Lewis Liberation Foundation, International Affairs Association, Penn Hillel, Sphinx Senior Society, Shamash Senior Society, Philomathean Society, Pi Sigma Alpha, Transfer Student Organization

Meet the president of the University Honor Council and Penn Engagement Prize winner who has a passion for human rights and criminal justice. | FERNANDA BRIZUELA 34TH STREET MAGAZINE: What drew you to Penn, and why did you decide to transfer?

SARAH SIMON: It's actually quite a funny story. I was at the University of Virginia (UVA) for my [first] year, and I absolutely loved it. I still have really wonderful friends [from there]. But I knew going into college that I wanted to do something in the criminal justice space, and I thought the best avenue for me to really capitalize on my life's ambitions was to study criminology, which was a major that UVA did not have. So literally the week before the deadline, I decided to apply only to Penn to transfer.

When I got in, it was a really difficult decision for me because I had put a lot of time and energy into building this really vibrant life at UVA that I really loved. I would be transferring only for an academic purpose. I remember I was so excited when I got into Penn and saw all of the professors whose work I had read, and would have the opportunity to study under, and do research under. So I decided that this would probably be something I'd really regret if I [didn't] come. And it's been a wonderful decision. I have loved every minute here.

STREET: You played a role in the establishment of the Terrance Lewis Liberation Foundation.

What inspired you to do this?

SS: I've known since I was really young that human rights and criminal justice work is the field that I wanted to enter, and [I wanted to] use my education to hopefully change that landscape. All

of my grandparents were Jewish refugees from varying countries. A lot of them are Holocaust survivors. Through my family stories and family history, I’m no stranger to oppression. I recognize that, in America, that's not something that I have to face, but there are so many people here who do. Being Jewish is very central to who I am. It motivates everything that I do. I really feel like I channel my grandparents in all of my life's work.

So when I see opportunities to become involved in the criminal justice landscape, I pursue them with all my might. It's very, very important to me to create a more just future.

I was interning at the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office under Larry Krasner, who is a personal hero of mine in terms of modeling progressive prosecution policies. And I had heard about Terrance because, even though I wasn't working in the Conviction Integrity Unit, which is the team of attorneys who exonerated him, I had friends who were. I went to go see Terrance at a conference. I remember walking up to him after, and I was like, “What can I do? How can I help? How can I help you build this nonprofit?” The Liberation Foundation is a nonprofit for wrongful convictions and disproportionate sentencing. So since about March of 2020, I've been on board.

I've primarily done fundraising work, publicity work, applying for grants, and that kind of thing.

It's been definitely a really new involvement for me because most of my prior criminal justice and legal engagement work has been in the form of

case processing.

STREET: Can you tell us about your research in the Criminology Department?

SS: The first week that I got to Penn, I was in a class with professor Adrian Raine called "Biopsychosocial Criminology." He was really the primary reason that I transferred, and I went to his office hours literally the first week with my resume. I was like, “I think this is probably going to sound really strange to you, but I came to the school to hopefully engage with your work and do research under you. And I was wondering if there might be a spot in your lab to do research.”

I was shaking, and I handed him my resume.

He was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” He connected me with his Ph.D. student, and the work that we were doing was really fascinating. I had done previous research in the malleability of memory, implicit bias, the fallacies of eyewitness testimony, [that] type of thing, which is more psychological research. But this was seeing if there could be some sort of non–invasive transcranial direct current stimulation to inhibit aggressive and antisocial behaviors, and hopefully prevent criminal or more aggressive proceedings. It was really, really fascinating. I was doing neuroscience literature reviews and learning so much while I felt like I was helping out with this really important project.

STREET: You mentioned that being Jewish is very central to your identity. How are you involved with Hillel? Do you think it has influenced

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EGO OF THE WEEK

LIGHTNING ROUND STREET: Last song that you listened to?

SS: “A Sunday Kind of Love” by Etta James.

STREET: What’s something people wouldn't guess about you?

SS: This is my party–trick–not–really–party–trick: I am a very proficient Texas Hold'em poker player. I grew up playing with my dad and have taken a lot of people's money.

STREET: If you were a building on campus, which one would you be and why?

SS: I feel like my internal vibes match up with the Fisher [Fine Arts] Library. But I feel like my external vibes match up more with the Perelman Political Science Building.

STREET: Who do you look up to?

SS: My family is everything to me. My grandparents, my parents. Their stories really are at the core of who I am.

STREET: There are two types of people at Penn…

SS: The people who love walking down Locust and people who avoid it at all costs.

STREET: And you are?

SS: Definitely the former. I love waving to friends.

your Penn experience?

SS: Yeah, absolutely. I've done a couple of Hillel fellowships, including the Encompass Fellowship.

I was one of four Jewish students in this cohort of 25 people. We learned about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and then traveled to the region.

Another one I did was the Pincus [Scholars] Fellowship, where we learned about how to apply these ancient Jewish texts and ideas to the modern world and modern social issues. It's really been in college—independent of exact Hillel involvements—that I've really felt like I've connected to my Jewish identity. Right now, I'm actually working with Hillel staff to establish a fellowship called "Jewish Identity Deassimilated." It's all about understanding who the Jewish people are, how we exist in the modern world, [and] what this means for us, because we're such a colonized people that I think it's really important to understand Judaism.

STREET: The Sphinx Senior Society recognizes seniors who “have made significant contributions to the university as leaders of the campus.” What has your time in Sphinx meant to you?

SS: I ended up in Sphinx because I was president of the University Honor Council. Despite COVID–19 obviously having an impact on how we're able to interact and what we do, it's been such a wonderful experience. I have been able to meet people and engage with people who [are]

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literally just so inspiring, and I never would have met them had it not been for Sphinx connecting us all. I think that's really the beauty of the organization at its core. It brings people from all different sides of campus together. It's been really great to be a part of a community of people who I never would have met otherwise.

STREET: How did you get involved with the University Honor Council?

SS: Pursuing justice has always been very integral to who I am. In high school, I was actually involved with my honor council. I was president.

Then I went to UVA, and I was on an analogous body called the University Judiciary Committee.

Then I got here and saw that Penn had an honor council as well, and I applied and I joined. It's been a really formative and wonderful part of my experience. I was a member for two years in the community engagement committee until I became president.

STREET: What has been your most memorable experience at Penn?

SS: I feel like my life came together in a really beautiful way—and I knew that I was on the right path, like living a higher purpose for myself—when I signed the lease for the house that I live in now. I signed it after my sophomore year.

It was just with such a great group of my friends, and I felt like a lot of different parts of my life were coming together, and I was able to have a

place of my choosing to live with people that I really loved. That's definitely been a pretty primary component of my experience too, balancing my academic and organizational ambitions and involvements with my personal life. I really felt a sense of coming home when we moved into this new house.

STREET: If you could impart one lesson on the Penn community, what would it be?

SS: Never refuse to do something for fear that it won't work out for you. Make sure you put yourself out there. Because I really believe that this school has so much to offer its students. There can be a lot of different stressors in life for all Penn students. But if you just put yourself out there and really take risks in that regard, I believe that what you put out will come back to you, at least in some capacity.

STREET: What's next for you after Penn?

SS: I am putting out a lot of feelers right now. I know ultimately I want to go to law school and practice human rights law, and particularly international human rights law. It's really something I would love to do, but I'm definitely taking a year [off school] after graduation, whether that's to work for a nonprofit organization or an international human rights organization. We shall see because applications are still in the works, but hopefully I will have the opportunity to do really meaningful human rights work next year before going to law school.

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Illustration by Tyler Kliem

Zooming Through Fling Thoughts on Penn's first hybrid Spring Fling | JILLIAN LOMBARDI

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s a first year, I’ve heard of the hectic and wild stories of Penn’s Spring Fling, but I didn't expect the shouting and hustle of my first one to be centered on desperately searching for the Zoom link to Chloe x Halle’s performance from a stiff, red armchair in Lauder College House. Penn's annual Spring Fling was a hybrid between virtual performances and in–person giveaways. The concert spanned two weekends and featured strong performances from well–known artists such as Gryffin, Cherub, Rina Sawayama, and Louis the Child the first weekend, and Chloe x Halle, Wale, and Wizkid this past weekend.

Fling hadn’t been held since 2019, as Penn's Social Planning and Events Committee (SPEC) canceled 2020 Fling as it was slated for the early days of the COVID–19 pandemic. In lieu of an in–person event, this year's performances were broadcast through a Zoom webinar and were surprisingly high quality in terms of the audio, video, and ability to connect and socialize in the chat.

A number of first years attended this event. It

was an opportunity to watch exciting performances with our pod and maybe even dance around in cramped dorm rooms and off–campus apartments.

Unfortunately, a key element of Fling was always bound to be lost...the togetherness. Usually, this is one of the few opportunities for a normally overwhelmed student body to let loose and be together, but this couldn't be the case this time, especially since the concert had to be a webinar instead of a meeting, where students could see each other on their screens.

However, for many seniors, this was still a positive ending to their college concert experiences. Katie Hancin (C ’21) watched both nights of the first weekend. “As much as I would have loved to go to something in person, I think it was still pretty good … I was able to hang out with a couple friends, and we were able to get some food and watch it,” she says. For her last Fling, Katie was eager to attend and was appreciative of SPEC's work, even if it wasn't the normal experience anyone wanted.

The concert occurred in tandem with free give-

aways. Locust Walk was riddled with students lugging bright blue folding chairs back to their respective homes, venturing out in overcast and gloomy weather for a semblance of a normal Fling. Serena Carson (E ’24) got to nab a chair, frisbee, mask, and blue light glasses. She says, “Going in [to pick up the giveaways] felt more like I was a student … You show your little ticket, grab your stuff, see someone you happen to know or someone from your class …

I’m not just walking to the dining hall, getting my food, going back, and hanging out with my suitemates.”

While the chance of having a classic Fling weekend was impossible, the past two weekends seem to have been a generally positive experience for students, prompting seniors to reminisce on past Flings and giving first years a taste of what’s to come. Considering the direction the nation is heading towards with the vaccine rollout, I’m willing to bet that those of us here next year will be awkwardly and joyfully bumping shoulders with peers at Fling in 2022.

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On To See the Next Part of the Dream, Parannoul Grapples With His Past Moments of positivity are rare on the artist’s honest and despondent sophomore album. | EVAN QIANG

Illustation by Hannah Chan

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o one knows who Parannoul is. Born and raised in Korea, the musician composes and produces all of his work in his bedroom before uploading the finished products to Bandcamp—no record labels needed. Although he humbly describes himself as “just a student writing music,” his sophomore LP To See the Next Part of the Dream is recognized as one of the best shoegaze albums in aggregate review websites such as Rate Your Music and Album of the year. Considering the album is sonically similar to the discographies of classic bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, it’s no surprise to see it receive such a positive reception. However, To See the Next Part of the Dream is still uniquely Parannoul’s, focusing on the moments in his life that led to the creation of his deceivingly dark album.

The first track “Beautiful World” is a perfect representation of the shoegaze genre where a thick layer of banging drums and distorted guitar riffs drown out Parannoul’s vocals. Without careful attention to the lyrics, the instrumentation evokes feelings of nostalgia and even optimism, but Parannoul’s writing is melancholic and heartbreaking. The first verse introduces the dream of reinvention and metamorphosis that is continually reimagined and expanded throughout the album. As he looks back on his childhood memories, Parannoul begins an endless stream of self–criticism, wishing his “young and stupid days” would “disappear forever.” The contrast between the hypnotizing production and the depressing lyrics is jarring, but this divergence describes exactly what Parannoul yearns for: success and accomplishment in his life. Depicting himself as “below average in height and appearance and everything,” Parannoul feels that he has already accepted his fate, which is hindering him from achieving his ambitions.

Conflicting attitudes are still present on “Excuse,” a devastating track that highlights Parannoul’s insecurity regarding his feelings. He believes that his "goals are becoming more and more clear / But [his] 8

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purposes are becoming more and more meaningless." These lyrics echo the fight Parannoul faces as he struggles to find the balance between his desires and his abilities. Although he acknowledges his misguided view of the world (“I was just a child to say I was all grown up"), Parannoul is still unable to find stability, resigning himself to a pessimistic lifestyle.

“White Ceiling” takes the already tumultuous na-

Shoegaze is defined by its ethereal characteristics, and To See the Next Part of the Dream focuses on an unachievable dream, one that cannot be attained with just hard work and persistence.

ture of Parannoul’s life and leads the listener on a ten–minute journey through the inconsistencies of time. The song emphasizes Parannoul’s distortion of his past and the disproportionate effect it has on his present self. To him, nothing has changed “even on Sunday morning / even on Monday morning / even on Friday morning.” He feels confined by his perceived deficiencies, unable to escape and rise above the white ceiling that he wakes up to every morning. Remarking that “I’ve been used to my room temperature for a long time now,” he is unable to cope with his past mistakes because they are so strong, preventing him from growing in the

future. On his Bandcamp page, Parannoul mentions that his “body is an adult but [his] mind is still a child,” demonstrating, from his point of view, how his physical and mental health are aging at two completely different time intervals.

Notably different from the rest of the album, the final track “I Can Feel My Heart Touching You” explores Parannoul’s thoughts as if he is living out his dream. Though he concedes that freedom must come with “another step forward,” he considers how it might feel to be devoid of any hardships. Given his natural tendency to succumb to stagnation, this is just a short–lived moment. This track is also the only one with pleasant imagery: Parannoul recognizes how the “green grasslands” and “blue sunsets” differ from the dullness of his room. Finally, Parannoul compares this experience to “[flying] one day, just like those birds,” referring to the “White Ceiling” that cannot entrap him anymore in his dream. Birds are also present on the album cover, flying above a factory spewing pollution; because Parannoul’s mind is engulfed by the smoke of his past, he can never feel completely unrestrained.

Shoegaze is defined by its ethereal characteristics, and To See the Next Part of the Dream focuses on an unachievable dream, one that cannot be attained with just hard work and persistence. When expressing his failures that have built up over time, Parannoul does not hope to move forward; rather, he lays out all the things that have led him to defeat. Given the tone of the entire album, To See the Next Part of the Dream concluding with Parannoul living out his dream is surprising. In a way, however, he has already achieved one of his dreams: He wanted to “leave a little trace of my own” and “[to be] talked to for the rest of one’s life.” The anonymous artist may feel isolated and lonely, but the relatability of his album will keep him in the memories of many.

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APRIL 22, 2021 34TH STREET MAGAZINE

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FILM & TV

Raya and the Last Dragon: Disney Can Do More to Stop Anti–Asian Hate As accurate and empowering as the cultural representation in the film may be, it simply isn't enough. | ARIELLE STANGER

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he brilliant minds at Disney somehow never run out of ideas, and their latest installment Raya and the Last Dragon is as mystical and adventurous as ever. The film follows young Raya on her hunt for the titular last dragon, the only remaining individual of its kind, so that it can help save her world from sinister monsters.

Kumandra, the fictional land where the story takes place, is based on a handful of countries from Southeast Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as well as Brunei, Timor–Leste, and Burma.

Audiences were previously displeased with the cultural inaccuracy of Disney’s only two movies centered around Asia and the Pacific Islands— Mulan and Moana, which draw inf luence from China and Polynesia respectively. This time, the crew did more in–depth research and consulting—and, screenwriters Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim both have Southeast Asian heritage.

Nguyen, who loves action movies, shared that he wanted to incorporate martial arts from the real world into the film. In particular, Raya and the Last Dragon showcases Indonesian and Malaysian Pencak silat, Muay Thai from Thailand, traditional Indonesian wrestling, and Arnis from the Philippines.

Some viewers expressed frustration with this blending of various Asian cultures—is it problematic to mash all of these distinct countries into a single, indecipherable monolith? In response, Lim pointed out that her home in Malaysia is often a melting pot of various cultures. She shared that Malaysian street food has such a delicious reputation because of its many different, borrowed elements. The fictional land of Kumandra similarly combines aspects of neighboring places to

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Illustration by Alice Choi build something both comfortingly familiar and intriguingly new.

Still, Sisu the dragon’s appearance is confounding to a majority of audiences. Why does she look like Elsa’s furry alter ego, with a Disney princess face instead of a dragon snout? At first, this stylistic choice seemed like an oversight, but the filmmakers shed light on the inspiration behind her design in an interview with Polygon. Looking beyond Western and even East Asian dragons, Sisu is based on the Nāga: serpentine creatures associated with water, representing luck and power.

Nguyen explains that the Nāga was chosen to be a symbol of life and hope in the film, influencing protagonist Raya to “open up and trust.”

As for the reason behind Sisu’s fluffy blue body and bright, sparkly eyes, director Don Hall shared that they wanted to make her more approachable.

They moved “away from the reptilian” in order to “make sure she didn’t just look like an animal.”

It’s understandable that the creators wanted to give her more life, but at least now we know the explanation for Sisu’s uncanny appearance and similarity to the Snow Queen.

Positive and accurate cultural representation has been sought after for years. The impact it can have on children and young adults is significant: To see someone onscreen who looks like you, comes from

the same place as you, or partakes in similar rituals as you proves that diversity is to be celebrated.

But is representation really enough in the grand scheme of things?

It might be a coincidence that Raya and the Last Dragon was released just as awareness for anti–Asian hate crimes reached an all–time high.

Anti–Asian sentiment has existed in the United States for decades upon decades—however, since the onset of COVID–19 in March of 2020, the situation has only worsened. The film’s premiere feels like a lazy, or just plain ignorant, response to the state of the world at the moment.

Disney has publicly stated its support for the organizations Asian Americans Advancing Justice (A AJC) and Stop A API Hate, but actions speak louder than words. If Disney is charging a $30 Premier Access fee for subscribers to watch Raya and the Last Dragon on Disney+, a platform where subscribers already pay roughly $80 a year, can’t at least some of that money be donated to those fighting against Asian–targeted hate crimes?

In order to prove that they truly care about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Disney needs to shift from representation to activism.

Right now, with their empty words of allyship, all they’re doing is exploiting a community in need of help for their own profit.

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DEFYING INVISIBILITY: David Eng and the Long Fight for Asian American Studies at Penn Yet another professor prepares to depart from the ASAM program. Can it survive without more support from the University at large? | ANGELA SHEN Three professors to over 4000 undergraduate and graduate students. That was the ratio of core faculty in the Asian American Studies (ASAM) Program to Asian American/Pacific Islander students at Penn in 2019. That same year, there were 248 tenure–stream AAPI This has ignited massive concerns around the state of ASAM and its faculty. faculty at Penn—the vast majority of whom didn't specialize in ASAM—compared to As a program and not a department, ASAM is unable to hire its own faculty. With such nearly six times that number of white tenure–stream faculty. a small number of professors and administrators, ASAM simply doesn’t have the capacity In the 25 years since its inception, the ASAM program at Penn has withstood count- to provide students with the classes and resources they need. less threats to its faculty and resources. The current battle to prevent the departure of David Eng, Richard L. Fisher professor of English and one of Photo courtesy of David Eng the ASAM’s three core faculty members, is nothing new. It’s the culmination of decades of disregard for Asian American issues from the Penn administration, in a society where Asian American identity and history is often ignored and erased.

As Asian Americans face an uptick in hate crimes and continue to struggle for visibility alongside other underrepresented groups, Penn’s ASAM program is uniquely positioned to provide students with a community that extends beyond the classroom.

Yet Penn has a long history of dismissing student concerns and devaluing Asian American issues. The story of ASAM at Penn is one of tenacity, protest, and solidarity: Together, ASAM’s students and alumni have spent their entire academic and professional lives fighting to be heard.

ASAM’s current standing faculty consists of three people: Josephine Park, director of ASAM, professor of English, and undergraduate chair of the English Department; Eiichiro Azuma, associate professor of history; and Eng. Fariha Khan is the associate director of the program and has taken on the burden of many of the program’s administrative responsibilities. Most recently, Eng announced his potential departure, citing a lack of institutional support for ASAM as a catalyst.

“It felt dehumanizing. I felt embarrassed that we needed to talk to these deans who had no understanding of why this was important to us. And we had to do that for every semester.”

— Seung–Hyung Chung David Eng teaching "Introduction to Asian American Literature and Culture" in a classroom in Fisher-Bennett Hall.

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“Part of my responsibility as a person of color, as a gay person, is to model identity. It's ultimately so important to have students of color see a professor in front of the room who looks and reflects and knows their history back to them.” — David Eng “We’re going back 30 years, if we don't do anything about [the program’s decline in numbers],” warns Kate Lam (C ’92), who helped raise concern over the lack of Asian American representation in Penn’s curriculum when she was a junior at Penn.

In February of 1990, Lam and her fellow students in the Asian American Student Alliance—the predecessor to the Asian Pacific Student Coalition (APSC)—organized to demand a program in the College of Arts and Sciences that featured Asian American identity and history. Starting as a single weekly lecture, the program took six full years to come to fruition.

In the fall of 1999, the APSC united various campus and constituent groups to launch a rigorous campaign—including petitions, rallies, and a proposal submitted to the University president—that would eventually lead to the creation of Pan–Asian American Community House (PAACH), the cultural center for Asian students at Penn.

From 2003 to 2009, the program expanded under then–director Grace Kao, who helped fight for a space for ASAM in the McNeil Building. In March 2008, already lacking full–time staff members, the program received unexpected budget cuts. Thanks to student activism and Kao threatening to resign, the proposed budget was revised, but this close call would be far from ASAM’s last brush with extinction.

In January of 2017, Grace Kao left for Yale University after over two decades of service to the Asian American community at Penn. Her departure incited a new wave of student advocacy that included protests on College Green, an open forum, three separate emails to School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) Dean Steven Fluharty, and a petition that garnered over 1,300 signatures. The ASAM Undergraduate Advisory Board (UAB) also launched a #ASiAM campaign to collect student testimonials.

Seung–Hyung Chung (C ’18) helped organize the student response to Kao’s departure. He describes his experience meeting with the SAS dean in 2017: “It felt dehumanizing. I felt embarrassed that we needed to talk to these deans who had no understanding of why this was important to us. And we had to do that for every semester.”

Now, students and alumni are using similar organizing tactics in the fight to retain Eng. “The joke we’re making now is that if we need to write another letter in the next four years, we’re just going to copy and paste the last one,” Chung says. “Because this shouldn’t be happening constantly, and yet that’s how much of a non–response we’ve had.”

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In 2018, it took over four months and multiple follow–up emails for the ASAM UAB and Azuma, who was serving as ASAM's interim director, to hear the deans’ response to their demands. The verdict: no to more tenure– track faculty, no to more administrative help, no to more physical spaces for talks and events, but yes to one full–time lecturer who could teach two courses for a maximum of three years.

Now it’s 2021. The University has made no progress on the search for an interim ASAM director. Park, the program’s official director, plans to go on leave for the 2021–2022 academic year. If Eng leaves, Azuma will be the program’s only tenured professor in the upcoming school year. Students, alumni, and faculty have retraced familiar steps to protect the program—a petition, statements and op–eds in The Daily Pennsylvanian, and meetings with the dean.

But this year’s battle feels like it has higher visibility, with 58 faculty members joining the over 800 students and alumni petitioning in support of ASAM and the retention of Eng.

Though English is his home department, Eng is also a core faculty member in ASAM, the Comparative Literature and Literary Theory Program, and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program. Eng reflects on his time at Penn as he considers leaving the University to take a professorship elsewhere.

“Fourteen years is a long time to try to build something,” he comments.

“Honestly, you just get tired, and then you get these other opportunities.”

These opportunities come from places like Harvard, which appear to be prioritizing the expansion of their ethnic studies programs. Ultimately, Eng’s departure hinges on whether or not Penn hires his partner, a law professor at Emory University. This practice is not unusual in academia, as the English Department alone already has around eight heterosexual couples.

Eng is popular among students, even winning Street's title of one of Penn’s most beloved professors in 2015. During the fall semester, his class “Introduction to Asian American Literature” was the most highly demanded class in the English Department.

Over his time at Penn, Eng has devoted himself to unlocking student potential, helping to recruit countless doctoral students as the former graduate chair of the English Department and training over 40 graduate students in total. Ultimately, Eng recognizes his duty as a professor is not only to introduce students to new bodies of work, but also to provide students with representation.

“Part of my responsibility as a person of color, as a gay person, is to model identity. It's ultimately so important to have students of color see a professor in front of the room who looks and reflects and knows their history back to them.”

Like many of his current students, Eng is a child of Asian immigrants. He knew nothing about Asian American studies until he discovered the field during his graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley, which he only thought to pursue thanks to the encouragement of three female faculty members who noticed his potential as an undergraduate.

“I wouldn't be a professor today if it hadn't been for those three women

who invested in me,” he says. “A lot of [issues about race and representation] moment that [Asian American students] start to make demands, that's when get so politicized, but on another level, it's simply that there's a whole slice of the administration suddenly feels the need to take a step back.” the population who isn’t allowed to fulfill their potential.”

The phenomenon Eng describes comes at a major psychological cost.

Without the tools or knowledge to contextualize their place in American society, Asian American students struggle with feelings of alienation and loss, regardless of how externally accomplished they may be.

The loss of Eng is especially painful given the relevance of his research on The model minority stereotype contributes to the invisibility and neglect of the social and psychological struggles of Asian American college students. Asian Americans’ mental health needs. AAPI college students are least likely In his 2019 book Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation, Eng and psycho- to seek help for mental health, and are most likely to identify with feelings of therapist Shinhee Han examine how Asian college students are affected by hopelessness, depression, overwhelming anger, and suicidal ideation. the model minority myth and colorblindness, which create the perception As increasing rates of anti–Asian violence garner international attention that Asian Americans are raceless and self–sufficient. The racial roles played and college students face additional mental health burdens due to the panby Asian Americans in American history—whether they be targets of racism demic, the need to provide Asian American students with sufficient psychoand xenophobia or agents of activism and solidarity—are erased from most logical and social support is urgent. Penn’s Task Force on Support to Asian school curriculums. and Asian American Students and Scholars (TAASS) was intended to proSimply put, in the story of race in America, Asians are invisible. vide psychological support to students, staff, and faculty affected by anti– “The model minority stereotype makes Asian Americans adjunct to white- Asian racism. However, Yuhong He, one of the three Asian members on the ness,” explains Eng. “When universities don't want to give Asian Americans task force and the only representative from Counseling and Psychological resources, they say they're just like white students. They have no problems, Services (CAPS), left Penn in August of 2020 and was never replaced. The they do perfectly, they're just white, they can just take white classes. And the list of members of the task force, which has not been updated since June

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Illustration by Rebekah Lee

F E AT U R E

2020, still lists her name. There have been no new programs since March.

“I am so tired of only being seen and cared for when I'm sad, or angry, or upset,” says Claire Nguyen (C '22), the current co–chair of the ASAM UAB. “I feel like I'm constantly being tokenized or a burden for requesting having

“The administration knows that students have a lifetime: four years, and then they matriculate. Basically, they wait it out until there are new students who don’t understand the issues."

— Paulo Bautista

spaces on campus for Asian students, when the University should just have spaces for all students on campus.”

ASAM has the potential to help heal the emptiness and alienation Asian students experience by directly focusing on the unique challenges of being Asian American and teaching students, in essence, how they belong in America. “[ASAM has] really given me a critical language to be able to describe a lot of experiences that I've encountered personally and that I've seen elsewhere in my life of racism. Being able to put that language within a systemic framework has been so important to my understanding of how white supremacy operates, particularly in the United States,” says Erin O’Malley (C ’21), the other co–chair of the ASAM UAB. Yet, both alumni and current students involved with the ASAM UAB describe unusually high levels of burn–out and exhaustion, which they attribute to a lack of progress and a feeling

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of not being heard.

When asked about potential burn–out of student leaders at Penn, Associate Vice Provost for Equity and Access Rev. William Gipson comments, “As administrators at the University, we want to know how we support students—what is it that you need from us to help you to reach your goal? What we're encouraging is real conversation, interaction, and engagement.”

On March 30, 2021, Fluharty announced that SAS would undertake a search to fill multiple standing faculty positions in ASAM for the 2022–2023 academic school year. Though the two events—Eng’s potential departure and the College's plan to fill multiple standing faculty positions in ASAM by 2022–2023—technically have separate origins, the proximity of the two announcements has not gone unnoticed. “[My] first thought was: fantastic. Let's give credit where it's due. It is a response,” says Lam. “But the second thought is: It's pretty reactive.

And the third thought is: What's next? What are the executable plans? Who are the stakeholders? What accountability lines do we have?”

ASAM’s exhaustingly cyclical history—lose resources and people, engage in rigorous student–led activism to regain what was lost, receive an unsatisfactory response, and repeat— sheds light on why students, alumni, and faculty feel so skeptical about the recent announcement.

“This cluster hire feels like a compensatory gesture, because if they lose Eng, there’s only two faculty members left. And if they try to hire three more, that’s just plus one to [the four] we originally had [in 2017]. It’s a bandaid to the outrage that students and alumni have,” adds Chung.

With Park taking a sabbatical for the 2021– 2022 academic year, there will be no director for ASAM—and therefore very few scholars with any expertise to actually lead the search.

Students and alumni are also concerned that once media coverage of Asian American issues dies down, any hope for the program’s expansion will be lost. Paulo Bautista (W ’14), who was heavily involved in PAACH and Asian student organizing at Penn, explains the structural problem he sees in the University: “The administration knows that students have a life-

time: four years, and then they matriculate. Basically, they wait it out until there are new students who don’t understand the issues. That’s where we the alumni with our institutional history come in.”

Throughout ASAM's struggles to survive, the institutional knowledge shared between Asian student leaders has highlighted the program’s strengths. “ASAM has always been really good at mobilizing, and that sort of historical legacy isn’t something that all the different ethnic studies programs have,” says Erin.

Erin is right—in 2015, Penn’s Africa Center closed, and the African Studies Program later (which focuses on African diaspora) merged with the Department of Africana Studies (which focuses on the African continent). Penn also currently doesn’t have a single standing faculty member in Native American and Indigenous Studies.

The survival of ASAM can mean hope for all ethnic studies programs at Penn. Throughout its history, Asian American studies has played a significant role in promoting social justice and encouraging coalition—building with other marginalized groups. In fact, the term ‘Asian American’ was coined by university students in 1968 to strengthen the multi—ethnic coalition that fought for the first ethnic studies programs.

In many ways, one of the highlights of the history of ASAM at Penn is the continued passion and persistence of students despite numerous institutional barriers.

“We should be locking arms. Our experiences are worth being represented, and studied, and understood. Whether you’re Black, or [Native American], or Asian, all of these things need to be interwoven,” says Ben Huynh (W ’14), current president of the University of Pennsylvania Asian Alumni Network (UPAAN).

“There is a side of learning that is about academics, and there's a side of learning that is about self—development, and there's a side of learning that is about saving the world,” says Eng. “That, to me, is the very definition of what makes ethnic studies and women's studies so different in the academy—because these are fields that were formed in relation to social justice and social protest.”

FOCUS

Broken Promises: Deportations Continue Under Biden’s Administration President Joe Biden promised no more deportations in the first 100 days of his presidency. What happened? | JEAN PAIK

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nderrepresented communities proved to be an instrumental force in ensuring Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. BIPOC organizers and coalitions registered thousands of community members across the country and arrived at the polls in record numbers. President Biden isn't unaware of this reality either; after specifically acknowledging Black voters’ role in securing the election in his victory speech, he promised, “Especially those moments when this campaign was at its lowest end, the African American community stood up again for me. You always had my back, and I'll have yours.”

Now, mere months after taking office, President Biden has turned his back on the same communities that helped elect him. One of his key campaign promises was a 100–day moratorium on deportations in an attempt to reel back Trump’s heinous immigration policies. During a March 2020 primary debate, President Biden announced that, in the first 100 days of his administration, "no one will be deported at all. From that point on, the only deportations that will take place are commissions of felonies in the United States of America." But deportations have continued under Biden’s administration—and at record numbers.

According to United We Dream, a nationwide immigrant rights organization, an estimate of over 127,400 deportations have taken place so far under the Biden–Harris presidency. District Judge Drew Tipton issued a temporary 14–day block on the moratorium, but the ruling did not require the government to continue scheduling deportations. The hold also excludes the thousands of other deportations that have taken place under Title 42, a Trump–era policy used to close the border for nonessential travel and authorize the expulsion of non–citizens without procedural protections.

While the actions of the previous administration continue to have violent consequences for immigrants today, Biden's own record on immigration can't be ignored. The former Obama–Biden administration was responsible for nearly 3 million deportations, earning Obama the name of “deporter–in–chief.” Over the course of several presidencies, the United States has been an active participant in a long history of state violence against migrant communities, committing deportations, forced separations, mass incarceration, surveillance, and over–policing.

For many, President Biden’s continued deportations are devastating, but unfortunately, not surprising.

Quyen Dinh, executive director of the Southeast Asia

Resource Action Center, says, “This is a tragedy our community has to endure every single year.” On March 15, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 33 Vietnamese immigrants and refugees, and thousands of other community members have received final orders of deportation or fear potential orders of removal.

During his presidential campaign, Biden promoted his previous congressional votes to increase funding for Vietnamese resettlement, while failing to acknowledge that many of these migrants were resettled into high–crime, under–resourced neighborhoods with little to no support from the government. Similarly, it's disturbing to witness Biden condemn the rise in anti–Asian violence, yet continue to deport Asian Americans at record numbers, separating families and perpetuating the prison– to–deportation pipeline that targets communities of color.

Alongside Trump's use of Title 42, waves of deportations under Biden have disproportionately affected Black, Latinx, and Asian immigrants. Sold as a public health issue, Title 42 has given U.S. border officials unchecked authority to expell thousands of immigrants without due process or access to asylum. According to Michele Heisler, a medical director at Physicians for Human Rights, Title 42 is an excuse to weaponize the pandemic against asylum seekers, rather than a genuine concern for public health. While COVID–19 is weaponized to justify more deportations, asylum– seekers currently stuck in detention centers sit in overcrowded facilities and fear exposure to coronavirus unless they abide by orders from ICE officials.

In a year of Title 42, less than 1% of migrants at the U.S.–Mexico border have been able to seek protection. Lawyers, judges, and United Nations officials say the near impossibility of gaining asylum protection makes the policy illegal, and a violation of U.S. and international law.

Thousands of Haitian migrants in particular have faced deportation through the circumvention of proper legal proceedings and humanitarian protections under this policy. In a new report compiled by various immigrant rights groups, more Haitians have

Illustration by Alice Choi been removed in the first few weeks of the Biden– Harris administration than during all of Fiscal Year 2020.

In a recent Eyes on ICE National Forum, Haddy Gassama, an attorney at the UndocuBlack Network, shed light on the violence that marginalized communities faced during a time that was meant to honor them: “Biden deported Black people almost every single day during Black History Month ... [He] deported Black women almost every single day of Women's History Month, and he continues to deport people who are survivors of domestic violence as well as sexual assault.”

The deportations of Black refugees under the optics of a public health risk is antithetical to Biden’s own promises of supporting the Black community.

As Gassama stresses, "[Biden’s] promises to improve the lives of Black people in the [United States] extends to the lives of Black immigrants.”

Many immigrant rights groups have put forth a variety of demands for Biden, including a blanket ban on deportations, policy reforms to decriminalize immigration, and a more stable pathway to citizenship.

Ultimately, the onus is on Biden and his administration to uphold their promise to stop the inhumane deportations and removal of migrant communities.

However, activists and organizers remind us to go further: to question the “model or deserving immigrant” myth that underlies much of the United States’s immigration policy, to acknowledge the historic role of U.S. intervention in sparking global refugee crises, and to help build a world where it is understood that no human being is illegal.

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From the Kardashians to Sports Illustrated, Self Acceptance Has Never Been More Confusing As Facetune becomes more ubiquitous, is it possible for celebrities to preach body positivity if their livelihood relies on touch–ups? | GABRIELLA RAFFETTO

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ikTok workouts. Keto diets and juice cleanses. Fight the "freshman 15" and avoid comfort food—but insecurity is ugly too. How are we supposed to negotiate self love with a gnawing societal pressure to be thinner, prettier, and somehow, better?

Body image has never been a hotter topic, especially as the COVID–19 pandemic has stressed the resiliency and ever–changing shape of our corporeal forms. At face value, it seems like many of our favorite brands and celebrities use social media to propagate body positivity—from Rihanna’s expansive range of foundation shades to the sudden worship of plus sized models like Ashley Graham. But in reality, are fashion and beauty companies working in our favor to contend the patriarchal assessment of the female ideal? Are celebrities who preach self love genuine if their Facetune Instagram posts? Or are they continuing to feed off existing female insecurity under the guise of #BoPo? The clutches of Photoshop's fantasy land are far– reaching. Just take Khloé Kardashian’s response to an unedited photo of her that got leaked to the media by her grandmother as an example. After attempting to wipe the earnest photo from the internet, the reality star admitted to struggling with body image her entire life while in the public eye. According to her latest Instagram post, which features unedited videos and photos of her body, the Kardashian grappled with the

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pressure of meeting external beauty standards, especially when compared to her family. Kardashian lamented that she has always felt like the “ugly sister,” the “fat sister,” and “conditioned to feel … not beautiful enough” being herself.

But right as she teetered on the edge of body positivity, Kardashian walks back her body positive rhetoric: “I love a good filter, good lighting and an edit here and there. The same way I throw on some make–up, get my nails done, or wear a pair of heels … it’s exactly what I will continue to do unapologetically.”

Wearing makeup and slimming down thighs with photo editors before posting isn't shocking in our digital–first, image–obsessed era. But considering Kardashian's attempts to address body image by posting pictures of her 'natural' self, the hypocritical commentary represents just how ingrained beauty standards are within our society. While showing off her toned, hourglass, nearly nude figure to over 100 million followers—many of whom are insecure teenage girls— the message of accepting inner beauty gets lost in Kardashian’s pursuit of perfecting her own image.

Next, let’s turn to Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition.

The company recently released its 2021 Swim Search finalists, which features a diverse selection of 15 potential bathing suit models. According to their

website, one of Swim Search’s goals this year was to represent different kinds of beauty. “As our audience evolves, as the conversation around beauty, size, race and gender change, we are working even harder to celebrate unique beauty,” Sports Illustrated explains before introducing their fifteen Swim Search Finalists via embedded Instagram posts.

True, the magazine did a great job incorporating diversity—diverse in the sense of representing different ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations. But when you actually look into the physiques of Sports Illustrated’s "diverse" finalists, we still find that beauty’s definition is limited by societal ideals.

Immediately, readers seeing the finalists for the first time are slapped in the face with an array of models, who, almost ironically, write soliloquies about accepting self acceptance. Their social media profiles feature professional photoshoots—perfect lighting, hair and makeup done paid for, tight poses. While some of this self promotion is expected from potential swimsuit models, Sports Illustrated's Swim Search finalists reflect nothing new in "beauty." All are young and shaped like Coke bottles. But, worst of all, they all promote insincere natural self–love rhetoric.

Today's beauty standard is hopelessly inauthentic. Models have always been contrived—from their plucked eyebrows to their forced smiles. But thanks to technology, body images are seemingly always a little falsified with the help of airbrushing, Photoshop, and filters. What is this "natural beauty" companies are trying to sell to us? All we see in magazines are faces that aren't quite real.

The beauty standard has in no way broadened; if anything, marketable beauty is less attainable than ever, and that unattainability is now promoted more widely. For Sports Illustrated, a rebranded Swimsuit Edition is a boon—they can check the diversity box and reach more potential readers.

Beyond the shallow politics of fashion, it’s obvious that many attempts of promoting body positivity and inclusivity are superficial, executed primarily for the brownie points of surface level geniality. When it comes down to it, social media and fashion companies rely on the construct of unattainable perfection to ensure the insatiability of the consumer. Beauty is now a never–ending pursuit that can be captured, if only for a moment, with the aid of bronzer and eyelash extensions, and lip filler, and Facetune. And is fair for that to exist next to proclamations of self–love?

ARTS

The Barnes Foundation's Soutine/de Kooning Exhibit is an Ode to Connectivity and Dialogue The careful curation of works from Chaïm Soutine and Willem de Kooning shows us how to stay connected in an era marked by separation. | AAKRUTI GANESHAN

I

arrive at the Barnes Museum at around 9:30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. Almost immediately, I'm greeted by a visual that could rival most masterpieces: sun rays casting selective shadows over the external facade of the building, illuminating the pond of water near the entrance with an iridescent clarity. However, I soon come to realize that the beauty of the Barnes Foundation’s exterior serves only as a precursor to the visual delights that lie within.

The Soutine / de Kooning: Conversations in Paint exhibition is a collection of around 45 works from Willem de Kooning and Chaïm Soutine, organized into five central themes. Co–curated by Simonetta Fraquelli and Claire Bernardi, the exhibition promises to illuminate the affinities between the two titans of 20th–century art. The energetic brushwork, vibrancy, and labored canvases present in Soutine’s work are reflected in de Kooning’s later paintings, providing evidence of a “visual dialogue” between the two artists.

Before I have the chance to explore the exhibition, I'm introduced to the conceptual background underpinning the exhibition through introductory videos and opening remarks from Fraquelli, Bernardi, and Nancy Ireson, the Gund Family Chief Curator and deputy director for collections and exhibitions. Their comments illuminate larger themes that guide our understanding of the exhibition: the skillful manipulation of paint, the vacillations between classical figuration and abstraction, and the ongoing dialogue between bodily figures and landscapes. Accordingly, the exhibition is organized into five connected, smaller rooms, each displaying a carefully selected collection of works from de Kooning and Soutine.

After exploring the different rooms, I sat down with Ireson to get a better sense of the exhibition’s intentions. Regarding the exhibition’s structure, she says that the primary goal of the organization was to encourage viewers to “get a real feel for how this is a visual dialogue…. The themes give you something to think about, but I think the reaction is still something very emotional and physical.”

Her comments ring true, particularly in the second section, “Looking to the Past,” where viewers are treated to a series of paintings by both artists that feature women as their primary subject matter. De Kooning painted his Woman series at the peak of abstraction in America, when artists and critics alike had declared the human figure as an obsolete subject. His portrayal of a distinctively human figure provoked ire from his peers and critics for being outmoded, outlandish, and even misogynistic.

It’s easy to see how de Kooning’s paintings defied norms: Though you can discern a female figure in his work, Queen of Hearts, the relative abstraction of the painting prevents any true representation of the human body. Similarly, Soutine's Woman in Pink, located within the same section, also presents a visual oxymoron. Here, a woman is clearly hunching in her chair, clothed in swaths of pink and red, but the swirling features of Soutine’s paint render the woman and her chair indistinguishable. It's truly impossible to see where the figurative ends and the abstract begins.

The blurred line between abstraction and representation is echoed more explicitly within the “Between the Abstract and Figurative” segment. This section features direct visuals of de Kooning’s

Photo Courtesy of the Barnes Foundation

Queen of Hearts, De Kooning

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ARTS

Woman Accabonac, Soutine

It's almost as if you're looking not just at a painting, but the very process that yielded it.

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iconoclastic Woman series alongside Soutine’s representations of landscapes within the South of France. There's something remarkable about seeing an artwork you’ve only studied in person; as I view de Kooning’s Woman, II, I’m struck by that same feeling of reverence.

On the surface, I can clearly discern the build– up of artistic mediums. The etchings of brushstrokes stand out alongside the marks from pencils. Some parts of the canvas contain more depth than others, but looking at it from a distance still provides the impression of an image on a single plane. It's almost as if you're looking not just at a painting, but the very process that yielded it.

In short, the viewer feels as if they are more than watching a visual dialogue; they are ensconced in it.

Ireson says that this procedural quality lends the artworks a renewed sense of relevance in the 21st century.

“There's an immediacy in looking at the materials and looking at the handling of paint. And when you look at the surface of the Soutine or a de Kooning, you can feel those gestures, you can really sense the making. So for me, it's that painterly quality that makes [these artworks] so relevant now."

De Kooning, as a pivotal figure in American Abstract Expressionism, is assumed to hold more infamy than his counterpart within the exhibition—which is why I particularly appreciated the section that focused entirely on the works of Soutine. Entitled “Soutine in New York,” this room samples the works of Soutine across a broad range of subjects, with haunting portrayals of the figures that pervade daily life yet go unnoticed in high art, like The Pastry Chef and The Room Service Waiter. This room also gives us a taste of his more abstract, dynamic landscapes.

Soutine's landscapes are especially pivotal to the "Women, Water, and Landscapes" section, a room featuring paintings with an ephemeral quality, where every new glance renders a different understanding. De Kooning, in painting Woman in a Garden and Woman Accabonac, was inspired by coastal landscapes, a fact that is reflected in the aquatic quality permeating these works. Soutine’s landscapes also hold a localized quality; glancing at Hill at Céret, you feel as if you are looking at a shifting emotion crystallized within the paint.

Interestingly, Soutine’s landscapes bring to mind the swirling quality of Thomas Hart Benton’s regionalist landscapes, even though regionalism existed as a total counterpoint to all the qualities of abstract expressionism. Perhaps this parallel serves as a reminder for the ultimate paradigm of the exhibition, emphasizing the visual dialogue between artists.

The relationship between artists serves as the crux for the exhibition. “I think what's wonderful about [the exhibition] is it shows that nothing happens in a vacuum. We will respond to things that have come before what we're doing now. We hope that they will continue to connect with the future generations,” says Ireson. Though Soutine and de Kooning worked in different geographical and temporal contexts, “there are these really profound touching points. And I think that today, that sense of being connected feels really cool,”

she adds.

This connectedness is retained in the two artists’ shared love of abstract expressionism. This artistic movement gained traction amid a particularly difficult epoch in American history. Ireson says that critics have now seen shared affinities within Soutine and de Kooning’s works, based on the difficulties of their respective historical contexts. “They did kind of see a kind of lightness in the difficulty of that experience. They found that it may be some of that expressiveness [in their artwork] came from those shared experiences, even though Soutine was not aware of what de Kooning was doing."

Given the vast sense of disconnection imposed upon us by the COVID–19 pandemic, the exhibit provides refreshing insight into how human connection prevails. Ireson hopes that the collection will encourage people to regain a sense of normalcy, especially within the art world, that has been missing for the last year or so. When I ask her what she hopes people will take away from the exhibition, she responds earnestly, “To fall in love with art again, because these are such wonderful paintings, and we've missed looking at art so much."

On that sunny Wednesday morning, that’s exactly what I did. I fell in love, not just with visual art, but with the dialogue surrounding it. The Soutine / de Kooning exhibition offers more than a chance to see art, it offers a space to actively participate in it.

And for all the college students unsure about their visit, Ireson has a simple, apt response.

“If you like painting, you will like this exhibition.”

Woman In Pink, Soutine

ARTS

Meet Tavi Kim, the Sophomore Using Collaboration to Get His Creative Juices Flowing Artist Inspiration | How this design student is spending his semester off in the studio | JESSA GLASSMAN

Illustration by Isabel Liang

W

e begin at the end, as Tavi Kim (C ’23) excitedly announces, “I’m going to go paint.”

His fading purple hair recedes into the distance, as he daydreams about returning to his passion and bops along to what I can only imagine is a carefully curated playlist blasting through his corded earbuds.

As most of us retreat to our dorm rooms to begrudgingly catch up on recorded lectures, Tavi makes his way to his studio and living space to do what he loves: make art.

Since he is taking this semester off, Tavi’s schedule consists largely of time spent being creative—on his own terms, that is. In a normal semester, his studies would guide his artistic passions. As a design major, Tavi looks forward to cultivating those interests, exploring the wide variety of courses offered through the department, and growing into himself as an artist on an academic level. For now, Tavi skates, collaborates with other artists, and spends time decorating his studio in inspirational material and artwork. Tavi says that the uncertainty of each day is stressful, but his love for self–expression, as all–consuming as it is, makes it all worth it.

Growing up in the Philadelphia area, Tavi considers himself a part of the city’s larger artistic community, often working with friends from other local universities like Temple or the University of the Arts. Tavi is certain that his love for collaboration will only widen the bounds of his artistic circle, expanding the community he perceives as a lively social outlet and invaluable source for inspiration. He beams with pride on behalf of these friends, claiming they all create “stellar art” and that they motivate him in all sorts of ways. The variety

in these artists' backgrounds and educational journeys provides Tavi with a robust and multifaceted understanding of design, helping him to become much more than a “Penn student–artist."

Though he adores the robust artistic community outside the bounds of campus, Tavi also engages with collectives specific to Penn. He is part of Penn Art and Wellness and Penn Fashion Collective, two clubs in which he has found many creative companions. While the art community at Penn is small, according to Tavi, the combination of such clubs and like–minded peers in his art classes has helped him solidify a home base.

If it wasn't already clear, Tavi's relationship with other artists is of utmost importance to him. Each moment spent with an artistic friend is a moment of learning for Tavi, whether they're showing him how to do value drawings or just picking his brain about style and creativity. In fact, in the near future, Tavi hopes to turn these companions into colleagues by establishing a joint, physical gallery space full of all their work.

Relaxing into his seat, Tavi admits to the uncertainty shrouding his next steps.

"I don't know what the future holds in store for me," he says, shrugging his shoulders. He pauses for a moment before he adds, "Stay tuned for more art, I guess."

While his favorite mediums currently include painting and digital design, Tavi describes himself as “young, and curious, and still figuring out what part of art [he] likes.” He hopes to get into ceramics in the future and continue soaking up knowledge from his artistic peers, which may lead him in a new, unexpected direction.

Tavi's artistic journey also includes an exploration of

mediums he doesn't particularly enjoy—like charcoal.

Despite not being the biggest fan of the drawing tool, which Tavi says he has used quite a bit in the classroom, he sees the value of moving beyond his comfort zone. “I’m proud of myself for doing it because it definitely improved other areas of my art," he says.

In terms of theme, Tavi oscillates between creating art with purely aesthetic value and art that holds interpretative meaning. For instance, Tavi enjoys riffing on tarot cards, a subject heavy with intuitive and abstract meaning. As he explores the intersection between physical and digital art forms, Tavi hopes to better communicate his emotions through his art. Poetically, he hopes his viewers “sympathize, treat it more like a mirror, and see themselves in [his] art too.”

Approaching life through an artistic lens, Tavi searches for inspiration constantly, spending each day printing out pictures and adding to the de facto mood board on his wall. He pays particular attention to memories from his past that he can’t quite place, like photos of children’s books from his mom that ring a bell somewhere deep down in his psyche. Likewise, in a way that brings the past to life, one of Tavi’s favorite projects is his painting of a floppy disk, which he describes as both a dated yet familiar and iconic piece of technology.

When asked to give advice to budding artists, Tavi says, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everybody goes at their own pace, and it's a marathon—not a sprint.” To Tavi, art is nothing more than expression, and anyone can do it—if they put in the necessary work. And as our interview ends, he wanders off back to his studio to do just that.

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When a Coffee Drinker Gives Tea a Chance 20 34TH STREET MAGAZINE APRIL 22, 2021

Illustration by Tamara Wurman

An avid coffee drinker tries out five popular teas and finds they may be better than expected. | MATTHEW SHEELER

I

'm a coffee addict through and through. Every morning, I make my way to the kitchen, where I prepare a latte with fresh grounds, mix up some cold brew using my carafe and my favorite oat milk creamer, or, rarely, pour a plain old cup of hot coffee from the pot.

But after feeling aesthetic envy towards my avid tea–drinker friends, I wanted to see what the craze was all about. I quickly learned that there are many types of teas, and drinking different kinds can actually be

beneficial for your health—unlike pounding back cup after cup of coffee.

To see whether tea is truly the superior beverage, I picked five popular teas to try— and documented my thoughts along the way. I rated them based on my experience drinking the teas and the health benefits they offer. The rating scale ranges from zero to five, with a zero being an awful experience and no additional health benefits, and a five being an incredible experience with a multitude of health benefits.

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BENGAL SPICE First impression: Good, but coffee is better. Drinking the tea, which I mixed with some warm oat milk, is a calming experience. The drink feels a little like Christmas, but it also tastes overwhelmingly spiced at times. Blended with hints of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and cloves, the tea is Celestial Seasonings' attempt at replicating chai, but decaffeinated. Because one of my favorite parts of chai is the caffeine, I’m going to stick to my iced chai lattes. Bengal Spice isn’t bad—it’s just too similar to caffeinated chai that I have no reason to sway from my go–to.

Or so I thought. Bengal Spice packs a bunch of health benefits into a tiny cup. The spices contain large amounts of antioxidants, which are important for developing a healthy immune system. According to Livestrong, the cloves found in Bengal Spice may also contain polyphenols, which can reduce inflammation and pain. So maybe there actually is reason to use Bengal Spice with my go–to chai latte—especially on days when I've already had a few too many cups of coffee.

EXPERIENCE: 4/5 HEALTH BENEFITS: 4/5 MANGO PASSIONFRUIT HERBAL TEA First impression: This tea smells absolutely delicious. As I drink, I get hints of mango and passionfruit—like the name suggests—and the smell provides the perfect amount of flavor when sipping. I’ve never been a fan of unsweetened iced fruit teas, but after this, I think I want to try more of them served hot.

Black tea is high in antioxidants, and passion fruit also contains several minerals like magnesium, potassium, and calcium. Overall, this tea is the perfect go–to drink for these early spring months—the vibrant flavor can be enjoyed cold or hot depending on your preference.

EXPERIENCE: 4/5 HEALTH BENEFITS: 3/5

SLEEPYTIME TEA First impression: guilt for not trying this sooner. Another Celestial Seasonings creation, Sleepytime tea is advertised as a sleep aid. As if the illustration on the box isn’t relaxing enough, the hints of soothing herbs like spearmint and lemongrass alongside light touches of chamomile cradle you in an abyss of warmth. The flavor is subtle, but I think that’s the point.

The name of Sleepytime tea isn’t just a coincidence. The chamomile and delicate touches of lavender and other herbs are proven to soothe anxieties and induce better sleep. Though it’s not something I’d drink often, I’ll keep it around for stressful days when I decide to wind down by lying in bed with a candle and a TV sitcom.

EXPERIENCE: 4/5 HEALTH BENEFITS: 2/5 CHAMOMILE First impression: confusion. When I first take a sip of the hot chamomile tea, my initial thought is that maybe I made it incorrectly. It isn’t necessarily hard to drink; there just isn't a strong flavor. It's so subtle that I think I'm supposed to mix it with something. A quick Google search reveals chamomile is best when prepared with a splash of milk and some honey.

After making another cup—this time with honey and some oat milk—my experience is immediately elevated. It feels like floating on a cloud—soothing as hell.

Similar to Sleepytime, but stripped down to the most important ingredient, chamomile tea is an interesting experience.

Out of all the teas I've tried, chamomile comes with the most health benefits. It can help lower blood sugar, reduce inflammation, promote sleep and relaxation, and treat some cold symptoms.

EXPERIENCE: 5/5 HEALTH BENEFITS: 5/5

RASPBERRY AND HIBISCUS First impression: admiration for this tea's beautiful color. However, I'm not a big fan of its taste. The flavor is pretty underwhelming compared to the deep purple color. When you see a tea with such a striking look, you expect it to pack the same punch in flavor. I'll give it credit for its freshness—I'm drinking it hot, but I can tell that if I put some ice and sweetener in it, it'd be the perfect summer drink.

The ingredient with the most health benefits is hibiscus, which gives the tea a "tart flavor similar to that of cranberries," according to Healthline.

Many studies have shown that drinking hibiscus tea can lower blood pressure, fight bacteria build–up, and even aid in weight loss.

Some studies performed on rats found that it may even promote liver health.

I've found that drinking tea is an acquired practice— but it has its benefits. As someone who loves coffee in so many forms, I'd never entertained the thought of drinking tea religiously before this experience. I probably won't become a daily tea drinker going forward, but I can confidently say that I've found teas that fill niches coffee cannot.

EXPERIENCE: 3/5 HEALTH BENEFITS: 4/5 APRIL 22, 2021 34TH STREET MAGAZINE 21

UNDER THE BUTTON

Penn Students Send Letters of Continued Interest to Move Up in Vaccine Waitlist

BY CLAIRE CAO Following the expansion of vaccine eligibility to greater parts of the public, Under the Button spoke with students regarding their experiences with vaccine distribution. One Penn student, Chadwell Bradwell (W ’24), reportedly has been waiting more than two weeks on the COVID-19 vaccine waitlist. In the spirit of Ivy Day, he wrote a letter of continued interest to the Pfizer Office of Admissions and was gracious enough to share it with us:

"To whom it may concern, Thank you for taking the time to review my application. Even though I am currently committed to Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer remains my top choice, and, if given an offer from your waitlist, I still plan to accept it as soon as possible.

With all due respect to the West Philadelphia community, I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated my urgent need for the vaccine — namely so I can make it to all the darties going on right now. Although your website states that getting vaccinated early is unethical and potentially against the law, my esteemed colleagues at Sigma Apple Pi have informed me that there 'ain’t no laws' when one is consuming 'the claws.'

Since I submitted my application, I have also continued to pursue my interests in high-risk-status extracurricular activities. For example, I have actively been smoking more nicotine than ever. I am pleased to announce to the admissions committee that my initiative has paid off and that I am now officially a proud recipient of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Enclosed in this update is also a letter of recommendation from my Finance 100 professor, who can attest to my fervent passion for Microsoft Excel and the whims of the stock market, both of which can be used for the betterment of mankind. Thus, I should receive the vaccine earlier. I implore you to ask yourself: how is Jessica the design major going to save our economy? She gonna save us as a PDF or something? Give the vaccine to those who actually have a chance at employment. Besides, being vaccinated is a highly marketable skill, especially in the finance industry, since it means you’re healthy enough to fully exploit. A Goldman recruiter personally told me that.

Thank you again for your consideration! Please do not hesitate to contact me with any further questions.

Sincerely, Chadwell Bradwell III"

Caring Professor Announces Final Will Be Called "Midterm" to Relieve Stress

BY ALICIA LOPEZ Exams are upon us, and students are stressed as usual. However, one generous professor, physicist Paul Heiney, won't let the end of the year kill his students. On Tuesday, Heiney announced he would be canceling the final exam. Students were shocked and immediately relieved, some crying tears of joy and others nearly going into cardiac arrest. Instead, students will be having a "midterm" that covers the course material for the entire year.

"This is an important time in a young person's life. We can't have these kids — what's the phrase? —

'stressing out' so much," sympathized Heiney. Among many supporters of the change including Oprah Winfrey, Amy Gutmann, Joe Biden, and the late Pope Benedict III, CAPS has been perhaps the most vocal about the decision.

"As an organization dedicated to pretending to care about student mental health, this is right up our alley!" reported an anonymous (does anybody actually know anyone who works at CAPS?) spokesperson. Heiney's announcement has prompted a wave of action around

22 34TH STREET MAGAZINE APRIL 22, 2021

campus including an official University notification that looked eerily similar to the last University email — almost like someone had "found and replaced," the words "climate change" to "student stress levels."

A University email, titled "A Message to the Penn Community on Combatting Student Stress," included lines such as, "The battle to defeat student stress requires the commitment of nations around the world and all of us personally, and one to which Penn is unwaveringly committed" and "Combatting student stress is one of

the paramount challenges of our time," lines that were basically in the last email verbatim.

Beyond the touching and very sincere email, Penn offered an extra Engagement Day set for July 25. While these are stressful times, Penn has so many understanding professors who truly and deeply care about student stress. First among them, Gutmann recorded a promotional video wishing the best for students saying, "Good luck on your upcoming finals and be sure to take July 25 off— er to engage with your community!"

UNDER THE BUTTON

Soviet-Style Architecture Students Visit 1920 Commons for Inspiration

BY IAN ONG

Creative! Students of Soviet-style architecture trekked to 1920 Commons last Saturday to gain insight into the finer points of socialist construction and design.

The small class of 13 students took an in-depth tour of the glorified cafeteria to observe uncaring, brutalist conformity in its most distilled form.

“When I look at the front of Commons, I am struck with an indescribable feeling,” Zoe Tocquesville ( C'22) said, grasping at the air in front of her. “It’s almost as if … I can hear … the laborers of the world … calling out to me…”

The building’s drab interior, which reportedly conjured up memories of cold winter mornings in Petrograd, elicited a strong reaction from College sophomore James Patson.

“Jesus Christ, is that a plainclothes cop standing behind that pillar over there? Or am I seeing things?”

Patson sputtered frantically. “Please, officer, listen to me, you’ve got the wrong guy! Do I look like Gorbachev to you? Holy shit, I’ve gotta get outta here!”

Following a dismal three-hour tour of Commons, the traumatized group of students left with fresh ideas, a new perspective on the Constructivist architecture

movement, and a renewed sense of social duty to their fellow comrades.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” Linda Garrosh (C ‘22) said bleakly as she exited the building.

“You know what? Commons is so much more than a dilapidated, miserable-looking, grey monolith,” Tocquesville said, a tear rolling down her face. “It’s a dilapidated, miserable-looking, grey monolith that sucks all of the hope and happiness out of anyone who walks past it.”

Photos by Chase Sutton / The Daily Pennsylvanian and Liftarn / CC0

How the Bridge to 1920 Commons Inspired Miley's Hit Single "The Climb"

BY MERESA GARCÍA The former Disney child star looked at the bridge to 1920 Commons and remembered her great struggle she faced so many years ago …

My legs burned and my back ached. I gasped and wheezed with each step. "Is it worth it?" I asked myself as I felt beads of sweat pooling around my forehead. Maybe I should quit. I wanted to. Desperately.

But then, I saw it! There it was! Just mere cobblestones away: Commons.

During her exclusive Under the Button interview, Miley Cyrus shared the above excerpt from her personal diary, where she recounted the trials and tribulations that she — along with many of her fans — experienced as she traversed the steep face of the bridge outside Commons.

“There were many times where I felt like I was losing,” related the country-pop artist, “But I told

myself that these are the moments I’m going to remember. That’s why I gotta keep pushing.”

The uphill Commons battle inspired the young artist to write her hit single “The Climb,” which would go on to touch the hearts of many Penn students years after its initial 2009 release. The song continues to encourage her fans to believe that they too are strong enough to take on the bridge. At times, the hike for the high rise field or the run towards the compass seems like a colossal feat. In fact, many have succumbed to their aching leg pains and failed to ever reach the bridge’s halfway point, let alone its top.

But with Cyrus’ lyrics blasting through their AirPods, students manage to keep their head held high, knowing that it isn’t how fast they get there, or what may even be on the other side — it’s all about the climb.

Photo by Meresa García // The Daily Pennsylvanian

APRIL 22, 2021 34TH STREET MAGAZINE 23

Senior Shoutouts Send a message to your graduating friends and classmates for free or include a picture for an additional fee.

Text Only: Free

includes PDF copy of the paper

Text & Picture: $25

includes color and two mailed print editions Ally,

Catie,

40Creepteen lives on! Can’t wait for NYC with you guys!

Gabby

Elena

1.7”

3.5”

Submit yours at: theDP.com/SeniorShoutouts Deadline: Friday, May 7th at midnight Issue will be mailed week of May 16th

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2”

2”

I’m going to miss you so much! Who else am I supposed to eat entire pizzas with?