Claro Que Sí - Edition 2

CLARO QUE SÍ EDITION II

YALE’S PREMIER LATINE UNDERGRADUATE MAGAZINE

Table of

Contents Letter from the Editor

3 La Superhéroe Más Poderosa 4 El Recuerdo de Noche Buena 5 I’m Half 6 William’s Poetry 7 War Kitchen 8 Embracing Eternal Love

9 Atlas 10 Amor Eterno 12 Like You’ll Never See Me Again 13 Death’s Meaning of Home 14 Huita 15 Highlighting 16 And So it Goes... 18 Yearly Revolution 19 Versos Sin Terminar Sobre Lima 20 Querida Montse 22 Acknowledgements 23

Masthead

2

Paloma Vigil, Editor in Chief Angelica Sanchez, Editor & Contributor Isabella Walther-Meade, Social Chair Julian Barrera, Layout Editor Kassandra Navarrete, Editor & Contributor Lua Prado, Editor & Contributor Maddy Megal, Resident Artist & Contributor Michael Paz, Managing Editor & Photo Contributor Michaell Santos Paulino, Editor & Contributor Montserrat Rodriguez, Public Outreach Chair & Contributor Diego del Aguila, Contributor Andrea Chow, Contributor Amanda Budejen, Contributor Michelle Foley, Cover Artist Sumarha Tariq, Contributor Rosa Alcala, Contributor Carolina Melendez, Contributor Daisy Garcia, Contributor Maia Nehme, Contributor William Gonzalez, Contributor Sofia Morfin, Contributor Zenaida Aguirre Gutierrez Contributor

Letter From the Editor ¡Hola a todos y bienvenidos a la segunda edición de Claro Que Sí!

As a little girl, visiting my Cuban grandmother’s house was the highlight of my week, especially during the holidays. “Vamos a cocinar flan para la familia entera,” she’d say before every Noche Buena. Pots, pans, eggs, and sugar (lots and lots of sugar) would line the old kitchen counter in her house. Every year the flan had a new flavor (usually the newest item advertised that year in Trader Joe’s or Sedano’s), and I would wonder what holiday surprise awaited me at my abuela’s casita. Whether pumpkin, peppermint, or cinnamon flan, the entire family devoured it on Noche Buena, and I would proudly claim responsibility for the masterpiece while my abuelita stared and laughed endearingly. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that her flan wasn’t wholly traditional, it was evolving year after year with a variety of expertly advertised American holiday flavors. I got to see how my grandmother made that flan and, as an extension, her life in America her own. As a Cuban-American, this unification became a part of who I was, and a simple flan was the perfect symbol. This is what the holidays represented to me: togetherness in terms of culture, family, and flavors.

Claro’s 2nd Edition is themed after festividades or celebrations. Our writers and artists have taken the theme and shaped it into whatever they feel is noteworthy of a celebration, joyful or wistful. We celebrate everything in our day-to-day lives, whether it's Noche Buena, funerals, or birthdays.

Celebrations are about honoring an event, belief, or person in a subjective manner that means the most to someone. They often carry significant weight and a splash of many emotions and flavors — sometimes even pumpkin spice from Trader Joe’s.

Welcome to our second edition.

- Paloma Vigil ‘25 3

la superhéroe más poderosa en la primaria siempre nos presentaban la pregunta: ¿cuál es tu superhéroe favorito? mis compañeros contestaban: batman barbie o spiderman. yo, por ser hija amorosa y única, contestaba: mi mamá es mi superhéroe. y los compañeros reaccionaban: ¿pero cómo puede ser? tu mamá no tiene superpoderes. bueno, sí es verdad pero déjenme explicarles. mi mamá no vuela como superman pero sí hace volar el carro cuando se nos hace tarde a una cita. no tiene la capa roja de wonder woman pero tiene algo parecido: un mantel rojo que se pone pa’ cocinar y cuando está puesto la comida sale demasiado deliciosa– su arroz rojo con la cantidad perfecta de sazón sus albóndigas de consistencia perfecta y sus enchiladas de salsa hecha con amor. mi mamá no puede cargar toneladas de peso como hulk pero ha cargado cuatro hijos en sus hombros y la espalda cuando llorábamos o cuando jugábamos. ahora, ella nos levanta sin falta cuando nos caemos o cuando nos sentimos fracasados. ella carga su cobija de seguridad. mi mamá es fuerte y toma riesgos como cualquier otro superhéroe en las películas. mi mamá se monta a los paseos más altos en six flags y no le teme entrar a lugares inexplorados. alrededor de ella existe una nube de gracia y equilibrio. desde allí le brilla una luz de posibilidades y cariño que elimina mi oscuridad. si fuera por mí ya hubiera hartos libros y películas sobre mi mamá porque ella es una combinación de todos los superhéroes que ya existen. si mi mamá no es superhéroe ¿cómo es que me ha salvado la vida miles de veces?

- Zenaida Aguirre Gutiérrez ‘24

4

Art by Maddy Megal '25

El Recuerdo de Noche Buena I close my eyes and picture my Noche Buena growing up. While my Noche Buena now is spent with family in my apartment staying as far as we can from the cold, my core memories come from the years I spent celebrating Noche Buena in the Dominican Republic.

It was one of the best days of the year, one that we prepped weeks in advance for. Spent in the street of Santiago right outside of my grandmother’s house, a place that was used weekly as the social hub of the family, the 24th of December always created a core memory. I’d wake up to grandmother and mom cooking for the night time. On the 24th, breakfast and lunch was non-existent. We all purposely waited in hunger together, breaking fast as a family. The smell of food took over not only the whole house, but the neighborhood as well. In one corner, there was the smell of pernil. Inthe other, you could smell the ensaladas, of all kinds, being prepped. Even if the food was ready by the evening, there was no intention to start eating until 8pm. As a kid, this felt like a punishment. A punishment I would forget about as soon as the foil wrappers were lifted from the trays and the smell of love permeated the room. The pastelon, lasagna, moro, casave con ojo, and more that I couldn’t even keep track of. And of course, you couldn’t forget the Country Club which we bought liters of.

For a celebration this huge, we had to put on our best clothes.The newly iron pressed outfit was prepped since the month before. The outfit that you bought well in advance and would look at it every time at the closet door. The fit might have been for the sala, but I have memories of my cousins and I walking around with no purpose but to show off our outfits around because why not?

It was Noche Buena. With our new outfits and heavy plates, we would all sit and enjoy the blasting music. Los merengues navideños would keep coming with no ending, as if they were waiting for us to stop eating and start dancing instead. After a couple of rounds of food, the night still held many fun moments. Running around with my cousins as we played tag and another game that could come up would take up most of the time. We would take dancing breaks, tiring the body but rejuvenating our souls. .

When did the night end, you might ask? Well, there was no ending. All of a sudden, 3 am would hit and the faitgue would overtake me on the living room couch. The next time I opened my eyes I was in my room. I was tired with every muscle in my body hurting, but that did not matter. The best thing about the night was that it was just a preview of new years eve, which may or may not have been more extensive.

- Michaell Santos ‘26

Photos by Michael Paz ’25

5

I’m Half “I’m half…”

This is the refrain that I repeat again and again and again. “I’m half Puerto Rican, half Spanish and Midwestern Italian,” is often its completion—it’s the only way to simply explain an identity that is anything but.

Being half has also meant being half brown, and half white. Half “privileged,” half “oppressed.” Half immigrant. Half Spanish, half English. Half one culture, half another. Half one world, half another. Half fulfilling one set of assumptions, half another.

Being half means never being whole.

That is, apart from one day of the year, where being half means being whole twice over. This day reminds me every year that I should be proud of my halves, and that saying “I’m half” is a declaration of the gift my life is.

Ever since I can remember, Christmas Day meant a table spread with pernil, plantain stuffing, and green bean casserole. The days surrounding Christmas were marked by days laboring over a midwestern beef stew, or a gathering of “ALEGRE” (Association of Latinos Etc. of Glen Ridge (Etc.)) On Christmas, the halves of my life are brought together through a conglomeration of food, languages coexisting beautifully, and cultural traditions from across the world. How lucky am I? Is the refrain I strive to repeat throughout the year, yet it only appears in full force when the trees are missing their leaves and snow covers the ground. On occasion, it appears during other festividades. I grew up getting sung happy birthday twice–once in English and once in Spanish. I cherished waking up 12 days after Christmas to 3 gifts left under the tree by the Three Kings, while my classmates’ holidays were long over.

I grew up in a community where my “white” half existed far more comfortably. I have had to fight for my Latinidad ever since I can remember; it is not something I ever got to simply “have.” Spending time with other Latinos required planning, learning Spanish meant a tutor whose rejection I now regret constantly. It may have been easier to simply embrace the half of me that “belonged” in my small town, or at my private school.

But the fault with doing so lies squarely in truth: that was only half of me. My other half looked me in the mirror everyday, with my tan skin and body that never quite fit in clothes not designed for me. My other half was also my mom; my role model and best friend. And yet, I do not claim to have her experiences or walk through the world in the same way she does, because I am half.

Over the years, I learnt to stop saying “only” half. My halfness, as Christmas and other festividades remind me, is a superpower. My father’s life, and the lives of his parents, define mine as much as my mothers’ does.

Embracing his side had simply been made easier by the environment that I grew up in.

Being defined by being two halves is not as simple as being one whole. That is why on Christmas, when Spanish and English Christmas songs play in my home, when the smell of arroz con gandules whiffs through the house, when my great-grandmothers hand knit ornaments from a rural town in Wisconsin adorn my Christmas tree, is when I am able to be not only whole, but whole twice over. It is when I do not look in the mirror and see two halves, but see a person who is more whole than I ever thought possible. Who is so full of culture, and beauty, and love, that I can walk through the world being proud to say “I am half.”

– Carolina Melendez Lucas ‘27

6

– Art by Maddy Megal ‘25

Little Serendipity I found A dollar bill In the pocket Of that jacket I hardly wear Except for yesterday When it was cold And all the other jackets Were in the wash, so I shrugged it on To meet a friend Who needed One more dollar To pay for parking.

Arrivals The airplane hisses in the voice of the rice cooker opening in my abuela’s apartment, steam rising like the clouds above the parking lots where I shared Pub Subs and secrets with high school friends, who gathered around that table at the taco place where I got too high on an edible the waiter gave us, but it’s something to tell my kids when I was their age chasing late-night beach drives, singing The Voice covers at the top of my lungs and eating vanilla frosted donuts with rainbow sprinkles from the twenty-four-hour donut shop, crumbs tumbling into the seat of my dad’s car, picking me up at the airport, my dad was waiting with blue Gatorade and water, a liquid feast to welcome me back home.

Communion After the hymns And the body of Christ Were swallowed whole By our seven-year-old Stomachs stuffed In black and white, We burst through those tired Church doors and Paraded across the street To the Cuban place, leaving A trail of ties and veils And trading our Bibles for menus Serving a heartier scripture: fried Plantain parables, ropa vieja Verses, arroz blanco blessings, And mojo garlic gospel.

We observed the sacrament of Second grade mischief At the kids table behind Adults drinking their own Holy Eucharist. We dared My cousin to drink hot sauce Mixed with ketchup mixed With Coca-cola mixed together As he threw up all over himself And we called it disgusting and Divine, our own Last Supper.

- William Gonzalez ‘24

7

War Kitchen Mexico has the highest per capita consumption rates of sugary drinks globally, contributing to rising rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Mexican Americans face a higher risk of diabetes compared to many other ethnic groups in the U.S.

War kitchen looks like Empty shelves Clean pantry No sauces no spices no sabor No splatter on the stovetop Because high cholestorol and low glycemic index War body feels like Body stiff, going numb, Tingling in your feet Feels like the heavy eyelids of the 4:30am wakeup-for-work call Feels like the machine-gun nightmares of streets and deserts and borders Feels like the heavy burden of being told to be lighter War body sounds like Some wrinkly doctor told you no more tortillas, no more elotes, “Cause I know how your people love that kind of stuff” Low carb, no sugar, on a diet Intermittent fasting and paleo and low glycemic index “Anything except ——— cause that’s too much calories” Lose inches, lose those lonjas, lose yourself Sounds like desde que eras niña you’ve always been a tragona War dinner feels like grumbling stomach and late-night binges Pricking your finger to check your glucose, laying wreathes for the days when abuelo spent nicking his arm on agave leaves Calloused hands and bruised knees cost more in labor Than cane sugar in aluminum cans— In a place where a bottle of water costs more than Coca-Cola, It’s a surprise that 35% of the population is diabetic?

War waged In South Montebello grocery stores In sterile, white offices, Grenades of 99¢ Chiquita bananas and $3.99 Driscoll’s strawberries from the palms of farmworkers who feed the world but not themselves War waged on the battlegrounds of bodies Armed with crowded shelves, Sunday potlucks, dirty pantries, Sauces and spices and sabor, - Andrea Chow ’25 Something they might also call a mess, I become the guerilla fighter in the kitchen, Waving the victory flag of my red salsa, my green poblanos, my white dinner plate 1: Gómez, Eduardo J. “Coca-Cola’s political and policy influence in Mexico: understanding the role of institutions, interests and divided society.” Health Policy and Planning 34.7 (2019): 520-528. | 2: Hazuda, Helen P., et al. “Effects of acculturation and socioeconomic status on obesity and diabetes in Mexican Americans: the San Antonio Heart Study.” American journal of epidemiology 128.6 (1988): 1289-1301.

MICHAEL PAZ ’25

8

5

Pensando en Ustedes Embracing Eternal Love: Reflection of Loss, Tradition, and Love

Death in my culture is a beauty in disguise.

When I think of the death of my loved ones, I am stricken with pain, but I am also comforted by images of beautiful flowers, family reunions, and a strengthened faith.

When I think of my great grandmother’s

passing, the tune to Amor Eterno is quickly stuck in my head. The song describes my arguing feelings of sadness but also the idea that our love is now eternal. It is stronger after death than in life. Although I may never be able to hug my great grandmother again, I know our shared love for lotería, cafecito, and a good and quick homily at Mass forever lives on. I think of how beautiful it is to honor my loved ones with music. For my great grandmother, a more traditional Catholic conservative, a mariachi that sings traditional songs represents who she is. For my grandfather and uncle, who loved to party and dance, a banda or grupo ranchero honors who they are. The music that lingers on in our ears is the reminder that the love I shared with my loved ones can still be seen everyday in the little things.

The death of a loved one typically implies a

loss in the family. Losing an extra seat at the table, a tv-watching buddy, a sweet treat enthusiast, a Law & Order SVU lover. However, my grandfather’s passing made my family bigger and more connected. My grandfather’s funeral brought together the children from both of his marriages, after decades of not speaking to each other. They were able to set aside petty differences and unite. It was ironic to think that

although I lost my grandfather, my main father figure throughout my childhood, I gained an uncle, two aunts, and plenty of new cousins.

In my Roman Catholic-Mexican family, it is tradition to bring food, drinks, and gifts to the viewing, creating a potluck celebration for each day. Even after the funeral, the family gathers for 9 days to pray the Rosary. It has become a running joke in my family that we should rename funerals to family reunions because of their immense power to bring us together.

My religion brings me comfort in knowing

that I will see my loved ones again and that death is not always a negative thing. My great grandmother faced large discomfort and pain after receiving open heart surgery and battling cancer. Her death brought her eternal peace.

My grandfather was a diabetic with a terrible diet, and his health was constantly weighing over him and preventing him from living a fulfilling life. I believe his soul can now live on without physical limitations. My uncle who lived in a cartel-controlled Mexico can now live freely without fearing persecution and oppression. My religion provides me comfort and a sense of purpose beyond the immediate loss I feel.

- Rosa Alcala ‘26

9

Atlas Erick Nehme had fifteen best friends. That’s the classic Erick story. His wife, Teresa, and his two brothers all recounted it to me — unprompted and of their own accord.

Tere told the story with a practiced air, as if she’d recited it too many times to count. Over the course of Erick and Tere’s wedding reception, fifteen men delivered individual toasts: his childhood buddies, college friends, and the co-owners of his restaurant. Each of them said that Erick was their best friend. “He could connect with anybody and everybody,” Tere mused. “He has best friends who are super square, not social, workaholics. And at the same time, he would be best friends with someone who’s super social and a party animal.”

But it wasn’t just friends and family that Erick easily connected with. It was strangers, too. A quick bite at a nearby taco place would morph into an hour-long discussion with the restaurant’s owner about Mexican politics. A short stint in a doctor’s waiting room would lead to an impassioned debate with the person sitting next to him about which team would triumph in the upcoming World Cup. Erick struck up conversations with taxi drivers and supermarket cashiers and people queued up in lines, whether staunch Trump supporters or fellow immigrants.

Erick was raised in Cuernavaca, Morelos, a two-hour drive from Mexico City. He and his two brothers, Edgar and Enrique, grew up running wild. With Erick as their ringleader, the boys set empty lots ablaze and skateboarded off ramps and snuck rides on their neighbors’ motorcycles just to see what would happen. Each time, they escaped largely unscathed, with nothing but scrapes, bruises, and the occasional scar as evidence for when they recounted what had happened to their friends.

One day, Erick was playing cowboys and Indians with his cousin and some neighborhood friends. The boys pelted each other with BB gun bullets and ducked behind makeshift shields. Convinced that his gun was unloaded, the cousin took aim at Erick’s face and pulled the trigger.

Erick lost his left eye.

After the accident, Erick experienced dizzy spells and lost confidence in his athletic abilities. Rather than roping his brothers into his escapades, he became the most cautious one of the three. “He became more of a thinker, very poised on how he expressed his ideas,” Erick’s younger brother Enrique, four years his junior, explained to me. “When you go through such a traumatic episode, you either go down and stay down, or you come up and figure out a way to cover your shortages.”

Erick met Tere when they were ten years old, not long after his accident. They quickly bonded over their shared love of food and role as the “responsible” ones in their respective friend groups. Towards the end of high school, Erick asked Tere on their first date and promised her a home-cooked meal. When she showed up at the Nehmes’ home, he proudly presented her with a bowl of pasta drenched in a seven-cheese sauce. “You’ve got your typical Parmesan cheese, check. Romano cheese, check, okay. Mozzarella cheese,” Tere recalled. “Then he kept telling me he even put Kraft cheese on, Velveeta cheese… We were just laughing about it. It was the first time ever that he had cooked in his life, but he went for it and did it anyway.”

Erick and Tere dated on and off for the next decade. In 2006, they moved to New York together and got married. Before leaving for their honeymoon in China — a destination they’d picked in hopes of having an adventurous getaway — they challenged each other to taste-test each new dish they stumbled upon during the trip, from scorpions to silkworms. Throughout their marriage, they continued to seek good food in high-end Manhattan restaurants and holes-in-the-wall tucked away in the Bronx alike. Erick even took their sons, Diego and Pablo, on a week-long “Taco Tour” of Mexico in the fall of 2021. And all the while, Erick used food to bridge the gap between himself and the people around him, from chatting with busboys about the state of the Mexican economy to striking up philosophical conversations with diners at a neighboring table.

10

Yet Tere, Enrique, and Edgar — who is two years Erick’s senior — believe that Erick’s love for connecting with people sometimes proved detrimental to his health. “He spent so much time focused on others that sometimes he didn’t spend enough time looking at himself,” Enrique reflected.

Edgar easily recalled one such time. As teenagers, he and Erick had always attended their neighborhood’s annual New Year’s Eve party together. The brothers would stuff themselves with chilaquiles before flocking to the dance floor, where they’d swivel their hips to the beat of bachata music for hours. One year, Edgar decided to head home around two o’clock in the morning. Erick refused to join him, intent on pounding back tequila shots and moshing to reggaetón hits with his friends until daybreak.

The boys’ mother frantically shook Edgar awake the next morning. She’d found Erick’s pants abandoned at the house’s entrance, and their owner was nowhere to be found. After hours of searching, they spotted him sleeping by the side of the pool. “Everybody was afraid that he had thrown himself into the sea,” Edgar said. “He always tried to be the last man standing at a party and abused his body as a result.”

Photo by Michael Paz

Even as an adult, most of Erick’s disagreements with Tere and his brothers stemmed from the same issue: his inability ​​ to limit his time spent with his friends. After moving to New York, Erick would visit Mexico a few times a year. His brief visits were jam-packed with cocktail parties, college reunions, and individual meals with his fifteen best friends. Enrique, who was living in Mexico City at the time, was increasingly irritated about always having to compress their one-on-one time into tiny slots in his brother’s convoluted schedule.

“There were so many people who wanted to see him,” Enrique recalled. “Sometimes I wanted him entirely for myself or for my kids, and it was hard because that wasn’t the type of person he was. That wasn’t the type of network he built.”

Tere experienced a similar frustration in their day-to-day life in New York. Each night, Erick would return home drained of energy from working and socializing all day. “He had that pressure of being ever-present for everybody, and once he got home at night, he was like, ‘Okay, I cannot do this anymore,’” Tere described. “I do think that was a strain on our marriage.”

In September 2020, Erick was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. Despite multiple surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy, the cancer metastasized and spread to his liver. Last August, he slipped into a coma and passed away. He was 48.

At his funeral, the same fifteen men stood up, one by one. Yet when they spoke, they didn’t describe the crushing loss of their best friend.

They spoke of a man who had lived a life so tightly interwoven with that of others that they doubted he’d ever truly be gone.

Erick Nehme at 49: Crooning Kenny Rogers songs on road trips with his restaurant co-owner through the Mexican countryside. Sharing tacos al pastor with his wife at a shabby food stand in the Bronx. Bragging about his perfect Wordle score — both the Spanish and English version — in multiple group chats. Punting a ball over his brothers’ heads in a fiercely competitive soccer tournament. And, of course, surrounding himself with people, from friends to acquaintances to former flames… despite the occasional chagrin of his sidelined family members.

- Maia Nehme ‘27

- Photos by Michael Paz

11

Amor Eterno My grandfather died on a Sunday. I found my mom crying in the laundry room, her shoulders shaking with the machine, and her sobs matching the rhythm of the tumbling dryer. She was experiencing loss, true loss, but in that moment, I felt hollow. Something unknown had been ripped apart from me. Was it grief I felt?

Was it shock? How could you grieve for a loved one you never got to love?

Se puede amar así? Why couldn’t I shed a single tear for the man? I felt self-conscious of my dry eyes in the presence of such sorrow. So I cried for my mother: a child who lost her best friend, her confidant, and her father. I cried for her injustice and the fact that she hadn’t seen him in more than a decade thanks to arbitrary border laws.

The following weeks were a blur. As quick as death had taken him, the entire ordeal was over. There was no real funeral service for the ones across the border. No one sent us casseroles, and no one wore black.

My mom wept at tiny distorted pictures of her father’s casket and attended the e-funeral on Facebook.

The long distance calls to Mexico became less frequent, and the only reminder of her loss was a photograph we had of my grandfather next to a shrinking flicker of a white candle on our small living room table. In it, my beaming cousin, who is in her hot pink Quinceañera dress, my aunt, and my grandmother, stand behind him.

Not long after my grandfather’s death, and before the candle next to the picture had burnt out completely, we heard of my grandmother’s passing. This time, the candlelight blazed with rage. Like a moth to a flame, the picture and the bright light reeled me in towards its small table as a constant reminder of the family I missed out on. Again, my eyes remained dry, but the hollowness was filled with another feeling: resentment. The candle burned viciously like my jealousy of the girl in the big pink dress. I hated that the only mental image I had of

12

Photo by Michael Paz ‘ 25

that my favorite color is blue. I will of my grandparents was of them never know what it is like to hug being someone else’s.

Their deaths meant that it was truly them, make my grandfather laugh, over. The last link I could have with and listen to my grandmother commy grandparents was gone, buried. plain about the cold. Their death took away the knowledge of my history, a I used to hope that one day I’d go to Mexico, and the border would no part of my identity, and the potential longer hold me and my grandparents’ for love. Now, where does that amor go? love hostage. I dreamt of visiting, That love will always stay locked seeing their wrinkled smiles, and within me, and mis viejitos will hearing my mom’s embarrassing always be a picture of another girl childhood stories. Pero ahora más que un río nos separa: son las leyes with her grandparents. I can accept y 6 pies bajo tierra. Two lines that I that they didn’t come to my Quince and they won’t be at any of my cannot cross. graduations, but I will always wish I wondered how that cousin in the picture felt when they died. Did she that we were alive together. Maybe cry? I know she went to their funer- in another life, and maybe in my als, I know she touched their casket, head I can dream that they would’ve been proud. Todavía se me quiebra and I know she has memories to grieve. She could miss the sound of el corazón en mil pedazos y se me my grandfather’s laughter and recall hace un nudo en la garganta cuando the way his tired eyes sparkled when pienso en ellos. La verdad es que si he told stories. She could learn how me pone triste, and all I can do is cry. There is no rulebook or 5 stagto make tortillas from my grandes of grief for losing the two people mother and miss braiding her long that mean so much to you but you’ve gray hair.

I wish I could rightfully explain the never met. But I can now assure you, feeling of losing someone you loved they are loved ones. Que tristeza que no se pudo cumplir. En otra vida mis but never met. Es un amor eternamente sin cumplir. It’s like yearning amores. En donde quiera que esten, for a glass of water after you’ve been I can only hope they know, that they wandering the desert. It’s like hold- can feel, they are my forever love. ing your breath. I feel broken that they’ll never step foot on campus, - Daisy Garcia ‘27 judge me for the way I keep my dorm or deduce from my decor

Like You’ll Never See Me Again Denial Me niego a creer. To believe that you would cut my pepino and mango in all types of shapes and sizes, season the freshly-picked produce just the way I liked it, and place the finished product onto my Little Mermaid plate, just so you could bring it to my room so I could eat between meals. To believe that you would cook for me con mucho amor y sazón and cater to me like no one else. I was your consentida, your chaparrita cuerpo de uva and your cielito lindo. To believe that holidays meant sitting on your piernas flacas and listening to the same consejos y palabras sabias that I’ve heard before. To believe that I routinely experienced the kindest and most vulnerable version of you when it was just us two, never thinking about how one day would be the last time our souls would embrace. Me niego a creer.

Anger Grito como nunca antes, lloro sin cesar y me quedo cegada por la ira cuando pienso en ti. You were not supposed to leave me yet. Not when you haven’t seen me graduate from college or walked me down the aisle. Not when you still had more life to live and more Coronas to drink, not when I still needed you. A veces te resiento por dejarte ir. Por ser egoísta y no pensar en mí cuando diste tu último aliento. Por no pensar que tu pérdida sería la pesadilla de mi existencia. And then I resent myself for not cherishing you more, mad at myself for all the times I got annoyed at you and the times I wouldn’t let you give me a proper kiss on the cheek because the feeling of your mustache would bother me. Grito como nunca antes, lloro sin cesar y me quedo cegada por la ira cuando pienso en ti. You were not supposed to leave me yet.

Bargaining ¿Y si hubiera hecho las cosas de manera diferente? To go back and say yes to you every time you wanted to explore the world. To go back and keep our conversations alive with more questions instead of cutting them short. To go back and let things play out differently, so that galaxies could shift, clocks could alter, and your time with me would not have expired.

Depression La gente dice que cuando uno pierde a un ser querido y pasa el tiempo, la cosas se van mejorando. Me han engañado al convencerme de tales mentiras y falsedades. I don’t think it ever gets better. Perhaps your coping mechanisms change and you become better at dealing with the loss, but how can it ever get better when that person played such a pivotal role in your life? As time goes by, it gets worse.

Time reminds me that I can’t remember your voice, your laugh, or even how tall you are. El tiempo me recuerda que nunca te volveré a ver hasta que nos volvamos a encontrar en otra vida. Sometimes when I stare at our pictures and reminisce about my memories of you, I feel as if your departure was yesterday, and I am reminded that you aren’t where you are supposed to be. Other times, I block you from my memory so I won’t have to face the consequences. La gente dice que cuando uno pierde a un ser querido y pasa el tiempo, la cosas se van mejorando. Me han engañado al convencerme de tales mentiras y falsedades.

gal Me ddy Art by Ma

Acceptance Nada dura para siempre pero tu ser y tu forma de ser han quedado grabados en mi memoria por una eternidad. Tus tejanas que cubrían tu cabeza calva, tus manos trabajadoras que levantaban cuchillo y tenedor para disfrutar de una chuleta de puerco, tus patas largas que tocaban piso al iniciar los primeros pasos de un buen zapateado encabronado. Hoy sonrío al recordar tu ser y le doy gracias a Diosito que te haya puesto en mi vida por el tiempo que lo hizo. Tu amor está grabado en mi corazón para siempre.

­– Kassandra Navarrete ‘25

13

Death’s Meaning of Home I wish I could give some groundbreaking perspective

if she “made it” in the United States or not. She knew

on death. I long for the day in whichI could fully believe

where home was, and it wasn’t our two bedroom apart-

some enlightened rendition of the beauty behind death

ment in Queens or the home she settled in Brooklyn

and it undeniably being a part of life’s natural process.

when she first arrived. She considered Peru to be her

I don’t have either of those perspectives. I have the real

home because that is where she was certain she would

and raw sense of emptiness that has left me in a con-

be able to return to. My mother was in love with her

stant state of feeling like something is missing–like I’ve

origins. Peru was responsible for the creation of her

left something behind and I can’t recall what it is.

values and dreams. Peru was comfort and security, and that’s exactly what she intended to introduce me to. My

The ruthless force that took over my mother’s life

mother used to say I was “more Peruvian” than she was.

had shown absolutely no mercy and didn’t care about

I loved Peru as unconditionally as she did.

what it did to her, or the fact she’d be leaving my older brother and I behind. I understood cancer well enough

She never failed to take me to her country, making sure

to know it didn’t care about anything that it had done

to give me other places I could call home. While cancer

to my family. Cancer doesn’t care that I shutter anytime

was never able to take away my mother’s definition

someone else other than my mother calls me “muñeca,”

of “home,” her passing had completely transformed

or that I begin to feel nauseous when I come by photos

mine. She was my bridge that I felt had been completely

of her, or that my heart drops at any mention of her

broken down into meaningless planks of wood, rotting

name. Cancer doesn’t care that I can’t remember my

as the days go by. Her death had only caused me to feel

mother without remembering the pain.

like I wasn’t as Peruvian as my mom made me out to be.

I question why I still push away everything that has to

My mother and I shared a room throughout her cancer

do with Peru, why speaking Spanish is painful, and why

journey. I wanted to make sure I was there if she need-

I avoid trips back home. Death has made me question

ed water or a Tylenol in the middle of the night even

what “home” even is. Death has made the definition

though the pain killers seemed to stop working a couple

of “home” become an unorganized motley of words

of months into her diagnosis; I wanted to be there if she

that have no real meaning to me other than dictionary

needed me, holding my eyes open with my fingers in

definitions or my unnecessarily long address that fills

order to keep myself awake. Every night, she asked my

the headers of certain documents. My mother was my

brother to open up her laptop and put on some sort of

ultimate connection to Peru. Cancer could not take

Peruvian news channel that was recorded online. I nev-

away my mother’s unconditional love for her identity,

er got to ask her the name of what she was specifically

but it feels as if death is trying to strip me of all that she

watching. She fell asleep to these recordings each night.

had shown me. It has made my connection to Peru be

This is how she felt close to home. My mother had this

transformed into a bittersweet conglomeration of tradi-

admiration for Peru, it was a love that was uncondition-

tions, customs, and grief.

al.

My mother was the bridge between Peru and the United States. She was the only one out of all her siblings who had arrived to this country with the full intention of creating a better life for the children she hadn’t had yet.

I don’t think she ever strived for the “American Dream.”

She didn’t care about whether she was able to claim

14

After her passing, local Peruvian restaurants transformed into funeral homes, the colors on the flag lost their vibrancy, and going back home was a feeling that cannot be accurately described through some metaphorical reference; it felt miserable.

-Sumarha Tariq ‘27

Huita I wore a sunflower dress, and there were no margaritas.

It was a Wednesday when they told me. I know this because my mom picked us up from school, and that only happened on Wednesdays. I remember the surprise of sticky sweet ice cream after school and the silence that seemed peaceful, although it was crackling with tension.

Later, I was on the couch, and they told me Huita was dead. I stopped being so excited about ice cream after that.

We called her Huita because Abuelita had too many syllables. She loved things in the way only someone who had lost wealth and found it again could. She had a closet that rivaled an empress', swathed in jewel tones and exquisite silhouettes. All her jewelry came with elaborate background stories, and her art was collected from all over the globe. She went to church every week, drove to Tijuana every month, and raised my father. Huita lived with a vibrance that very few come close to achieving.

She didn’t let me see her when pancreatic cancer stole her vibrance.

Nobody told me I should wear black to a funeral. I wore a cream Puebla dress embroidered with bright yellow sunflowers that she had given me. My father mentions every Día de los Muertos that she wanted margaritas at her party, and anger laces his tone when he wishes he’d pushed harder for them. When Carmiña died, her husband and sons began to wither, it was as though she was the sun, and they were plants suddenly without light. I had never seen my father cry before.

- Maddy Megal ‘25

I don’t believe in God, but I knelt for the whole service.

I don't believe in God, but when nobody was looking, I took her bíblia and rosário. I don’t believe in God, but I go to mass whenever I’m in a Spanish-speaking place. I don’t believe in God, but whenever I set up the altar with my father, I find myself wondering whether she’s looking down at me.

At the funeral I wore a sunflower dress, and there were no margaritas, but I know she would have hated black, and she forgives us.

- Sofia Morfin ‘27

15

16

HIGHLIGHTING

Words and Photos by Sumarha Yair Guijosa-Torres, Darcy Rodriguez Ovalles, Michaell Santos Paulino, Stephanie Montealegre, Montse Rodriguez, Karla Cortes, Demetrius Profic, Camila Bautista, Pablo Macias Lopez, Alex Guzman Caceres

This photoshoot highlights the range of cultural clothing and elements that the models in these photos hold close to them. Whether it be a full traditional garment to accessories like earrings, makeup, the admirable and beautiful wear of a flag, and even simple silhouettes and colors in outfits, the way one chooses to highlight their culture is a personal journey that is expressed through a multitude of ways; it is important to recognize this is not done only through clothing. It is also done through just existing.

17

And so it goes...

And so it goes, the yearly Christmas play— November brings some quiet train of thought Or song that sort of sets me on the way And by December some script is begot.

The cast are given roles, or the roles cast The actors grow in number by the year And WhatsApp messages start coming fast Nothing is ready as the show draws near.

My garage turns into a dressing room I help the children with their lines, and pause As on my kitchen stage they perform, bloom, And close the show to thunderous applause.

They can’t wait ‘til the next one, they all say— And so it goes, the yearly Christmas play.

- Amanda Budejen ’26

18

Yearly Revolution: 4 days subverting reality it would just hit pause and wait for the next CarnaReality becomes more manageable when the possibilty of subversion exists. Even better, when there is a dedicated val to start all over again. Goethe perfectly described the livelihood and the exceptional characters of this date every year when subversion is expected. Knowing festivity when writing “Italian Journey” during his when to expect the revolution might seem to make it travels from 1786 to 1788. The celebration would be previsible, but Carnaval always succeeds in bringing the unknown. The novelty of hearing voices that always exist- taken to Brazil, where it would flourish and be wholly ed but were kept unheard. In a fantasy world, everything re-invented. We inherited Portugal’s cultural component of celebrating Carnaval but had to translate it fits — everything is allowed. When fantasy becomes the to our own land, our own culture. Carnaval is to the norm, a holiday for the people emerges. The crowds are people, after all. After Brazil’s independence, there not passively watching the scenes anymore, they make the scenes. The street becomes the stage. The ordinary is was a great effort to distance the way we celebrated treated as extraordinary; the fantasy world has always been in their minds, but only now can they express it in the pretense of Carnaval. It is a real revolution of the people.

Ask around for when the year really begins for Brazilians; you are likely to hear “After carnaval”.

Rooted in many different traditions, the first Carnaval celebrations date back to Roman festivals.

Art by Maddy Megal

Art by Maddy Megal ‘25

It was widely popular during the Middle Ages as a ritual when the hierarchy was put on pause for a few days. Anyone could be anything, in the most total sense possible: a man could be a woman, a servant, a king, a slave. It was a brilliantly well-thought yearly revolution. Some would think the danger of it would be in allowing everything — wouldn’t a servant want to extend his role as king for more than just the festivity? And, as expected, the worry became the truth.

Somewhere between the colors and the chants, dances, and music, in a glimpse of time, the lines dividing fantasy and reality got so intertwined that going back was found impossible.

But even more interesting than when the revolution did emerge, is all the instances in which it didn’t.

Most times- the festivity had value for itself. Reality would quickly be instaurated again, with no sign of changes, or transition. But the memory was never erased, and the consciousness wasn’t deconstructed,

MICHAEL PAZ ’25

it from Portugal and make it more similar to French traditions. But Brazil’s diversity of people brought the biggest difference — it intertwined and blended European and African cultures. Samba, axé, frevo, and marchinha — recognized Brazilian rhythms — were introduced, and in 1932, Carnaval’s competition of Samba schools became the official mark of the beginning of the internationally recognized party in Rio de Janeiro. Throughout the years, the voice that was given to the people was used increasingly more to voice political complaints. The revolution was now a direct weapon of democratic activism.

Samba schools make the spectacle not only around the Brazilian identity or frivolous things to be celebrated, but also about slavery and the structural racism that Brazil was never able to solve. Highlighted are themes such as immigrant issues, lack of investment in culture, and struggles of Afro-Brazilians. The activism spreads around Brazil, and for a lot of people this is a time that the world is watching, so we use it to be seen in the most honest way: exposing all our problems and struggles, making this fantasy world about what we dreamed for reality. For many other people, it is simply about having fun and listening to great music. Still, I can’t unsee the satirical and revolutionary desire for the simplest act of subversion.

- Lua Prado ‘26 19

VERSOS SIN TERMINAR SOBRE LIMA Llegué a Lima sin pensar en Lima, con proyectos y pensares tan inocentes y juveniles, intelectuales y amorosos, Tal vez el alma rota, tal vez el alma rehecha, con las manos bañadas en sangre, quizá el corazón en medicina, Intentando, creo por primera vez, Vivir con la verdad.

Mi primera noche fue de borrachera, de ni acordarme cómo me dormí, de ni dejar tiempo al pensamiento, al recuerdo, o a la ilusión.

Ni yo sabía que estaba en Lima, Ni creo que nadie.

El amanecer fue de verme en una foto, de admirar las calles de mi ciudad, de pensar que quizá ya no era mi ciudad, de ilusionarme por la posibilidad de la posibilidad, de tomar surtidos y preguntarme qué chicha haría con mis proyectos, con mi cuerpo, con mi ropa, con mi tiempo, con mi sonrisa.

Sin importar qué tan similares fuesen estas interrogantes a las de antes de irme, eran, en realidad, completamente nuevas: Tenían el color de un pronto final, el color de un pronto retorno, y el susurro de que todo había cambiado.

Y varias de mis siguientes noches fueron las de un visitante, las de un visitante fumador, Un visitante fumador sin saber a qué aferrarse, pero cómodo vendiéndose al azar.

Fueron varias noches de ver al futuro a la cara, pero también de ahorcarlo bajo la luna, Noches que se volvieron día, y días que se hicieron noche, y atardeceres que se llevaron mis ilusiones y me dejaron desnudo en una ciudad que quizá ya no era mía Pero que podía volverlo a ser.

Y cuando el amanecer llegaba Y por fin me acariciaba el sueño, me encontré con nuevas sensaciones, y la sutil creación de una sociedad de medianoche, donde nuestras antiguas amistades de colegio se convirtieron en amistades de toda la vida, En amistades de mucho más.

Amistades entre océanos, pero en la misma mesa de antes, en ese mismo jardín en el que pensábamos escapar, y en el que, tan solo unos años atrás, aún estaban nuestros cuerpos románticos soñando con la sonrisa universitaria, pero también luchando por no crecer.

Y a través de ese recuerdo Y nuestros nuevos cortes de pelo, contemplé la silueta de una ciudad que había cambiado Tanto como yo y mis emociones.

Recordé entonces un pensamiento de hace mucho: “A Lima siempre voy a volver, y a mi cuarto, y a mi familia, y a ese cielo gris, y a mis amigos…”

Pero en el jardín de mis viejos, junto a la sociedad de media noche como el visitante fumador rodeado de visitantes fumadores, Comprendí que nunca se puede volver.

Y entonces esa noche dormí en ciudad desconocida, en la ciudad desconocida donde nací y crecí, en la ciudad desconocida de mis historias y mi talante aniñado, Y esa noche dormí feliz, ahí donde tenía que estar, cuando tenía que estar.

Siempre quise que mi Lima fuese diferente, que se me presentase tan elegante punzante e incandescente como a otros, pero qué otra cosa puede ser Lima para mí sino esa esporádica aventura melancólica, esa idea lejana en constante mutación, ese cielo gris que no vibra dos veces en el mismo tono, esa sociedad de media noche, pronta a ser reemplazada por lo que sea que la edad y el amor nos mande, ese recuerdo en una ducha a kilómetros de distancia, Ese recuerdo esperando a ser poema.

En mi último día en Lima, tuve la oportunidad de pedir un deseo de cumpleaños.

En el momento creí haber tomado la decisión correcta, pero hoy, casi un mes después y bajo una nostálgica ducha de medianoche, por fin encontré las palabras para terminar mis poemas y lamentar mi deseo.

Me alivia pensar que esta idea me encontró cuando debía, que este poema tiene más color en la melancolía, y que si mis textos fuesen a llegar a algún lado, y algún añorante limeño encuentra refugio en estos versos, entonces podrá desear lo mismo en su cumpleaños, o tal vez un mes después: Que Lima nunca deje de cambiar.

- Diego Del Aguila, ‘26

20

TRANSLATION I arrived in Lima without much thought of Lima, carrying plans and musings so innocent and youthful, intellectual and affectionate, Perhaps with a fractured soul, perhaps with a soul reborn anew, with hands stained in blood, possibly a heart filled with medicine, Attempting, I believe for the first time, To live harmoniously with the unvarnished truth.

On my first night, I was clouded by inebriation, without a clue of how sleep overcame me without room for roaming thoughts, for memories, or dreams.

I hadn’t realized I was in Lima, And I doubt anyone else had.

By dawn, I looked at myself in a photo, I admired the streets of my city, I wondered whether it still belonged to me, I contemplated the possibility of possibilities, I drank jugo surtido and got nervous at the prospect of my projects, my body, my clothes, my time, my smile.

These questions, though akin to those of yore, were indeed entirely fresh: Tinged with the hue of an imminent closure, tinted with the shades of an impending return and a murmur, declaring that everything had changed.

On many of the nights to follow, I played the role of a visitor, a visitor with a penchant for smoking, A smoking visitor, clueless about what to hold on to, but comfortable throwing himself to chance.

There were nights of confronting the future, but also of suspending it beneath the moon’s allure, Nights that seamlessly merged into daylight, and days that transitioned into the depths of night, Sunsets that stripped away my illusions, leaving me nude in the city streets, of a city that was perhaps no longer mine, But that held the promise of reclamation.

As dawn arrived, And sleep’s soothing veil finally found me, I discovered new sensations and delights, and the quiet formation of a midnight society, where the friends of yesteryears became lifelong companions.

Friendships spanning vast oceans, Yet, gathered around that familiar table, in the same garden where escape was our aspiration, a place where, just a few years ago, our romantic bodies remained, dreaming of that university smile, yet also struggling, resisting to grow up.

And through that memory And the distraction of our new haircuts, I looked at the silhouette of a transformed city Much like myself and my emotions.

I then recalled a long-held thought: “I’ll always return to Lima, To my room, my family, and that gray sky, And my friends, with whom time would fly...”

But in my folks’ garden, among the members of the Midnight Society, like the smoking visitor I was, in a circle of other smoking visitors, the truth unfurled: Returning would never be the same.

And thus that night, I slept in an unknown city, in the unknown city where I was born and raised, in the unknown city of my stories and my childish disposition, And that night I slept content, right where I had to be, when I had to be.

I yearned for my Lima to be different, for it to be as refined and succinct, as it reveals itself to others, but what more could Lima mean to me than an intermittent, wistful odyssey, a distant concept, forever shifting, a gray sky submerged in constant change, a midnight society, willing to devote itself to age and love’s command, a memory in the shower, miles away, A memory waiting to be a poem.

On my final day in Lima, I had the chance to make a birthday wish. back then, I believed I had chosen wisely, but now, nearly a month past, beneath a midnight shower, I’ve finally discovered the words to conclude these verses and realize I was mistaken.

I’m comforted to believe this idea found me when it should, that this poem thrives when melancholy is endured, and if my words find their way to distant shores, and a homesick Limenian finds solace in these lines, then they can make the same wish on their birthday, or perhaps amend it a month after: May Lima’s ever-only constant be change.

- Diego Del Aguila, ‘26

21

9:29 PM, 2023 Querida Montse, I can recall the days when you hated your name. In elementary school, spelling one’s name is a sort of milestone—the kind that parents hang up triumphantly on their refrigerators. Of course, it was much easier for students like Alex and Emily to write their names. The average student only had to worry about four to six letters. I had to worry about ten. It always felt like I was taking up more space than others, and not in a good way. What did this string of letters even mean, anyways? I remember searching up the definition one day, hoping it had a beautiful meaning like “star of the sea” or “to be reborn.” I was more than disappointed to find out that my name directly translated to “serrated mountain.” How am I supposed to romanticize a mountain range in Spain? The meaning was not dainty enough for your taste. It didn’t take long before you began to go by Montse instead. And not just Montse, but Montse pronounced “Mawn-say.” People can’t pronounce it anyways, so why bother correcting them? After all, it’s just a name. This was your mindset all throughout highschool. The summer before entering college, you turned eighteen. Your parents wrote you a letter.

Feliz cumpleaños hija mia…estoy lleno de orgullo de ser tu padre.

You still have it framed on your wall. It was the first time your father ever told you he was proud of you. Your mother, though she struggles with affection, reminded you who you were and who you are becoming.

Por tu terquedad has logrado mucho. Ahora te tocará seguir siendo terca para no permitir que nada te apague el ánimo que tienes.

In reading these words, I realized that I was never meant to be small. I was not meant to be dainty. I was born to be unapologetically loud. To not conform. I was born to love, and love loudly. I love our name now. I hope you can learn to love it too.

Con Cariño, Montserrat Rodriguez ‘25

22

Photo by Michael Paz ‘25

23

¿Si se puede? ¡Claro que sí!