Claro Que Sí - Edition 3

CLARO QUE SÍ

Contents Table of

My grandmother is a rather stubborn woman. I’m sure any other Cuban grandmother who raised two boys completely by herself would be. She is so stubborn, in fact, that she has already created boxes of her favorite memories of her two sons and her own prized possessions such as jewelry, clothes and photos for me, my father, my uncle and some of my siblings with our names on them so that we can have them after she passes. She’s had these boxes collected, organized and practically tied with a bow for the last five years, despite her doctors constantly saying “you have the brain and health of most 4o year olds.” No matter how many times I tell her to stop getting ready for death by talking about it or creating these capsules of memories that will be drenched in tears when they see the light of day, she refuses. Her response always includes some ideas about being practical and how I shouldn't be sad or worried about it because she isn’t. “It’s natural.” I’ve seen these boxes lurking behind her brightly colored patterned shirts from the 80s in the darkness of her closet from time to time. They stand there, haunting me of what's to come. It’s not just those boxes that haunt me, but her entire house.

Practically untouched since I first arrived, her humble abode presents itself to me as a scrapbook full of my best childhood memories whenever I visit. My Tuturitis doll, my My Little Pony stereo set, and Disney princess stickers line the walls of my old hot pink room upstairs, while rows and rows of CDs of old telenovelas we used to watch together, little decorative Cuban-style house figurines and pictures of every yearbook photo — and recently, a graduation photo — cover every table. I see a new part of my past each time I visit my abuelita, and I am reminded of the bits and pieces that make me who I am. Each page of her scrapbook is lined with memories — good and bad — and objects that complete how I’ve seen myself from day to day. Every memory is glued onto the page, kind of crooked, but set in place, never to budge. Better than any camera roll, these memories are untouchable, just like those boxes in the closet.

When we are growing up, we are constantly putting “pedacitos” of ourselves together. Oftentimes we have too many puzzle pieces to make a coherent puzzle, so a scrapbook works better – each photo, sticker and border doesn’t have to be perfectly aligned, they can overlap. Scrapbooks take and accumulate value over time as we grow and become better versions of ourselves from day to day. Claro’s third edition is based on the theme of “Bits and Pieces” or “Pedacitos.” With growth comes the ever changing nature of things for better or worse. Every bit is accompanied by a more negative piece and with each one a little part of us flourishes. My abuelita arranged these boxes as a way to keep the living scrapbook of her house and life condensed into smaller form. I only hope that my own inherited stubbornness in keeping all of our pedacitos alive in this edition is realized.

Welcome to the third edition of Claro Que Sí.

Elm Street

Running across Elm Street, trying to avoid being run over.

Overthinking every last word of that paper, trying to make sense of a topic I don’t quite understand.

Understanding that doors only open for you if you push them.

Pushing through the morning until there is a hot cup of coffee in my hands.

Handling everything the world throws at me, the good and the bad.

Badly wishing that there was good Puerto Rican food on Chapel.

Chapels! The best place to go when I need to take a break.

Breaking bread with my best friends in a dining hall.

Hauling myself to the library after the sun went down just to finish that one reading.

Reading until my eyes are closing in Sterling Memo rial Library.

Libraries are the bane of my existence.

Existing in this big, beautiful, troubled place.

These are the bits and pieces of my Yale experience I share with my mom. Thirty-years ago, my mom ran across Elm Street. She read in Sterling. She held cups of coffee in her hands. She came here from Puerto Rico, the first in her family to go to college. Our experiences in this place could not be more dif ferent– and yet, I feel more connected to her than I ever have. Perhaps that is just what happens when you grow up– but for the first time, I am getting to grow up in the place that she did.

The Prophet

Digging up holes in the ground in search of my father’s daughter only to find I had become my mother’s daughter. Princesa, this kingdom was never yours.

That girl covered in glitter, dressed in polka dot socks and her mother’s jewelry. Now hold her hair back while she throws up after the tea party. Hold her hand so no one else follows her home.

Outgrew the sweet dreams to wake up in the middle of the night, sleepless and far too wise.

I imagine that beyond this decomposed girlhood, past the growing pains and through the turbulence, there is a serenity. Being a woman can’t be this brutal forever.

- ANGELICA SANCHEZ ’25

MADDY MEGAL ‘25

PADRE EN PEDACITOS

Sometimes I remember that when I would feel the air clawing at my lungs, my dad was the person I would call for.

There is a picture of my parents that hangs right above my desk. Their presence is my system of accountability anytime I feel myself crumbling under college’s stress. I am well aware that I’d be nothing without their sacrifice and their hard work. That picture is my beacon of light: the devotion of my prayers. When they took it, it had not been long since they had started dating; my dad had been in the country for more than a decade, and my mom for just a year. In the picture, my mom sits behind my dad with her hands on his shoulder. She is wearing light makeup, and her nails are painted in a shimmery red color - two habits she gave up not long after my sisters and I were born. She is smiling, a shy and romantic kind of grin: one that she hides now because she is embarrassed of her teeth. A smile that I try to extract with my jokes and bits and that is not hard to find.

But my dad is not smiling. He never smiles in pictures.

Anytime my friends walk into my room, they like to point out the resemblances between my father and me. Sometimes, I ask them who I look the most like and luckily, they agree that my nose looks like my mom’s. Strangely though, they think my eyes, my lips, and the rest of my face look like my dad’s. I refuse to accept it. Growing up, no one told me I looked like my dad. No girl would want to hear that, for obvious reasons, but I especially despise it. It is bad enough to know his flammable blood flows through my veins; I can feel its irritating presence scratching the back of my throat. It torments me. Before it can catch on fire, it likes to choke me into tears. It mocks me. I already hate to hear my dad in my angry words, and it pains me to know that even when I close my eyes, his are still watching, judging and condemning my every move.

I hate to see pieces of him in my reflection because he never smiles in pictures anymore.

When I reprinted my parents’ picture from our family’s photo album, I also copied other pictures. I have one of him holding me as a newborn. He is looking at the camera proudly, and his mouth is slightly open. It might be because he is trying to get me to look at the camera too, or he might’ve been laughing at my crazy hair.

I also have pictures we took at a waterpark when I was 5. I was no longer the only child then; my youngest sister was about a year old. One picture shows the entire family in front of a water wall, my mom is holding one of my sisters and my dad has his hand on my other sister’s and my shoulders. Another one shows my dad holding my sisters in the park’s shallow water, and I am standing in front of them making a silly face at the camera. I have a framed picture of us on Easter. I was a little older then, and that day we went to a local park. After we finished hunting eggs

through our candy, someone, I do not remember who, snapped the shot.

I remember that at some point, when I was looking for more pictures, the pages in the photo album started to appear blank. I tried to build some kind of timeline to place where exactly the pictures stopped. We might have stopped taking them around the same time that we moved to our new place and I started middle school.

That must have been when he stopped smiling.

I was in kindergarten when I began having asthma attacks in the middle of the night. Every single time I felt my lungs drowning in a pool of my own oxygen and my ribs crushing their every attempt to find a breath, I used tiny pauses in between my terrified gasps to beg my dad to rescue me.

I needed him then, just like I need him now. The truth is, I do not hate to look like my dad because he does not smile in pictures; I hate the fact that his face, the face etched on mine, does not smile at me. It does not smile when I stand before him, and it does not smile when I look in the mirror. When I look at our pictures, I wonder where exactly did things go wrong. When did I stop being the daughter he would run to save; the daughter he would smile for?

I do not hate my dad, but why does it feel like he, like his face, hates me? His was the name I called for when I was suffering, and now I even need his unsmiling face on the picture stuck to my wall to reassure me - to grant me some peace and tell me that it will all be okay, that I can get through college, that I can make it on my own. I need him to tell me that deep down, even if he does not smile anymore, he loves me, he feels proud of me, and he would not have his daughter be any other way.

I keep looking at that picture of us, the one of me as a newborn and I wonder, will our relationship ever be that way again? I can not shake off the feeling that even if I can not figure out if he was smiling there, he was irrevocably happy and proud of the baby in between his arms. He loved me.

I love my dad, and maybe some day I will be able to ask him why he does not smile in pictures – why he does not love me too. Maybe then, we can connect the pieces of our lives scattered throughout the photo album. I hope they will finally make sense once we put them together. Then we will start taking pictures again and fill the photo albums’ emptiness.

I will have something new to hang above my desk. And I know we will smile in our pictures once more.

- GIA CABRAL ‘26

- DAISY GARCIA ’27

Growing Pains

No, Edgar Nehme was not marrying his fiancée in order to get U.S. citizenship, thank you very much.

Papá is perched on his favorite armchair, his posture ramrod straight. Yet his steady gaze grows distant as he recounts an interaction from over twenty years ago—one which has been permanently etched in his typically spotty memory.

Afew weeks into my Mexican father and half-Italian, half-American mother’s engagement, an acquaintance asked my dad point blank if he was gunning for a green card marriage.

Papá’s voice maintains its careful cadence as he describes his naturalization process. At the time, he was in his late twenties, working for a New York City bank that was fast-tracking his green card application. But even after his wedding, he refused to apply for a marriage green card “as a matter of principle” and completed the process by himself. I press him for more details, asking whether he had been worried that Mamma’s parents and friends might have also assumed that he had selfish intentions. “I wanted to do it separately to prevent potential misunderstandings,” he replies, diplomatic as ever.

Growing up in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Papá was surrounded by bits and pieces of American culture. His neighborhood overflowed with American expats, retirees, and college students studying abroad. He still attributes his English fluency to his habitual small talk with these friendly faces, rather than his weekly English lessons. In school, Papá and his friends were taught that the U.S. was a powerful beacon of democracy amidst the ongoing Cold War. At home, the Nehmes were avid American football fans and Hollywood movie buffs. My dad’s childhood heroes: The Wonder Years’ Kevin Arnold, Luke Skywalker, and Peter Pan.

Every few years, the Nehmes would set out on a road trip through Florida or Texas, with frequent stops at Disney World and other amusement parks. I ask Papá about any embarrassing moments from this era—a time when his English was a lot shakier—and he immediately realizes what I’m referring to. “I’m not going to go on record for this,” he grumbles. But after much pleading, he reluctantly recounts a well-worn Edgar Nehme story, one that my sister and I have heard dozens of times. At fifteen, he approached two middle-aged American women to ask them for directions. His opening line? “May I molest you?” (Molestar is the

Spanish verb for “bother.” Needless to say, my dad did not make that mistake again.)

Papá’s rueful smile fades as he remembers a time that a stranger aggressively demanded that the Nehmes speak in English while they were shopping in a Texan mall. Those rare negative encounters were reminders that his actual home was miles away. Despite his strong ties to the U.S., he had no intention of living there permanently.

In his early twenties, my dad moved to California to attend business school. The plan was to complete his two-year MBA program, get one or two years of banking experience in New York, and then move back to Mexico. I pause for a moment, wracking my brain for stories Papá has told me about his time in business school.

- MADDY MEGAL ‘25

- MADDY MEGAL ’25

Though I’m fuzzy on the details, he’s always described it as a golden period in his life, in which he forged friendships with fellow internationals and American students alike. Yet when I prod him for specifics, he admits to having experienced growing pains during his first few months. The three horizontal lines etched into Papá’s forehead, which he affectionately refers to as “the Stanford wrinkles,” deepen as he recalls a series of culture shocks.

First, he noticed that the vast majority of the other Latinos he saw on a daily basis were working the late-night deli shifts and mopping the university’s floors, rather than sitting in his classrooms. Then, he realized his ignorance when it came to his new American friends’ favorite pastimes, from golf matches to March Madness brackets. But my dad—a lifelong straight-A student—was most blindsided by the difficulty of his classes. He spent sleepless nights agonizing over essays, which he was writing in English for the first time, and taking painstaking notes on his hundreds of pages of readings—most of which his American classmates skimmed or SparkNotes-ed. “I didn’t know that I was not actually expected to read every single thing I was assigned,” he confesses. “Honestly, there were not enough hours in the day.”

After finishing business school, Papá worked in Mexico for a few years before moving to New York City. As the only international banker at his firm, he prided himself on his ability to “bridge the cultural differences” between his American colleagues and their global clientele, which he was convinced would make him an indispensable team member until he decided to move back to Mexico. But a chance encounter with a certain Italian woman during a summer in the Hamptons upended his carefully crafted plan. They were engaged after four months, married after a year, and had my sister two years after that. Though my parents considered moving to Italy or Mexico when my sister and I were younger, we ended up relocating to Washington, D.C. Newly empty nesters, my parents are still living in my childhood home in Georgetown and don’t plan on moving anytime soon.

I’

m sprawled out on the floor, reading one of my last interview questions off of my laptop: whether he has maintained his connection to his Mexican roots. Blunt as always, Papá tells me that he doesn’t think he’s done a very good job of this. “Even my friends say that I’m becoming much more Americanized,” he says with a wry expression. Papá describes how most of his Latino friends from business school followed his original plan. After working in finance in New York for a few years, they married a fellow Mexican and moved back before starting a family. “I assimilated myself much more,” he remarks. “But then it also became a double-edged sword. Because when I go to Mexico, I don’t feel that I belong anymore.”

Papá rapidly rattles off his main complaints about Mexico: the disorganization, the lack of punctuality, the bureaucracy. Yet when I ask about the most difficult part of being an immigrant living in the U.S., he pauses to think, allowing the silence to simmer. “Even though I think my command of the English language is decent, there’s nothing I can do about my accent,” he tells me eventually. “Every single time, the first thing somebody asks me is, ‘where’s your accent from?’” Papá lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been here for 25 years.”

Ihesitate, trying to analyze his stonefaced expression. He doesn’t appear to be upset, but he can be hard to read. So I select my words carefully as I ask my final question: whether he thinks that feeling of otherness will ever go away.

Iguess

I will never be seen as an American,” he says. “I will never be fully embraced and accepted.”

Renacimiento Poético: Primavera en el Corazón

Un amor envuelto en misterio

Su piel marrón irradiaba una calidez que envolvía mi ser, mientras sus ojos oscuros me atrapaban en un mundo de pasión y misterio. Sus besos, oh, sus besos eran como el néctar más delicioso que jamás hubiera probado. Pero sobre todo, era la forma en que me hacía sentir, como si estuviera flotando en el aire, libre de preocupaciones y miedos. Durante mucho tiempo he buscado este sentimiento, esta conexión única que solo he encontrado aquí, al caminar por las calles del lado de su mano y al ritmo de su risa.

Reflexiones desde la Rehabilitación del Corazón: La Adicción Peligrosa del Amor

Un random pensamiento– El amor ¿nos moviliza? Después de estar sin ninguna dosis de esa droga tan fuerte y malvada, me doy cuenta de que, aunque repugnante para la salud y el alma, esa dosis nos levanta y nos da energía. Pero qué adicción más peligrosa, eso sí. Ahora, en mi rehabilitación, me doy cuenta de que, aunque la odio y la rechazo, hay algo que sí me falta de cada una de mis dosis, que por alguna razón aún no recupero en mi vida diaria, y es ese movimiento en el aire, esa adrenalina profunda. Maldito seas, amor. Me robaste todo lo que naturalmente tenía y me lo revendiste al doble precio para que el día que dejara de ser tu esclava, me dejar astirada sin energía, sin ningún peso, sin inspiración y con agonía. Maldito seas amor.

Conexión Prohibida: La Danza de lo Que No Será

No busco a nadie, no quiero AMOR, no lo anticipó ni lo manifiesto. Pero, cuando estamos juntos la vida se vuelve otra. Mi corazón renace, mi mente se olvida de mi paso, y mi alma vuela. Maldita-sea, los tres se conectan a tu lado. Pero no, no quiero nada– no lo busco, no lo anticipo, no lo manifiesto. Me rehúso. Y por eso, repito una y otra vez ¡Maldita sea la conexión que nos une. Enredada en la madeja de lo prohibido, en la danza de lo que somos y no seremos, en la tela de los sueños no compartidos– y del futuro que jamás sucederá.

GIA CABRAL ’26

Pedacitos On Our Backs

Words & Painting by Davianna Inirio ‘27

This is a painting of friends from home sharing a memory, a moment, and love, but created on the hardwood floors and cramped corners of a dorm room miles away. A series of relationships started early and filled with intimate and vulnerable experiences and shared conversations—where reactions bring comfort and togetherness brings color. Now, it’s turned into mementos held onto like beads held together in a bracelet; this painting explores nostalgia created in active relationships and the holding onto the vibrancy and bonds from back home.

Return to Coscó

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, a man wearing a beige jacket smokes a cigarette on a plastic chair across from an eleventh-century cobblestone church with a silver link chain around the door’s iron handles. No one has entered in months, maybe years. No one else is around; no cars in sight. Short buildings of beige stone line the few roads that coil the hill. Thick gaps in the wooden doors let gray cats enter, and wooden boards cover windows. Where wood and stone don’t obstruct, the hill’s view captures the bronze wheat fields that chase the horizon, and the green dots of carob trees. In the distance, more hills loft villages, as if a giant mirror miles away reflected the hill where you stand. The man takes a decades-practiced drag of his cigarette. He’s one of around twenty people living in this remote Catalonian village, where my ancestors lived before migrating to Costa Rica in the 1920s.

I traced the branches of Spanish highways and railroads for six hours to get to this town from my study abroad program in Valencia. When I told my host mom where I was going, she furrowed her eyebrows and shrugged. “I don’t know where that is,” she said. This town is a place unfamiliar to even the Spanish ear. You can say Coscó, but the odds of name recognition might be higher if you say “Oliola municipality,” better if you say “near Lleida,” and safest if you say “in Catalonia.” What we know of Coscó comes from no Google searches or academic databases in this town where there has only ever been a church, a handful of houses, a washbasin, and a few families who have worked the Catalan fields. Spoken word courses this town’s history through generations.

When I arrived at the bus station in Catalonia in a town called Vallfagona de Balaguer, a woman in her early sixties, about five foot tall with red hair and thin green eyes, stood outside a gray SUV. “Maria Teresa?” I asked. “Sí, soy yo,” she responded, approaching me for a hug. Maria Teresa is a distant relative with whom my family members in Costa Rica had connected me. She is my second cousin, twice removed. (Here’s what that means: the last common ancestor we share is my great-grandma’s dad—he was Maria Teresa’s uncle). We traveled about half an hour to her home in Agramunt, a village of about 5,000 people known for a sweet white-wafer pastry called turrones, and a church with a secret bomb shelter in the basement used during the Spanish Civil War.

Over the next few days, we would travel to the little villages around Agramunt, and she would point to the buildings and farms that had some connection to my ancestors. She has spent the last decades piecing together the mosaic of scattered pieces of our ancestry. She has tracked people with the last names that our ancestors held and interviewed elders in local villages. She has traveled to government record-keeping offices to find papers documenting births and deaths and everything between—the baptisms, marriages, property and livestock sales, and work records. At home, she has sifted through family letters to hear how our Costa Rican ancestors described their transition to the family who stayed in Spain. She has picked up the phone, calling relatives in Costa Rica and Argentina, to see how oral tradition recounts these stories. She’s written her findings in notebooks and files that clutter her desktop, but most facts linger in the unfailing reservoir of her memory.

My cousin shared snippets of this history as we walked through Coscó, where our last common ancestors lived in the 1920s. My great-great grandparents survived off the farms surrounding the hilltop village. My grandpa called this region the lifeline of Spain, and today it stands as one of Europe’s most important fruit producers, sending pears, peaches, apples, and other sweet goods all over the continent. When the vines at a distant winery, Castell del Remei, had grapes ready to be picked, he and other men from Coscó would travel more than 14 miles to get there. They’d live there until they finished and could return home. It’s hard to know how life looked and what the quality might have been. What happened next fills the gaps: they moved to a fabled place called America. They spent a month traveling to Costa Rica by boat and arrived with nothing but a two-year-old swaddled in my grandma’s arms.

No repackaging, no polishing, some family history arrives ugly and unchanged to the next generation. Here’s one: my grandma never wanted to leave Catalonia. She left her family and her hometown in 1925 with her husband on the condition they would return when they had enough saved. She had two more kids and cared for all three at home while my grandpa learned to work the lands of the Costa Rican countryside. Eventually, they opened a restaurant in the capital. Business boomed. She served the early morning coffee and stayed there until the dinner plates glistened and she could go home. My grandma did this all without learning to speak Spanish, faithful to her native tongue, Catalan, in ways that would sometimes confuse her own kids who spoke only Spanish. Fifteen years after arriving in Costa Rica, she died of a heart attack. She was 40.

We walked through these streets that my grandma never got to see again, and I wondered if I was stepping on the cobblestone she walked or touching the tiles she might’ve touched. We got in the car and drove half a mile down a steep gravel road, a route where no trees stand to offer shade, to a place my cousin knows my grandma frequented. We arrive at an L-shaped basin where water spatters into the stone tub from a spout. Beyond the constant clap of water meeting water, the breeze strokes the bushes and birds chirp. For nearly a century, the town’s cleanliness stemmed from here, the communal wash basin. Today, it’s a place of stillness. I stood there and craned my head up to where we came from, following the steep road from the basin to the top of the hill. When she stood here, would she stop to hear the water splash and the breeze rustle the shrubs? When she slogged up the hill with pounds of sopping wet clothes, did she marvel at the evenly spaced rows of trees? When she last touched the water from this faucet, did she know she’d spend the rest of her life wanting to cross the Atlantic waters to return?

I leaned over the basin and found murky water, where wads of algae whirl and dirt pile the base and fish flit around. The day wasn’t entirely clear, but the sun found its way through the right places, just enough, so I could catch a faint reflection of myself.

- MICHAEL PAZ ‘25

Esperanza

My dad says not to live in the past. he says that once things happen, no matter how hard you dwell, they won’t change. I felt that way about you. I thought you were just someone in my past, and I was very wrong.

I’ve never written about my feelings, not because I don’t want to, more so because I’ve never been moved to, But every day I thought of you, I was glad I met you. things fell apart, we didn’t know who we were, we were young and scared, I lived my life to please the opinions of others, You lived your life for yourself: you were bold, sassy, and beautiful, I could write a manifesto on the way you made me feel just by being you. people say we dragged each other down, I think we were so broken we built what we could from the pieces we created together. it’s cliche to say no one understood, but when I look back, no one saw what we had as real, “Hija, I just don’t know how you could feel comfortable saying you feel that way about a girl.” I let all that convince me our love wasn’t real. every day, I tried to become who they wanted me to be, I could only think of you, and I cursed ever having met you. every song, every memory, every person carried our past, and I tried to move on, as my dad taught me. I failed utterly. moving away, I tried to find that old feeling in others, countless strangers, friends, and lovers. All to no avail.

Our past, your voice, my love, No one could erase the memories, so every day I thought of you.

Up on the balcony, thousands of miles from home, I thought of you, and I remembered how glad I was to have met you.

I wish I could pinpoint the moment I realized I still needed you, but the truth is I never stopped needing you. You were my light, the forbidden, yet vital light of my life. I missed our convos, the way your hand always found its way into mine. Finally, I stopped caring. I needed you more than ever. seeing you walk into the coffee shop, your smile, your pretty lips, I couldn’t believe you weren’t mine. after all that happened, I never thought you would say these words: Every day, I think of you, and I am glad that I met you. I no longer live in the past, because I get to live my present and future with you.

- ART by MADDY MEGAL ‘25

Quite Fine

I have felt hungry since I arrived in London a couple of days ago. In an effort to appease my insatiable stomach, I have stuffed a variety of foods down my gullet: a pub plate of overenthusiastically-battered fish and chips touched by a faint wisp of salt, a memorably bland chicken tikka masala that had an uncontrollable appetite for my wallet, and even a blackened—sorry, charred—panini expertly hand-fried in a pot (the smell of burnt cheese still haunts my flat’s kitchen). These delectable meals did little to assuage the lingering sense of dissatisfaction that sat like a diving weight at the bottom of my gut. I swam deeper into the endless ocean of British dishes in an attempt to find something that actually tasted good. Soon, the added exhaustion of forming new friendships and forcing myself to see every bridge, park, monument, and LOOK LEFT sign completely broke down my desire to stick to the Londoner diet. The Papa Johns across the street grew increasingly more tantalizing with every mediocre dinner.

But London had other plans for me. On the first day of class, I was thrust outside the one-mile radius around my flat, far away from my beloved fast Italian eatery, and given an hour to scavenge for food. While enticing, death from starvation did not seem like the best way to start the Yale in London program. So, I gave Google Maps a try. After typing in a very elaborate search category—“Food”—I was inundated with a whole new set of options and inevitable disappointments. However, upon zooming in on a curious little street corner, I found my knight in shining armor in all its caps-locked glory: INTERNATIONAL FOOD MARKET. Based on the pictures, this was no bougie, overpriced, designer nonsense; this was a real market, made up of a ragtag collection of grills arranged underneath some cheap canopy tents and shrouded in a haze of what had to be the most flavorful smoke in the UK. And hidden in the background of one of these photos was a string of Peruvian flags. Gracias a Dios.

Of all the identities I have carried throughout my life, including my current “study-abroad student with a bottomless pit for a stomach” identity, I will always claim and express my Peruvian heritage above all, and the most important expression of this identity is an unwavering commitment to Peruvian food. Unlike British cuisine, which creates its flavor through a complex mixture of spices such as salt and occasionally black pepper, Peruvian cuisine is built upon years of wild improvisation and cultivation of world flavors, leading to a diverse and unconquerable assortment of regional dishes. All to say it is good. Lomo saltado: a stir fry marinated in the juices of sauteed red pepper, onions, and beef; ají de gallina: a creamy curry composed of Peruvian yellow pepper, cheese, walnuts, milk, and bread, topped off with soft hen meat; and arroz con mariscos: a salty shellfish stew boiled or fried with tomato paste, rice, and the same sweet yellow pepper—even a lick from one of these dishes would overload the senses of a typical Londoner. But Peruvian food is much more to me than just a collection of flavors. When I think of ají, I can hear my dad singing along to some Beatles songs while at the stove. The smell of lomo carries images of my mom smiling at me from across the table as I eagerly clear my plate. However, as much as I would love to have Peruvian food every day here, I was cursed with an inability to cook, unless making carcinogenic paninis counts. So, with the INTERNATIONAL FOOD MARKET practically begging me to have a taste, I surrendered to temptation.

My roommate Chris enthusiastically agreed to take a chance on the market with me. Shockingly, living in a small suburb in the middle of Pennsylvania with a 92.9% white population had left him with little opportunity to try Peruvian food. Despite Chris offering no objections or alternatives, my anxiety activated my salesman mode on the walk over. “Unique blend of spices,” “Diasporic taste,” “Not as hot as other Latin American foods but packed with all the flavor!” Chris had probably tuned me out at this point, but my word vomit continued. Insecurity clawed its way up from my throat and into my mind. What if it’s bad? What if Chris doesn’t like it? How would I convince him that better Peruvian food exists? I was projecting. What if I didn’t like it? Would I be okay if it wasn’t good? Before I could answer any of these questions for myself, I was brought back into reality by the sharp smell of ají, cumin, paprika—the spices of real Peruvian food—flowing through the air. I traced it to its source.

None of the dishes at the stand were named. The menu simply listed chicken, beef, and chicken+beef marinated in a choice of three sauces, rocoto, hauncaína, and chimichurri, and served with rice and salad. Okay... I’m sure they knew that a typical Londoner looking for a quick bite to eat might be intimidated by too many foreign names. Nevertheless, I ordered the chicken+beef with hauncaína and chimichurri, and Chris followed. After finding a place to sit, I gave the dish a thorough mezcla and, with my heart pounding, took my first bite. There it is.

The cheesy hauncaína enveloped my tongue, leaving behind the sweet after taste of yellow pepper and a tinge of heat. The chicken, pan-seared in the hot Peruvian red pepper rocoto sauce, added delicate texturing to the meal. Although overpowered by the hauncaína, the oozing chimichurri accented the beef with essential cilantro earthiness which grounded the entire meal. As my tastebuds bathed in flavor, I could hear my dad’s soothing hum, feel my mom’s arm reach across the table, signaling to me to slow down so I could actually enjoy every last bite, and it was all so—

Fine.

Fine? Quite. “Quite” in the British sense, meaning “just,” as in it was just okay. No—it was more than okay. It was nearly perfect. The spices, the technique, the texture were all there; the chef knew what he was doing. And yet, I felt absolutely gutted. Of course, Chris enjoyed his meal, rattling on about how the flavors interact... and the seasoning... and the... his voice faded. I was alone. The gnawing insatiableness-turned-longing dug its fangs deeper into my stomach. Silence sounded where the Beatles once played. My dad was not at the stove. My mom was not smiling. My plate was empty, but I was still hungry. I was still three thousand miles away from home.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

The gold has dulled

Leaving its luster

In the past.

Yet it remains locked

To my neck, guarding

With a stubbornness to time

And a desire

To weigh me down.

He hangs

Immortalized in metal, undying

Across the millions

Who wear Him. I received Him at eighteen when my father

Let me in on the truth of Family tradition. He told me

I could now be a man, proudly

Bare these shackles, so graciously

Bestowed on us by Columbus

And some divine Intervention in 1492.

I accept

I know nothing.

Amen.

I look down–

I see Him

Though I feel nothing

But heavy chains.

Rule of Three

Our shoes, Our hair, Our souls are soaked with rain.

The drops glide down

Our faces, glittering

Like the stars above Smothered by clouds.

We slip, We stumble, We smile—We stop

Everything.

The small of Her back

Has never felt so important.

The world spins,I grasp

Ontoa streetlamp,

Tethering us

To the ground.

My fingers float to their home

Around Her waist,

Her arms snake around

The nape of my neck, Our instincts.

We laugh at the silliness—

The memorized mechanics

Of it all:

Different faces, different hands,

But always the same

Gentle understanding that Brings two pairs of longing lips

Together at last.

The soft hum of new love

Echoes deeply in my chest—

So why can’t You

Just leave me

The fuck alone?

***

Always the same

Familiar path, one

With many stops but No visible end.

I can hear You

Behind me, cackling, Howling, scorning, Still begging me to stay

While You cry.

I left pieces of my heart

On the way out, unwilling Breadcrumbs leading me

Back to You.

***

She sleeps.

I think

I am in love

With running away From loneliness.

- MICHAEL PAZ ‘25

- DIEGO BOLANOS ‘25

- MICHAEL PAZ ‘25

exploring had travel

Time

I remember the liquidity of time in childhood. The seconds that often raced by and other times dawdled. I remember the gravity of time and the outrage of being asked to repeat a question in Spanish instead of English, because who could possibly have time for that? I remember my mother reading and singing to me when I was sick and swore I’d never feel healthy again. I’ve forgotten the days when the night became elastic, stretching on and on. I am nostalgic for a time when every second felt all consuming and urgent—something succulent, precious to own and greedily devour.

I wonder when time’s whimsical prancing slowed to the mechanical march I know today. I suspect it happened around the time I began to attain the unattainable “perspective” that comes with getting older. I have not yet escaped the impatience of youth, but some time when I wasn’t looking, a measure of patience and the underlying knowledge that I am capable of enduring crept in. Alongside this perspective came a crippling sense of loss.

It would take hundreds of adult lifetimes to eat the same number of meals with my brother as we did before I left home. When my father and I cook alongside each other, battling for control over ancient recipes, it is intentional rather than a natural repercussion of living in the same place. Now, nostalgia is bollos mailed across the country and videos of my family singing Las Mañanitas on my birthday. Now, alongside the nostalgia, the moments that I value most are those that restore time to something mischievous rather than perfunctory.

Sometimes I see myself as a mad old woman, fighting to alter the very nature of time. Disregarding futility, I grasp for bygone moments and the unknowable future as the sand slips unstaunched through my fingers. I am overwhelmed by the need to overcome the tedium and return to an era where time felt abundant and lively. I angrily curse time for its unforeseeable undulations and conclusions and mourn everything I will never do or never learn.

Other times I relish the lack of urgency and the undercurrent of stability whispering soothing platitudes. In these moments, time no longer seems volatile or punishing; it is lush with opportunities and gentle in its passing. I am sometimes struck by the undeniable joy that comes with realizing one’s own autonomy and power over their time. I gleefully go on a spending spree, selfishly using my time as fast as I can, before common sense comes stalking back into the picture.

every girl has a memory box. mine is a bright orange shoebox. it carries elementary report cards, love letters from ex boyfriends (#controversial, i know), and photos of friends who have come and gone. it’s nothing glamorous, and yet it is one of my most prized possessions. my memory box isn’t for show & tell. but if i do show you, know that it is a gift i bestow onto you. you will find bits and pieces of me you may have never found otherwise.

instagram is a wannabe shoebox it flatters us with pictures in our “prime” and perfect posts to show our kids how cool and young we once were every caption

every carousel curated to make you think that Life is a perfect blend of candid photos, cozy cafes, and girls nights out but none of it is real

even the attempt to make instagram casual again is a facade a product of capitalism trying to imitate the authenticity of Life.

the bits and pieces in my shoebox are relics of moments i’m glad i experienced, not experiences i curated in order to relish the moment. so maybe instead of trying to make instagram casual again find a shoe box and fill it up.

#bringbackshoeboxes2024!

Finding Belonging A Través De Mi Café

At the border, the sol ardiente welcomed me with a hug of warmth, as I left behind my pais natal. I felt full of hope, but also overwhelmed by the uncertainty of what was to come. Walking through the calles desconocidas of my new city, I found myself surrounded by sonidos que no entendía, words slipping through my mind without meaning. “Excuse me, ¿dónde puedo encontrar café?” - “Sorry, where can I find coffee?”

“Excuse me” was the only phrase I knew, which I adopted on my travels here when I saw that it called people to attention. She fixed her gaze on me for a couple segundos, her expression a mix of curiosidad and skepticism. With a subtle tilt of her head to one side, como si fuera perrito, the stranger said, “The closest Dunkin is that way,” and pointed to the right.

“Dunkin? ¿Qué es Dunkin?” When I turned to look at the building the woman had mentioned, I noticed it had a sticker of a coffee cup, similar to the ones they sell in big cities in Mexico. With a sonrisa agradecida, I made my way to this “Dunkin” and asked if they had café Abuelita and if they could make it really warm.

“What did you say?”- “¿Qué dijiste?” said the barista.

At this moment, I sifted through the minimal English vocabulario I had accumulated during my time here. Once I found the right words to express myself, intenté de nuevo, “Coffee Abuelita, hot?” The barista finally understood my question and responded, “Coffee, okay.” I got my coffee, and although it didn’t taste as good as the café de olla from back home, I was glad I got something to drink.

From this day on, the language barrier persisted in every interaction, in every moment of my daily life. The only place where I felt my ideas did not get lost in translation was at work. Trabajé como albañil en México and I found I could do the same work here. I joined a couple of companies and learned more skills that I didn’t know before coming to the U.S..

Eventually, I found that over time my English got better and that I got better at my job. Agradezco a mis músculos por eso. But although my English got better, and I felt fulfilled with my improvement at work, one thing persisted: I will always be a Mexican man. El hombre mexicano que el gobierno teme y llama ilegal, and the Mexican man that American women fear.

I never thought of myself as intimidating; I always looked like everyone else around me in my town in Mexico, but here I stuck out like a sore thumb.

I found that when in store aisles looking for queso fresco or frijol beans to make at home, other shoppers would wait until I left to approach the aisle. As you can imagine, it was hard to make amigos fuera de mi burbuja de compañeros mexicanos de trabajo, but that did not stop me from trying my hardest. In stores, I would make sure to say “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” to whomever I came across, always with a large smile on my face. I found that as my accent started disappearing, these phrases were more and more reciprocated. Mi inglés ocultaba mi identidad como un hombre mexicano, or at least temporarily.

Years later, the Dunkin still evokes memories of my first cafe americano, though now it’s harder to pinpoint Dunkins as my vista empeora. Yet, it will always serve as a reminder that I will forever miss mi México. With each new skill I acquired in English, I discovered a new sense of belonging in this land of opportunities. I could be American, and I could be Mexican a través de mi café. -

CAMILA BAUTISTA FUENTES ‘27

MARCH MADNESS & MATERNAL BONDS

Withtears streaming down my face, I reached for the phone to call my grandmother, my heart racing with disbelief at what I had just witnessed. Yale had triumphed over Auburn, and I had been there on the sidelines, cheering with all my might throughout the entire event. Despite my doubts, this time I knew she would share in my joy. Our relationship had always been fraught with misunderstandings, especially regarding my achievements – be it academic success, athletic triumphs, or artistic performances. As I was growing up, she couldn’t comprehend my passions, rooted as they were in pursuits beyond her own experience..

My grandmother, lacking a formal education, was nonetheless the rock upon which her family leaned, the pioneer who braved the journey to America for a better life. It was not her fault that she struggled to grasp why I found solace in dance or desired a liberal arts education. In her worldview, a woman’s role was confined to homemaking and motherhood. Yet, despite her own educational limitations, she became my staunchest supporter, bolstering me against every obstacle that threatened to impede my learning. While she couldn’t assist with homework or tutoring like other parents, she provided invaluable emotional sustenance. Like many Latina grandmothers, she imparted a deep faith, a wellspring of strength during challenging times. Even now, I seek comfort in her rituals, asking her to light a candle or offer a prayer on my behalf. Her narrative and unwavering encouragement fueled my aspirations, instilling in me the belief that I could chart my own course and achieve anything I set my mind to.

Single-handedly raising four children, she toiled for 45 hours a week, often for meager wages, to afford her offspring a brighter future. Even in later years when she could

have retired, she continued to work, sacrificing her own comfort to provide for me and my brother and affording us the opportunities she never had. Her life was a testament to perseverance, laboring in various roles as a housemaid and in fields, kitchens, and factories. She sacrificed her own pleasures so that I could revel in mine, such as the privilege of attending a prestigious university surrounded by brilliant minds and inspiring mentors.

Whenever

homesickness threatens to overwhelm me, I draw strength from my grandmother’s example. She left her homeland, confronting unfamiliar languages and cultures, poverty, racism, and classism. Her resilience serves as a beacon, reminding me that I can weather any storm and emerge stronger from it.

In the midst of all the fights and turmoil, I have created an unbreakable bond with my grandmother. She has filled our room with love, culture, and cleanliness. She has been my guidepost throughout life, and I cannot thank her enough for everything she has taught me.

Calabaza De Casa

My father likes to visit his friend’s farm in Connecticut. To get to the squash fields, we drive past horse ranches and small cattle farms where the animals roam freely. This drive excited me because I live in a city where the most interesting animals are stray cats. I imagine these farms and animals reminded my father of his home in San Francisco.

San Francisco Tetlanohcan is a pueblo in the smallest state of Mexico. It’s two hours south of Mexico City and sits at the base of a dormant volcano. Desert-like conditions allow for the growth of agave and prickly pear. The soil is dry but fertile enough to grow sugar cane, grains, and corn. Every year, farmers pray for a bountiful harvest. But due to droughts, the corn dries up before it matures. Farm ers return home with grains only the animals can eat. My father left San Francisco when he was 16.

There are a few similarities between Connecticut and San Francisco. Both lands are conducive to the growth of squash. In Mexico, we make quesadillas with squash flower fillings. Squash flowers don’t grow year-round, so it’s a delicacy my father looks forward to each harvest. His friend owns acres of corn, tomato, and squash fields. Every summer, my father fills trash bags with squash flowers for our family to eat and share with friends. I don’t like squash or its flowers, but it brings me joy to listen to my father talk about his yearly trip to the farm.

The US agricultural industry employs many Mexican people. The farm my father visits has several Mexican and Latin American migrant workers harvesting the fields. When he started taking me to the farm as a child, he ensured I formally greeted every worker we encountered. “We aren’t better than anyone,” he’d remind me. On many visits to the farm, I’d see children accompanying their parents as they harvested. The children ran across the fields and played tag and occasionally ate a tomato from the vines.

Seeing these workers harvest vegetables for grocery stores didn’t “give me a better sense of where my food comes from” or “show me the humanity behind our food systems.” Seeing these workers and their children reminded me of San Francisco: So many talented and hardworking people leaving the pueblo because it doesn’t have the resources to support the lives of many families. My parents have stable jobs because they were able to escape the poverty they feared awaited them. But what happens to those they leave behind? Will we reunite with our family in San Francisco? Will I ever sit at the same table with my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and eat squash flowers with tortillas made from the corn that grows on our land?

I feel obligated to return to San Francisco because I’m privileged to have a piece of earth where I know I belong. My cousins live in the home where my grandmother was born, where my father grew up, and where my parents got married.

I don’t know if my parents will ever go back. Perhaps one day, we will find our way home.

—DANIELA FLORES ‘24

Eu & I

English:

Looking in the mirror, I don’t recognize myself. I’ve forgotten the shape of my existence— the mirror doesn’t show me how I should be. What does it reflect? Parts. Dots. Fragments of myself, but they don’t come together to become something else. Dots don’t become lines. Fragments don’t become a whole. If I saw my reflection, would I still remember myself? The questions echo loudly in my mind, and the lack of answers destroys me. I don’t know how I can exist if I forgot who I am. Should I act as a tall or short woman? Smart or stupid? My body is paralyzed; I can’t make any decisions because I have forgotten myself. How many times should I breathe? How many times should my heart beat? I wish I were reborn, but what if I miss the parts of me that die in the process? What I truly wanted was to run away from life, but on my way, I lost myself.

I beg the mirror to tell me what I am. My passport tells me I’m Brazilian; when I am outside Brazil, that’s what I am. But when I go back home, I can’t be defined as what everyone else is. At home, I am detached and overly ambitious because I left. Away from home, I am a coward and too attached to my family because I want to go back. So, am I defined by where I am? Here is my dilemma; here is my despair. I am neither home nor away from home; now, I am within myself. But I don’t know how to behave since I never learned to be without first having to define myself.

I am desperate to see something in the mirror, so I cling to any verb that can become a subject. I describe myself as this subject—Brazilian, ballerina, writer, reader—and that is how I see myself. If I hold on to a subject, I can see a reflection in the mirror without discovering who I truly am within myself.

Portuguese:

Ao olhar o espelho, não me percebo. Esqueci qual o formato da minha presença. O espelho não me diz como eu deveria ser. O que ele reflete? Partes; pontos; fragmentos de mim, mas que não se tornam algo maior. Pontos não se tornam linhas. Fragmentos não viram o todo. Se eu visse meu reflexo, lembraria de mim? As perguntas ecoam e a falta de resposta me destrói. Não sei quem posso ser se esqueci quem eu sou. Devo agir como alta ou baixa? Inteligente ou burra? A paralisia toma meu corpo pois não sei fazer nenhuma decisão se esqueci de mim. Quantas vezes devo respirar? Quantas vezes meu coração deve bater? Penso em renascer, mas preciso saber qual parte de mim estaria morrendo. Queria na verdade fugir da vida, mas no caminho, esqueci de mim.

Imploro pro espelho me dizer o que eu sou. Minha nascença me diz brasileira; quando estou fora do Brasil é isso que sou. Mas quando volto pra casa, não posso ser definida como aquilo que todos são. Em casa, sou desapegada e ambiciosa, porque saí de casa. Fora de casa, sou medrosa e apegada porque sinto falta de casa. Então me defino por onde estou? E aqui a minha situação, aqui o meu desespero: não estou em casa e nem fora de casa. Agora, estou em mim. Mas não sei como me comportar porque nunca aprendi a ser, sem antes me definir.

Sou desesperada para ver algo no espelho, por isso me agarro a qualquer verbo que possa virar sujeito. Me descrevo como esse sujeito: brasileira, escritora, bailarina, leitora, e assim me vejo. Se me apego a um sujeito, consigo ver um reflexo no espelho, sem descobrir quem eu sou em mim.

Almas Olvidadas

Entre las cuatro paredes donde intersectan violentos los días que fueron y los días que serán, descansa futilmente, junto a las grietas y el polvo, la pregunta que tanto tiempo he temido preguntar:

¿a dónde van las almas cuando el último recuerdo de ellas le huye a nuestra memoria?

Mientras los cuerpos de esta ciudad trabajan su caminata diaria hacia el infinito, y mientras las campanas de Harkness mobilizan el mundo hacia la noche, pienso en algún tiempo en estas mismas calles en el que mi nombre, también, se ha esfumado de las mentes.

Pero en esta noche abandonada más allá del cielo donde no hay lenguaje ni tiempo ni espacio, veo el reflejo de cada semblante que alguna vez atacó la noche con ilusión.

Viene a mí la única respuesta: esas almas ahora innombrables, tan solo cuerpos en viejas fotos colgadas en las paredes de este mismo cuarto, esas almas son las estrellas.

Bridge to Forgotten Souls

Between the four walls that host the violent intersection of the days that were and the days that will be lies futilely, along the fissures and the dust, the question that, to this day I have feared to ask:

Where do souls hide when our memories of them have been forgotten?

As the bodies of this town embark on their daily march towards infinity, and the chimes of Harkness tower mobilize the world into the break of dusk, I think of a time on these very streets when my name, too, has vanished from memory.

But on this loneliest night, beyond the sky above, where language has no power and time has no language, I see the reflection of every visage which once charged the night with hope. It comes to me the only possible answer:

those souls we can no longer name enshrined in the old photographs hanging on the walls of this very room, those souls are the stars.

multivocality in the mexican (dirty war) archive

Created with excerpts of testimonies from Elena Poniatowska’s La noche de Tlatelolco and materials from digital archives, this poetry collage highlights the numerous voices that construct the people’s historical memory of the Mexican state’s brutal repression of the 1968 Student Movement. Mexican soldiers shot upon an assembly of protestors attending a mitín (or rally) at la Plaza de Tlatelolco in Mexico City and killed hundreds of them on October 2nd, 1968. The government immediately sought to cover it up and blame the unarmed students. This is one of many moments that should encourage us to question the official histories of our home countries. What can we gain from hearing dissonant perspectives of common people?

- JONATHAN BALDERAS ‘25