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RETROSPECT JOURNAL
4
EDITOR’S NOTE Not a year passes in peace and tranquility. There are always extraordinary events that occur; sadly, the negative ones are most remembered in posteriority. The year 2017 has witnessed remarkable feats that future issues of Retrospect will examine through historical microscopes. However, it does not cease to surprise me how we identify good events with communities sharing happiness and empathy, and bad events with an individual, or a small group of individuals, acting unkindly and with little compassion. This is why when Retrospect’s Editorial Team decided to set this issue’s theme, we were eager to explore the relationship between individuals and communities. We wanted to know how communities are formed, how communities are maintained, and how an individual can enter a community or belong to a community. The reader will soon realise that many of this issue’s articles examine how individuals and communities experienced different conflicts, and how conflicts have influenced individuals’ perspectives of each other and of other communities. I must apologise if you thought that this was going to be a pleasant bedtime read! But let me reassure you by drawing attention to writers’ strong concern with diverse factors that have impeded communities’ development and enrichment as well as with the power of an individual to shape a community. It has not escaped us that individuals and communities are deeply influenced by territorial borders, nationalities, and cultures. Within this issue, Emma Marriott introduces us to the Singaporean nationality, deeply
marked by Singapore’s relations with China; Carissa Chew offers the reader an insight into her family’s experience during the Bangladesh War; Maria Marshall provides a moving and compelling account of the Cuban children of Operation Pedro Pan; and Scarlett Butler brings light to the 1950s American culture and its different approach to women, Marilyn Monroe’s womanhood, and femininity. At Retrospect, we do not believe that languages are a signature of individualism or communalism. Instead, Retrospect has demonstrated in its online publication that languages are communication vehicles through which we can understand each other better. We have welcomed submissions in foreign languages and collaborated with foreign universities in order to learn about the history of the world from different communities’ perspectives. Furthermore, as Editor-in-Chief, I am delighted to see the internationality of our writers and editors manifested in different styles of writing that reflect the writer’s passion about their home cou nt ries a nd native communities. This is reflected in both Luis Monroy’s piece, recreating the magical realist spirit that is so symbolic in Latin American literature, and high school student Kirstie Cronin’s fictional account of a young British soldier in the war. The love for writing and research that Retrospect’s writers and editors display in this journal is surpassed by their commitment to empowering individuals, fostering a community spirit, and realising a happier, healthier, and more peaceful world. It is with