In Between the Sunlight

In between Sunlight — shan villanueva

“In Between the Sunlight" refers to the feeling of being in the middle of the shadows and sunlight. Think about the feeling of your skin finally touching the sunlight after being stuck in a cold room for a long time or maybe the feeling that you're finally growing after feeling stuck. This project came to be from thinking about the power and the nauseating feeling you feel after that late night drive or parked car conversations with your friends, after getting to say everything you’ve been feeling but thinking about those certain words you still can’t seem to say out loud yet. We all have gentle strength we carry allowing us to grow, this publication tells the stories about the feelings we can't always name, and welcomes them.

We highlight the “in betweens" in life, the "middle" moments where we aren't where we used to be, but still aren't where we want to be, in between both the past and present. We are all learning. We are all going through something, and healing from those unspoken things we are still sometimes too afraid out to say loud. This publication was created to be reflective and hold space for the quiet stories that linger and sometimes fade to grey. We want to highlight stories that get planted and grow in your notes apps, the aches that sit in your chest, the ink that bleeds in your forgotten diary entries, those are all so real and they all matter here. You matter here.

you exist in my most beautiful point of view:

Lately ive been obsessed with hyphens.

What lays in between.

Too much for one, but not enough for the other. Filipino-American.

Isn’t that funny?

I’ve lived between the accents I’ve softened and the language I’ve never fully learned, The Tagalog words I understand in my heart But trip over on my tongue I’m still learning to perform in this fluency, Code-switching in school hallways and family parties, Navigating classrooms that might never say my first name right, I’ve stopped correcting them.

I live in between the traditions I carry like muscle memory, No slippers in the house, prayers before food, Sunday mass, The stories my parents passed down to me through fragments and food, The sinigang on the table and my cousins on the weekends, The laughter that didn’t need translation But also the ones I’m still figuring out how to belong to.

I live in the silent confusion, The frustration when I have words to say, but never the means to say it, The missed jokes. The itch on the tip of my tongue.

Or the way I sometimes hold my own culture like it's borrowed.

As if I needed permission to belong.

Filipino-American.

It’s strange to feel like home and a guest in your own skin, To carry pride and disconnection in the same breath, To be a stranger in both places that you are suppose to love This Filipina girl will never be American enough, But in the same breath this American girl, Will never be Filipina enough.

Yet, somehow, I am both.

Not a translation or a compromise, Neither fully one nor the other, I am a story still being written, Whole in her own right, There is something so sacred, About growing in the space in-between the hyphen

— shan villanueva

A small plate, topped with a peach severed into eighths. It’s interesting how superficial manipulation can be demonstrated by Asian parents through this facade of “knowing what’s right.” But in this false intuition, through a false sense of power, through the misalignment of American and Asian traditions, they do not recognize that just like in their language, their love will not directly translate.

They represent yellow-toned marionettes, their children bound to their existence and temperament due to bloodline. Each piercing word slowly infiltrates and expands into their martyr’s mind, rendering any defense useless. Every projection, every disappointment, every “almost,” every “enough,” a resonating noise that echoes and echoes, each tremor of hesitation and disappointment tearing into their child’s conscience. Their voices silently creep through crevices of minds and deliberately plant it's concepts as contraband. In the pursuit of something greater, in the sacrifices made to continue their legacy, they’ve created miniature, rebellious amalgams that will continue their style of living strictly contrary to their parents. There was never a problem with the notion of love, but there is duality within the execution. The problem did not end with the cut fruit, but it began with the intent behind the blade that prepared it.

maybe happiness isn't a destination or a stage that you reach in life once you complete every challenge you're faced with. maybe it's simply the enlightenment of your soul realizing that everything around you is enough and that if things were to go awry, it would be okay because at least you got to experience it for a while. maybe it's simply the appreciation of the simple things in life.

—briar rose

Make a mess. Do not clean it.

Let your knees fall. Strawberry burns and all.

Do not stand back up.

Feel desperate, be unable.

Shatter it and do not fix it.

Tear birth certificates and discard century-old values.

Be the worst daughter your parents could imagine you becoming.

Take a wrong turn on the highway.

Let yourself think this is it.

Lacerate a closed wound of a loved one.

Avoid accountability for your actions.

Love the person who loves you like they hate you.

Let them roleplay the boy and you, the giving tree.

Shriek at the sky like a starved infant Confront the Son of man about giving you things to lose Put your hand out to a knife.

Let it cut you deep and admire the beautiful red your body made.

Do it again.

And again.

Do not stop doing it.

Be wide-eyed, senseless.

Believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the boogieman.

Believe in a Judas.

Drive into the parking lot of your childhood Church.

Glare back into the eyes of the person who died on the cross for you.

Demand a miracle.

Be terrified of the future. Be ashamed of the past. Be ungrateful for the present.

Do the bare minimum.

Be the worst.

— veronica hankil