Youth Issue

volume 8 / fall 22 / spring 23 issue

normal noise*

"YOUTH"

* a barrett honors college literary magazine

2023

volume 8 issue 1 // S22 YOUTH issue

v8/i1/S22

EDITORS IN CHIEF Surabhi Sajith Dunya Mostaghimi FEATURES EDITOR Amaya Leiby LITERARY EDITOR Akshita Sagi DESIGN & ARTS Anna Belding Elizabeth Villar MARKETING Helenna Gu Madison Shosten FACULTY ADVISOR Dr. Elizabeth Meloy

Normal Noise is a semesterly magazine supported by Barrett, the Honors College at ASU. Each issue provokes conversation about the complexities of everyday life through long-form journalism and art.

Normal Noise is student run. Views expressed in the magazine do not reflect those of the administration. You can reach the editorial board at normalnoisemag@gmail.com.

Like Normal Noise on Facebook, check out our website at normalnoisemag.wixsite.com/ and follow us on Instagram @normalnoisemag.

20 22 Dear reader,

Welcome to “Youth”.

The Abolition of Innocence

8

Raine McAngus

Poetry

The period of youth is a special one- encompassing physical and mental changes and many “firsts” that ultimately lead to 9

Nikole Henriques

Photography

growth. But while in the midst of this transitory stage, learning to deal with the inevitable transformations we go through can be a challenging and defining moment.

Youth

10

Aki Sagi

Poetry

In this edition of the magazine, we encourage you to consider the moments where you grew, and realized what your youth meant

Nature State

14

Brandon Ligon

Nonfiction

to you.

Chocolate on the Countertop :: Rotten

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Josie DeBord

Poetry

The artistic, prose, and nonfictional contributions to this edition of our magazine reflect the sentiments that exist in this space of youth: sadness, awakening, love, betrayal, and how they were experienced in that moment lifetimes ago or how we remember

To My Forest Friend, Party Thought

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Madison Shosten

Collage

them now.

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Kee Bulkowski

Poetry

Specifically, this issue highlights experiences with feeling lost in a crowded party, coming to realizations about changing familial dynamics, and the dramatics of one’s first heartbreak and the rebirth that follows, among other stories in our fictional

To the Youth

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Anonymous

Poetry

contributions.

Threads

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Amaya Leiby

Poetry

The collage art and film photos featured in this edition by our talented artists also reflect the vigor and overwhelming emotion that encompasses the age of youth as evidenced by the textured nature of the collages and the richly dramatic shots in the images.

First Love

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Nancy Beckler

Nonfiction

We would like to thank Barrett, the Honors College at ASU for their continued support of Normal Noise as a vehicle for student

The Bug Hunt

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Mia Yanez

Fiction

self-expression and creativity. The work of the magazine would also not be possible without the extremely talented contributing writers and artists who brought their memories and ideas of youthood to life. Additionally, we are deeply grateful for the hard

If you said it back, I could die peacefully

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Lourdes Loera

Poetry

work of those on the editorial board, our interns, and advisor Dr. Elizabeth Meloy that made these ideas into the work of art that is being shared with you today. Hopefully, within these pages, dear reader, you will travel back to the times of your youth and find

China’s Youth Problem

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Melody Colucchi

Collage

joy and pieces of reflection in remembering what used to be.

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Drake Leary

Nonfiction

Sincerely, Dunya Mostaghimi and Surabhi Sajith

YOUTH

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Jadyn Ocampo

Poetry

Editors-in-Chief

The Abolition of Innocence Raine P. McAngus When did smiles stop being genuine?

Lips touch.

A mouth afraid to say I love you.

Disconnected from the boy, who still believed In people capable of authenticity.

Confidently lostMy mind echoes through brighter days.

As I lay in the presence of darker ones.

Reality scares the innocence from my body, My skeleton bears the wear of time.

Heart tattered by liesThat floated off tongues like feathers Reborn in the garden that grew apples of, Grief.

Spite.

Degradation.

I struggle to imagine the future.

I struggle to find the imagination that disappeared, With the little boy who knew no better than to trust.

Bold colors that erased the blues I know now.

Moments where the biggest problem was choosing a friend; Not finding one.

It is the curse of humanity To know infinite emotions In a finite life.

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nikole henriques @nikolehenny

Raine is a Barrett, undergraduate student from Honolulu Hawa’ii, with a passion for poetry that seeks to relate to readers through describing the felt human experience.

to me, film photography is a continuous practice of learning to appreciate the aspects of life we often overlook, because moments like that always end up being my favorite photos. it’s also an amazing way to connect with people! providing them with photos of themselves and seeing how surprised and appreciative they can be is enough to keep me going :)

it’s suffocating me.

Youth

i'm still dizzy but it's not me that is spinning anymore.

Time has woven dread into the deepest parts of

it's everything else.

my being.

the sky.

Like those braids you used to put in my hair every

which used to be blue

morning before school,

but is now black

plaits dripping with coconut oil

Littered with stars

I would wipe off as much as I could on the bus.

which used to be shooting

A child paralyzed by the fear of retribution.

but now lie so still.

Cruelty took form in the words of 5th graders

the dry bottle in my hand.

the Idli and Sambar

who were convinced that the oil in my hair was

which used to be filled.

you packed for me

grease,

with such tender hands.

and the brown on my skin, dirt.

Aki Sagi

Dear mom,

I’m sorry.

That my freedom meant the lack of yours.

I welcomed hunger

That you had to leave behind

if it meant I could escape contempt.

everything and everyone you ever knew to follow

As you watched me run into the rain.

Mom, I can't do those braids in my hair anymore.

I’d lean over roadside streams

I cut it too short.

where a whisper of a breeze

I'm sorry.

wherever circumstance lead you.

You built me with everything you had.

Carved me from the mango trees and washed me in the deep monsoon.

I’ve never told you that every breath I breathe is simply the air you’ve spent 20 years pumping into my lungs.

I’m sorry.

For spending a decade angry at you.

would push along paper boats.

For allowing hatred borne of ignorance

Remember when we would go to Dave and Busters

to seep from their mouths into mine.

on Friday nights?

May they sail in more peace than I do

For telling you to take the bindi off your forehead

You thought distracting me with pacman and pinball

left seasick on land beside you.

to save myself from the embarrassment

would save me from the hatred that plagued my

of our blatant culture.

youth.

Do you remember when I fell in love with

Nevermind that it was built over centuries

Well, the games I’m playing now

Cinderella?

with the nimble and rougherned fingers,

are much too complicated.

Mesmerized by blonde hair and sparkling blue

the weighted souls,

I never win.

eyes,

of every woman that came before us.

And even when I do,

obsessed with something I could never be.

For instead reveling in the power of people

the only prize is a shovel

Something I’ve spent a lifetimne

that were not my own.

so I can dig myself deeper into this hole.

burning to emulate.

10 years of resentment

Are you still listening mom?

Well, I fell again a few months ago.

neither of us will ever get back.

For speaking over you so many times in the fear that your accent would reveal what it took me mere seconds here to understand.

That we were intruders in a foreign land.

I'm sorry.

For throwing away

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Like the clouds of the storm above me

But how ironic I’ll come home for Diwali

that he would rather I be tanned by sun and

Mom, I’m sorry.

And when you see me

not ancestry.

For I know you must worry for me.

You’ll remember how

Because if it was me that was blonde haired

Fear for a daughter with a broken heart.

I would put on the longest lehenga i could find

and blue eyed,

And I know it’s been awhile

and spin

he would have found it in himself

Since I've called.

rich maroon fabric billowing out in waves

to let love lie.

I’ve been so busy growing up.

until i fell into soft grass dizzy with euphoria

It’s harder than I thought it would be,

Well mom,

Mom do you remember me

That has brought me here.

bright eyed and bushy tailed.

And I am not afraid to sing to them

I used to stray from every path

in the language of my people.

you set me on.

The depth of misery.

But mom I do now.

Not from lost love.

the yellow brick road

I’ll introduce you to them

Nor from this world which surrounds me.

was simply a choice I never made.

one day mom.

I harbor the pain within me mom.

You might notice

And when passing people tell me

When sorrow was simply a feeling

their clothes stained with tears

how much I am like you.

and not a place I lived.

that carry all the hurt I’m made of.

I think to myself,

When it was hope that i trusted

if only they knew.

and not despair.

And you’ll see

When curiosity was my conviction.

they don’t deserve the burden

And in another lifetime,

of picking me up off the floor

one where you did leave,

eager

everytime the weight of this world holds me down.

I do not blame you mom.

is something I never am anymore

Everytime the memory of you bleeds me dry.

Because I understand the pain you knew.

The butterflies which used to be

Mom I thought for the longest time

But I will never leave,

now hang like dead weight

that this hole in my heart

because I have the angels who never found you.

inside of me.

was simply the parts of it begged and borrowed

Mom, that little girl you used to know,

by every stranger I used to know.

I think she is gone for good.

But mom

So when I show up on the doorstep for the

their greed never dug this hole in my heart.

holidays And the bitter November rain

You did.

Washes me bare,

When you sat me down all those years ago

Please let me in out of the cold

and told me you wanted to leave.

Even when you do not recognize me.

I’ve been sad since that day.

Try not to worry For I’ve found angels

That day I realized

In strange corners of life

that the light in your eyes

?

was shallow.

They see me for what I am.

Golden where I stand.

I remember going to sleep

They ask me about my past

wondering what could be quite so horrible

With genuine longing to know

to make a mother leave her children.

Everyone and everything

For I never did understand

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Aki is a Junior at ASU studying Business Marketing, and as for the future, she’s decided to simply see where life takes her

Brandon Ligon is a junior studying music composition and creative writing. He specializes in experimental narrative, testing the boundaries of music and storytelling, and loves recording night soundscapes.

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chocolate on the counter :: rotten

by Josie DeBord

She gazes longingly at the fruit Just barely out of reach Like a dog longs for chocolate on the kitchen counter She longs for the taste, the color She watches the watermelon as it rots Passed from hand to hand, each one sinking bites into its innocent flesh Until innocent can no longer be used to describe it.

How, then, could it poison her?

The watermelon’s flesh rotted right in front of her eyes As oils from other hands Deteriorated it.

But she was a blind woman in silent bingo Selectively blocking out the screams of danger from the window outside.

“Fine then, let her be poisoned.”

It is impossible to have your fruit and eat it too.

How could she restore an eaten watermelon?

Reality beside her, she persisted.

A dog leaps up to the counter, seizing the chocolate in its salivating jaws.

The watermelon crumbled in her gentle grasp Its pink flesh bleeding over her palms, Dripping down her arms.

The owner grasps the dog by the collar

Poisoned?

The dog began to curl, its owner now nowhere to be found.

A watermelon would never, right?

He would never, right?

Maddie is a sophomore studying data analytics and enjoys hiking and photography.

But the dog still persists.

How could she know she was being poisoned?

When she had first seen the fruit, now melting in her hands, It was so ripe.

So sweet, kind, gentle.

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My name is Josie, and I am originally from Washington State. I don’t always find it easy to describe how I feel, and have always found comfort in expressing my thoughts through poetic analogies.

You seemed to scrape the sky when I first met you,

I’m tempted to go join them there,

Of a pine tree among the birches and aspens,

To glimpse the heavens pinwheeling so slowly

Strikingly out of place but burning cold with life,

That my eyes do not catch the criss-cross patterns they make

Burning cold no matter the time of year, arrowing the sky in half.

Whirling across the sky’s darkened shell.

Now you barely seem to make it out of the crumbly dirt

Instead, I stay at the folding table with you,

Where your roots once sunk to the heart of the earth.

Where we would sit among the fallen logs and trees, Dead branches curling like gracious, fluted fingers, Made to shield us and our trembling lies from the rest of the world.

You haven’t sat on your place on the fallen oak in quite some time, And I think it’s time I stop retracing my steps to that grove, To the place where I carved our names in a living tree, To the place where your rough hand closed over mine,

And throwing marshmallows into the firepit

Watching the stars drift silently overhead.

You had everything I hungered for, the resolute confidence

Beaten smooth by deer hooves and our eager feet,

Down by the fire, they’re chasing away lightning bugs

A couple people lay on the cool lawn

Needles tough and long, gleaming dully in the summer sun.

Wisps of your bark and dirty autumn leaves line the little dirt track,

While laughter drifts from every corner of the yard.

To see the pale flesh spit and pop.

Dark green and bristling with life, breath-shucking,

That leads to the hallowed place where the light couldn’t reach,

kee bulkowski

kee bulkowski

That I’ve moved on from the need of you.

My mouth sullenly opened as your friends laugh

party thought

to my forest friend:

I’m writing this letter to let you know

The moon hangs full and blurry over the patio

With gasping breaths like drowning fish, Desperately flopping against the knots in their nets.

My eyes drift back to the starwatchers, Back to the dewy summer grass.

I should be thankful for you and the things that you give, But I’m not, I never really was, And instead I long desperately to lie on the lawn With my mouth closed and my eyes shining silver with stars, Shining silver with the things you never let me have.

Making promises both the forest and I knew you could never keep.

Kee Bulkowski grew up in the woods of northern Ohio where he got bored, and decided to write to make sense of everything going on between the trees.

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TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH TO THE YOUTH 20 20

To the youth who was born six weeks early,

To the youth who grew up too early,

Thank you for fighting for your breath.

You deserve to experience childlike joy.

To the youth who fell off their scooter,

To the youth who hated what they saw in the mirror,

The scar on your ankle is beautiful.

You are worth more than gold.

To the youth who guessed that their dad was in jail,

To the youth who wrestled with sleep,

Know that your intuition is an asset.

Everyone needs rest.

To the youth who kissed their foster sibling goodbye, To the youth who placed identity in academics, You were a blessing of a sibling.

You are more than your success.

To the youth who weighed themself weekly,

To the youth who questioned their place,

Believe that your body is a temple.

The world is better with you in it.

amaya leiby is from gresham, oregon and this

is her first year at asu. as well as being an honors Threads college student majoring in english and By: Amaya Leiby she is on the women’s water polo team. psychology, she has enjoyed working on this edition of normal noise and is excited to see it come to life!

**Author’s Note: The following piece is an excerpt that I wrote while looking ahead to college.

Now as a college student, I look back on it and reflect. I hope it allows you to do the same.

Here I exist in the chasm between the years gone by and the aurora of my future. I reflect, but also fantasize. One day, my first 17 years will be a bare fraction of my existence, but today, they are the sum of all my days. Epitomizing those 17 years are minutes, conversations, and realizations that have meshed together, now characterizing and defining the person I am. Giving an image to this depiction of self-development and its evolution, I envision threads from years ago stretching to the place I sit today, connecting my current strengths and weaknesses to the shell of my current self, that once was my best self. Aspects of my adolescence will accompany me to adulthood, their impact either a grudging weight or an adorned victory. Regardless, they are me, and I am them.

Returning to my earliest vaulted memories, I trace a thread of strength back to a day that tried my six year-old self ’s unshakeable euphoric beatitude. Ignoring the daggering pain of the enlarging spider bite on my thigh and the industrial fans drying out the molded bathroom, I bounced our foster child up and down, while continuing to prepare breakfast. My dad hid away in his upstairs office, leaving me to the household responsibilities, while my mom saved lives at the local hospital. Amidst identifiable chaos, I initially unveiled my ability to continue on, putting one foot in front of the other, choosing strength.

A place of isolation from the ups and downs of family, throughout my elementary years, was my private school. The goldfish I was awarded in kindergarten represented achievement. In first grade, increasing difficulty of young reader books demonstrated my love of words. However, second grade came and went, with enough tears to inspire my mom to homeschool. Baffled and balking at this decision, I enjoyed summer. Meanwhile, our formal living room morphed into a

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first love by nancy beckler

You never forget your first love. The feeling you get when you think of them, or whenever you hear their name. The way you will do anything to bring them up in conversation. Below the surface, there is a connection between you and your first love you feel that no one will understand. Every relationship is different, so no one experiences their first love the same way you or would experience yours.

Alongside my writing, I have asked two intelligent and beautiful women to talk about their first loves: one whose first love did not work out, and someone whose first love did work out, to show you that everyone experiences love differently.

Experience 1 We met on August 16th, 2018 at marching band camp. She was a sophomore and I was a freshman in high school. That first day, I knew there was something special about her. I needed to get to know her. From that day forward, she was my best friend, my partner in everything. Throughout the marching season, we became closer and closer. We were falling in love. We had German together. It was purely a coincidence that she was in that class on the first day of school and the only open seat was right across from her. We fell deeper in love in that class because of the amount of time we spent together. . Over time, our friends and family were asking us if we were dating. I wasn’t out yet, so we always said no. Deep down, I wanted to be known as her girlfriend so badly. Though, she never really 24 24

made me feel like I could possibly be her girlfriend.

In June 2019, I moved to Arizona while she stayed in Illinois. Once I moved our love plateaued, but it was still there, burning brightly under our friendship. On February 16th, 2020, I told her that I loved her. I came out in early January of that year, and I was then able to see my love for her. After months of back and forth of “I love you” and “no, we’re just friends,” I finally committed to our toxic relationship. I do believe that we truly loved each other, but her mental health issues were more intense than I was used to, and I couldn’t be there the way she needed me to be. She couldn’t be there the way I needed her to be. With it being long distance, it was even harder than when we were actually together. I could feel our love growing stronger when I was standing next to her. When I was on a video call with her, something was always missing. Being halfway across the country and in high school, we could never physically be with each other. It really stood out in the long run.

Her mental health causes were what really stood in the way. Long distance we could handle, but when you can not be there for the person you love, it is a very difficult thing to go through. She drained my mental health every day, and I believed the only thing that could make me feel better was her, when really, she depleted me.

We broke up in August of that year. After trying to contact me twice, I finally agreed to just be friends. Deep down, my love never left. After I had a traumatic dream of her death, I thought she was gone. The thought of losing her was absolutely mortifying, even when she drained the life out of me. It solidified my love for her, along with an excessive amount of flirting. We found our love for each other on June 16th, 2021, when I saw her in person for the first time in two years.

She went off to college and started a new life while I finished high school and lived life as usual.

We didn’t fit into each other’s new lives, so we broke up in mid-November. I lost my first love, and it broke my heart. I lost the one person I wanted all of my firsts to be with, who I believed could make my dark days bright again. The person who I truly cared for over anyone else in my life. I have finally healed, but this past year has been one of the hardest years of my life, knowing that I could not love her while going through everything.

It wasn’t the right time for us to love each other. We needed our space to grow into who we are supposed to become, and I still believe we do. Loving her made me the person I am today. It influenced my projects and who I am as a person. I know how I can love someone, and how I need to be loved.

If we’re supposed to be together one day, then we’ll be together, but I do not see that happening. I’m happy she was my first love, and she will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Experience 2 I began dating my long-term girlfriend during our freshman year of high school. We were together throughout our formative years, for better or worse. To say it was all bad would be boldly untrue – we dated for nearly four years and did genuinely enjoy each other’s company all the while. We shared and supported each other through grief, bereavement, and burnout, and celebrated some of our greatest accomplishments together.

However, because we were each others’ firsts for nearly everything, we lacked standards for what was normal and healthy. Overconfidence in the stability of our relationship led us to become complacent. Month over month, insecurity turned to resentment, and arguments over inconsequential things interrupted our every week. It wasn’t immediately apparent to either of us how unhappy we really were. We broke up in February of this year, though the relationship had ended long before that.

I wholeheartedly thought that dating another woman meant I was invulnerable; we could level with one another in ways other couples our age could not, and we were immune to power differentials.

We moved quickly and entrusted a lot with one another, and I held the impression that sapphic love meant my partner could never hurt me. At fifteen in a largely rural town, nobody had the conversation about boundaries, consent, or sexual abuse, much less in the context of same-sex relationships. I thought that there was no way she could hurt me the way I imagined a man might. She could, and did. I carried with me a grotesque, shameful relationship with sex and my own body image for years.

I’d like to not blame her, as we were both far too young. It’s undeniable that we loved hard and took good care of one another for a very long time. Still, a combination of shame, fear, and guilt meant the cycle of abuse was allowed to continue for months. Even after it all, I thought losing her would kill me – it very nearly did – but I’m happier now than I thought I’d ever have a shot at being again. I’d like to think the experience didn’t make me a cynic, and I strongly hold that love is real. However, if any of my perspectives on love are cynical, it’s this parting thought: I think everyone needs a first love, and everyone should lose them. It’s taught me more than I knew I needed to learn.

there is no reality where I am happily pursuing my dreams in a state I’ve never called home. Along the way, we’ve unlearnt the codependency we once had. She’s made me into a more patient, honest person.

She is my first true love, and I truly believe she will be my last. Through years of long distance and issues I couldn’t have dreamt up, we have stuck by each other. We aren’t married, and we don’t plan to be for a while. However, I truly believe in “for better and for worse.” We have been through better, and we have been through worse. To this day, we continue to prove initial assumptions about our relationship wrong. She makes me a better person, and I do the same for her.

For better, or for worse, she is not just my first love. She may be my only love.

Experiencing first loves in our youth shapes who we are today. One of us learned how to love the way to be loved; one learned that in order to know love, you need to lose love; and, one of us learned how to love. Some first loves work out, and others do not. It does not mean that you should not want to the experience. It means that everyone experiences it differently. First love is a beautiful thing, and it shapes you into who you will become, no matter the outcome. Learn from our examples, but do not run with them. Take everything into your own hands, and run as fast and far as you can.

Experience 3 I met her during my freshman year of high school. Our relationship was preceded by nearly two years of mutual pining which both of us were too blind to notice. Every late-night car ride, FaceTime call, and every other adventure was accompanied by an undeniable love for each other. At the time, we both assumed it was a feeling that could remain platonic. I was out, she was not. And I didn’t know that she ever planned to be. Neither of us knew it, but I think we spent those two years waiting for the other to be ready.

Finally, just before my 16th birthday, she told me she’d been in love with me for months, and I told her the same. It seemed as if all the puzzle pieces had fallen into place for the time being. As much as we loved each other, those around us were convinced that we wouldn’t last. Our friendship had been built around an unhealthy dependency on each other, and she was set to move out of state for college in just a few months. Still, we pushed forward.

The pandemic happened and postponed her move. We were crushed by the tragedies occurring before our eyes, but grateful for the extra time we had together. However, the move could not be postponed forever. At the end of July that year, she left for the first time. I was beyond crushed, unsure of how to navigate this new reality.

Long distance was, and still is, a unique challenge. Our time together is framed by an inevitable end, where one of us will get on a plane, and our dates will become FaceTime calls once again. However, I wouldn’t trade this for the world. There is no reality where she is fulfilling her potential in Arizona, and 26 26

Nancy Beckley is a freshman majoring in Creative Writing. She’s had her work published in other school newspapers, and knows this is just the beginning of her journey.

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My name is Mia Yañez, I am a sophomore Barrett student and the author of an 80,000 word fantasy book called Tetrachrome. Writing is my greatest passion, and I love learning new things about the craftsmanship of prose every day!

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If you said it back,

The way your skin brushed mine today, reminded me,

I could die peacefully

If I could, I would carry your shoulders tall above my head,

Lourdes Loera

So they graze the cool clouds You always say are too far from your reach I would run beside your enduring legs into that dead street, Illuminated by all the light you shyly turn your head from & When your hands, shakily, grip your pen, nearly out of ink, Trying to extract those last godly ounces of wisdom your tilted head holds, I would brush your hair away from your furrowed brow & Peck every delicate strand you say is too greasy, always needing washing I would wipe the grime and dust from outside the doors Of the life you forced me to build I would pit patter every inch of you made rough during the lean months With the softest vanilla & warm you by the hearth So your skin would know every rich scent was made for you alone I would feed you, handful by handful On the grain my kin saved for me to give to whomsoever shared my table I would fatten you in winter Take you to the sea in summer Just so you can see how birds flock & dip as one beneath a setting sun How the ocean, too, stretches toward your calloused feet Trying to relieve the harsh floors you’ve danced upon

Lourdes is a fourth-year undergraduate pursuing dual degrees in chemistry and anthropology. Their passions include belly dance, the outdoors, and toasted bagels.

If I could, If you’d let me, I would be your ocean, your grain, your pen 36 36

Melody June Colucci is a junior at Arizona State University pursuing degrees in Sustainability and Geography with a minor in Spanish. She loves indie music, traveling, and anything creative.

CHINA’S YOUTH DRAKE LEARY

AUTHORS NOTE This paper, although factual, is not invulnerable from use of potentially biased language correlating from the American perspective this paper comes from.

There is a tendency for those in the U.S. to look at demographics and generations from purely their personal point of view. The average millennial, zoomer, boomer, etc. simultaneously believes that they are both smarter than the older generations but wiser than the younger generations. What this view tends to forget is that all generations make up society, with many playing drastically different parts that make a country function. China has a particular issue in its country regarding its younger generations. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wishes to make China a self-reliant consumption based superpower, not a manufacturing cog in the globalist machine. This end goal of China seems to the West as a threat and inevitable future, a future where authoritarianism wins out over democracy due to its efficiency and competence.

But what this assumption fails to recognize is China’s domestic issues that prevent it from reshaping its economy and society.

Where this is most prevalently seen is in China’s younger population which stands in the way of the CCP’s goals in more ways than one.

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DEMOGRAPHICS Arizona is a state whose demographic situation has been steadily but moderately getting worse ever since stricter immigration laws were placed on it in 2007. Arizona went from consistently adding 700,000+ to every new generation before 2007 to adding 300,000+ afterwards; this is not definitely not ideal, but compared to China it looks like nothing. China’s population is 1.41 billion and will peak in two years, according to the UN, and then start dropping rapidly afterwards until 2050. That same projection concludes the Chinese population will shrink to 747 million by 2100, and that’s the best case scenario, while the worst case predicts China to drop to 494 million by 2100. This is critical because young people are essential to an economy, as they are the main drivers of economic consumption, labor, education, innovation, and will replace the older generation’s roles in government and business when they retire. This means young people are valued by governments

everywhere, it’s also why China won’t become a superpower.

China has very few young people relative to its older generations.

China’s main drivers of economic growth being 15-24 year olds make up only 12.47% of the population with 175 million people. Retirees in China (60 and older) are numbered at 260 million which is ~14% of the population.

This is already an issue, there are fewer young people who need to pay taxes, work, and innovate to take care of and support old people than the amount of old people needing care. But this is extremely troubling considering China’s population aged 45-59 is ~21% of the population, these people are transitioning into retirement either very soon or have already started. China is now developed enough to lower birth rates, allow people to retire at an earlier age, and raise the country’s life expectancy. This means that there are very few young Chinese people to take care and prop up a non-functioning generation of the country in the next few years which will put immense pressure on the Chinese economy and social situation.

in 1980, China enacted a policy of limiting Chinese birth rates due to the overwhelming number of Chinese people causing the economy to struggle to provide for the populace. This policy was brutal in its own right forcing Chinese women who already have a child to get state mandated abortions and repression for non first born children. But the ramifications for China’s society were even worse, China has 36 years of only one child being born which artificially lowered the amount of young people while the population present before the one child policy began to age and began needing assistance from the younger generations. The one child policy was scrapped in 2016 but by that time China’s population graph was horrible with less and less people being born in every new generation.

SEX RATIO

The sex ratio is the difference in population between men and women. In China it has risen from 104 men for every 100 women to 112 men for every 100 women in the past 5 years. The population will decline even more as there are way too many men who can’t marry Chinese women.

How did it get this way? The For comparison, the sex ratio in answer to this is simple: because Arizona is roughly 100 women for of the one child policy. Starting every 100 men (only 9,000 more

women than men in Arizona). In Chinese society men are valued more than women, so many parents decided during the one child policy to abort girl babies and have male ones instead, this would in turn increase their social status in Chinese society, well now there are tens of millions of Chinese men who will never reproduce despite China’s efforts to encourage them to do so.

China has since 2016 implemented a three child policy in an attempt to reinvigorate birth rates, it gives financial incentives for having more than one child. This policy has failed with China’s fertility rate getting lower and lower by the year, but why? This question too is very easy to answer, Chinese people simply don’t want kids. According to a 2021 youth survey (ages 18-26) done by the Communist Youth League found 44% of young women don’t want children, nor plan to marry while 25% of young men also stated they do not wish to marry or have children. The most commonly stated reasons for not marrying was financial pressure and not having energy for marriage.

This means even fewer children will be born into the Alpha generation, further plunging China’s economy into a crisis for the young generations needing to support the highly dependent

older generations.

POPULATION RECORDING What could possibly make this situation worse for China? Well, what if the government has been lying about their population numbers? This is proposed to be the case by famous demographer Fuxian Yi, who claims, using 1990 Chinese unclassified demographics data, that the Chinese population isn’t actually 1.4 billion but rather 1.28 billion.

According to Yi, the UN estimate that China’s population will peak in two years is false, he believes it already has. China’s population reporting is all over the place with different sources and government institutions stating different figures, a good example of this was the six census vs economic census data in 2009. The figures for the two censuses that reviewed the same sources with the same information came out with a 36 million person difference between the two censuses for ages 0-18.

But why is this the case, why is their data unreliable? The answer is simple yet again, its subsidies.

China is a top down command economy, so funding towards any initiative has to come from the upper echelon of government down to lower governments, down to local governments, down to even more localized specialized

governments. Federal census bureaus in China essentially get their population numbers from local governments or provincial governors, who receive budgets according to their needs not wants. Well this sounds like a perfect system with nothing wrong with it, until a governor wants more than what he needs either for personal gain or political reasons. Yi claims the majority reason for poor census data is due to local governments inflating their population numbers for higher budgets or subsidies, seeing as on some local levels the population fluctuates considerably when viewing its data pattern this makes a lot of sense.

Governments need accurate information to properly implement policy, if the information given is not accurate and a policy is made around that, it will either not work or make the situation worse. Yi claims the Chinese population peaked around 2009, considering that the one child policy ended in 2016, if the Chinese government had more accurate numbers it could have dealt with the issue sooner but it didn’t because of unreliable data. In Arizona, and America as a whole, this isn’t much of an issue, government population records tend to 40 40

be very accurate with any misinformation being cleared up by private organizations.

The reason why American data is more reliable is because in democracies, the parties in preparation for elections need accurate data in order to advertise their policies to essential voters, which incentivises accurate population recording.

YOUTH GIVING UP China’s youth issue isn’t just that they don’t have many young, the young they do have do not view society highly and aren’t meeting “CCP standards”. Take the “lying flat” movement. It began spreading like wildfire around Chinese social media in 2021. It encouraged Chinese people to stop struggling with the stress and expectations of Chinese society and to just lay flat. It’s a form of online activism that discourages Chinese people from stressing over work, status, and consumerism and instead to enjoy life. In China, activism and anti-government gatherings are banned meaning that forms of activism like this are becoming more commonplace on Chinese social media (which young people are most present on).

In 2022, the “let it rot” movement became more pronounced with

social boards having hundreds of thousands of members (before the government deleted them).

This movement was like “lying flat” but with more cynicism as it discouraged people from even caring about society. What these movements show are two main things: young Chinese people are becoming further detached from society and Chinese youth are further using social media as a platform for activism and resistance against the Chinese government. This is really bad for the CCP whose main goal is to transition from a manufacturing economy to a self-reliant, consumption based, superpower.

How can China change its society, economy, and status on the world stage if its young people just want to lay flat and let it rot?

But why are China’s youth losing faith in society? This doesn’t have a simple answer, as it has to do with social and economic pressure in an era of connectedness that brings its own set of pressures (cyberbullying is a good example), but the CCP hasn’t made the situation any better. Take the social harmony policy China initiated two years ago meant to increase support for the CCP by putting new rules on the tech and education sectors, it resulted in businesses losing money, jobs being lost, and more depressed

Chinese youth. Another good example is the 2021 crackdown on the gaming industry which saw 14,000 gaming related firms shut down, decreasing available games for young people and tech jobs.

Chinese youth unemployment is some of the worst in the developed world with its youth unemployment rate being 19.3% in 2022. In comparison, the U.S. youth unemployment rate in 2022 is 8.1% and even that statistic has been a nightmare for young adult Americans.

CONCLUSION China’s youth problem is not just one of economics and demographics, but encompasses the youth’s attitude to society as a wider whole. Chinese young people are becoming more depressed and nihilistic as time goes on both because of social pressure and government policy.

Government policy seems to be the driving factor towards all of these issues dating back to the 1980 one child policy to the 1991 nationwide one child policy to the 2021 no covid policy, so on and so forth. The CCP needs to address this issue thoroughly and immediately but before it can it needs accurate information and less oppressive policies towards its economy and younger populace. These two things, while

necessary, are unlikely to come true as the Chinese government has shown time and time again.

China is an example for other nations to look at and learn from. Arizona is an area with a steadily rising population subsidized via immigration which allows it to stay relatively stable economically with a strong base of young workers which Arizona needs in order to turn into the “new Silicon Valley”. Arizona’s demographics aren’t great but certainly aren’t terrible. The lessons to be learned from China are to avoid economic policy that seeks to promote societal values, avoid discouraging births, and ensure a larger younger population compared to the older dependent population. For Arizona to ensure this is simple, they should allow for a steady flow of immigrants (most immigrants are young and hard workers), and not enact sweeping alienating social policy.

This is something that voters in the 2022 midterms to not throw off Arizona’s demographics which barely has more gen Z’s than millennials who are barely bigger in size to gen X.

My name is Drake, I’m from Atlanta, Georgia but grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and my major is political science. An interest for my whole life has been international politics and I express this through my hobby of writing news articles about world events.

YOUTH

Jadyn Ocampo is studying political science at ASU! When she isn’t neck-deep in her textbooks, she enjoys writing slam poetry. She has been doing so since she was 11, and hopes to selfpublish a book of poems in the future!

by jadyn ocampo

Youth is something that has always been sought

But the idea that our youth is life’s highlight

The question is not whether one should search for it or not

Stems from the fact that youth is finite

But rather deep in the asking of what is at stake

It matters because one day it won’t

If we cannot find a way to avoid our ultimate fate

Air is beautiful because one day you could choke

The quest to be young again is a song listened to by all walks of life

Water is needed because droughts are a possibility

Gilgamesh, Ponce de Leon, and Mother Gothel have all engaged in this strife

Being young is a blessing because death is the last sermon of life’s ministry

We want to be young because we want more time

We appreciate our prime

“Once upon a time” compared to “The end” is more pleasing to the mind

Because there will come a time

We enjoy life and want to live as long as we can

When we decay

In fact the idea that one day I will see my last sunset makes me very sad

And we will know what it’s like when a sunset turns gray

I would love to spend a century on the beach

But we will look back on our youth with gratitude

A century in a forest with mountains to hike in reach

Because we never wasted a second searching for eternal life on lines of latitude

A century in the city surrounded by lights and hustle

Those who seek to be young forever

A century in the country at a cute church and on a porch solving puzzles

Missed the whole point of youth all together

But the reason all these dreams are ones worthy to pursue

It is not something we should hold on to with a tight grip

Is because not all of them will come true

It is something to be enjoyed and then released with bliss

I do not have multiple centuries to spend in different scenery

If forever was something we could always reach out and touch

Life is a car that can go far, but is still just fallible machinery

It would not mean as much

Because one day you will run out of gas

So make the most of every youthful second your divine gives

One day you will place last

And know death is what it means to live

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A Barrett, the Honors College publication