nuAZN | #29. COMING OF AGE

nuAZN coming of age

nuAZN

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Brendan Le PUBLISHER

PRINT MANAGING EDITOR

Russell Leung

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Wendy Zhu

PHOTO DIRECTOR

Julianne Sun

LEISURE DISTRICT EDITORS

Katie Liu, Jade Wang

WORLDWIDE EDITORS

Kaavya Butaney, Joyce Li, Xuandi Wang

Ilise Angel GATHERING EDITORS

Rie Kim, William Tong

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jessie Chen, Kim Jao, Yinuo Wang

PAGE DESIGNERS

Valerie Chu, Shinyi Ding, Gracie Kwon, Alice Meng, Michelle Sheen, Ellie Siu, Annie Xia

CORPORATE TEAM

Lucia Shen, Janie Xu

CONTRIBUTORS

Yiming Fu, Jimmy He, Michelle Hwang, Esther Lim, Lily Walters, Judy Zeng

MODELS

Vicky Chen, Seora Kim, Abby Li, Shannon Liu, Therese Mañego, Ananya Paul, Zhaohan Sun, Esther Tang, Julianna Tia, Grace Wang, Hamin You

Editor’s Note

Nostalgia is a paradox like no other — it tinges memories with joy and melancholy all at once. Like reminiscing about playing pretend on the playground, when you could truly be anything you imagined. Or recalling how you’d ride shotgun belting your favorite songs with a friend from whom you’ve since grown apart. I remember the lunch periods I keeled over laughing at an inside joke, the nights I cried over world-ending heartaches that I now tell as party stories. There is no happiness as warm as bursts of nostalgia, no sadness that lingers as long.

Coming of age can feel like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it era of life. Blink once, and you’re suddenly off to college. Blink twice, and you’re receiving your diploma. For the inaugural issue of the new nuAZN , we want to press pause and sit with our nostalgia to commemorate the culture, art and stories that have shaped the way we’ve grown up.

Cover Design by Ilise Angel & Wendy Zhu

On page 10, following Sailor Moon’s 31st anniversary, reflect on growing up with protagonist Usagi. Experience nuAZN’s reinvention of the coming-of-age film on page 20, and read about how distance has improved some students’ relationships with their parents on page 25. On page 31, learn about how students access cultural ingredients and snacks from their youth.

What makes the past so sentimental is its novelty: We will never be the people we were in those exact moments again, because we are constantly learning, evolving and using our histories to pave our futures. I hope this issue captures the jubilance, sorrow and thrill of coming into your own and envisioning all the directions you can grow from here.

Brendan Le Editor in Chief

Photos by Ilise Angel, Valerie Chu, Kim Jao & Yinuo Wang

Connect with The Block

Explore The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University with our free digital guide. You can plan your visit, access museum stories, and dive deeper into your favorite artworks and exhibitions.

The Block is proud to join more than 150 international museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and cultural spaces on Bloomberg Connects.

Photo by Valerie Chu

(Hair) healing era

Two days after I got into college, I ended up in a salon chair, asking myself a critical question: Am I going to look ugly with blue hair? Dyeing my hair took almost four and a half hours, giving me plenty of time to consider whether it was a mistake.

But that night, my dream came true: I was finally the girl with blue hair. I was finally unique, and it only took four years to convince my mother to let me do it. Let me tell you, Amma was not into the idea of my thick, black hair turning orange and dead.

It was not that dramatic. My hair isn’t as happy as it used to be, but it did not fall off my head. However, it did get ugly far too quickly. The perfect dark blue-purple hair turned teal within a couple of weeks — then olive green, then yellow.

South Asian hair is considered a commodity. It has been used in wigs for thousands of years, and South Asians are damn proud of their hair. Hair oiling is a thousands-yearold Ayurvedic practice with a variety of benefits: hydration, dandruff prevention and, most notably, strengthening hair. Before white girls on TikTok called it “hair slugging” and complained that their hair couldn’t absorb the heavy oil, I was 13 years old, healing hair loss with coconut oil.

Growing up, whenever I lost hair or my hair didn’t look good, there was one response from Amma: oil it. She

Story by Kaavya Butaney Design by Ellie Siu

Photos by Valerie Chu

would take the little blue bottle of Parachute Coconut Oil and spend 10 minutes working it into my hair. Just like her mother, her grandmother and probably even her greatgrandmother did for their daughters.

At some point, hair is no longer just hair. At some point, it represents the history and culture embedded in every practice. No matter how much of a “coconut” I am, my hair keeps me tied to my heritage.

A couple weeks after the hair oiling trend emerged on TikTok following the release of Bridgerton and the iconic Kate Sharma hair oiling scene, I stared at my dying yellow hair and decided to go back to basics.

I heated the little blue bottle in the microwave for 20 seconds and oiled my hair for the first time in years. In that moment, despite being ushered back into the practice by fictional Indian people, I felt a real connection.

Last month, I cut off all my dyed hair and thought to myself, What now?

I’m considering going purple-red soon. Maybe one day, I’ll return to blue. But right now, I’m trying to keep my hair alive. Most weekends, I hop out of bed to have a hair oiling session, taking ample time to lather it onto my hair. After a couple of hours wandering around my dorm, I wash the oil off. Rinse and repeat.

My love story with Parachute Coconut Oil.

Learning with Lau

Cooking up a connection with YouTube chef Chung Sun Lau.

Story by Judy Zeng | Design by Valerie Chu | Photos by Yinuo Wang

Standing at the counter with a wide assortment of ingredients, sauces and an electric burner, Chung Sun Lau chops green onions while explaining to the camera to cook the scallions’ green parts separate from its white parts. His hand wields the knife with ease and tenderness, movements revealing his decades of restaurant experience and immense love for food.

Canton-Style Pan-Fried Noodles

Substitute Canton-style noodles with instant ramen noodles for convenience.

His son, Randy Lau, started the Made with Lau YouTube channel over the pandemic as a home cooking project to preserve his father’s recipes and stories. It quickly garnered more than 1.1 million fans for its comfort recipes and wholesomeness — particularly the family meal after the cooking demo that gives the viewer a glimpse into the Laus’ dynamic. is a way I can explore authentic Cantonese and American Chinese recipes, as well as connect with my Chinese heritage.

Like the Laus, my dad is the main chef in my family. He grew up in China’s Jiangxi province, where stir-fry dishes are popular. Out of convenience, he typically threw together some meat and vegetables in the wok, added soy sauce and stir-fried it for dinner. My mom, who is from China’s Liaoning province, grew up with wheat-based dishes like noodles, steamed buns and dumplings. During Lunar New Year, she’s always in charge of making dumplings. Now, I’m thousands of miles from home-cooked food and family. When I had the opportunity to cook, I jumped on it — I asked a friend to borrow her apartment’s kitchen and got another to drive me to H Mart.

Cooking these dishes was three hours of lonely work. In the tight, dim kitchen, I learned how to cook with a gas stove for the first time and how to adjust portion sizes to serve for one or two people, putting my rusty estimation skills to the test.

I realize now that family is an integral part to cooking and eating, and home-cooked food and flavors are the vestiges of childhood memories. Cooking is an opportunity for us college students to build a new relationship with heritage through our meal choices — just as the Laus have done.

Fish Omelet

Can substitute fish for shellfish or meat. Use a light, tender fish like cod.

Hot and Sour Soup

Recipe uses convenient ingredients — tomatoes, bell pepper and carrots — but would recommend bamboo shoots and wood ear mushrooms instead for a more authentic flavor.

Sad girl hours

POV: You’re sad and single.

Story by Brendan Le Design by Annie Xia

I’ll be the first to admit I sobbed to Conan Gray’s “Lookalike” in high school after my boyfriend broke up with me. After all, almost every coming-of-age story involves a life-altering heartbreak that sets you up for a major glow-up.

You just need to find music to cry it out first. Indonesian pop star NIKI and Vietnamese American R&B singer thuy are among the musicians that have all the emotional bases covered, from longing to loathing to moving on.

album Nicole

NIKI rose to fame through her (nowdeleted) YouTube covers. In 2017, she became the first woman signed to the Asian and Asian American-centered label 88rising. Her agile vocals and confessional songwriting had fans hooked since her official label debut single, “See U Never.”

Zephyr in 2018, NIKI launched onto the scene with glitzy R&B tracks like “Vintage,” a sleek cut about running into your ex after time apart. Her 2019 follow-up EP wanna take this downtown? presents more muted, lullabyesque beats with feathery vocals. On “urs,” she encapsulates the frustration and confusion of a situationship: “The best at being the worst / But fuck’s sake, I’m already yours.”

Nicole sees NIKI revisiting songs she penned in her adolescence about a teen

romance split by distance and growing up. The opener “Before” starts at the end of the story, on an uneasy visit to her high school sweetheart’s American college. The album’s crown jewel is “Oceans & Engines” a nearly six-minute ballad of guitar and percussion that swells and crashes, bringing NIKI to terms with the end of her relationship.

“I’m letting go,” she quavers in the final chorus. “This is the last falsetto / I’ll ever sing to you, my great, lost love.”

After thuy’s song “Hands On Me” won a local radio contest and propelled her into Bay Area stardom, she decided to leave her medical career prospects behind to pursue music full-time in Los Angeles. She has since amassed 2.5 million monthly Spotify listeners and headlined two U.S. tours. Along the way, thuy even made a pit stop at NU for Celebrasia 2023.

In a 2022 Luna Collective interview, thuy says she’s grateful for her late, postcollege entry into the industry because

she’s “experienced so much life, so much heartbreak, so much change” to imbue into her music. Her wisdom shows in her 2021 debut EP i hope u see this, which details the stages of a toxic relationship.

On the two opening tracks, “trippin” and “chances,” thuy lectures a dishonest lover and refuses to forgive him again. She flips between reconciling and rejecting him until “universe,” a spacey declaration of love for a new, more deserving person. It’s no wonder it’s her most-streamed song, especially in the context of the EP.

“You still give me butterflies / My lullaby, you are,” she sings, “everything I wanted.”

Even after heartbreak crumbles worlds, there’s still hope for greater universes.

Photo courtesy o fLaura Harvey

Editors’ Picks

This song had me in the trenches from the second I heard, “While I’m on Sunset, are you on the subway?” Being from Southern California — and experiencing my one and only heartbreak there — I was terrified I’d be stuck there, abandoned in a memory and wondering if they still thought about me. These days, the song radiates nostalgia: highways at sunset, outdoor malls at golden hour, piers at night. For extra damage, listen to the acoustic version.

A stripped-down sad bop about drunkenly pining for your ex at 3 a.m., “Just My Luck” hits different for anyone who’s missing a special somebody late at night. Ray and Kehlani’s bitingly sweet vocals mask the desperation and regret that reveal themselves in lyrics like “Now I’m yelling at the phone in the middle of a bar begging for your kisses” and “It’s just my luck / I won’t remember this in the morning.” Plus, there’s a Mandarin Chinese version for those who wish to learn heartbreak in two tongues.

I have screamed the lyric “I could waste all of my time in between the lines” countless times while driving around my hometown, angsty about graduating from high school and having to actually become an adult. EASHA’s self-confident, quasi-manic pixie dream girl vibes are cathartic, and even now, a year later, the song is like a good punch to the gut.

“Yellow” carried me kicking and screaming through tough times in high school, like an afternoon spent crying after sixth period outside our school theater. Those days, I had a hard time doing a lot of things: quitting what made me sad, making decisions that hurt then but were better in the long run. 幸福 ( xìng fú ) — happiness — was the first thing Ho sung that I knew the meaning of. It’ll come, sooner or later, for all of us.

Last summer, I struggled to enjoy my time with my closest friends, knowing each day that passed was a day closer to leaving one another — some indefinitely. On the drive home from one of our last beach days together, “Ew” entered the queue. As I listened and stared into the forested Santa Cruz mountains along Highway 17, I came to a realization: As the song goes, people “teach you to love just to let you go,” and that’s part of the complicated yet beautiful nature of friendship and growth.

We curated five songs by Asian and Asian American artists essential to healing heartache.

Seen on screen

My first exposure to Asian media in theaters was a total accident. In June 2018, my friends and I were in our town’s local theater waiting to watch Incredibles 2 when I was blessed with a short-film gem: Bao.

In Bao’s eight-minute run time, I watched the complicated relationship between a Chinese mother and son effortlessly unfold through digital animation. The main character reminded me of my grandmother, with whom I lived in China for the first five years of my life. Bao gave me a glimpse of on-screen

representation I had never seen portrayed by Western media.

The following year, at the 91st Academy Awards, Bao would win the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, making director Domee Shi the second-ever Asian director to attain the achievement. If someone asked me about the first Oscar victory I felt genuinely invested in, it would be Bao’s.

Four years later, Everything Everywhere All at Once (EEAAO) dominated the 2023 awards season, becoming one of the mostawarded films ever. Lead actress Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian actress to win the Oscar for Best Actress for her role as Evelyn Wang, and Ke Huy Quan took home the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Waymond Wang. EEAAO also took home five additional Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

The surge of Asian American films earning prestigious awards is a relatively

new phenomenon. Even though it’s only one step in the journey toward better representation, it still gives hope to Asian American communities and audiences alike.

Asian Americans are historically underrepresented in the American film industry. Of the 1,808 acting award nominees throughout the Academy Awards’ history, only 23 are Asian. Of those, only six have won.

At the turn of the 21st century, however, Asian American films began seeing some mainstream success. Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) won four of its 10 nominations at the 73rd Oscars. Years later, Lee would win Oscars for Best Director for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Life of Pi (2012).

The recent growth of Asian American award recipients follows a larger trend of increased on-screen representation. In 2018, though it did not receive Oscars nominations, Crazy Rich Asians defied the boundaries of romantic comedies, slashing the notion that predominantly Asian-casted

APRIL 21, 2018

FEB. 24, 2019

AUG. 7, 2018

ASIAN AND ASIAN AMERICAN FILMS OVER THE YEARS

The short film Bao premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Crazy Rich Asians premieres at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.

Bao (2018)

While Asian American media is finally gaining recognition in mainstream awards, there’s still a ways to go.

Story by Jimmy He Design by Wendy Zhu

Bao wins Best Animated Short Film at the 91st Academy Awards.

films had to center race. The following year, Parasite became the first non-English language film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, surprising even its director, Bong Joon-ho. Most recently, in 2023, RRR’s “Naatu Naatu” became the first song from an Indian film to be nominated and win the Best Original Song award.

Even as Asian American works gain recognition within the American awards sphere, some setbacks raise concerns about what it takes for them to fit within the American mainstream. Throughout EEAAO’s awards season success, Taiwanese American supporting actress Stephanie Hsu was largely erased in favor of white industry veteran Jamie Lee Curtis. In 2020, the Golden Globes faced controversy after Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari won the Best Foreign Language Film award but failed to qualify for Best Picture, because Lee’s film, utilizing both Korean and English dialogue, didn’t meet the Globes’ 50% English-language requirement.

Moreover, industry-standard film awards still lack voting diversity. In 2022, about 81% of the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences identified as white. Even with the current influx of Asian American on-screen representation, white judges still gatekeep whether these films and actors can receive the accolades they rightfully deserve. More voters of color are necessary to fairly appraise both Asian American films and those created by other people of color.

When I watched Bao for the first time, I remembered seeing review sites riddled with people who thought the short film was silly or weird. Years later, I saw the same pattern with EEAAO. Among fivestar praises was a fair share of reviews from established critics calling the film overrated, pointless or poorly written. At first, I felt frustrated whenever I read those reviews, but as time went on, I made peace with the fact that the Asian American experience isn’t universal and that it’s OK that someone with a different background might not resonate with a film about Asian American life as much as I do.

Through the four years between Bao and EEAAO, I’ve watched many Asian Americanacted and directed films, both award-winning and not. Some, such as Crazy Rich Asians and Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, have become personal favorites. To see a character on screen that reminds me of someone I grew up with or to see them resolve a conflict that I’ve had to conquer myself makes me feel warm and satisfied, like I’m returning home to a family reunion after years abroad.

My journey with Asian American media is still young. As I continue to

spend more time in America, I only hope for that bond to grow stronger and keep me rooted in my Chinese heritage. I treasure seeing these films get their fair share of credit through mainstream awards, but the absence of an Oscar or a Golden Globe will never take away the personal value I hold for so many pieces of Asian American media.

FEB. 9, 2020

MARCH 11, 2022

FEB. 8, 2022

MAY 21, 2019

Turning Red is nominated for Best Animated Film at the 95th Academy Awards.

Parasite is the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Everything Everywhere All at Once premieres at South by Southwest.

Parasite premieres at the Cannes Film Festival and is the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or.

Photo by Ilise Angel

Stepping civics

into

The different paths of Asian Americans to political engagement.

Design by Wendy Zhu

Story by William Tong

Photos by Jessie Chen

Since turning 18, Jean Ikezoe-Halevi (Medill ’80) has never missed a primary or general election.

She says she’s kept this record because she doesn’t take her rights for granted, as much of Ikezoe-Halevi’s family immigrated from Japan to the U.S. in the early 20th century.

“My parents were in an internment camp during World War II,” says Ikezoe-Halevi, who is Japanese American. “They lost their rights as citizens.”

But Ikezoe-Halevi — a longtime broadcast journalist turned village trustee for Lincolnwood, Illinois — says she also had an aversion to politicians for much of her professional life. Her least favorite topic to cover as a journalist was politics, she says.

However, Ikezoe-Halevi saw an ad to serve on Lincolnwood’s inaugural Human Relations Commission in 1997, which aims to represent a diversity of residents and unite different communities, and she successfully joined.

On the commission, Ikezoe-Halevi worked with other members to put up “flags of diversity” along Lincoln Avenue. She also served on the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals from 2013-17.

She initially ran for village trustee in 2013, coming up short, but won election in her 2017 campaign.

“I saw some other people that I knew who were running, and it dawned on me,” she says. “If they’re running, why can’t I run?”

Between 2000-2020, the Asian population in the U.S. increased by 73% to 20.6 million people, according to census

Jean Ikezoe-Halevi

data. Asians now represent 6.2% of the American population and are the fastest-growing racial group in the country, the Pew Research Center reported in 2021. Yet, a May 2021 report from research group Reflective Democracy Campaign shows that Asian Americans make up just 0.9% of elected leaders in the U.S.

Some Asian Americans at Northwestern say they feel civic participation has become increasingly important for the community. However, many don’t specifically see political office as a priority because of their concerns about the political environment and their interests in other careers in advocacy, policy research and public sector law.

For SESP second-year and Associated Student Government Senator Anna Alava, meeting elected officials who initially didn’t want to be politicians during her “Women and Political Leadership” course influenced her attitude toward holding public office.

“It was interesting to hear a lot of them talk about how they didn’t come into politics wanting to be a politician,” Alava says. “It was more like they were just living and saw an issue with, ‘How can I affect this?’”

Alava, who is Filipino and Korean American, has worked with KAN-WIN, an organization that fights sexual violence in Asian American communities. She has also volunteered for the HANA Center, a Korean American and Asian American advocacy and education group.

As Alava entered civic life, she says she kept her Asian identity in mind. For now, Alava wants to work in education policy. Unless being an elected official presents the opportunity to effect change on specific issues, Alava doesn’t plan on holding political office.

During the Asian Americans Advancing Justice Youth Summit in fall 2022, Alava met with legislators to discuss avenues toward immigration reform. Listening to an immigration attorney’s presentation during the summit showed her how law can serve the public.

Anna Alava

Katya Chadha

“It’s obviously hard to imagine how different experiences would be without that part of your identity,” she says. “But it’s almost like it’s not a part of my identity and the way I approach politics.”

Chadha helped pass policy on pedestrian safety on a youth council her Chicago alderperson established. She’s also worked for a Chicago nonprofit to fight housing discrimination.

But Chadha has grappled with Asian erasure in policymaking. While attending a Chicago municipal meeting covering home loan mortgage applications, she says she initially didn’t notice the data had no statistics on Asian Americans. It was only when another audience member pointed out the absence that the exclusion and its effects crossed Chadha’s mind.

Chadha, who is South Asian, says the way presenters lumped Asians into white data was problematic because it didn’t take into account barriers that members of different Asian diasporic groups and immigrants encounter, such as lower education levels.

“There might be issues affecting Asian Americans that are not affecting other people that should be raised,” she says. “That is something that tends to get drowned out.”

“I can combine interest in law and advocacy and not have to ‘sell out,’ per se, in some corporation,” Alava says. “I can still really deeply care about what I work in.”

SESP second-year Hana-Lei Ji says she is interested in public policy — but not public office.

Ji is an active member of Students Organizing for Labor Rights (SOLR), which aims to improve conditions for student and service workers at NU. During her time at SOLR, Ji has represented the organization at a variety of local community meetings, including discussions about the University’s broader impact on Evanston.

After arriving on campus, Ji also wanted to become more involved in civic life in her home state, so she joined the Hawaii State Youth Commission, which advises legislators and the governor on policy related to young people.

Ji says while it’s important for people to consider their Asian identity in organizing work, it initially did not spark her civic engagement. What pushed Ji to understand and give back to her surrounding communities both in Evanston and Hawaii, she says, was growing up in Hawaii amid a mix of Asian and Native Hawaiian cultures.

“The values of hard work but also support everyone has for one another — I think it’s very similar to advocacy work and community organizing,” Ji says.

When engaging in politics, Weinberg second-year Katya Chadha says she sometimes sets aside her Asian heritage because it seems there’s no space to express her Asianness.

Ikezoe-Halevi says she’s proud to live in a community with political representation that reflects the diversity of its residents. Two of her five fellow village trustees are Asian American, and the village’s mayor is Indian American. About a quarter of Lincolnwood’s population identifies as Asian.

While the country also seemed to be moving forward in accepting Asian Americans for the past several decades, IkezoeHalevi says, that progress has reversed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said there has been significant prejudice against Asian Americans in recent years.

“It’s like everything crashed and burned,” she says.

Ikezoe-Halevi hopes despite these setbacks, more Asian Americans will participate in civic life, and stand up for and protect the rights of other Asian Americans.

“We can’t afford to be pushed aside,” she says.

Scott Hwang contributed reporting.

Hana-Lei Ji

Photo courtesy of Hana-Lei Ji

The ballad of Sherman Wu

What it means to be Asian American in fraternities between the 1950s and the present.

Design by Story by Kaavya Butaney & Xuandi Wang

In October 1956, a story broke on The Daily Northwestern that dominated the headlines for months. The Psi Upsilon fraternity removed Sherman Wu, a first-year Chinese student, from its ranks after several white students left the chapter to avoid being associated with an “Oriental.”

Archival documents and school newspapers reveal a jarring story of racial discrimination — one that shines a light on how Asian students have been historically excluded from Greek life at Northwestern.

The fraternity members decided having a Chinese member in their house “would degrade them in the eyes of other fraternities and make it more difficult to get dates from the sororities,” according to University archives.

During an interview with the magazine Newsweek that year, Jack Lageschulte, Psi Upsilon’s president at the time, said, “He’s got yellow skin, his eyes are slanted, and his hair is straight … Somebody walks into our living room and right away they say: ‘who’s that Chinese guy?”

While the Student Governing Board demanded the Interfraternity Council investigate Wu’s case, the council president said it could not take any punitive action because fraternities had the legal right to determine their member recruitment.

The story of Wu, a political refugee who fled to the U.S. after his father was ousted as Taiwan’s governor, soon escalated and drew attention beyond domestic media. Journalist Upton Sinclair sent a letter to Psi Upsilon and accused it of “disgracing the country before the whole world.” The incident even

inspired a record by folk singer Pete Seeger, the “Ballad of Sherman Wu.”

On campus, NU students debated fiercely in the aftermath of the incident, writing one editorial after another to The Daily an open letter, the newspaper’s editorial board shifted the blame from Psi Upsilon to the Greek life system as a whole. They wrote that although Psi Upsilon was guilty of discrimination, it was economically wise because the fraternity would have faced “grave financial difficulties” had it kept Sherman Wu as a member.

“The Psi U’s were quite obviously wrong — but no more so than the system that fosters such an incident,” the editorial read. “Psi U is on fire only because it did not exercise the subtlety that usually surrounds fraternity discrimination here.”

Later on, Wu received bids to become an honorary member of three fraternities on other campuses. He eventually joined Kappa Sigma Alpha at Olivet College, a small liberal arts college in Michigan. He went on to earn a doctorate in electrical engineering at NU, specializing in spacecraft control systems, and eventually worked on the design for Apollo mission lunar modules. After teaching for 30 years at universities, Wu retired in 1992, met his future wife and delved into his passions: gourmet cooking and skiing.

According to Northwestern Magazine, the Psi Upsilon incident ultimately led to an increased effort at the University to

But decades after Wu left campus, Asian students continue to grapple with Greek life’s past and present practices of exclusion.

In 2023, McCormick first-year and Delta Tau Delta member Michael MinSong Kim says his pledge class reflects NU’s demographics, with about 25%-35% AAPI-identifying students in the group.

While Kim notes that he has not had issues with racial discrimination in Delt, he hopes fraternities can keep pushing the boundaries of racial or sexual diversity in Greek life.

“It’s definitely moving in the right direction,” Kim says. “But there are definitely more improvements that can be made, and I think Northwestern can definitely set a precedent for that.”

ShermanWu

For Weinberg second-year Sanjana Rajesh, who is not involved in Greek life, personal anecdotes do not prove Greek life has fixed its problems. Despite the philanthropy these organizations do, she says Greek life still perpetuates racism and sexism.

“A couple people having good experiences does not mean that this system as a whole isn’t flawed,” she says. “And more than just flawed, it doesn’t mean that it’s not also built to be that way.”

Rajesh said the Greek life system has been historically built upon white supremacist ideas, such as classism and superficial judgment of students. She brought up Phi Gamma Delta, which was known for multiple racist incidents at NU during the 1960s including blackface, as an example.

Given fraternities’ continued presence and power on campus even after the Abolish Greek Life movement started, and the lack of repercussions for the past perpetrators, she says she finds it unlikely Greek life can reform.

“Notice how those [recent] changes don’t actually involve any fundamental restructuring of power,” Rajesh says. “It’s just piecemeal things to change the way it looks.”

From 2017-20, Sociology and Human Development and Social Policy associate professor Simone Ispa-Landa researched sororities and whether they can gain from a system that fundamentally disadvantages them, especially given their dynamic with fraternities. She said women of color would often deactivate due to how white their Greek organizations were, saying it was inherently uncomfortable to be nonwhite.

She also says for Asian sorority members, it was difficult to overcome the white, blond, blue-eyed beauty standards.

Looking back at Wu, Kim — who had heard the story before — says Wu’s removal from Psi Upsilon is a part of Asian American history.

Kim, who grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood until high school, understands Wu, who he says likely wanted to assimilate into a predominantly white institution.

“I empathize with him because you try and convince yourself that you are not different from these other people, even though other people might see you as different,” he says. “You don’t want to feel different.”

Photos and caption courtesy of Northwestern University Archives

“A couple people having good experiences does not mean that this system as a whole isn’t flawed.”

– Sanjana Rajesh, Weinberg second-year

WHILE WE’RE YOUNG

Coming of age evokes a sense of nostalgia, capturing the transition into adulthood through a series of eye-opening experiences that shape us into who we are today. They capture the beauty and simplicity of youth that we can never truly relive. Inspired by iconic coming-of-age movie scenes from films like The Breakfast Club or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the photoset aims to give Asian Americans — who have been traditionally ignored and sidelined in these narratives — their own coming-of-age moment.

Photos by Ilise Angel, Jessie Chen, Valerie Chu, Kim Jao & Yinuo Wang

Ilise Angel

Moving over 2,000 miles to college put me in a “long-distance relationship” with my parents. Typical laws of social interaction make it clear why distance is usually terrible in any relationship: People often find it harder to connect and maintain the same intimacy when physically separated. By that logic, it’s strange I feel closest to my parents when we’re the farthest apart we’ve ever been.

The authoritarian Asian parent

At home, my dad used to block me and my sister’s internet access to Netflix and YouTube, both of which he declared “làngfèi shíjiān!” — wastes of time, in Mandarin. We now (sarcastically) refer to that era as “Life Behind the Great Firewall.”

My parents definitely fit the stereotype of the strict, immigrant Asian parent — hyperfocused on my good grades and keeping my social life to a minimum. The restrictive lifestyle my parents enforced was common among my second-generation Asian American friends’ parents growing up.

From an academic point of view, my dad’s perspective lines up with authoritarian parenting, defined by “lower levels of warmth, psychological autonomy,

Why distance makes the heart fonder.

Story by Jade Wang

Design by Alice Meng

alongside strong behavioral expectations.” This perspective is typically associated with Asian parenting, according to research from the Eastern Sociological Society.

In contrast, Alissa Levy Chung, NU associate professor of instruction in psychology, says authoritative parenting centers around warmth, sensitivity, moderate control and “teaching-based discipline.” Mainly researched in Western countries, it is considered the “gold standard” of parenting in Western research communities, Levy Chung explains.

However, many parenting researchers come from Western backgrounds, Levy Chung says, and don’t understand the nuances in some Asian parenting styles and cultural values. Additionally, research at the James Madison University psychology department reveals attachment theory studies have predominantly focused on Western populations, which is why conclusions on the relevance of the authoritative/authoritarian binary to Asian parenting is unclear. Consequently, Asian parents are disproportionately portrayed by researchers as “less warm” for not expressing affection in outwardly emotional or explicit ways that Western parents often do.

When I was younger, I would have considered my parents extremely authoritarian. Along with blocking streaming services, my dad set Screen Time restrictions on my phone and laptop to shut down all my apps after 11 p.m. If my sister and I came home even a few minutes

past 10 p.m., my mom would refuse to unlock the front door for at least an hour.

It took leaving home and reflecting on my upbringing for me to understand how my parents’ “warmth” was, and is, present in my life.

管 (guan) is a Chinese parenting philosophy that is central to childrearing, according to psychologist Ruth K. Chao. Under guan, parents govern their children through firm control to guide them to success. Chao explains the difference between authoritarianism and guan in this way: The former is motivated by hostility, whereas the latter shows love and concern.

Not only do I now believe my parents’ restrictions were fair, but guan explains that their controlling nature was actually their articulation of “warmth.”

A delayed understanding of unspoken love

In December of my high school senior year, I remember shivering in the back of my friend Jai’s car hours before opening my first college decision. I told my parents I needed to be alone, terrified of their disappointment and anger that would follow immediately after reading the words “We’re so sorry” at the beginning of the letter.

My dad sent me a surprisingly accepting text: “Jade, don’t be stressed. It is OK whatever the result is.” I froze reading his second message, sent a minute

later: “Also remember, whatever the result is, we love you.”

I could not remember the last time he told me any variation of “I love you.”

Growing up, my Asian friends and I decided that our parents’ lack of verbal affection was because they felt inherently detached from us.

Some Asian NU students also doubted their parents’ love for them growing up.

After her twin sister left for boarding school in freshman year of high school, Medill second-year Anita Li felt like her mother was “watching like a hawk” at home in Maryland. She says the constant attention led to frequent instances of tension between her and her mother.

Levy Chung says Eurocentric research assumes the idea that love and warmth comes in the form of smiles, hugs and other visible signs of intimacy.

“At some point, neither of us thought we loved each other,” Li says.

For some Asian parents, actions speak louder than words and physical affection. But in the moment, the messages they communicate aren’t always clear to their children. Sometimes, Asian parents can go too far with their criticism. At other times, comments they make are completely illogical and unjustifiable.

During high school, Li’s mother drove her for almost an hour to and from school in Washington, D.C., daily, a privilege Li is deeply grateful for in hindsight.

“Did I appreciate her enough while she was doing it? No, because she was so fucking mean to me all the time,” Li says, recalling her mother lecturing her about tests or calling her “fat” during the drives.

Li says she realizes now that the Asian “spirit of sacrifice” that her mother embodies doesn’t translate well into love by American standards.

During Winter Quarter, Li was offered a summer internship in Wisconsin that required her to find her own transportation to and from work every day. Li, who did not have a driver’s license, called her mom explaining the problem.

Li’s mother didn’t hesitate in offering to make the trek to Evanston to help her practice for the driving test. She even

said she would drive Li to and from her internship over the summer if she could not get her license.

“She literally offered to drive all the way from Maryland, just so that I can have an internship in a career that she doesn’t even want for me,” Li says.

For Medill third-year Ryan Choe, his Korean immigrant parents worked hard to see him succeed. But it wasn’t until he set foot on campus for the first time without them that he understood his parents’ sacrifices.

“My parents busted their butts just to give me this,” Choe says.

He says he rarely questioned his parents’ rules as a kid, but after reflecting on his relationship with them during COVID-19 and his freshman year, Choe and his parents finally began having conversations about their upbringing and how their struggles shaped their valuation of higher education.

“There are very few things that Asian immigrant parents would not do for their kids,” Choe says. “Even though we can’t see the intent behind that, I can confidently say it comes from a place of absolute love.”

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

For the children of first-generation Asian parents, distance can indeed be more healing than destructive.

McCormick fourth-year Nicholas Tsung says he was excited to come to NU after a tense senior year filled with fights with his mother over college applications.

COVID-19 solidified Tsung’s perspective that distance, not just aging, improved his relationship with his mom. When he stayed home from freshman to sophomore spring of college due to the pandemic, Tsung says the same stressful dynamics of high school resumed because there was no way to leave the house.

“Now that I’ve had the chance to live apart from them, I can appreciate the time we have together more,” he says.

My experiences returning home as a college student paralleled Tsung’s. I was so ready to see my parents at the beginning of

Winter Break, but by the end of it, we had repeated every high school-era argument at least once. On the early morning drive to the airport, my dad launched into a long lecture summarizing the clashes we had over break.

“Yǐhòu, nǐ zuì hǎo bié huí jiā,” he said conclusively as we pulled up to my terminal. Next time, you better just not come home.

Thirty minutes later, he texted, “Have a safe flight, Jade!” to our family group chat. I hadn’t even left the state yet, but we had already returned to a ceasefire. I was equally drained and relieved to come back to school.

Especially during the first year of college, it is “developmentally appropriate” for students to need separation from their parents, Levy Chung says.

For Tsung, the distance pushed him to bring up difficult, confrontational topics with his mom. During his freshman year at NU, Tsung struggled to adjust the study habits he had formed in high school to a college environment. He tried to seek comfort from his mom, who wasn’t initially receptive to listening.

Realizing she was “the only one” he could talk to about his stress at the time, Tsung decided to have a serious conversation about empathy with his mom.

“She started to understand that I don’t need her to lecture me,” he says. “I just need her to be there for me.”

As Tsung gets ready for graduation, the future of his relationship with his mother is uncertain. Tsung has a job lined up in Seattle, while his mother will be moving between California and Florida.

Tsung says he would like to see his mother more, but he’s “on the fence” about living together, remembering high school and the pandemic years of college.

“Even though things feel different now, I don’t know if they truly are different,” Tsung says.

I wonder how I’ll feel when I, too, am an upperclassman, contemplating graduation and where to start my real adult life.

My dad will always welcome me home, but perhaps there is some underlying truth to what he said out of frustration on that early morning drive to the airport.

Maybe during some college breaks, I shouldn’t go home. As I grow more confident in my independence, it may be permanently necessary for me to maintain the distance between my parents and me. It doesn’t have to be 2,000 miles, but I know we’ll need to be a little bit apart to love each other the most. That’s the irony — to come together and appreciate our time, we need to be separate.

The support gap

Cultural and identity issues are among main barriers for Asian American youth seeking mentaal help.

Content warning: mentions of amti-Asian violence, irregular eating

Medill first-year Cate Bikales can recall the fear she felt whenever her grandmother went out alone to buy groceries in the past few years. The rise in anti-Asian violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic amplified Bikales and her family’s anxieties over experiencing attacks, with older people and women becoming the most ta rgeted groups.

This was just one concern Bikales has talked about with her current counselor — an Asian American woman — during therapy sessions that she didn’t feel comfortable discussing with her first therapist, a white man.

In years past, psychologists noticed a troubling trend among ethnic minority groups. Ethnic minorities sought out therapeutic services relatively less, with worse outcomes in therapy compared to white clients, according to the American Psychological Association.

For Asian American youth, cultural stigma and a lack of shared identity within therapy spaces can become insurmountable barriers to accessing mental health resources or making the most out of them.

Bikales says she values having a therapist who shares similar identities with her.

“She has the experiences that allow her

to know what I’m talking about and the issues I am dealing with,” she says.

But it can be challenging to match with a therapist who shares similar identities, especially due to the scarcity of Asian American representation in the field. According to the APA, Asian Americans make up just over 3% of the U.S. psychology workforce.

New York University professor of applied psychology Sumie Okazaki says Asian American adults often improve more mentally when they are treated by practitioners who match their ethnicity or language.

“Which isn’t to say that only Asian American providers can do a good job providing mental health services for Asian American clients,” Okazaki says. “But I think there’s something to be said about feeling understood without having to do lots of explanations, [which] can reduce a sense of barrier to counseling.”

The APA also says cultural humility — the awareness and acknowledgment of a therapist’s limitations when it comes to “understanding a client’s cultural background and experiences” — is important.

Therapists engaging in cross-cultural conversations had deeper understandings of their patients’ needs and emotions as well as their cultural experiences, according to a 2013 article in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. When Marriage and Family Therapy graduate student Kayla Zhang was a first-year at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison, she says she felt overwhelmed after she tore her ACL from skiing and signed up to receive counseling at her university. However, a lack of cultural understanding drove her away from her first therapist.

“The therapist [was a] white therapist and whatever I talked about, it just doesn’t feel like we clicked,” says Zhang, an international student. “The language [was] a part of the barrier, but also the cultural insensitivity was another barrier of that therapist.”

Zhang currently provides counseling at the Family Institute at NU, and she says she recognizes the importance of therapists with diverse backgrounds.

Now, Zhang’s therapist is a Black woman. Although they do not share the same ethnic identity, she says the therapist’s understanding of their cultural differences allows Zhang to have fruitful therapy sessions.

“Even though we have very different identities, she’s very gentle and curious about cultures and can understand people with BIPOC backgrounds,” she says.

In the same way, Weinberg thirdyear Victoria Tran understands the need of having a therapist who shares comprehension of culturally specific issues.

Tran sought out therapy in 2022 because of her complex relationship with her mom since she started college. Although her therapist is Asian, Tran says she sometimes feels a barrier talking about her relationship with her mom because of their generational gap and

Story by Michelle Sheen | Design by Gracie Kwon

the fact that her therapist does not identify as an American.

“There are definitely some nuances that come with being a first-generation American that cannot be captured as well if your therapist doesn’t come from the same background, even if they might be Asian themselves,” Tran said.

Tran has been receiving therapy since December. She says though her mom was initially willing to pay for the weekly expenses, she became reluctant to continue covering the costs as Tran kept receiving therapy.

Because of her mom’s opposition to Tran continuing therapy, she eventually cut down on the frequency of sessions from weekly to monthly in April.

“She seemed to think that therapy was sort of a one-anddone thing, where I go for a couple of sessions and then eventually all my problems will be fixed,” Tran says. “But what I think she didn’t realize was that a lot of these issues have been building up for years of insecurity or years’ worth of my complex relationship with her.”

The possible cultural stigma and unfamiliarity of talking deeply about emotions in many Asian American families makes some youth reluctant to bring up the topic of mental health at all, according to Isok Kim, University

at Buffalo associate professor in the School of Social Work.

Having to receive parental permission or financial support for mental health services can also become a barrier for those who hope to receive therapy without their parents’ or guardians’ knowledge, Kim says.

“[Receiving mental health help] is especially more challenging for younger folks, because there’s a whole lot of things about intergenerational challenges and how that plays into the delay of the treatment,” Kim says. “How do you advocate for the children and young adults’ mental health, when the very term ‘mental health’ that we’re using is alread y stigmatized?”

Such is the case for Weinberg first-year Alison Bai, who has been receiving weekly therapy sessions through a clinic that takes NU-SHIP, the University’s student insurance program. In addition to the insurance, she pays $20 out of her own pocket for these sessions, which she started during Winter Quarter, because she says she wants to avoid having to tell her parents about her heightened anxiety.

“With my parents, it might just make them more worried because I did start

receiving therapy because of this specific situation, and I didn’t want to have to explain that to them,” Bai said.

“The mental health stigma is pretty bad in Asian culture, so they’ll think that something is wrong with me.”

Bai had initially tried to receive therapy as a sophomore in high school to treat her severe test anxiety. From the night before a math exam to the lunch period immediately before it, Bai says she was not able to eat.

However, when Bai asked her dad about potentially receiving therapy, she says he dismissed her, assuming she did not really need mental health support.

Now, she says she realizes that no matter how big or small the struggle, having a professional to talk to is helpful in any context.

“I think by mentioning that I go to therapy, it implants the idea in people’s minds like, ‘Oh, well, Alison’s going to therapy, then maybe I can try it out,” she says.

Photo by Kim Jao

Shopping for a t aste o f

Compared to Chowbus, Weee! boasts a lower price point due to frequent deals and a lack of service fees, WilcoxCheng says. Once buyers pass a spending minimum of $35, delivery is free as well.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s very much [in Evanston], and because most [college students] don’t have cars, it’s kinda rough out here,” Wilcox-Cheng says. “I think utilizing Google or Instagram to find either local vendors or online vendors can be really helpful.”

SESP first-year Megan Lin, who also occasionally shops online for Asian food, appreciates the convenience and time-saving aspect of these services. But Lin says that students lose the social aspect of grocery shopping in college by using online services.

How and where to buy Asian groceries near NU.

Story by Michelle Hwang

Design by Shinyi Ding

Photos by Kim Jao

When Weinberg third-year Jessica Jang arrived on Northwestern’s campus and tasted the dining hall food, she realized just how different college was from home.

Having spent half of her life in Korea and all of it eating her mom’s cooking, Jang was used to quality, homemade Korean food.

“I realized I have to eat rice at least once per day to sustain myself,” Jang says. “It’s essential.”

Often, dining hall food alone doesn’t satisfy many Asian students, including Jang. Other times, the craving for childhood snacks strikes. Whatever the case, many students at Northwestern eventually find themselves in front of an Asian grocery store to shop for ingredients to make their own meals.

Jang purchases most of the ingredients for her home cooking from Joong Boo Market in Glenview or the H Mart in Niles.

Both are well-known grocery stores among Asian students at Northwestern and carry a wide selection of mainly East Asian goods. Most students travel by

car because both stores are at least 9 miles from campus. However, Jang prefers Joong Boo, and not just for its lower prices.

“The store layout of Joong Boo makes more sense to me,” Jang said. “I don’t want to get lost and feel rushed because with ZipCar, every time we extend [our rental], we have to pay more.”

As outreach chairs for NU’s Vietnamese Student Association, Communication first-year Matilda Le and SESP firstyear Anna Truong say food is a common element of club meetings. Both say that Vietnamese food doesn’t get much more authentic than Argyle in Chicago.

“[Argyle] is where actual Vietnamese people in Chicago get their food, and [the stores] are owned by Vietnamese people,” Truong says.

Le highlights Tai Nam and Viet Hoa as two of VSA’s go-to grocery stores in the neighborhood.

Like VSA, many of the University’s identity-based Asian student organizations frequently provide cultural foods at meetings and events.

Caitlin Wilcox-Cheng, NU Asian American InterVarsity’s campus staff minister, uses online retail options like Weee! and Chowbus to source Asian snacks.

“Going to H Mart with friends is really fun — being able to have a shopping experience with other people,” Lin says. Getting Asian groceries is about more than just shopping to Wilcox-Cheng as well. It’s about creating a sense of home and of being seen, she says.

“I think it feels really important to have more variety [in snacks] than even what we have in the fellowship,” she says. “That [way], one, our students can become a little more cross-culturally competent and two, when we do have new students come, hopefully there’s still something for them, too.”

From left to right: Medill second-year Grace Wang, Weinberg second-year Esther Tang and Weinberg second-year Julianna Tia.

An H Mart shopping cart full of snacks.

Hi, my name is...

Students switch between their two names.

Let me tell you a secret: My name isn’t really Joyce.

Sure, it may be what my friends call me, but my legal name is something entirely different — “李昀晏,” sometimes anglicized as “Li Kwan An” or “Li Yun Yan.” My parents say it was chosen for me by a fortune teller, combining the Chinese astrological elements that correspond with my time of birth and my parents’ aspirations for my personality. “昀” forecasts sunlight, while “晏” predicts peace and tranquility. Together, they represent my parents’ hope for a bright child with a good temper.

But when asked about my English name, my parents have a much simpler explanation: They named me after

Joyce-Collingwood Station, a metro stop they frequented when my family lived in Vancouver, Canada. “It’s short,” my dad tells me. “Easy to say.”

Asian Americans have been using English or anglicized names since the late 1800s, for reasons from fearing xenophobia to wanting a name white people will actually bother to pronounce. But many Asian Americans also have what NU Asian American studies and anthropology professor Shalini Shankar calls a “heritage name” — a name in their language of origin, an “ethnic marker” that ties them to their roots.

BlakeYangHu

Blake Yang Hu / 胡扬 (Hú Yáng)

When he turned 16, McCormick first-year Blake Yang — who went by Yang Hu at the time — decided to adopt a more pronounceable English name. He decided on “Blake,” after a character from the animated web series RWBY.

Hu says his decision was unconsciously influenced by shame. According to Hu, who is from Singapore, negative stereotypes about immigrants from mainland China are common there. He recalls telling his friends he’d never get a job with a name like Yang Hu because employers might assume he didn’t speak English, even though he was born in Singapore.

“The ‘Blake’ part [of my name] is the more driven, professionally minded side of myself,” Hu says. “It’s less sentimental and more practical.”

Still, Hu kept “Yang” in his official documents and includes it in his signature. He says it links him to his heritage and pays tribute to his family, who chose it because it means “to look up.” Hu says it represents his parents’ wishes for him to achieve great heights.

Looking back, Hu wonders if he should have kept his Chinese name.

“It probably would have been harder to pronounce, but I think it represents me,” he says.

Angie Chung / 정은지 (Chung Eun Ji)

Weinberg second-year Angie Chung’s parents also consulted a naming specialist to choose her Korean name: “Eun Ji,” which comes from the Hanja characters “恩,” for kindness or grace, and “智,” wisdom.

But since Chung left Korea to start college in the U.S., she says she exclusively goes by her English name, derived from both her baptismal name, Angela, and the pronunciation of her Korean name.

“It feels awkward when people address me with my Korean name using an English accent, because that’s not the way it’s meant to sound,” Chung says. “It has cultural significance and it’s a part of my identity, so I wouldn’t want people to butcher it.”

For Chung, there’s something liberating about using her English name, too. She says the deliberation her parents put into her Korean name made it feel like a mold she had to grow into.

“[‘Angie’] just feels more casual and more like myself,” Chung says. “I feel like I’ve gotten to develop over time with my name.”

Story by Joyce Li | Design by Gracie Kwon | Photos by Valerie Chu

YA: Young Adult Asian

Four books by Asian authors you have to read.

Story by Valerie Chu & Lily Walters | Design by Valerie Chu

Of the enormous amount of young adult fantasy and romance novels published, only a small fraction feature Asian Americans. Whether they are leaders, political schemers or swashbucklers, these characters reflect the many facets of what it means to be Asian. Here are four books whose characters’ coming-of-age stories resonated most with us.

Counting Down With You

By Tashie Bhuiyan

All Karina Ahmed wants is to get through high school without disappointing her parents more than she already has — and fake-dating a guy they would disapprove of is the last thing she needs. This book explores what it means to be the perfect daughter, to live up to the expectations of immigrant parents but never be enough. But, it’s also a slow-burn romance full of awkwardly endearing and funny moments.

TheAtlasSix

By Olivie Blake

What if the Library of Alexandria never burned, but went into hiding to preserve its magical secrets? A dark academia (and BookTok!) staple, follow six magicians as they compete for five spots in the coveted Alexandrian Society and uncover the secrets about the group — and one another — in the process. Blake couples witty dialogue and unforgettable characters with fascinating musings on the philosophical and physical sides of magic, making this book one you don’t want to miss.

These Violent Delights

By Chloe Gong

Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov are former lovers, heirs to rival gangs and mortal enemies. But when a deadly mystery spreads through 1920s Shanghai, they’re forced to work together. The story is fast-paced and tightly woven, the writing as sharp as the daggers and politics in the book. With themes of identity, family, belonging and colonialism, this stunningly crafted novel transports you to another era.

Everything I Never Told You

By Celeste Ng

After the daughter of a mixed-race family in suburban Ohio is found dead, the search for answers leads to a deep dive into a household splintered by its individual and collective identities. Heart-wrenching and poignant, this book asks us what it means to love and be loved, and what we might have to sacrifice in the process. Overachievers, get your tissues ready — this one hits a little too close to home.

D a y s o f d e f i a n c e

Asian students share stories of resistance.

Story by Esther Lim Design by Ellie Siu

Secret tattoos, donuts in empty parking lots, broken curfews, slammed doors and sarcastic eye rolls — these common tropes of rebellion have been retold time and time again, cementing assumptions about what a typical coming-of-age story should look like. However, Asian American narratives of resistance and rebellion have long gone unheard and unseen, treated as rare instances of “acting out” or as case studies of defiance against the model minority stereotype.

But it’s in this community’s nature to rebel, often in atypical ways. Much of Asian American rebellion manifests as challenging, questioning, reimagining and growing a deeper understanding of familial relationships and personal identity.

Two Asian American students shared their own experiences of resistance and rebellion.

Erin Palmero

When Medill second-year Erin Palmero’s parents left her home alone for Labor Day weekend her senior year of high school, a sleepover at her place grew into a party. When one guest lost track of his alcohol intake, things got out of hand.

“I was hysterical. I was panicked. I felt horrible,” she says.

The house was a mess. There was puke in the bathtub. Palmero’s parents had to return home in the middle of the night.

But they let it go without wringing Palmero out, to Palmero’s surprise. For her, the incident was a scary but necessary lesson in taking responsibility for building a mature relationship with her parents, rather than a lasting memory of rebellion.

“The consequences of our stupidity are put on our parents,” Palmero says. “They always gave me a space to express my feelings, which I’m very appreciative about, and I know not a lot of households like mine could agree to that.”

Anna Castagnaro

Growing up, Bienen and Communication third-year Anna Castagnaro often struggled to allow her different ethnic identities — Korean from her mom’s side and Italian and Puerto Rican from her dad’s side — to coexist.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m not Latina enough, like I’m not Italian enough,” she says. “The reason why I was denying that [identity] was because of how big and prevalent my Asianness is in my life, which I’m so proud of, but I also want to be proud of my Latinaness.”

Castagnaro has been a member of Refresh Dance Crew, a predominantly Asian dance group, since freshman year, where she’s found comfort and community through familiar styles and faces.

Last quarter, however, she also joined the Latin dance company Dale Duro to reconnect with her roots and challenge the ways she had previously defined her identity.

“I was like, ‘Maybe I should dance a different style, learn something that’s from another part of me that I haven’t danced before,’” she says. “That’s been a kind of rebellion, being one of the only Asian-facing people in the [Dale Duro] dance studio.”

Why do you TOMATO?

The completely true and accurate science behind the “Asian Glow” phenomenon.

Story by Yiming Fu Design by Michelle Sheen

POV: You’re 18, sexy and fabulous, living it up in your white-brick East Fairchild dorm the size of a suitcase. You just took your first-ever shot of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and now your face is BRIGHT RED. Like fire truck-meetsClifford-meets-“just walked up one flight of Locy stairs” red. Why the fuck did that happen? No True Northwestern Dialogue has prepared you for this shameful moment.

Well, you’re in luck. I’m Dr. Yiming Fu Ph.D./ M.D./“I went to med school,” and I’m here to break down the alcohol flush reaction — otherwise known as “Asian Glow.” Take a ride on our Magic Tuk Tuk! We’re learning today.

Asian Glow is a natural condition where a person gets red in the face, neck and/or upper body after consuming alcohol.

Here’s what usually happens when you drink alcohol: Your liver metabolizes the alcohol, oxidizing it into acetaldehyde and then acetate.

Many Asian people, however, lack the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) enzyme that

is supposed to metabolize the alcohol. It’s because of their slanty eyes! This makes the acetaldehyde accumulate about 4,894.67 times more than it normally should. Then, your face immediately turns red because science said so.

Don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world! There are some drugs that may stop the flushing, such as antihistamines like Pepcid AC and L.A. Girl’s HD PRO.conceal concealer. There are also a number of other solutions, including simply not giving a shit.

If you’re ever insecure, just remember that Asian Glow affects so many people. About half of Korean (BTS), Japanese (Super Kawaii!!!) and Northeast Chinese (Putin) people lack the ALDH2 enzyme. Many Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese people can also get Asian Glow. When you glow, you’re never alone! Just make sure you send a prayer to the Buddhist bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Ariana Grande). Asians need to stick together.

So the next time you’re 18, sexy, fabulous and bright red after a sip of wine, just know it’s because you’re Asian, darling. Ching chong along now!