January 2022

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

JANUARY 13, 2022

FROM THE WRITERS Get comfortable; this might take a while. In order to share the lived experiences of Asian Americans at SJS, we spoke with 17 sources, transcribed 126 pages of interviews and expanded our coverage to five pages.

As Asian Americans ourselves, we realize that many facets of our experience are unfamiliar to others.

As you read, we urge you to keep an open mind, and we hope our efforts will encourage dialogue. Please carefully consider your words and actions because they carry immense weight. And to our fellow Asian Americans: Never doubt your ability to speak up and always stay true to your experiences.

VOLUME 73, ISSUE 2

OUR PROBLEMS MATTER

A

self-described “colorful person,” junior Rachel Chih chases conspicuousness by dying her hair various shades of red and pink, creating her own custom makeup styles and alternating among a collection of over two dozen Shrinky Dink earrings.

And yet she still gets mistaken for other Asian girls.

“I must not stand out as much as I thought,” Chih said, “but am I really that unmemorable?”

Chih is not alone among Asian American students in wanting to cultivate her own identity.

Chia-Chee Chiu moved to the U.S. from Singapore when she was two.

Even though she attended MiamiDade County Schools, which had many immigrant students and teachers, people would frequently mispronounce her name.

“Kids could be mean,” said Chiu, Head of Middle School. “My name got butchered all the time.”

Senior Dian Yu appreciates those who make an effort to learn how to say her name correctly (it’s DEEann), but mispronunciations occur so frequently that she has stopped trying to correct them.

“If anyone screams Diane, Diana, any of these names, I will just respond because I’m so used to being called different names,” Yu said.

Close friends Remy Phan and Rayna Kim have been mistaken for each other since sixth grade.

In September, the Upper School infographic mistakenly listed “Rayna Phan” as one of the newly elected ninth-grade SAC representatives.

A corrected version was sent an hour later.

“Even though it’s become a normal thing for us, it’s wrong,” Phan said.

In an attempt to mitigate pronunciation issues, many Asian immigrants adopt Anglicized names.

When Chiu became a naturalized citizen, she considered changing her name to Catherine but decided against it. Looking back, she appreciates the cultural significance of her first name, Chia-Chee, which consists of the same character as Chiayi, the hometown of her parents in Taiwan.

“I do like my name,” Chiu said. “It’s part of who I am and where I come from.”

Although students seldomly speak out against misnaming, it hints at the larger misconception that all Asian Americans look and behave alike, a notion that Yu considers a double standard.

“Why can white people have individual identities, while Asian kids are put together in one identity?” Yu said.

Freshman Mark Doan has seldom been confused for other Asian American students. His classmates have told him that he has “good hair and big eyes for an Asian.” Doan says that Asian American students are constantly categorized as having “one appearance, one look, one behavior.”

“People say I don’t look like the average Asian,” Doan said. “But the ‘average Asian’ shouldn’t even exist because there are so many different types of Asians with so many different types of identities.”

By Russell Li, Ella Chen & Ashley Yen ILLUSTRATION | Diane Guo DESIGN | Celine Huang

Continued on Page 9

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SJSREVIEW.COM

HOUSTON, TX 77019

GERRYMANDERING: SPLITTING THE DIFFERENCE

FAMILIES COME IN MANY SHAPES AND SIZES

CHEERLEADING USED TO BE RESPECTED. WHAT HAPPENED?

Redistricting and its implications

Community shares experiences

The unheard battle cry of

on demographics and voting

from atypical households

Maverick cheerleaders

NEWS

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CULTURE

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OPINIONS 18

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ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

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THE REVIEW

JANUARY 13, 2022

NEWS

Omicron surge leads to sudden reinstatement of mask policy

NEWS

By Elizabeth Hu & Emma Chang

O

ver winter break, dozens of students began experiencing fevers, chills and sore throats.

Parents made late-night drives to pharmacies and urgent care centers, frantically calling pediatricians and canceling travel plans.

As Omicron cases surged across the country and on campus, the School decided to reinstate mask regulations less than two months after they had become optional indoors.

“Our goal is to keep everybody in school and keep our teachers and our students well,” said Tesa Stark, Director of Clinical Services. “We didn't quite know what coming back from the holidays was going to look like, so we’re all trying to keep each other well by masking on campus until we get a better handle on the situation.”

Because of high vaccination and low infection rates in the community, the School initially implemented the mask-optional policy in mid-November, which elicited mixed reactions. While some expressed concern about the continued need for masking during the ongoing pandemic, others were excited to return to mask-free learning.

When students wear masks, teachers find it difficult to read facial expressions during lectures or discern confusion. Students must articulate the sentiments that their appearances cannot convey.

Our goal is to keep everybody in school and keep our teachers and our students well.

NURSE TESA STARK

“Since teachers can’t tell if we're confused or not, if I have a question, then it's up to me to voice it,” senior Hailey Burnette said. “I have to be more active and raise my hand in class.”

After about a month of optional masking and having minimal Covid cases on campus, the annual freshman retreat took place at Stoney Creek Ranch in December. On Monday, Dec. 13, the freshman class, approximately 40 senior orientation counselors and almost two dozen faculty and staff piled onto five buses for a three-day, two-night trip to New Ulm, Texas.

“Lots of people were expressing their frustration at the number of things their kids weren't getting, all the things that their kids have missed,” said Marty Thompson, Director of Experiential Education.

Thompson says that, had the timing of the retreat been different and had the School known in advance about the potential spread of Omicron, the trip might have been planned differently.

On the retreat, students spent their time mostly maskless and in close contact. A few people reported feeling sick during

After a month of mask-optional school, face coverings are once again an everyday fixture. PHOTO | Max Stith the trip, and several students missed the last day of school after testing positive. Within days, more than two dozen freshmen came down with Covid.

“The retreat had a big impact on the surge in cases,” freshman Ashley Ringold said. “We were sleeping without masks.”

The decision to go ahead with the retreat followed two recent multi-night class trips. Class Six went to Mo Ranch in mid-November and Class Seven traveled to Utah in midOctober. On both trips, students slept unmasked in bunk beds.

At the beginning of the freshman retreat, the Omicron variant was just beginning to spread in Houston, and 54 cases were reported at Houston Methodist.

“The retreat came at an unfortunate time,” Stark said.

“With the combination of social gatherings and the maskfree last day of school, it was all a recipe for transmission.”

Within the first 48 hours after the retreat, the Upper School reported about the same number of Covid cases as the Lower and Middle Schools. Because students had left for winter break, there was no way to gauge exactly how many cases were caused by exposure on the freshman retreat.

Travel plans were abruptly postponed or canceled.

“I was supposed to be going from Florida to Mexico and didn’t want to get stuck, so we took a test at 4 that morning,” said a freshman who requested anonymity. “We got back two positive tests, so we had to drive home.”

While less severe than the Delta variant, Omicron spreads 70 times faster, according to Deseret News. By the beginning of winter break, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported that the Omicron variant accounted for 75% of new Covid cases in the U.S. “Omicron is by far the most common variant right now.

Houston was one of the earlier places in the United States where Omicron surged very quickly,” Medical Director Scott Dorfman said. “It spread at an unbelievable pace.”

The unvaccinated and immunocompromised, as well as senior citizens, are now facing dual viruses.

“With regards to the flu and Covid, hospitals and healthcare providers are the most impacted. In a hospital setting, there's only so much capacity for beds and staffing,” Dorfman said. “The flu and other seasonal viruses alone can really fill up an ICU, and when you add Covid on top of that, there’s a real strain on hospital systems. It can be difficult to sort out what’s flu and what’s Covid.”

Over break and in January, sports trips have been canceled or modifed, and spectators are limited only to parents. Long-established plans have been delayed yet again.

“I had to postpone a field trip for my classes, and I could tell that they were disappointed,” Chinese teacher Summer Pao said.

Pao told her students they would have more fun if the trip was postponed, since if they pushed for it now, some parents would not grant permission to attend.

The School plans to re-evaluate the mask policy by the end of January. As long as community members stay healthy, distance themselves and avoid large unmasked public gatherings, students hope to return to optional masking after a few weeks, although it is more likely that face coverings will remain for at least another month or two.

“If things go well, we might be past the Omicron variant, which could get us through the end of the school year,” Thompson said. “Waves seem to come every three or four months, so [one] may roll through again. Hopefully, this will be our biggest spike for the spring semester — but time will tell.”

BEFORE OMICRON In December, when masks were briefly optional indoors, seniors Leah Beach, Daniel Colson and Noah Saleh worked on a Differential Equations project.

PHOTO | Diane Guo

NEWS

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

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ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

Astroworld tragedy hits close to home

On Nov. 5, rapper Travis Scott took the stage at the annual Astroworld festival after hundreds had already been injured.

By Annie Jones & Indrani Maitra

L

ike many high school students across Houston, John Hilgert had been anticipating Travis Scott’s Astroworld concert for months. But on the night of Nov. 5, the Memorial High School freshman became the second-youngest person to die in one of the deadliest concerts in U.S. history.

Some 50,000 people bought tickets for the Astroworld concert, with more than 3,000 additional guests breaking into the NRG Stadium lot where the performance was held. Hundreds were injured; 17 were taken to local Everyone coming together as a group in honor of him meant a lot to me.

KEELEY MCMILLAN

hospitals. Eight never made it out alive, and two died days later.

A senior who asked not to be identified bought her tickets far in advance and left school early on the first day of the two-day music festival to secure prime seating. When she arrived, she witnessed throngs of “hyper-aggressive” people forcing their way through the security barriers.

“I’ve never seen that many people at a concert before in my life,” she said.

Her anxiety was only heightened when she saw the inadequate security.

“There were guys in uniforms, but they literally didn’t do anything,” she said. “They barely checked my negative Covid test or vaccination card.”

She also witnessed several people selling illegal substances within view of security —­­­“it was so clear [security] did not care.”

Numerous reports of significant security breaches circulated on social media in the weeks following the tragedy. According to the Houston Chronicle’s investigation of the event, people were climbing wire fences to

COURTESY PHOTO | Johnathon Li access the venue hours before the concert even began.

Before Travis Scott took the stage, Canadian rapper Drake performed a surprise set. The unstoppable movement of bodies then began surging towards the stage.

In the days following Hilgert's death, sophomore Lily Veazey organized a memorial on the Great Lawn on the morning of Nov. 8 with the help of Hilgert’s close friends Charlie Grace and Keeley McMillan.

“It made me really emotional because I was shocked that that many people came,” Veazey said. “It was important to make sure that we had a place for people to express their grief and know that people at St. John’s were expressing solidarity with them.”

During the memorial, students formed a circle along the edges of the Great Lawn and joined in prayer for Hilgert and his family. The organizers passed out green ribbons to commemorate Hilgert's favorite color, which attendees pinned to their clothes. Throughout the day, students who had missed the memorial asked Veazey for ribbons.

It wasn't real at first. It's still hard to take it all in.

KEELEY MCMILLAN

“There were so many people around the one table trying to get them,” Veazey said. “It made me so happy that people showed their support.”

McMillan was surprised at how many people attended the memorial, which they planned only the night before.

Since it was not a school-sponsored event, Veazey and senior Grace Perrin invited people to the memorial over GroupMe and Instagram.

“Everyone coming together as a group in honor of him meant a lot to me,” McMillan said. “I know it would mean a

lot to him.”

A week after St. John’s students adorned themselves with ribbons, 2.6 miles of lights on Memorial City skyscrapers were turned green for two days to honor Hilgert with his favorite color.

Leo Avelar, who attended the memorial, was also at the concert. He first heard the ambulances after the performance ended. From his spot in the middle of the NRG lot, Avelar could not hear the screams or see the frantic emergency medical personnel.

When Avelar awoke at a friend’s house the next day, he had four missed calls from his mom.

“It was a bit surreal,” he said, “and a little bit of denial — was it really that bad when we were there?”

According to the Houston Fire Department, 54 people had been injured by 3:54 p.m. — hours before Scott’s concert began — and at 9:38, police declared the concert a “mass casualty event.” It did not end until around 10:15.

The second day of the Astroworld Festival was soon canceled, and Travis Scott offered to refund all tickets. He has been sued by 125 people, including the Hilgerts, for wrongful deaths and injuries. His attorney recently claimed in a public statement that Scott holds no responsibility for any damages.

The Houston Chronicle found that the event was understaffed and that some security guards only were hired the day before the concert. The article alleges that NRG officials did not ask for security guard licenses from new hires.

Since the venue was only at 25% capacity due to Covid regulations, many have decried the chaos as easily preventable. With such massive loss of life — including a 9-yearold concertgoer — Houston is still reckoning with and recovering from the senseless tragedy.

“It wasn’t real at first,” McMillan said.

“It’s still hard to take it all in.”

A Timeline of the Tragedy 11/5/2021

9:00 a.m.

Guests without tickets breach NRG Stadium lot main gate

3:54 p.m.

54 people treated for injuries before the concert begins

8:52 p.m.

Over 260 people treated for injuries

9:00 p.m.

Travis Scott takes the stage

9:11 p.m.

“Main stage compromised”

9:33 p.m.

Multiple people have lost conciousness

9:52 p.m.

Police declare Astroworld a "mass casualty incident"

GRAPHIC | Diane Guo, Nick Hensel & Max Stith

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ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

JANUARY 13, 2022

NEWS

Gerrymandering: Splitting the Difference Houston undergoes decennial redistricting

By Ella Piper Claffy

I

n an increasingly politically divided world, partisan gerrymandering has quite literally split St. John’s in two.

As of Nov. 8, 2022, the Upper School, north of Westheimer, will be included in a new 38th Congressional District of Texas, while the Lower and Middle Schools will remain in Lizzie Fletcher’s (’93) 7th District.

The Texas Legislature adjourned their third special session on Oct. 19 after introducing a slew of new laws, the most prominent of which was redistricting.

The 2020 census allotted two new Congressional seats to Texas, raising the total to 38 representatives in the House — the second-largest delegation in the country, behind California.

The increase was due to a 95% population growth of people of color in Texas since 2010. Yet, in the redrawn map, the number of majority-Hispanic districts decreased by one. Black residents are not the majority in any single district. This disparity in voter representation led the Justice Department to take up a lawsuit against Texas.

According to a statement by Attorney General Vanita Gupta on Dec. 6, the new electoral map “denies Black and Latino voters the equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process” and was drafted with “discriminatory intent.”

“Representation among the districts has not improved — it's still at the level it has been for the past couple of years,” said junior Jay Love, a leader of the Young Liberals Organization. “The big change in this session is the speaker of the Texas House. In years past, we've been under more moderate speakers like Joe Straus.

But this year Dade Phelan came in; he tacked more to the right and made this big redistricting effort possible.”

Gerrymandering, named for Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, constitutes altering the borders of an electoral constituency in order to benefit a certain political party.

It has been around for the tenure of the nation, but after the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that partisan

TX-38, newly allotted to Texas after the 2020 census, will include the Upper School and most of River Oaks.

Prior to the redistricting, the entirety of SJS was housed in TX-07, currently represented by Lizzie Fletcher (‘93).

The new TX-07, a majority-minority district, is home to the Lower and Middle Schools.

GRAPHICS & DESIGN | Max Stith & Georgia Andrews

gerrymandering is beyond the Court’s reproach as long as it is not racially motivated or with the aim of discrimination — anything goes.

“You can use all sorts of techniques like packing and cracking, but ultimately gerrymandering, in essence, is the redrawing of districts in such a way to get a partisan advantage,” said history teacher Eleanor Cannon.

Like the Upper School itself, many students, such as junior Molly Hennessy, have been relocated into either the newly defined 38th District or another redrawn district.

“I had no idea that my district was changing so drastically,” Hennessy said.

After the 2022 elections, Hennessy will reside in the new TX-38, where Wesley Hunt (‘00) has already announced his candidacy. Last fall, Hunt ran against incumbent Lizzie Fletcher in the 7th District, ultimately losing by 10,000 votes.

Fletcher is one of only seven Texas women in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Texas is notable for the discrepancies between the demographic makeup of the state legislature and the state population.

In fact, it was only during the most recent session that there were an equal number of Republican women as lawmakers named John (13 each). Many Texans find that this gender imbalance negatively affects the state’s ability to enact policies that benefit marginalized groups.

“Underrepresentation is something that a lot of people are frustrated about, and really the only advice I can give is to vote for people that you think will increase the diversity of Texas’ and of the nation's legislative bodies,” Love said. “We've been working for more representation for a long time in this country, and that still hasn’t been totally realized.”

This underrepresentation speaks to the overarching role of gerrymandering across the nation. A common complaint is that policymakers manipulate borders in a manner that clumps those of a specific race together in a single

district — thereby minimizing the potency of that voting block. For instance, whites represented 53% of the old TX-07, but are only 41% of the redrawn district.

“Fletcher’s new district will actually constitute mainly people of color,” said History Department Chair Russell Hardin. “Of course, that means you're removing this representation from other seats.”

Miguel Rivera of the Houston Chronicle recently criticized Texas Representatives for their perpetuation of voting inequities.

He urged the State to protect marginalized communities and their ability “to elect candidates of their choice.” Sophomore Bella Cantorna echoes this call to action.

“It’s very frustrating to know that people of color are so marginalized in my home state,” said Cantorna, a member of the Latinos Unidos Affinity Group. “When I look to my representatives, I see incredibly few who are able to understand and rectify the challenges that women and Latinos in Texas face every day.”

Cannon considers gerrymandering one of the most harmful issues in politics today — and also one of the most easily remedied.

“Take the politics out of it. Nobody likes when the opposing party has the ability to minimize your voice, so stop letting them,” Cannon said. “Just because both parties gerrymander doesn’t mean either party should.”

Some states have established a nonpartisan or bipartisan Redistricting Commission to redraw borders, a step that Cannon says many traditionally neutral or “swing” states have taken. Commissions like the one recently created in Virginia are generally able to reconfigure borders in a manner that better reflects the state’s population rather than the party in power. In 2018, Colorado established a non-partisan Redistricting Commission that is made up of four democrats, four republicans and four unaffiliated voters who are tasked with drawing districts independent of race or political affiliation.

For all the controversy, gerrymandering is perfectly constitutional — as long as it’s “political in nature,” which means that for residents of a state to take action against gerrymandering, they must be able to find that the redistricting was racially motivated or that it had the intent of marginalizing the representation of a particular group.

“A paper trail like that is very unlikely to be found,” Hardin said.

Gerrymandering is related to another subject of national discussion — the Electoral College. Similar to redistricting, the Electoral College has the ability to distort voter representation, giving those in rural areas more value per vote than their urban counterparts.

In states like Wyoming, which have only three electoral votes, each vote counts a lot more.

“Essentially, each individual has a

disproportionate value per vote compared to someone in a large state like Texas or California,” Hardin said.

Cannon also said that distributing people of different demographics and parties across districts promotes more centrist, open-minded candidates. When politicians have to wrangle votes from both parties, they tend to campaign on more realistic and impactful promises.

“These very conservative or very liberal districts reward and amplify people on the extremes,” Cannon said. “If I'm a Republican, and I'm running in a district that is split 50-50 between the parties, then I can't be — and this is a technical political term — a complete whack-a-doodle. I've got to win enough of the swing votes.”

The legacy of these more extreme candidates has been reshaping Texas policy for decades. In addition to redistricting, the second special session of the Texas Legislature passed a near-total ban on abortions — a policy that received backlash far beyond the Lone Star State for its radicalism.

“Gerrymandering allows for the election of these extreme candidates, and then they are able to drive the rhetoric and enact these radical policies,” Cannon said. “The state we're living in now is the product of multiple decades of gerrymandering.”

Those who are displeased with the redistricting have several ways to affect change. Love, who works for State Rep. Anne Johnson (D-134), recommends that students find a candidate that they are passionate about and support them through whatever means they choose.

As she prepares for life in a new district, Hennessy anticipates that all the recent gerrymandering will result in a more politically active population.

“Hopefully, these big changes that Texas is undergoing will alert some people to the importance of staying up-to-date with politics, even on a state level,” Hennessy said. “I definitely think this has the potential to spur some people to action.”

SCAN TO FIND YOUR NEW REPRESENTATIVE

MAVERICKS

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

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ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

Students engage in cutting-edge scientific research Creating visible changes in science and technology

M MAVERICKS

PHOTO | Johnathon Li GRAPHIC | Lily Feather & Celine Huang

By Lily Feather & Serina Yan

W

hen senior Aatiqah Aziz applied for a summer research program at MD Anderson Cancer Center, she had no idea she would contribute to diagnostic techniques of neuroendocrine cervical cancer.

Working over Zoom with radiologist Priya Bhosale for five weeks during the summer Aziz studied body scans and patient charts to find a new, less invasive procedure.

Bhosale and Aziz concluded that positron emission tomography and computed tomography scans are more effective than the typical CT scans used for imaging.

Their discoveries could create a “visible change” in cervical cancer treatment and diagnosis.

“Neuroendocrine cervical cancer is interesting because it’s so understudied,” Aziz said. “There’s so much opportunity for new discoveries in that field.”

Aziz will resume her work with Bhosale this month, when they plan to expand their research to cover other rare cancers and imaging methods.

Prior to working with Bhosale, Aziz took Scientific Research and Design at SJS. Now enrolled in SRD II, Aziz continues to research cervical cancer.

SRD is a self-driven course for students interested in science and technology.

“There are no rules. As long as it's science-related, just find out whatever interests you,” said science teacher and SRD adviser Neha Mathur.

Students conduct in-depth research on a topic of their choice, write scientific papers and learn how to share their findings.

“Ultimately, we want our kids to present their research at big conferences or go for competitions on state or national levels,” Mathur said.

After researching tissue engineering in SRD her sophomore year, junior Sophia Si received the Turk Adrogué El-Hakam

Fellowship, which allowed her to continue her research on regenerative medicine at Rice University.

Si became interested in regenerative medicine after her grandmother was diagnosed with a degenerative disease.

During her time at the Rice lab, Si cut down and 3D-printed tissues to insert into other organisms. By combining substances, she determined which ones possessed the optimal properties and biological materials.

Senior Eugene McCarty similarly received a grant from the School that allowed him to research cystic fibrosis treatments.

“I chose a project that spoke to me and utilized a scientific process I wanted to learn more about,” McCarty said.

McCarty studied to further develop a treatment for cystic fibrosis at Brian Davis’s lab at the University of Texas Health Science Center. He modified genes in stem cells with CRISPR gene editing, a technique that uses DNA and RNA to modify genes.

McCarty's application of the technology helps correct a faulty protein that causes cystic fibrosis.

Throughout his time at the lab, McCarty met with Davis every day to discuss their research. McCarty familiarized himself with scientific language in papers that aided in his research process.

“The biggest challenge in my project was learning online research skills to find supplementary materials and new ideas,” McCarty said.

Junior Hopson Stimming also conducted hands-on scientific research this summer, working with Professor Rodrigo Morales at a University of Texas lab.

Stimming used mice as test subjects to investigate drugs that could be potential cures for Alzheimer's disease. He conducted polymerase chain reaction tests to determine differences in the genes

of the genetically modified experimental organisms. His favorite aspect of the project was immunofluorescence staining, a process in which thin slices from the brains of dead mice are used to stain astrocytes, a type of brain cell, and amyloid beta plaques, a type of protein fragments that plays a central role in the pathology of Alzheimer's.

Junior Oliver Lin hopes to major in economics, so he began analyzing cryptocurrency trends with Rice University professor Yuhang Xing.

Lin’s interest in digital currency began because of its connection to Chinese politics. He was particularly interested in how China’s economic policy could affect cryptocurrency despite the country’s ban on it in 2015. Lin, who is Chinese American, decided to conduct research involving the country because of its growing influence on the international stage.

Pierce Ederle (’21) took SRD his junior year, and his research led him to create the Aegis Patch, a security device modeled after aerospace technology. Ederle used the technology, originally intended to detect micrometeorites and orbital debris, to create a product that protects personal property like cars and houses.

Instead of taking SRD II, he transferred to an engineering capstone class where he received funding to develop a prototype.

“It was a really great experience for me to go through the process of doing research and taking that research to come up with a physical manifestation of the idea,” Ederle said.

Ederle hopes that one day SRD can receive funding that would expand the program and give students an even stronger opportunity to transform their own ideas into research findings.

INFOGRAPHIC | Lily Feather

Spirit Club improvises to save Kinkaid Video screening

By Aleena Gilani

A

s the lights began to dim, anticipation for the Kinkaid video swept through the crowded theater. But before the student-produced video could play, the projector cut out.

On Oct. 29, the afternoon before the annual football game against Kinkaid, students in grades nine through 12 gathered in the VST for the Upper School pep rally. After watching performances by the cheerleaders and Drum Corps, students directed their eyes toward the projector, where the Kinkaid video was set to play.

Senior Joseph DePinho filmed and edited this year’s video. During the rally, he realized his computer needed to be charged, but nobody backstage had a charger that fit his laptop. DePinho returned to his house to get his charger, a thirty-minute round-trip drive.

While he was gone, his computer fell asleep — and so did the projector. The tech, audio and lighting crews backstage sprung into action and initiated a total shutdown and restart, a 15-minute process.

“I’ve been doing this since freshman year,” said junior Drew Adams, a lighting crew designer, “but, with all the

shows I’ve done, nothing has gone this terribly wrong.”

Fortunately, by the time DePinho returned to campus, another computer was hooked up to the projector, ready to play the Kinkaid Video when the projector finished restarting.

While the backstage crew addressed the issue, the audience was still waiting for the video to play.

I've been doing this since freshman year, but, with all the shows I've done, nothing has gone this terribly wrong.

DREW ADAMS

To keep the students occupied, Dean of Students Bailey Duncan requested an impromptu dual-performance

by Drum Corps and the cheerleaders. After taking a few moments to prepare, both groups gathered onstage to perform their routine to “Tricky,” a staple at Friday-night football games.

Although the performance energized the students, the

projector had still not restarted. Spirit Club captains Evie Barrett, Grace Perrin, Katharine Stepanian and Stevie Otillar, with only a pad of paper, pencils and a microphone, had to come up with another idea.

What resulted was a game of “Who Knows Your Captain Best?” featuring the fall sport team captains. Each captain called up an underclassman member of their team to the stage to answer questions; the underclassman that answered the most questions correctly won. Sophomore Reese Animashaun won the competition for girls' volleyball, correctly answering questions about captain Morgan Grace. While the game was unanticipated, it captured the audience’s attention long enough for the projector to restart.

DePinho was thankful that the backstage crew managed to get the projector up and running so the audience could watch the Kinkaid video.

“I had a great experience creating the Kinkaid video,” DePinho said. “It was lots of work, but it was definitely worth it.”

Additional reporting by Evan Zhang

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ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

MAVERICKS

JANUARY 13, 2022

Alumni-owned eateries thrive on authenticity

Owners of Agnes Café & Provisions are Carolyn Dorros (’93) and Molly Voorhees (’94).

The ownership team of Leaf & Grain includes Deets Hoffman (’06), second from right.

PHOTO | Isabella Diaz-Mira

PHOTO | Leaf & Grain

By Wilson Bailey & Cameron Ederle

W

hen Deets Hoffman graduated from St. John’s in 2006, he predicted he would be the “CEO of a chain of sandwich shacks” in 20 years.

Hoffman, now the founder of Leaf & Grain, a fast-casual restaurant chain, was not far off — although the chain's internationally inspired salads and health-bowls are not exactly clubs and subs. Hoffman’s favorite dish, The Alamo, consists of kale (the “leaf”) and brown rice (the “grain”), with Tex-Mex ingredients like avocado, tortilla chips, chipotle lime dressing and black beans.

Less than two miles away, nestled in a leafy stretch of Bissonnet, a speciallycurated soundtrack plays through Agnes Café & Provisions.

Named after the “Auntie Mame" character Agnes Gooch who was famous for saying “life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death,” Agnes is the “Covid baby” of Carolyn Dorros (’93) and Molly Voorhees (’94). It was born last summer after Latin café Tropicales moved out and the location became available.

Voorhees, also the president of gourmet hamburger chain Becks Prime, lives in nearby Boulevard Oaks and says her friends and neighbors asked her to “do something with the space.”

She recruited Dorros, an avid cook, to draft a menu. Less than 24 hours later, they were partners.

“You have to be a little crazy to do something like that,” Dorros said. “There was some healthy disbelief for a while, but, by the time we had raised all the money, it hit me that we were doing this.”

The pair envisioned Agnes as a daytime café reminiscent of Paris or New York and the “site of a glorious night out.”

“We see people stopping in for some juice after a run and then returning to have dinner that night,” Dorros said. “We want it to feel like you could kind of live every part of your day here.”

Ten years after Hoffman’s senior year projection, Leaf & Grain opened its doors.

It has since expanded into two downtown locations and one at Bissonnet and Weslayan next to Torchy’s Tacos.

When the lockdown began in March 2020, Leaf & Grain had just “hit their stride.” Hoffman and his fellow owners, drew on values instilled at their undergraduate alma mater, Washington and Lee, to make it through the pandemic.

“Like St John's, W&L is really big about the Honor Code,” Hoffman said, adding that a strict ethical code is necessary to run a small business.

“Competitors may say a scoop of tomatoes is 15 calories,” Hoffman says.

“But, if we know it’s really 30 calories, we count 30 calories.”

The SJS work ethic has helped Hoffman maintain and grow his business. During his interview with The Review, Hoffman was covering for a manager at the Weslayan

location.

“We don’t have enough people to just not show up,” Hoffman said. “St. John’s shaped who I am as a worker, and that translates over to my business.”

This year, a handful of St. John’s students worked with Hoffman as a part of a summer internship program.

Their atmosphere, bond, drive and motivation to succeed was beyond impressive. Seeing how they carried out their entrepreneurial goals was fascinating.

ELAN GROSSMAN

Senior Elan Grossman spent a week and a half at the Bissonnet shop, unearthing the secret to effectively stacking lettuce and working on the acoustics of the restaurant, among other more “intern-y” tasks like setting up the Wi-Fi and washing windows.

“Their atmosphere, bond, drive and motivation to succeed was beyond impressive,” said Grossman, whose goal is to run a business someday. “Seeing how they carried out their entrepreneurial goals was fascinating.”

Leaf & Grain’s personal touch is a key selling point, helping attract around a thousand customers each day, Grossman said. He recalled that one day, when a flash flood hit Weslayan, Hoffman handed out cookies and water bottles to stranded drivers and brought people into the restaurant.

“He could have been worried that his own property was getting flooded,” Grossman said, “but he prioritized the needs of others before himself.”

The restaurant’s mission to positively impact someone’s day is not only reflected in their staff and work ethic, Hoffman says, but in the product itself.

“Nothing beats fresh bread,” Hoffman said. “If our bread comes out 30 minutes before you get here, and the competitor's bread came out eight hours ago, that makes all the difference.”

For Hoffman, warm bread is just the beginning.

“We could have just checked that box and gotten frozen bread,” Hoffman said, “but we're more dedicated.”

At Agnes Café & Provisions, the focus includes both locally sourced goods as well as imported European and Mediterranean delicacies.

“Provisions” was added to the cafe's name late in the game, and the boutique grocery section at the front of the restaurant has become an integral part of business.

Finding “giftable” products, such as root soda, canned octopus, lemon salt and pork-flavored potato chips initially proved challenging.

“You can’t just Google a random international brand,” said Voorhees, who spent months poring over records and studying international law to find reputable importers that carried highquality products.

When Agnes opened last summer, more than half of the restaurant staff were St. John’s students or alums.

“With the national labor shortage, St. John’s kids really saved our butts,” Dorros said.

Senior Lily Pesikoff is one of the several SJS students who worked at Agnes.

“It was so fun hanging out with people who were two years older than me and who never talked to me while they were at St. John’s,” Pesikoff said. “The job gave me that second opportunity to befriend them.”

Pesikoff’s classmates often surprised her by visiting while she was at work.

“It was fun to see my friends come in to support me and graduates coming in to

support these two women in the St. John’s community,” Pesikoff said.

Pesikoff enjoyed her first summer job.

“The manager, owners and people in the back are all the nicest people ever and the food is good,” Pesikoff said. “You also get the whole barista aesthetic, which I embraced a whole lot.”

For the owners of Agnes Café and Leaf & Grain, expanding their business is the best way to combat stagnation and build a company that could last a century. Dorros and Voorhees are making plans to branch out into the catering business while Hoffman has his sights set on a fourth Leaf & Grain location.

“The right answer is never the cheap answer,” Hoffman said. “If you’re not expanding, if you’re not pushing the limits, you’re being irresponsible.”

WHY YOU SHOULD BUY SMALL

By Wilson Bailey

A

s Cameron and I were preparing to leave after our interview at Agnes, Ms. Dorros and Ms. Voorhees stopped us and asked how the “infamous” junior year was going. Owning a new restaurant is hard enough, but both Agnes and Leaf & Grain exemplify the importance and familiarity of small businesses.

Starbucks and Sweetgreen have their merits. Whether you’re in the Village or on a college trip to Vassar, you expect your chai latte to taste the same. Chickfi l-A nuggets are a staple of the South, maintaining a comforting sameness.

But sameness breeds indifference.

We anticipate strictly transactional interaction with cashiers at franchise restaurants. And that is what we get, because indifference is easy.

At Leaf & Grain and Agnes, you might fi nd the CEO taking your order, preparing your meal or fielding customer suggestions. At Agnes, one of the morning regulars wanted to eat offmenu and suggested a few changes. The owners listened, and now you can get his favorite pastries every day.

Impersonal and efficient business go hand in hand with living in a big city, but small businesses provide a necessary personal touch to the hustle and bustle of life within the Loop.

Buy small; the product will often be tastier and healthier — and the owners will be in-house.

By Cameron Ederle

D

uring the year and a half I worked at Baskin-Robbins, I only saw the owners once a month. With the recent labor shortage, I took on more shifts and a multitude of new responsibilities. I even trained new employees who were older than me — only to have them quit two weeks later. For my efforts, I was compensated 75 cents above minimum wage, with cash tips adding 2–4 dollars an hour.

Almost every small business I visit uses modern transactional software like Square, which provides digital tipping and is compatible with any form of payment. Unfortunately, BaskinRobbins and many other franchises have been slow to update their technology, which means no digital tipping — a disadvantage to employees.

Large companies are dedicated to brand continuity, while small businesses rely on customer input and ever-evolving goods and services to remain competitive. At Baskin-Robbins, if someone asked for a seasonal flavor like Rum-Raisin, even if we had it in the back freezer, I wasn’t allowed to serve it until the official date.

Baskin-Robbins has not changed much in 30 years, but local businesses constantly redefi ne themselves. I met some incredible people while scooping ice cream, but a significant part of my job was to conform. Small, local eateries give even low-level employees a stake in the brand.

MAVERICKS

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

7

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

Teen workers endure poor labor conditions

ILLUSTRATION | Amanda Brantley, Diane Guo & Alice Xu

By Annie Jones

I

saí Meléndez originally got a summer job as a cashier at Michaels, an arts and crafts store. Besides ringing up customers, he was also told to clean up aisles, carry boxes to and from delivery trucks, pack products for shipping, move heavy picture frames and Christmas trees — and watch out for shoplifters — all for $8.50 an hour.

“Everyone was overworked,” Meléndez said. “There were a lot of new recruits who would just show up for one day and leave.”

Two weeks was the average time before new employees stopped showing up.

Meléndez lasted six months.

In 2021, workers quit their jobs at an alarming rate. What began as “Striketober” carried over into the busy holiday season for many of the same reasons Meléndez left his job: poor pay, long hours and unpleasant work conditions.

A Cornell University study found that almost 200 labor strikes occurred last year, 12 of which involved over 1,000 participants. The strikes, combined with high unemployment and over 836,000 deaths in the U.S. from Covid-19 over the past two years, have contributed to a nationwide labor shortage.

Vail Konhert-Yount (’09), a worker’s rights lawyer in Brownsville, says that poor working conditions during the pandemic helped drive the surge in labor disputes.

“There has been a big uptick in awareness of worker’s rights given the pandemic, both from a health and safety perspective, but also from a wages and benefits perspective,” Konhert-Yount said. “People saw the conditions they were asked to work under and thought, ‘I shouldn’t be asked to put my life on the line for very low wages.’”

Strike activity has increased throughout the pandemic. In June 2020, the Economic Policy Institute reported dozens of strikes organized by fast food and delivery workers.

Even before the pandemic, both 2018 and 2019 saw a 35-year high in the total number of labor strikes.

“People don’t go on strike right away,” Kohnert-Yount said. “When workers go on strike, they don’t get paid, so it’s a huge

sacrifice. It’s not that people don’t want to work — they want to get paid for their work in a way that is fair.”

In October, Bloomberg News reported that nearly 40 workplaces across the nation had gone on strike in just three months, including every profession from nurses and mechanics to college professors and fast-food workers. Currently, thousands of McDonald’s, John Deere, Kellogg’s and Heaven Hill employees are participating in union-organized strikes.

Senior Will Baksht worked over the summer at Whataburger, where he was paid $10 an hour to prepare food, take orders and wash dishes. The restaurant was constantly understaffed, which led many employees to quit after a few months.

It's not that people don't want to work — they want to get paid for their work in a way that is fair.

VAIL KONHERT-YOUNT ('09)

“A lot of people working there in their 30s have more than one job because it’s not enough just working at Whataburger,” he said. “Most people are in and out.”

While the low pay contributed to the high turnover rate at Whataburger, so did the amount of work — since the fastfood restaurant never filled its janitorial position, Baksht had to help clean.

Even after Baksht quit, his managers continued to schedule him for shifts because of the worker shortage.

High turnover rates nationwide, originally sparked by the onset of Covid-19, have transformed into a massive labor shortage. According to the Washington Post, America has 10 million job openings and 8.4 million job-seekers. In February 2020, just before the pandemic, the unemployment rate was 3.5%. It is now 3.9%.

Compared to pre-pandemic 2020, five million more Americans are unemployed but not seeking work. In what some have

dubbed “The Great Resignation,” millions of workers, particularly middle-aged, lowincome ones, are quitting their jobs in a time of nationwide financial insecurity.

“The Great Resignation is happening in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the economic meltdown that happened as a result,” said history teacher Derrick Angermeier. “A lot of people are reevaluating what work is. For the longest time, there were people who believed if you work hard, and you make money, you’ll be taken care of later on in life.”

This interpretation of the American Dream has proven elusive for many. The federal minimum wage has remained $7.25 since 2009 (though 11 states have raised the minimum wage to $15). The cost of living, meanwhile, has increased by almost 30%. Successive economic disasters, including the 2008 recession and Covid-19, have left millions of Americans in poverty.

“A lot of the people in the Great Resignation are millennials, my generation,” said Angermeier, who graduated from college during the 2008 recession and was in high school on 9/11.

With so much upheaval, millennials are reassessing their goals.

Contributing to the 11.4% poverty rate is the fact that union membership has fallen to one of its lowest levels in history — rivaled only by early 2019. Union membership empowers workers to more easily strike and negotiate pay raises.

“If you looked at a graph of the average wage and plotted it with union membership, as union membership went down, real wages went down,” KonhertYount said.

Today, most pandemic-era strikes are organized by non-union workers.

“These workers are vulnerable to retaliation,” Konhert-Yount said. “And in states hostile to workers’ rights, workers have been standing up for themselves.

They are more willing to take collective action to protect themselves and their coworkers.”

Amid such a massive labor shortage, many companies have turned to teens to replenish the workforce. Teenagers are less likely to strike than adult workers

and are more vulnerable to unscrupulous employers.

Senior Savi Augustine used to work at a boba shop where she was paid $8 an hour.

Most of her coworkers were high school or young college students.

Since she could only work on weekends, her boss would schedule her for all-day shifts.

“For the amount of time and the people you have to deal with, I definitely don’t think he was paying us fairly,” Augustine said.

The boba shop was so understaffed that employees sometimes worked 14-hour shifts; Augustine would typically work 21 hours every weekend. When she received her paycheck, sometimes her boss had “knocked off a dollar.”

“That’s pretty considerable, if that’s your full-time job and you're not making as much as you should,” Augustine said.

“None of us ever did confront him about it. I’m sure he would say that we weren’t calculating it right.”

When companies intentionally violate agreed-upon hourly wages, employees often have little recourse since lawsuits are too costly for most minimum-wage workers.

“A lot of younger workers experience wage theft,” Konhert-Yount said. “Billions of dollars every year are stolen by employers. It’s actually the largest kind of theft in the country.”

In response to these widespread abuses, over 100,000 workers have extended Striketober. As a result, public support for unions has reached its highest level since 1965, and several thousand workers have secured pay raises by striking. Amazon strikers recently secured a $15 minimum wage for every employee.

“People have been talking about these issues for a long time,” Angermeier said.

“Parts of the American Dream exist in other countries, so there’s nothing here that says we can’t have some of these things — it’s just a matter of reorienting our priorities.”

8

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

JANUARY 13, 2022

MAVERICKS

Former Olympian becomes human resources director

By Ellison Albright & Richard Liang

O

ne month before the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, long jumper Carol Lewis landed awkwardly in a Santa Barbara training pit, severely spraining her ankle.

Lewis decided to compete anyway.

“If I could change anything, I would not have gone into the Olympic Games injured,” Lewis said, “because I know that I would have won a medal.”

Lewis finished in ninth place.

Since falling short of her Olympic goals, Lewis has moved on. In August, she became the Director of Human Resources at St. John’s.

Born into a family of athletes, Lewis and her three older brothers played a variety of sports. Lewis’s mother, Evelyn Lawler, competed as a hurdler in the 1951 Pan American Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and wanted her kids to have the chance to pursue sports.

“I did gymnastics in the fall, diving in the winter and ran track in the spring and summer,” Lewis said. “We were doing all kinds of sports.”

At the age of 16, Lewis qualified for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow for long jump. Due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. boycotted the Olympics and Lewis was unable to compete. She qualified for the next two Olympics in Los Angeles and Seoul, South Korea, before retiring from competitive long jump.

“I was injured during both Olympic Games, so it was not a great experience, but [my brother] Carl won a bunch of medals,” Lewis said. “It was cool for the family.”

Her brother was none other than Carl Lewis, one of the most decorated U.S. Olympians of all time, who won four gold medals in 1984 and nine in his Olympic career, then a record number for an American track-and-field athlete.

Carol Lewis began attending the University of Houston in 1982, majoring in radio, television and journalism.

After competing in the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, Lewis traded in her spikes for a microphone. For almost two decades, she reported on sporting events for NBC, including six Olympiads, commenting on track and field, figure skating, college football and women’s tennis.

When Lewis wanted to cover the Winter Olympics as well, she was told by Dick Ebersol, then the President of NBC Sports, that she first needed to become proficient in a winter sporting event.

“As an expert commentator, you actually have to do the sport,” Lewis said. “I chose bobsled because some track

and field athletes had done it.”

Lewis's explosiveness, speed and strength made her an ideal brakeman.

“What you're looking for in a great brakeman is speed and power,” said Meg Basu, Lewis’s bobsled pilot on the 2001 America’s Cup circuit team and mother of Mia, a sophomore at St. John’s. “You want someone who’s fast but also has strength, power and weight behind her — and Carol is all of that.”

From 2001 to 2003, Lewis represented Team U.S.A. at the America’s Cup, medaling multiple times. Lewis also competed in the 2003 Bobsleigh World Cup in Calgary with Shauna Rohbock, a future Olympic silver medalist.

For Lewis, the hardest part about transitioning from track and field to bobsledding was the numbing cold.

“You would be wearing a Lycra suit when it was three below,” Lewis said. “You have to get up there and take off your warm clothes, and I was like, ‘why am I taking off all these perfectly good, warm clothes?’’’

The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was the first to include women’s bobsled. While Lewis did not qualify that year, she did report on the event during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

“I did the commentary for Shauna’s silver medal-winning 2006 Olympic race,” Lewis said. “That was really exciting.”

Following the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, Lewis left sports commentary entirely. She worked as a 911 operator in Vail, Colorado, and then pivoted to human resources, working for Ritz-Carlton and the Houston Dynamo before coming to St. John's.

Lewis’s parents were both high school teachers, so it was natural for Lewis to transition from the business world to education.

“Carol's really great with kids,” said Claudette Groenendaal, a close friend of Lewis and former NCAA All-American runner. “She has a great gift for interacting with them.”

At St. John’s, Lewis hopes to become an active member of the community. She enjoys walking across campus and watching kids collaborate on assignments.

In hindsight, the trajectory of Lewis’s life may have turned out differently if she had not taken that one fateful leap on that brisk morning in Santa Barbara.

“It's funny how things happen, but what you do with what happens is what makes the next step,” Lewis said. “If I had won a medal in ’84, I may not be here.”

Carol Lewis, director of human resources, trained for the America's Cup bobsled race in Calgary as a brakeman (rear) with Meg Basu as pilot.

COURTESY PHOTO | Meg Basu

SPOTLIGHT

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

9

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

Continued from Page One | SPOTLIGHT: EAST & SOUTHEAST ASIAN AMERICAN IDENTITY

beyond a color an examination of our east and southeast asian american experiences

By Russell Li, Ella Chen & Ashley Yen

REMEMBER OUR NAMES: Every time our names are mispronounced or mixed up, we feel that our individuality is denied. We understand that pronunciation may be difficult, but making the effort to say them accurately shows that you care.

ILLUSTRATION | Alice Xu DESIGN | Celine Huang

EAST ASIA IS NOT MONOLITHIC Growing up surrounded by assumptions that her family is Chinese, senior Lauren Campbell thought that Chinese immigrants make up the lion’s share of Houston’s Asian American population. Due to her half-Vietnamese, half-Korean heritage, she began considering herself an outsider, even within the Asian American community.

As a child, Campbell did not realize that Houston is home to the nation’s third-largest Vietnamese American population and did not begin exploring that aspect of her cultural identity until seventh grade, a decision that she regrets. Citing a sense of disconnect with her heritage, she said, “I feel like I’ve been rejected from different cultures.”

Campbell sometimes receives compliments that she appears to be a “good mix” — neither fully Vietnamese nor Korean.

Conversations within the East Asian Affinity Group are often dominated

by Chinese American voices, occasionally to the exclusion of other ethnicities.

“When we talk about the East Asian experience at St. John’s, a lot of it is not applicable to me,” Campbell said. “It’s just frustrating to deal with constantly feeling underrepresented.”

To avoid confusion, whenever

senior Kate Vo discusses her heritage, she establishes early on that her family is from Vietnam. Alternatively, Remy Phan fields questions like “Are you Chinese?”

“It’s disappointing that people automatically go to the label Chinese because there are so many different ethnicities,” Phan said.

Likewise, students assume that Mark Doan’s family comes from China.

“In class, we started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in Latin, English, Mandarin and Spanish. When we sang in Mandarin, people were looking at me, expecting me to sing.” Doan was mortified. “I’m Vietnamese.”

At eighth-grade graduation last spring, Doan felt uncomfortable when a friend’s parent approached him, began a conversation in Mandarin, and introduced him to other Chinese American students — students that he already knew.

The default characterization ultimately “erases so much history, so much culture and so many people — there are a lot of other countries besides China,” said Chih, who identifies more with her Taiwanese heritage than her Chinese heritage. Vo added, “East Asia is not monolithic.”

I started changing how I looked and acted.

I became ashamed of being Asian.

When Remy Phan first came to St. John’s in sixth grade, she hid her Asian identity, a step she felt was necessary to make friends.

“I started changing how I looked and acted,” Phan said. “I became ashamed of being an Asian.”

Throughout Lower School, a student who asked to remain anonymous often brought lunch that contained foods with distinct smells or appearances, like purple rice. Eyeing her classmates’ chicken nuggets and Lunchables, she would throw away her food and only eat a small snack or fruit.

“I felt uncomfortable and embarrassed by the comments that kids made and looks that they gave me,” she said, “It’s really sad that I would throw away my mom’s hard work and my culture.”

As a child, Chia-Chee Chiu struggled to navigate the differing cultural spaces of her home and school. Her parents wanted her to maintain a connection to their heritage, so her family attended regular park picnics and holiday parties as part of the local Taiwanese Association and spoke Taiwanese at home.

“It was hard to try to navigate being in two cultural spaces,” Chiu said.

“The juxtaposition of that was tough, and there were moments when I wished I wasn’t different.”

Although Rachel Chih strongly identifies with her Asian culture now, when she was younger, she felt

compelled to embrace her American side.

“It creates a toxic mindset and can be harsh on my mental health,” Chih said. “It affects my whole personality and identity.”

While she enjoys sharing her culture, she wishes that others would not expect her to be the spokesperson for all things Chinese.

“They'll ask me things about being Asian that I don’t know the answer to,” Chih said. “It can be alienating because they see you as Asian before they see you as American.”

Senior Maria Cheng feels a disconnect between what she knows and what her relatives expect her to know.

“To some people, you’re the Chinese guru, and then to others, you don’t know anything,” Cheng said.

Although Asian Americans do not share identical cultures, Lauren Campbell notes that shared experiences provide opportunities for humor. She and other Asian Americans can discuss uncomfortable scenarios among themselves without requiring explanation.

“I’m so proud of my culture, and I love connecting with other Asian students at school,” Campbell said. “There’s an underlying understanding of each other’s experiences.”

Continued on Page 10

10

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

JANUARY 13, 2022

SPOTL

No matter how much I spoke up, I would only be perceived as

THE QUIET ASIAN

The model minority myth conveys an oversimplification that labels all Asian Americans as polite, law-abiding and scholastically high-achieving — especially in STEM subjects.

Believing the myth erases the differences among individuals.

Because Asian Americans are often described as quiet and shy, Chinese teacher Summer Pao has noticed that her extroverted personality surprises others.

“It doesn’t seem to fit the stereotype,” Pao said.

Dian Yu has noticed this categorization in mid-semester comments. Over the years, some teachers have written that she is quiet and needs to “speak up more,” which does not align with her actual classroom behavior.

“They probably confused me with another Asian student because I’m one of the loudest, most participating people in the class,” Yu said.

One senior girl, who asked to remain anonymous, is one of few Asian Americans in one of her humanities classes. At the beginning of a class last fall, her teacher announced that the class would not be dismissed until she joined the discussion.

The incident was shocking and embarrassing because she felt as though she spoke as much as the average person. Ironically, the effort to get her to talk more dampened her enthusiasm. As a self-conscious person, she is careful about what she says. After being put on the spot, she said, “I don’t want to ever feel like that again.”

Later that day, the teacher approached another Asian American student and told her that she would be next. Other students said that at least one white male student has never spoken up in classwide discussions.

The singled-out senior says that her identity as a female Asian American caused classmates to “diminish” and “ignore” her participation: “It made me feel like no matter how much I spoke up, I would only be perceived as being the quiet Asian.”

History teacher Joseph Soliman has observed outside of SJS that when he, as an Asian American, vocalizes his perspectives, listeners are often taken aback — they expect Soliman to be a “bystanding listener.”

“I speak up about political issues or whatever topics are

at hand,” Soliman said, “and I’ve noticed that some people are surprised that I would speak up as quickly as I do.”

The model minority myth also places pressure on Asian American students to earn high grades. An A-minus was dubbed the “Asian F” in a 2011 episode of “Glee.”

“In the context of school, Asians are seen as the smart kids and good at math,” Maria Cheng said.

“We’re seen as homogenous.”

Phan notices how many of her classmates assume that all Asians are smart and can be consulted for assistance in any class. Throughout Middle and Upper School, classmates have approached Phan, expecting her to know the answers.

“People joke about it, but it’s not funny,” Phan said. “They keep saying things like ‘you’re Asian, so you should know this.’”

When Ariana Lee was in Middle School, she was studying for a test when the classmate sitting next to her asked to borrow her study guide. When she told him he could have it once she was done with it, he said, “but you don’t need to study; you’re Asian.”

“That deeply offended me,” said Lee, now a junior. “It stuck with me for a while.”

The assumption that Lee’s academic success is a product of her race disregards the late nights spent revising her notes or completing practice problems.

“By saying my hard-earned accomplishments happened because I’m Asian reduces me to my race,” Lee said. “I’m proud to be Asian and proud to show it, but I should be able to distinguish myself as an individual, too.”

Some students feel that they must conform to racial stereotypes in order to be considered part of their ethnic group. Lauren Campbell has noticed that many classmates think she solely cares about academics and studying. When she admitted to a classmate that she was not going to study for a Spanish test until the night before, he said, “Wow, so you’re a bad Asian.”

“What does that even mean?”

Campbell said.

PUSHED TOWARD S Asian American students often find themselves being pushed toward STEM careers by parents who immigrated to the U.S. “The mindset of Asian parents can be very toxic because they try to live through their kids,” Kate Vo said. “To have this predetermined path for us because of this narrow-minded idea of success is very repressive. The world is so big — we have so many opportunities.”

According to a Pew Research Center study, Asians make up 13% of those employed in STEM jobs, compared to 6% in all other fields. In 2018, Asian students earned 7% of all bachelor’s, master’s and research doctorate degrees but more than 10% of STEM-related ones.

“A lot of the time, Asian parents, mine included, want us to find a job that pays well and guarantees a good salary,” Maria Cheng said. “They don’t care as much whether we like our job.”

Rather than be pigeonholed, Cheng is motivated to pursue a career on her own terms.

“I’ve internalized the fact that I want a job that I like more than something that can pay me a lot,” Cheng said. “I would hate to work in a job that’s mindless.”

External influences often win out. Rachel Chih says that her family’s expectations significantly impacted her decision to study medicine.

“At this point, it’s so ingrained in me — what else am I supposed to do?” Chih said.

Although she comes from a family of doctors and scientists, Ariana Lee is pursuing creative writing and dance. She is coeditor-in-chief of “Imagination,” the School’s literary magazine, and a member of Terpsichore, the highest-level dance ensemble.

“I want to make my parents proud because I appreciate all they’ve done for me; I also want to keep doing the things I love,” Lee said. “They support my love for dance and writing but also strongly encourage me to pursue careers that are more stable than those in the entertainment industry.

Where our interests and goals don’t align is where I feel pressured.”

Because many first-generation immigrants are unfamiliar with English, they tend to pursue STEM over the humanities, which generally demand stronger command of language. Acquiring proficiency in STEM depends more on memorization and solving problems. These subjects

also offer relative consistency; for i “one language — equations and num sense of comfort that can be found From a young age, Dian Yu’s pare importance of math and science.

“I didn’t want to disappoint them with it.”

After she entered Upper School an of America, she discovered that pol appealed more to her.

“Being in an environment like St. through my shell,” Yu said. “I felt h was just exciting.”

Because Asians are still underrep students lack role models. Without are possible, many end up discoura perceived safety of pursuing a STEM “It makes me feel a little uneasy,” wasn’t a famous Asian politician w I want to go down.”

Yu says that Asian American part and social sciences is essential to c American and Pacific Islander com globally.

“We need to be the ones writing t laws,” Yu said. “We need to be in a heard.”

As a leader in education, Chia-Ch toward that change. Double-majori Tulane University, Chiu knew she w since she was eight. Her parents we because teachers are frequently no U.S. Their hope that one of their thr a doctor did not come to fruition: h engineering and architecture.

“It just wasn’t in the cards becaus professional paths,” Chiu said. “We ultimately figured out what our pas able to support us.”

In the first few years of her teachi see other teachers of Asian Americ Chiu introduced herself on the first American fifth graders hugged her their first Asian American teacher.

“It’s important to have teachers w differences that kids bring into the

LIGHT

STEM

instance, math comes in mbers,” Vo said. “There’s a in STEM.” ents emphasized the

m,” Yu said, “so I went along

nd joined the Junior State litics and social justice

. John’s allowed me to break happier doing other things. It

presented in the humanities, t evidence that these paths aged and default to the M-based career. ” Yu said. “Growing up, there who went down the path that

ticipation in the humanities change how the Asian mmunity is perceived

the curriculum, history and place where our voices are

hee Chiu embodies a step ing in ecology and English at wanted to become a teacher ere skeptical of this dream ot held in high esteem in the ree children would become her brothers went into

se we all chose different e’re all doing well. We ssions were, and they were

ing career, Chiu did not can descent. One year, after t day of school, two Asian and told her that she was

who value and appreciate the e school setting.”

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

11

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

By Russell Li, Ella Chen & Ashley Yen ILLUSTRATION | Alice Xu & Celine Huang DESIGN | Celine Huang

IT’S NOT THE

ASIAN KID’S BURDEN Asian Americans are a crucial part of American history.

As a sophomore, Lauren Campbell’s history class was learning about the Opium Wars when her teacher, who no longer teaches at the School, decided to stage an impromptu “reenactment” — an activity they had never done before in her class.

Pointing to Campbell, the only Asian American student in the room, the teacher said, “pretend she’s the Chinese and I’m the British.”

The teacher then proceeded to gesticulate in Campbell’s face and yell, “Sign the deal! Sign the deal!”

Campbell found the situation “inappropriate and uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t know what to say, because it was so wrong,” Campbell said.

“I felt like if I did say something, I wouldn’t have had any support,” so she did not bring up the incident with any other teacher or administrator.

At St. John’s, the roles and experiences of Asian immigrants receive scarce attention before Upper School. Students may not learn about events as significant as the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese internment camps until their sophomore and junior years.

“It’s something we briefly touch on in history class, but also something that’s overlooked,” Kate Vo said. “We acknowledge it, but we never focus on it in-depth.”

Samuel Abramson, who teaches both Advanced Placement U.S. History and History of the U.S., cites the 600-odd years of the AP curriculum as a bottleneck against curriculum coverage. Abramson underscores the challenges that the department faces when aiming to provide critical depth in a high-level survey course and deciding which topics are going to be covered and which are going to be omitted.

“At the end of each year and going into the next, we always polish and think about each unit from the year and what we can do better,” Abramson said. “We could stand to include more voices right now — this year, having more [time in class] also

helps. We have 40% more class time, meaning that we can cover more material.”

Fellow APUSH teacher Joseph Soliman tries to incorporate events that are not “traditionally included” in the curriculum, such as the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American living in Detroit who was beaten to death in a racially motivated attack.

“Whenever we can include examples of Asian Americans that have contributed to American history, we should take those opportunities,” Soliman said.

Dian Yu feels that the one-day treatment of many historical events is not ideal pedagogically: “Instead of viewing history as all of these connected things creating our world today, it just feels so separate.”

Maria Cheng says that the lack of emphasis on Asian Americans is disheartening because “it makes it seem like they haven’t done anything — it looks like we have no impact.”

In Vo’s experience, the focus on Western-centric history fosters a “narrow-minded, exceptionalist mindset” that may isolate Asian Americans and other groups whose place in history is often marginalized.

“Asian Americans are a crucial part of American history,” said Vo, who finds learning about her cultural connection to the U.S. more meaningful than only covering life in Asia. “When we have a lack of literature and lessons on Asian American history, we cultivate this ignorance about our very own history.”

Abramson recognizes the importance of discussing discrimination beyond victimization, instead focusing more on achievements.

“How and where that fits in can be difficult,” Abramson said. “From a historian and history teacher’s perspective, it’s no good to be defensive about it.”

Last spring, juniors read “The Things They Carried,” a collection of linked short stories about a Vietnam War American infantry platoon, based on the wartime experiences of author Tim O’Brien.

In one section, American soldiers were burning the village of Than Khe and its inhabitants, yet Dian Yu and Lauren Campbell’s AP English class was lamenting the death of a dog.

“Human beings were just burned alive, and they cared about the puppies more,” Yu said. “There was a lot of dehumanization in the book that wasn’t addressed at all.”

English teachers had been meeting in preparation for teaching the novel.

“Our discussions involved topics like how to handle the incidents in [the chapter] ‘Lives of the Dead,’ when O’Brien writes about how soldiers dealt with the horrible things they were doing,” English teacher Warren Rawson said. “We talked about how we would try to present that and deal with the inevitable questions.”

English teacher Kristiane Stapleton spends hours combing through texts and articles to learn about difficult topics and to feel comfortable teaching a work to students with diverse perspectives.

“Whenever I teach a text that isn’t as familiar to me, I’m full of disclaimers and acknowledgements,” Stapleton said.

Over the summer, Stapleton read “as much AAPI literature as I could get my hands on.”

“I learned from working at the University of Houston that if I didn’t teach these texts, my students weren’t going to get them,” Stapleton said. “It’s more important for students to see that kind of representation, to see themselves and also the possibilities for reframing identity, than it was for me to always be right or to be safe.”

Stapleton and other AP English teachers also incorporated supplemental texts by AAPI authors.

Yu appreciated that her teacher introduced new perspectives. While Yu offered her thoughts more frequently than during other discussions, classmates would sometimes check their phones or look around the room.

“The intentions were good, but the meaning was not there,” Yu said. “It felt like tokenization, very thrown-in and not connected to the bigger picture.”

Kate Vo appreciates that Stapleton, who was her teacher, pulled her aside one day and reassured her that she did not have a special responsibility to educate her peers and encouraged her to reach out if discussions ever made her uncomfortable.

“It can be scary sometimes, but I wanted to do the emotional work to frame this and set this up for my students, because it’s not fair for them to have to do it,” Stapleton said. “I don’t ever want a student to feel tokenized or to feel like they have to be that voice.”

Some students, however, felt like they had to do that work.

Continued on Page 12

12

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

While AP English classes were reading “The Things They Carried,” junior history classes had yet to cover the Vietnam War. The previous year, some sophomore classes did not do so amid Covid lockdowns. With little historical context — and without a competing narrative — many students trusted O’Brien’s perspective.

“We were an impressionable audience, so we absorbed whatever was given to us [from the text],” Vo said. “And what was given to us was from the perspective of a white man, so we saw Vietnam as uncivilized and the enemy.”

Maria Cheng also felt frustrated at the “one-sided” presentation of the war. She stressed that offering multiple perspectives would allow for comparison and contrast, a crucial tenet of a rigorous education.

Campbell, whose mother is a Vietnamese refugee and whose grandfather served in the South Vietnamese Special Forces, was frustrated by the passages that contradicted her family’s first-person accounts.

“It was not an accurate representation of Vietnamese people,” Campbell said. “Every day, I would come home and tell my mom about all these ridiculous things people would say during class, basically describing Vietnamese people as barbaric. It opened her eyes to how America still has a long way to go.”

Yu said that a broader understanding of the Vietnam War may have brought further awareness to the underlying racism of the novel’s American protagonists. While

reading passages aloud, students would unknowingly repeat racial slurs because they did not know their meaning.

“We just jumped right into it,” Yu said.

“There was nothing about how they’re being racist and silencing a group of people’s voices.”

Vo and Campbell said that when their English and history classes covered the Vietnam War, discussions focused more on political ramifications instead of how Americans destabilized the country and impacted the lives of millions of Vietnamese. Campbell also noticed that many of her classmates viewed the Vietnam War as a distant conflict that does not affect their lives.

“People don’t realize that there are refugees from the Vietnam War who are middle-aged people today,” Campbell said.

“They’re not on their deathbed. They’re people’s parents.”

Yu struggled to find ways to point out the “problematic racism and blatant discrimination” in “The Things They Carried” without seeming hypersensitive or unpatriotic.

“I felt pressure to try to prove that I’m not anti-American,” Yu said. “I’m very much for our country, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t call out racism.”

Vo and other Asian students were hesitant to speak up about the racist elements of the book because classmates were often unreceptive and would redirect conversations when race was mentioned.

Racism towards Asian people is so normalized that I didn’t blink twice.

In elementary school, one white classmate approached Rachel Chih, pulled her eyes sideways and said, “Look, I’m Japanese.” Not only did this gesture feature the racist stereotype that Asian Americans have slanted eyes, but Chih’s family is not Japanese.

At the time, she didn’t even realize how offensive it was, “Racism towards Asian people is so normalized that I didn’t blink twice.”

Ariana Lee’s elementary school classmates would also make derogatory gestures and slurs, but she thought little about them until she came to SJS in middle school.

“I didn’t realize that I was being bullied — it just didn’t register,” Lee said.

“I thought they were just being weird, and I didn’t connect it to my Asian identity.”

Chih did not even realize that she was considered a person of color until freshman year. When she came home one day wearing a Women of Color affinity group sweatshirt, her father expressed similar doubts.

“People tend to lump us in with white people, simply because of lighter skin tones,” Chih said.

The perception that Asian

THE REVIEW

Americans are not people of color extends beyond school. In a November 2020 equity report, a Washington school district lumped Asian American students into the same category as whites, because their standardized test scores were the same. In addition, the Pew Research Center found that Asian Americans have a higher median income compared to the general population but also exhibit the greatest income disparity among ethnic groups nationwide.

“People don’t see Asians as people of color,” Maria Cheng said. “They think that there is no racism against Asians, and we don’t get discriminated against.”

Cheng emphasizes the importance of taking multifaceted approaches to address discrimination against Asian Americans, which often goes ignored because it can be less overt than the prejudice faced by other minorities.

Chih encourages her Asian American peers to stop “pushing the stereotype onto ourselves” and advocate on their own behalf. Nothing will change if “we belittle ourselves because we don’t want to cause trouble, but our problems matter.”

Read the full story online

JANUARY 13, 2022

“We aren’t comfortable talking about race because it forces white people to look at their privilege,” Vo said. Yu added, “It’s not the Asian kid’s burden to bring up the unjust parts of the book — it’s tiring being the person to speak up for your own race in an environment that’s all white.”

Once, Yu pointed out an example of racism exhibited by the protagonist. Her comments provoked resistance from her classmates, five of whom began “teaming up to explain racism to the Asian person.”

“Nobody had my back that day,” Yu said.

“After that class, I was much more hesitant to participate in discussions because I was scared knowing that no matter what I said and how I said it, others wouldn’t understand.”

Some juniors expressed their concerns in an April meeting with English teachers, proposing a list of books that offered perspectives from different sides.

“It was very engaging and thoughtprovoking,” Rawson said, “particularly with respect to how the students could point to certain passages and describe their responses in ways that I hadn’t thought about before.”

In Campbell’s English class, one student expressed doubt regarding the feasibility of finding an Asian perspective due to the supposed dearth of Asian-authored texts.

“For what reasons? Why? Because you think Vietnamese people can’t read or write?” Campbell said. “There is systematic racism within publishing, but that doesn’t

Don’t let others tell you who you should be — that’s something you can decide for yourself.

Incidents of violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have increased nationwide because of the global pandemic, which began in Wuhan, China. In March, a series of shootings at Atlanta massage parlors left eight people dead, six of whom were Asian American women. These murders sparked nationwide discussions about racism against the AAPI community. In response, the East Asian Affinity Group created an informative video last spring that Upper School students watched, but Yu noticed that the conversation soon waned.

“It reinforces the idea that in order for you to have a voice, you need to be violated first,” Yu said.

Weeks later, an elderly Asian woman was attacked in New York City as bystanders failed to intervene.

Chia-Chee Chiu became increasingly concerned about the safety of her parents: “That was heartbreaking. I cried, and I worried a lot.”

Typically, each affinity group holds an assembly every other year to share their culture and experiences. Yu and other leaders would like to see every affinity group present each year.

“This isn’t a thing that you can alternate because each one of our voices matters so much,” Yu said.

EAAG strives to develop a community in which East and Southeast Asian students can feel proud. The affinity group was “instrumental” toward making Yu feel a part of the school.

“You’ve been taught [by society] to suppress your identity and be embarrassed by it,” Yu said. “Now is the time to connect with other people who share your identity and learn about their experiences.”

As part of its Mission Statement, St. John’s aims to “develop the whole person in preparation for a lifetime of personal fulfillment and contribution to society.” Chiu stresses that empathy across different cultures and perspectives is crucial toward achieving this goal.

“Leaders need to take the time to learn and hear different perspectives,” Chiu said. “Having more than one perspective helps you figure out what’s important and what’s not.”

SPOTLIGHT mean there’s nothing out there.”

Few, if any, books in the K–12 curriculum feature Asian protagonists or settings.

In Rawson’s 22 years of teaching at two schools, the curriculum has only included a few works written by Asian American authors.

“That’s an omission that the junior AP English team has been super aware of,” Rawson said. “We’ve been trying to work it in for the past few years and talking about ways to make the curriculum broader.”

As co-president of the East Asian Affinity Group, Yu stresses the importance of reading works by Asian authors. This year, she and the EAAG board compiled a list of Asian literature for students.

“These books are so relatable,” Yu said.

“It helps you work through your thoughts and feelings about being Asian American because the authors put it so well.”

Using the meeting with Asian American students last year as a starting point, English department members have read additional texts and are examining short stories and nonfiction articles to include in the curriculum.

“We always ask: What can we do differently? What can we include? What needs to go away?” said Rawson, who described covering the novel as a perpetual learning process for all involved. “We’re trying to figure out how we can expand the reach of the texts.”

In order to build a strong community, Chiu suggests that individuals strike a balance between their similarities and differences, which “make us all members of the same human community.”

Chiu acknowledges that it can be difficult for Asian American students to embrace their culture and identity. “You have a foundation from your family and values that you carry and lean on,” she said.

“My parents gave us a very strong foundation of our identity.”

Joseph Soliman urges students to explore as they feel comfortable, emphasizing that no two individuals share identical paths.

“Follow what you’re passionate about, even if it doesn’t fit the stereotype of a STEM kid pursuing a medical career. People go through the natural process of discovering identity at different times and at different rates,” Soliman said. “Don’t let others tell you who you should be — that’s something you can decide for yourself.”

CULTURE

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

13

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

Families come in many shapes, sizes

C CULTURE

GROWING UP IN A TWO-MOM HOUSEHOLD

By Ellie Monday

I

ILLUSTRATION | Serina Yan

By Abigail Hindman & Lillian Poag

M

arty Thompson’s parents divorced when he was in Lower School in the 1980s.

When they started dating again, both were going out with women.

“I wasn’t embarrassed by my home life, but I knew that my family was different than others,” said Thompson (’91), Director of Experiential Education.

“Looking back at St. John’s in the 80s, it seemed like everyone came from a household with two parents, and I didn’t want to seem different.”

Just fifty years ago, 85% of all households with children had two parents, according to a congressional study. Two-parent households accounted for only 70% as of 2019.

When Thompson’s mother traveled on business trips, his father became the more “maternal” figure, volunteering as the only male member of the St. John’s Mothers’ Guild and taking other traditionally female positions.

“My dad wanted to be a room mom, and that made people’s heads explode,” Thompson said. “He sent a letter to every dad in the school with a questionnaire asking how they wanted to participate in their children’s school lives.”

One of Thompson’s favorite parts of growing up with two families was having step-siblings, which he called his “guaranteed friends.” As an adult, Thompson enjoys visiting his stepbrothers in Ohio and camping with them at Big Bend National Park. Those camping trips inspired Thompson to join, and eventually become the coordinator of, the annual eighth grade trip to Big Bend.

“I’m grateful that my dad found someone, that my mom found someone, and that I have had a chance to get to know their kids and extended families,” Thompson said.

Since Thompson graduated, the school has altered some traditions to be more inclusive like changing the name of both the Mothers’ Desk and Mothers’ Guild to the gender-neutral Parents’ Desk and Parents’ Guild.

Senior Beth Ann Dominey’s parents divorced when she was nine, but Dominey only found out years later that their separation was prompted by her father's coming out.

“I was super relieved to find out their divorce was not my fault, but I was really angry because I felt like it was at the expense of my feelings,” Dominey said.

Over the years, Dominey’s relationship with her father has improved. She has grown cognizant of how her father must have struggled with his identity, acknowledging how difficult it was for the “stereotypical southern male from East Texas” to reveal his sexuality.

“Coming out is going to be on your own time, and I understand now that he was really nervous, but I didn’t back then,” Dominey said.

Dominey loves her dad’s new husband, and she often visits them and their three dogs.

There are many ways to become a parent, and I just took a different path to get there.

MEGAN HENRY

“There is always something to talk about with my dad when I go over,” Dominey said. “And after the divorce, I got super close to my mom; I would consider her my number one best friend.”

Megan Henry, the Director of K-12 Academic Programs, always wanted a large family, but she didn’t want to “settle for the wrong guy,” so she became a single mother.

While Henry’s daughter Elisabeth has not asked many questions about their family, Henry has made an effort to introduce her third grader to other nontraditional families in school, at church and in literature.

“I used to read my daughter books about how families come in different shapes and colors and sizes — some are big and some are small,” Henry said.

“For her to see our family reflected in literature taught her that we are just another kind of family.”

Henry has found support from her family, friends at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church and the St. John’s community. She refers to motherhood as “the best job in the world.”

“While in my heart, my dream had always been to be married and have

a big family, there are many ways to become a parent, and I just took a different path to get there,” Henry said.

“This was the best decision in the world, and the support has been incredible.

Absolutely incredible.”

Growing up in a three-generational household, senior Isaí Meléndez has experienced a blend of El Salvadorian and American cultures.

His grandmother, who emigrated from a small village, enjoys cooking tamales, watching telenovelas and praying on her rosary.

In order to bridge the gap between generations, Meléndez’s family watches American and El Salvadorian soccer, as well as Astros baseball games in addition to telenovelas. The spectrum of cultures and generations in the Meléndez household only strengthens their familial bonds.

“There is always a sense of togetherness, hearing my grandma’s story about living in a village in El Salvador, the celebrations, the customs, and experiencing how the food would be made close up — it brings all of my family really close together,” Meléndez said.

After a year of living alone, sophomore Mary Ho’s grandmother, who originally emigrated from South Korea, moved in with her family in Houston in 2019.

“I love being able to see her every day,” Ho said. “I feel that we have a better connection now because I get to spend more time with her. I learned a lot that I didn’t know before.”

The number of multigenerational households in the United States has increased more than 7% since 1990, according to Business Insider.

Thompson began working at St. John’s 25 years ago and has noticed that society has become much more accepting of non-traditional families as two-parent households become less common.

“I have seen students come from all different homes and backgrounds, like myself,” Thompson said. “Students today can grow up in non-traditional families and feel like St. John’s is a place where they can find a home, regardless of what is going on in their households.”

never realized my family was different until the world told me.

Having two moms seemed like more of a benefit than anything else. I received endless love, support and affection in the Marangell-Monday household.

In my earliest years, my friends and classmates never questioned that I had two moms — and they never asked about my lack of a father. The boys next door thought we just traded in our dad for an extra mom. It wasn’t until around fourth grade, when certain norms and traditions were brought to our attention, that people started to react differently.

Fathers and Flashlights was an annual overnight campout on the West U baseball fields that everyone went to — except me. Why couldn’t it be Families and Flashlights? The solution was so simple, but instead it excluded anyone without a dad.

And don’t even get me started on daddydaughter dances — as if I wasn’t already annoyed by the frequent question of who would one day walk me down the aisle.

My mothers were always gracious enough to ask my grandfather or godfather to act as a surrogate for these events, but as a young girl, I still felt alienated. Why couldn’t one of my moms go?

Even though society pushed its standards onto my family, we persevered through those feelings of estrangement because, honestly, we are just like anyone else. I don’t feel like I have had a radically different childhood. My mother often shares a story about the time I came home one day after third grade and announced, “Our family is different, isn’t it?”

They paused, preparing themselves for The Talk, when I continued, “We’re Democrats.”

They were more than a little relieved.

As my mother always says: “We are all afraid of the unknown, but once you experience folks of other races, genders or family configurations, you will realize you have much more in common.”

My moms are from different religious backgrounds, Judaism and Christianity, which shapes my identity and traditions more than living in a two-mom household does.

Mother's Day is way more stressful than any other holiday, especially since there is no other parent to help me and my twin brother get gifts and plan the day.

I often get asked about which of my moms is the “man in the relationship.” The thing is, they’re both women. One of my moms was my coach for almost every sport I played. She never let a coaching vacancy on my youth teams go unfilled and was frequently the only female coach in the entire league, yet she also embraced her femininity by dragging me along on her hours-long shopping trips and into her afternoon cooking sessions.

I have heard my unfair share of insensitive and homophobic comments, either indirectly or directly, and when we travel to other countries, my moms sometimes have to pretend they are sisters. I am grateful to live in a relatively safe bubble where the harshest reality is frequently having to cross out “Father” and scribble in “Mother” when filling out forms.

We are not a traditional family, but I would argue that we’re pretty nuclear: two loving parents, two kids, two dogs. Families should not be reduced to conventional standards.

Once we accept that, our community can move past dwelling on our differences and focus on the countless things we have in common.

14

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

JANUARY 13, 2022

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SPORTS

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

15

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

S SPORTS Students hone their problem-solving and athletic skills at Momentum Indoor Climbing.

COURTESY PHOTO | Austin Sim

Becoming

By Ellie Monday

O

n Friday nights in the fall, while many students were en route to the football game on Skip Lee Field, senior Ryan Kao and a posse of friends were scaling a ropeless, rocky wall in a jungle gym full of millennials.

Bouldering is the new niche sport.

Debuting at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, this form of free climbing features a unique synthesis of problemsolving and athleticism. Adding to the challenge, climbers complete routes, referred to as “problems,” without the use of rope or harness.

Over the summer, a group of rising seniors began bouldering at a local rock gym and were instantly hooked.

“My friends brought me once to see what I could do — I was their guinea pig,” Kao said. “Now, I boulder almost every other day.”

For 30 days over the summer, senior William Suttle camped in the Alaskan wilderness on a glacier mountaineering expedition that attracted many climbing enthusiasts. Inspired by his fellow outdoorsmen, Suttle returned to Houston with a new interest in bouldering.

Suttle found a climbing community at Momentum Indoor Climbing Silver Street, a 43,000-square-foot climbing facility that offers courses from beginner to expert levels.

Once Suttle and Kao checked out the bouldering gym, they quickly invited friends to join them on their weekly visits.

The welcoming environment and wide range of routes at Momentum jump-started senior Austin Sim’s interest.

Climbers frequently collaborate with strangers when tackling a route, and the variety of difficulty levels allows for friends to take on walls next to each other even if their skill levels differ.

“I’ve had so many instances when a friend and I have been working on a similar route for two or three visits, and we might not even finish it the same way, but when we both do, it feels really great,” Sim said. “There’s a lot of teamwork involved.”

Bouldering fosters a culture of accountability. To avoid burning out too quickly, many gym-goers take breaks between routes, typically using those times to socialize or reassess the wall.

“At first, I very much had the mindset that if I fell, I could just immediately keep going, and, eventually, I would get it. But I quickly learned you can't do that. You have to take breaks, otherwise you'll wear your arms out,” senior Jessie Beck said. “Once, I even brought my computer and worked on college essays between routes.”

Students have encountered a variety of expert climbers at Momentum, ranging from a “gremlin-like” twelveyear-old who climbs faster than the seniors to an elderly woman with a prosthetic leg.

“Understanding that what works for someone else might not work for you is important. The goal is just to reach the finish,” Sim said. “Accepting that everyone has a different way of climbing took me a while to realize.”

Scaling 20-foot high walls may scare off some newcomers, and Kao attributes his perseverance to the support of his friends.

“Bouldering is a mental and physical puzzle and one of the most unforgiving sports,” Kao said.

Personal responsibility is an important aspect of bouldering because the activity is inherently dangerous.

DESIGN | Celine Huang

Boulder

Off-the-wall sport "peaks" student interest

Climbers must be conscientious about preventing injuries such as tendonitis or pinched nerves. At the start of each rock gym visit, Sim and other seniors participate in a warm-up routine to ready their joints and muscles.

Still, climbers can — and do — fall.

“If you try something that's way higher than your standard difficulty level, there is risk of falling and seriously injuring yourself,” Sim said.

“It makes you hyper-aware of where your limits are.”

Students find that their skills and strengths from other sports can apply to bouldering in specific ways.

Kao uses his explosiveness from gymnastics and track as one of his primary techniques on the wall while Beck utilizes her sturdy grip from softball.

Mental skills are just as central to bouldering. Math teacher Elliot Sakach has frequented Momentum ever since his friends introduced him to the gym a few years ago.

“I like the creative, problem-solving aspect of bouldering and the workout,” Sakach said. “You leave feeling rewarded both mentally and physically.”

Sakach sees parallels in bouldering and the problemsolving techniques that he teaches his students in the classroom.

“Like a good math problem, you need to take a step back and just stare at it for a minute and just think and reflect before you start climbing,” Sakach said.

Sakach first tried bouldering in college at the oncampus rock wall, but he did not become an avid climber.

Since joining Momentum, which is relatively close to the School, he looks forward to climbing in his free time.

The St. John's Climbing Club, recently founded by Kao, Suttle and Sim, calls Momentum its home. Beck, who was one of the first ten members, said she has never experienced a more active and welcoming club. The club utilizes Instagram to showcase climbs and encourage others to join.

“We need to post more fails and easier climbs because some people are intimidated,” said Sim, who stresses that anyone can start at the simplest level.

The club has fostered friendships across grade levels. Freshman Connor McCain has become one of the club’s most active members and befriended many upperclassmen.

“You just invite people. Some get into it, and you see them the next week,” McCain said. “It’s grown a lot since it started.”

The bouldering community has its own language of sorts, and climbers often throw around slang in the gym.

“Slopers,” “jugs,” “nubs,” “chips” and “crimps” describe certain holds while the “beta” for a climb translates to the way someone finishes a route. If somebody “flashes” a climb, they may receive some impressed looks because they finished that route on their first attempt.

But boulderers more often than not must deal with failure — literally hitting a wall. Senior Will Smith attributes his improved discipline to the many hours he has worked on routes.

“You have to apply trial and error to make progress on routes that challenge you. There's no way to get around it,” Smith said. “That's what makes it so satisfying when you finally reach the finish hold.”

Chipping the Sloper A Lexicon of Bouldering

Crimp:

a small edge that requires wrapping the thumb over the index finger and pulling with the fingertips

Sloper:

a rounded or sloping handhold

Jug:

a secure handhold large enough for a hand to fit inside

Nub:

a little handhold that only a few fingers can grip

To chip:

to create or enhance climbing holds

To flash:

to climb a problem on the first try from start to finish

Beta:

a description of how to climb a specific problem, usually referring to the best way Additional reporting by David Schaefer

16

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

JANUARY 13, 2022

SPORTS

Former Mavericks chase NCAA championships

By Wilson Bailey

M

eg Shelburne ('20) and her Middlebury teammates rushed to their goalkeeper as the final buzzer sounded, signifying a fourth consecutive Division III Field Hockey National Championship victory.

“The hour or so after the game was the most fun of my entire life,” Shelburne said.

The Panthers’ 4-1 win over Grace Nockolds ('21) and the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays capped off a 22-0 undefeated season.

“It was so fun seeing Grace out there and being like, ‘Look, we made it,’” Shelburne said.

The Blue Jays went 22-1 and captured their third consecutive Centennial Conference title in a 5-0 victory over Dickinson College, with Nockolds adding a goal.

“I was really excited because that was our third goal, and my coach always emphasizes that it takes three goals to win a game,” Nockolds said. “It was incredible to secure the win for the team in the championship.”

In Division I field hockey, the Mavs have 15 players representing schools in the Ivy League, ACC, Atlantic 10 and Big 10 conferences. Sofia Castore ('20), goalkeeper for the Harvard Crimson, won the Ivy League conference championship and reached the final four of the NCAA tournament before losing to the Northwestern Wildcats.

Tyler Kennedy ('21), despite being a true freshman, got the starting job as goalkeeper for the Virginia Cavaliers.

“I went into the season with no expectations, knowing that the two other goalies were fourth- and fifth-years,” Kennedy said. “Once my coach said that the position was up for grabs, I really tried to prove myself.”

Former Mavs in other fall NCAA sports are chasing conference and national titles.

In the last four years, St. John’s has put

almost 100 athletes in the NCAA. In soccer, Olivia O’Reilly ('21) won a NESCAC conference title with Middlebury, going toe-to-toe with former classmate Carter Hollingsworth ('21) at Amherst.

Lyndon Way ('21) secured a NEWMAC championship with Babson.

“I didn’t know what to do with myself — the energy was insane,” Way said. “It made everything worth it.”

In cross country, Drew Woodfolk ('18) led the Washington & Lee Generals to a second place finish in the ODAC, with Woodfolk securing fifth individually. At the NCAA DIII South Regional, Woodfolk finished 19th, earning all-Region honors.

“I really missed having a cross country season last year,” Woodfolk said. “It felt very special to run well and compete with my teammates one last time.”

Davis Thames ('20) consistently finished in the top five for the Rice Owls cross-country team.

“This year, I’ve been running 80 miles a week,” Thames said. “I was running half that at St. John’s. In college, the races are longer; it’s a bigger game.”

Training intensity is one of the starkest differences between high school and collegiate athletics.

“For the first two weeks of pre-season, we have two-hour, two-a-day practices that are solely for running and conditioning,” Way said.

Jackson Peakes ('21), the first Division I basketball player produced by SJS since Los Angeles Clippers forward Justise Winslow ('14), says that easing up in practice is not an option in collegiate athletics.

“The level of competition is different. If you don't go 100% every single moment, you will get exposed,” Peakes said. “Everyone is faster and stronger.”

Even with more time invested in training and games, many alums find that the college workload is still manageable.

As a freshman, Tyler Kennedy ('21) started at goalie for the Virginia Cavaliers.

COURTESY PHOTO | Tyler Kennedy “In high school, I was losing about an hour and a half of productivity every day commuting to club practice,” Way said.

“Now, it’s a five-minute walk to the fields and I’m there.”

For Shelburne, her commitment to the field hockey team leaves very little time for a social life beyond athletics.

“I have to accept that weekdays are for school and weekends are for fun — fun being field hockey games,” Shelburne said. “I’m lucky because my team is so awesome.”

While Shelburne and others are thriving on their championship-winning teams, they still miss their time playing sports at St. John’s.

“Playing for your high school team is fun in such a unique way,” Shelburne said.

“You’re playing with the people you see every day in the halls, and then you go back and talk about those games with each other.”

Peakes advises the St. John’s basketball team, which is currently 16-6 overall and 1-0 in conference play, to enjoy their time playing in high school.

“I would give a lot to play Episcopal or Kinkaid one last time,” Peakes said. “You have to make the most of your time making good memories with good people.”

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ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

Bad Breaks: Athletes play through the pain Overuse, continued stress leading cause of sports injuries

By Ella West

K

ristina Johnson spent the summer traveling across the nation for field hockey recruiting tournaments and clinics.

Johnson knows that the best option for the occasional injury is to take an extended break, but she worries that not playing would do more harm to her mental health than good for her physical health.

“Field hockey brings me a lot of joy,” Johnson said. “It takes the stress off me.

When I feel bad, I know that when I’m playing, everything else goes away.”

Johnson does physical therapy and wears a wrist brace when she plays or works on her laptop.

When I see the impact that the repeated stress has on people's bodies, I start to think that maybe the accomplishments aren't always worth it.

SOPHIE TRAMMELL

“I felt like I needed to keep playing because I was in the Junior Olympics,” Johnson said. “And at the beginning of the season, I wanted to set a good example for incoming players.”

During the fall field hockey season, Johnson suffered an ankle injury.

“It was hard that I had to miss a lot of practice time. But as far as being able to be there with the team, it wasn't as bad because I know that they supported me and they just wanted me to get better.”

Johnson's coaches let her take time to recover, but when it came time to play rival Kinkaid, she was on the field.

In December, Johnson was struck in the hand by a stray ball during a club team practice. She now has a broken ring finger.

One of Johnson’s teammates, junior Frances Moriniere, strained her hamstring over the summer, but the injury worsened during preseason. When she went to the trainer, she was told she should not play for three weeks.

Since she was in the middle of the college recruitment process, Moriniere took a week off and slowly returned to competition.

“I kept playing because I had to,” Moriniere said. “Going to a lot of colleges for recruiting this summer, I didn’t have a break, so I convinced myself that it would go away or that I was just sore.”

Many student-athletes regularly push their bodies to the breaking point so that they can continue to play the sports they love in college.

“The issue with overuse injuries is that athletes don’t want to acknowledge them because that means you have to take a break, and you don't know how serious it is,” Moriniere said.

After coming to terms with her injury, Moriniere went to the trainer regularly.

“I wanted to play,” Moriniere said.

“Starting the season with a new coach, I felt like I had to prove myself to her.”

Associate athletic trainer Michael Kleinstub says that 6 a.m. strength training can be hard when students stay up until one in the morning.

He adds that the biggest mistake studentathletes make is beginning preparations for their college sports too late in their high school careers.

“Whether you want to play at the next level, whether you're being recruited or not, why wouldn't you just start off as an eighth grader or ninth grader?” Kleinstub said.

Kleinstub says that rest and recovery, nutrition, strength and conditioning are paramount to preventing injuries.

“You're not going to be able to eradicate the trauma-related issues that happen in any sport,” he said. “But you can mitigate the overuse.”

Senior John Avery Foutch had been injured for much of his first three years playing football. This year, during preseason practice, he awkwardly twisted his body during a rushing drill.

“The pain wasn’t even that bad,” Foutch said. “But I immediately knew I had torn my ACL — turns out I blew everything out.”

After the injury, Foutch received texts from his coaches nearly every day, and once he discovered he would be out for the season, the entire coaching staff reached out to him.

“They made me feel included and part of the team even though I couldn’t do anything,” Foutch said.

Over the course of the past two years, Kleinstub does not think there has been a significant increase in injuries because of Covid. Most of what the trainers see is related to nutritional deficiencies, particularly vitamin D, which helps maintain bone structure.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION | Celine Huang “People have started to make nutritional changes without being well informed on what they should be doing,” Kleinstub said.

“Their activity level has decreased, so they may have some other abnormalities that weren't detected prior.”

A small percentage of cardiovascular issues have occurred recently.

Starting the season with a new coach, I felt like I had to prove myself to her.

FRANCES MORINIERE

“Nothing we have seen was directly caused by Covid,” Kleinstub said. “It was sort of a symptom of Covid.”

Kleinstub is more concerned about the psychological effects of the pandemic.

“Kids seem to be a little more depressed,” Kleinstub said. “They’re not quite sure when they're allowed to practice with or without a mask. They work hard for a period of time, and then all of a sudden, they're put on a shelf for a little bit. The inconsistencies of how things happen with Covid are more detrimental psychologically than it is physiologically.”

Even student-athletes who do not plan on playing in college can feel the pressure to play through injury.

Sophie Trammell has injured her hip, knees and ankles — suffering “practically every single leg issue possible” during her

four years running cross country.

Trammell took off a week in hopes that her knee injury would heal, and since she did not have any fractures, she decided to continue competing.

On her first day back at practice, Trammell's body gave out mid-stride, and a freshman teammate had to help her off the track. When she got her leg examined, the athletic trainer told her that scar tissue had accumulated over the past four or five years from her many sports injuries. It had just popped.

“It was one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had,” Trammell said.

By mid-season, many of her teammates, particularly underclassmen, had developed stress injuries.

Trammell predicts that “there will be more injured athletes than there is training equipment to accommodate them.”

The cross-country team placed third at the last two SPC meets. Trammell competed for all four years, even though her numerous injuries prevented her from practicing as much as she would have liked.

“I get a sense of accomplishment when I finish a practice with the whole team,” she said. “But, when I see the impact that the repeated stress has on people’s bodies, I start to think that maybe the accomplishments aren’t always worth it.”

Additional reporting by Chloe West

Among adolescents, the most common injuries are:

27% sprains 26% fractures 16% arm/leg injuries Source: National Library of Medicine

INFOGRAPHIC | Georgia Andrews

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OPINIONS

O OPINIONS

Cheerleaders struggle to overcome sexist stereotypes from the sidelines

By Mia Hirshfeld

F

or decades, the word “cheerleader” has conjured images of teenage girls in flouncy skirts and big bows. Although now frequently dismissed as “girly," cheerleading was once exclusively for men.

Cheerleading at college football games began in the 1880s at Princeton University, and it remained a male-only activity as it spread to other colleges. Former presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin Roosevelt were all cheerleaders at their respective colleges.

Unsurprisingly, cheerleading was much more respected back then.

It was not until World War I, when women began assuming societal roles previously reserved for men, that female cheerleaders took center stage. Many resisted the idea of a woman taking on such a masculine role.

The attitude towards cheerleading changed after World War II, when female stereotypes started to influence the perception of cheerleaders as dainty ornaments atop more masculine sports.

In 1972, with the emergence of competi-

ILLUSTRATION | Diane Guo, Mia Hong & Celine Huang tive cheer, the sport became more rigorous.

As teams attempted to one-up their opponents, new elements including tumbling, stunting and dance were incorporated.

Cheer was no longer just a crowd-engaging activity, but also a physically demanding team sport.

Recently, the International Olympic Committee recognized cheerleading as a potential sport for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Games, and there are ongoing deliberations over its viability as an Olympic sport.

The “Bring It On” movie franchise and the Netflix reality show “Cheer” have helped shape the public perception of cheerleading, highlighting both its difficulty and artistry.

For years, the general public has only seen cheerleaders on the sidelines of football games, dressed in matching outfits and holding sparkly pom-poms. This imagery has made it difficult for many to understand that beyond the flashy uniforms, there are serious athletes performing complex and dangerous routines. Cheerleading

may have begun as simple performances meant to enhance other sports, but, over the last 50 years, with the inclusion of dancing, acrobatics and gravity-defying stunts, cheer has become a sport in its own right.

Like any other athletes, cheerleaders risk serious injury. As of 2019, the sport had the second highest concussion rate behind football. Stunting and lifting people in the air can become dangerous without intense focus. Tumbling is equally high-risk — I once broke and dislocated my elbow while attempting a front tuck. Cheer should not be discredited just because the athletes wear makeup and make the stunts look easy.

At St. John’s, cheerleaders have often been unfairly compared to our counterparts at Kinkaid and Episcopal. And yes, our cheer program is certainly not as prestigous or competitive.

But Kinkaid and Episcopal have professional choreographers and mixers; ours is a homegrown, do-it-yourself program, and current and previous captains have done a

commendable job creating music and routines. Yet our small-scale high school cheer program is judged against teams organized by professionals.

Expanded tumbling training and a professional choreographer would facilitate our team’s development — currently, the captains choreograph all the routines and mix the music. A more advanced program would open the door to greater competition, which would increase student interest in — and respect for — St. John’s cheerleading.

People need to reassess their perception of cheerleading, not only by recognizing the athleticism and skill required to master the sport, but also by realizing how the predominant gender of cheerleaders influences modern opinions. Before our cheer program can gain respect, people who disregard the sport must acknowledge that it is so often dismissed because it is female-dominated. Misogyny permeates even the most innocent aspects of society.

Cheer is no exception.

Oh, the Humanities! The overlooked value of liberal arts

By Ella Piper Claffy

C

omedic references to starving artists are a dime a dozen.

Engineering majors ask, “How does this work?"

Business majors ask, “How much will this cost?"

Humanities majors ask, “Do you want fries with that?"

Those of us who prefer Virginia Woolf to visible waves must steel ourselves for the inevitable advice to “marry rich.”

As a humanties-oriented person, it can be disheartening to live in a world engrossed by NFTs, cryptocurrency or the latest launch of whatever tech billionaire’s rocket is traveling to space that week.

Unsurprisingly, less trendy endeavors like poetry and philosophy have suffered staggering enrollment drops at colleges and universities. Still, there is an indisputable value to studying the humanities and liberal arts that is all-too-often overlooked.

It’s impossible not to notice the impact of STEM in our everyday lives. Yet the humanities quietly and subtly foster such indispensable qualities as adaptability, empathy and knowledge of self.

An appreciation for the value of the humanities must be instilled in students before they reach college, but by the time

potential humanities majors arrive in the Upper School, they discover, much to their chagrin, that they will not receive the same grade boost awarded to those who take advanced math and science classes.

Students are incentivized to take honors STEM courses by the additional 0.6 points added to their final course average in these classes, sending the message that they are more significant and rigorous than humanities classes.

Offering underclassmen honors courses in English and history would validate these subjects' importance and level the playing field for strong humanities students. In the highly competitive world of college admissions, future humanities majors need advanced courses to prove their love of the humanities and curate a consistent application.

The durable skill set provided by the humanities outlasts the rapidly changing needs of a field like computer science or cellular biology and thus bestows continued relevance and earning potential.

A downside to STEM is how quickly many of the fields evolve. To remain plugged in, scientists and mathematicians must constantly update their knowledge base.

Another unfounded strike against the humanities is the perceived dearth of highpaying jobs. Contrary to popular belief, humanities majors can actually outearn

their STEM counterparts. Advertising and public relations graduates earn a median salary of above $110,000, which is significantly higher than the earnings of the average STEM major, who makes $65,000 yearly. In 2019, the New York Times reported that in the metaphorical capitalistic race, science and math majors “sprint” while their liberal arts peers “endure.”

But why is it all about the money?

Ideally, education should be a process of self-discovery. The steady decline in the number of humanities graduates, which has waned 25% since 2012, exhibits how Return on Investment overrides Quality of Life.

In a 2018 Atlantic article, Benjamin Schmidt wrote, “in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, students seem to have shifted their view of what they should be studying — in a largely misguided effort to enhance their chances on the job market.”

Ultimately, it’s all about perception — rather than pursuing an area of personal interest, college students are working towards degrees that they assume have better job prospects.

In 1970, a student survey asked if one purpose of education was to help them “develop a meaningful philosophy of life.”

Seventy percent of respondents said it was “very important or essential.” When

asked that same question in the mid-80s, only 30% of the next generation of students agreed.

Figuring out who you are and formulating your own “philosophy of life” is what education is about — and what the humanities do best.

Society stereotypes STEM graduates as future surgeons or the founders of tech start-ups, while humanities majors allegedly languish, unemployed, in cramped studio apartments, using Starbucks WiFi to finish writing their dissertations on something simultaneously existential and inconsequential.

Beyond the jokes and hollow punchlines, I’ve found a better way to differentiate STEM and humanities: The sciences exist to help humans live life — the humanities exist to make life worth living. Both are compelling. Both are essential. So, STEM kids: don’t ignore the humanities. And even if you prefer the humanities, don’t let your classmates casually discussing quantum mechanics discourage you from taking STEM courses.

In our ever-evolving world, the humanities are a port in the storm — one of the few places we can stay grounded in our mortality and individuality. So, if poetry is your passion, go ahead and take the road less traveled by — it might make all the difference.

OPINIONS

JANUARY 13, 2022

THE REVIEW

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

19

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS St. John's School 2401 Claremont Lane Houston, TX 77019 review.sjs@gmail.com sjsreview.com Facebook SJS Review Twitter @SJS_Review Instagram @sjsreview

Member National Scholastic Press Assn.

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SNO Distinguished Site 2018–2022 Print Editors-in-Chief Celine Huang, Russell Li, Ella West Online Editors-in-Chief Megan Chang and Ashley Yen Executive Editors Ella Chen, Indrani Maitra, Afraaz Malick Assignment Editors Wilson Bailey, Cameron Ederle, Ellie Monday Section Editors Dawson Chang and Ella Piper Claffy Copy Editors Abigail Hindman, Mia Hong, Annie Jones, Lillian Poag Design Editors Diane Guo, Max Stith, Alice Xu Photography and Video Editors Sarah Clark, Lexi Guo, James Li Business Manager Sophia Jazaeri Staff

Ellison Albright, Georgia Andrews, Lauren Baker, Natalie Boquist, Amanda Brantley, Thomas Center, Emma Chang, Kaitlyn Chang, Virginia Carolyn Crawford, Isabella Diaz-Mira, Turner Edwards, Louis Faillace, Lily Feather, Lydia Gafford, Aleena Gilani, Nick Hensel, Mia Hirshfield, Elizabeth Hu, Smith Inglesby, Natasha Janssens, Johnathon Li, Richard Liang, Jennifer Liu, Penelope Macpherson, Arjun Maitra, Sloane Merideth, Sierra Ondo, Laura Papeians de Morchoven, David Schaefer, Alexis Triantaphyllis, Annie Villa, Lucy Walker, Chloe West, Serina Yan, Katharine Yao, Willow Zerr and Evan Zhang

Advisers David Nathan, Shelley Stein ('88), Sorrel Westbrook Mission Statement The Review strives to report on issues with integrity, to recognize the assiduous efforts of all and to serve as an engine of discourse within the St. John's community.

Publication Info We mail each issue of The Review — free of charge — to every Upper School household with an additional 1,000 copies distributed on campus to our 700 students and 98 faculty.

Policies The Review provides a forum for student writing and opinion. The opinions and staff editorials contained herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Head of School or the Board of Trustees of St. John's School. Staff editorials represent the opinion of the entire Editorial Board unless otherwise noted. Writers and photographers are credited with a byline.

Corrections, when necessary, can be found on the editorial pages. Running an advertisement does not imply endorsement by the school.

Submission Guidelines Letters to the editor and guest columns are encouraged but are subject to editing for clarity, space, accuracy and taste. On occasion, we publish letters anonymously. We reserve the right not to print letters. Letters and guest columns can be emailed to review.sjs@gmail.com.

We are at our best when...

T

o the family we're born with and the family we make along the way.

Combined, the three of us have been part of St. John’s for almost 25 years. And while we can’t tell you all the ins and outs of the school, we’ve gathered this much: we are at our best when we support each other.

Over the past two years, we have lost some of the traditional ways of uplifting one another because of Covid regulations. We know that these measures are in place to protect us and the people we love, so we follow the guidelines.

Even when we couldn’t attend our friends' recitals and theater productions, we cheered them on from home, waiting until we could celebrate with them in-person.

During sporting events, we stayed masked or distanced — when we were permitted to spectate.

We continued to nod along in classes and casual conversations, even when we couldn’t quite comprehend what our teachers or classmates were saying behind their masks.

But through it all, we have cobbled together our own solutions in the midst of all the trials and tribulations.

During this year's Homecoming pep rally, when a computer malfunction threatened to derail the screening of the Kinkaid video (pg. 5), the Spirit Club kept things going until we could watch it together instead of leaving the VST and watch the video later on our phones or computers — or not at all. Instead, we waited half an hour while the captains and freshman played How Well Do You Know Your Captain — and finally we got to see Joseph DePinho’s creation. It was totally worth it.

Outside of school, we find ways to lift each other up whenever we fall. Case in point, the Climbing Club (pg. 14).

Our alums have taken these ideals and applied them to small restaurants that serve their communities (pg. 6).

Not all the news lately has been so positive.

After the Astroworld tragedy (pg. 3), students planned memorials and showed up to remember the victims, some of whom they had never known.

We know that the never-ending line of Covid variants — we’ve become de facto experts in the Greek alphabet — are enough to drive us up a wall. If Delta and Omicron weren’t enough, there’s a new kid named Deltacron on the block. It’s frustrating, but after two years, it's become a part of our lives. As seniors, more than half of Upper School has been consumed by the pandemic.

Public health data increasingly suggests that Covid will become endemic, like the flu. As much as we want to move forward and pretend that the pandemic is over, that’s simply not an option.

Now is the time to uplift and support one another.

We want to look back as adults and know that we didn’t throw away our Upper School experience waiting for “precedented” times to return. Rather, we lived in the moment, making the most of the time we had at St. John’s.

In November, 14 Review editors attended a three-day NSPA writing conference. While we needed to stay masked the entire time, each of us had an opportunity to learn something new.

Assignment editor Ellie Monday and copy editor Annie Jones

took to the streets of Philadelphia, interviewing small business owners, holiday shoppers and even a Scientologist. Video editor James Li assisted in the creation of a compilation video for the conference, filming different parts of the city throughout the week.

When we weren’t learning editorial leardership or the art of storytelling, we explored the city together — bonding over the Rocky steps, late-night ice cream, and pan-fried soup dumplings.

And our hard work over the past year continued to pay off while we were there. Design editor Diane Guo, who illustrated the cover, received first place for Design of the Year. Editor-in-chief Celine Huang received second place for Artist of the Year. Her stellar illustrations are highlighted in the centerspread. Fellow EIC Ella West, who wrote about athletes playing through pain (pg. 17,) placed third for Social Justice Reporting.

At the end of the award ceremony, the Review received first place for Best of Show for the November issue.

It seems a long time ago when that first issue came out, but all the extra time has been worth it to bring you an extraordinary issue.

Stay strong,

Ella West

Russell Li

Celine Huang

20

ST. JOHN’S SCHOOL

THE REVIEW

.

JANUARY 13, 2021

BACK PAGE

SJS Review

Review Wrapped Top Online Stories of Fall 2021 Marlinball: How an SJS alum turned his love of baseball, differential equations into an MLB career

#1 Published Sept. 28

Story by Lillian Poag

Psychologist Michael Thompson speaks to Upper School about academic gender gap

#2 Published Nov. 11

Story by Aleena Gilani

Freshman Cole Allen named Co-Texas Private School Player of the Week

#3

Story by Wilson Bailey Published Sept. 22

Fall captains play The Newlywed Game

#4

Video by Lexi Guo & James Li

Published Nov. 3

Armadillo spotted scurrying around campus

#5

Story by Emma Chang Published Oct. 1 DESIGN| Sarah Clark

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