Pavements, issue i: Quilted by TAMU AASI

Q U I L T E D 22 23

table of contents 2

Pavements: Quilted

Smiski Everything Everywhere All At Once

Oorath House

delicacies

Suppertime

to share or not

mother's oranges

大白兔 (dà bái tù)

Chai

Dear Rizwan

make a way

When I Was Born

Proud of My Parents

Boy

Eyes

for the hyphenated

“That’s not for you.”

a calculated risk with some unaccounted for guilt

she wore red

future self letter

The Indeterminate Dream

mixed jackfruit children

pavements team editors: miriam chen '24 erin feng '24 faryal jabbar '24 kaitlyn truong '25 kelly zhou '26 shriya patil '24

thank you! We are beyond grateful for everyone involved in this project! Pavements would not be possible without the contributions of courageous students that shared their personal stories. As the first-ever edition, we appreciate everyone's willingness to experiment and learn with us. Thank you to our readers who have engaged with this zine and followed us on this new journey. Thank you to the Asian Presidents' Council and the Asian American Studies Initiative for providing funding and support that allowed this project to succeed.

about Pavements was established in Fall 2022 to pave a way in empowering and increasing APIDA representation at Texas A&M University through zines. Pavements features APIDA student voices: the paths that they've taken; the obstacles and twists encountered; the spaces and identities discovered and experienced. The zine is a collection of journeys and a reminder that each of us are also charting our own paths. APC's theme for APIDA Heritage Month this year is "unraveling history, weaving a legacy." By unraveling and reflecting on our history, we learn the importance of our presence and lived experiences in the United States and at Texas A&M. We have the power to bring communities together, celebrate our heritage, and uplift each other to create change. Together, we can weave our stories into a legacy for future generations. "Unraveling history, weaving a legacy" ties into our first issue: Quilted. Quilted stitches together past memories and present moments - a collection of struggles and triumphs woven into texts and artistic pieces that tell stories of each contributor’s unique Asian American identity to form a patchwork ‘quilt’ that will build solidarity and foster belonging within the APIDA community at Texas A&M.

art by Emily Chang '26

Oorath House Anjali Talpallikar '24 This is my grandparents' house in Kerala, India. It's the house I spent my summers in - the house I got my period in, the house I studied for my SAT in, the house that gave me the space I needed to grow into who I am today.

In Malayali culture, lineage is traced maternally. This house was home to the daughters of the daughters before me. I'm one of two left, and I hope to bring my daughter back to the house to explore the world waiting for her there.

nuance is delicious i eat it every day i put a sprinkle on my toast for breakfast i add a pinch to my lunch, and a handful to my dinner and when it’s time for dessert i help myself to three servings and the next day i still crave more nuance thinks i’m delicious it eats me every day it gnaws at my intestines clawing its way from the inside out it starts at breakfast, then moves on to lunch and dinner and when it’s time for dessert i’m just a pile of bones and the next day it still craves more

m p i e p u t er S

Obviously a key feature of cultural experience is food — it brings together people, allows them to share in nourishing everyone while talking and enjoying time spent in each other’s company. Even though we Asian Americans here at A&M are likely diasporic, what can connect us to the cultures of our mainlands can be food. It’s almost a bit cliche that I chose something like this for such a zine theme, but meal times are key for a reason, and a big part of the Asian experience (at least for me) is how food brings us all together.

Caroline Fu '26

to share or not how do i share a part of my culture how do i give a part of myself up without having to americanize it adjusting food to appease a palette that i don't think will love it or enjoy it or truly understand it i hesitate to share the love my food gives to only be seen as trendy a blip in the media a spike in numbers a social dictation of cool why would i cater to a world that sees me as an aesthetic to pander to an audience that will dismiss the boldness of the taste because when flavor comes at the cost of capitalism and to tone down a flavor so complex is to disregard the love, history, heritage, and artistry poured into the culinary comfort that food my brings

Dana

mother’s oranges indestructible. stubborn. unwavering. that’s my mom’s orange tree for you. the tree my mom covers with her special plant tarp. the tree my mom screams at squirrels for. the tree she likes to admire when she’s sad. the tree that produces the plumpest and juiciest oranges no market can compete with. the orange tree is one of the few constancies my mother had. it was the one measure of growth she had when she had to put her life on pause for us. she gave up everything for me. she continues to give up everything. the oranges mended arguments. tension. with a single knock on my door. a plate of cut oranges fixed the turmoil. i never understood the power of these oranges. i never understood their durability. but i do recognize they are a reflection of my mother. she’s durable. she’s resilient. she’s my protector. an asian mother’s love is unconditional. and an asian daughter’s duty to her mother is never done. more than ever, i want to protect my mom the way she protects her orange tree. the docile and passive daughter she raised has to use her voice. to let the world know i’m just like her mom’s oranges. indestructible. stubborn. unwavering.

Dang '23

大白兔 (dà bái tù) Izy '24

This is a hand-knit tapestry with crochet border details. It was made for my mom’s birthday to celebrate the year of the rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. As I came up with this idea, I began thinking about my mom’s life – all the hardships she endures and the brief moments of past happiness she shares in secret with me. I don’t know what it’s like to be an immigrant, to leave behind everything you know for the mere hope of a “better life,” and to raise children that don’t speak or think in the same language as you. Yet even though there will always be a part of her that I can’t understand, there is one thing I know: She is the strongest, kindest, bravest, and most brilliant human I have ever known. This piece was made to remind her of her own bravery and courage, her leap of faith into what she didn’t know, and her hope of one day being free.

Chai Tabina '25 At exactly 5:30 P.M every evening, my family gathers around the dinner table to drink chai. It’s one of the few traditions I can trace back to both my parents’ background; my dad comes from a small town in Bangladesh, while my mom comes from a village in Punjab, India. They met in the growing city of Richardson in the fall of 1997, united by geographic location when they were different in language, culture, and religion. Growing up, these disparities were always confusing to me. Some days we would light candles at the gurudwara (place of worship for those who follow the Sikh faith) while other days I’d accompany my grandmother to the mosque (place of worship for those who follow the Islamic faith). In a child’s eyes, places of worship are not divided by religion. Perhaps the varying tenets were different, but both were united in that they taught us morals that would guide us to become better versions of ourselves, versions that served others. However, as I got older, the eyes I wore as a child faded, replaced by those of adolescence. As the world asked me for labels, I began to see the differences between my parents’ cultures more clearly. I noticed, in a way I hadn’t before, how different my parents’ cultures were. Where my mother’s culture encouraged bravery, my father’s culture rested on the idea of peace. Where my mother’s culture engages in dancing as a form of expression, my father values the art of song. During the time I was beginning to forge my identity, these conflicting ideas lent themselves to a plethora of confusion, until I realized that I didn’t have to choose just one. I could be brave and peaceful at the same time, I could dance and sing at the same time, I could be both the daughter of my mother and father at the same time. Just because the world around constantly asks for labels doesn’t mean I have to reduce myself to that same singularity. My parents’ cultures may differ, but there is one thing we will always have: chai at 5:30.

Dear Rizwan, You are right. I do not know you at all. But when I first saw you, I felt like I had known you forever. Like I only had to meet you and everything would make sense. I am 27+ years old and have seen my fair share of heartbreaks. Actually more than fair. But this is not about that. When I first saw you, 20th January, 2023, we were at the Desi meet-and-greet in your friend’s apartment. You were glancing up now and then from your deck as we played Shuffle. The moment our eyes met, you seemed familiar, like a long lost friend. Your eyes smiled at me, not just your lips. That smile loosened the iron grip clenching my heart since I moved to this unknown country four years ago. I knew I had all evening, which was a relief, but I also knew I would never see you again because I did not have the courage to ask your name. And what would I say to you? All of the above? How ridiculous it would sound! Poetry only exists on pages for most people. You are an architect, so maybe it does not exist at all for you. I feared losing you. There, how completely laughable, like some old soppy Hindi melodramatic feature film! How could I lose someone I never had? I don’t know who named you but whoever did it, they did think about poetry, I am sure. Rizwan. The moment I heard that name from someone, the sound of the syllables against the consonants made me think of relief, of rest, of not having to fight my constant urge to break down anymore. And I don’t even know what your name means. Maybe that defines what we have for each other – a conflict between the real and the perceived. Your “Of course!” to my uncharacteristically brave question in your DMs later, “Aren’t we a little more than friends?”-- it only hastened those feelings. I was safe finally. A man would finally look at me and smile because his heart smiled, his eyes smiled, his soul smiled when he looked at me. Unlike my father, my uncle, and even my mother, who were looking at burden, expectation, release, and so many other things when they smiled at me. If they did at all. The last time my dad smiled at me was not even for me, it was for himself, that he was finally able to leave us and be truly happy. But this time, the sight of me made a man happy because he was seeing me. Just my presence brought that smile in his eyes. Feelings are weird, right? Especially the one that hits you out of nowhere and reassures your heart that it will be okay. On Saturday, when you said, “I am not a relationship guy, I only do casual sex,” with that unbearably humiliating laughter emoji, and then started to explain how you never meant to see me as someone to love, a line I had heard mouthed by Manav Kaul came to my mind. It was from a segment of a four-part Netflix film, in which he says to Shefali Shah: “You managed to lie through your eyes.”

My friends keep saying I was just being kind and naturally trusting. The truth is I am not one to naturally trust men. Especially after my father left us for his affairs. My sister, me and my mother vowed to never trust men and for the first time in three years, when my mother was talking on the phone about men being heartless, I wanted to say to her: "No, not all of them. I know someone who could make my heart heal just with his eyes. I know someone who would not raise his voice or show an iota of irritation even when I had been careless enough to keep my brimming mug near his jacket and spill tea all over it. I know someone who, right after I soaked his jacket on a winter night, laughed with so much honesty in his eyes when I joked: ‘Now that we have spilled the tea quite literally…’” How stupid of me to think of questioning what years of learning in my abusive home had cemented in me! Feelings, they are traitorous, no? You belong to the same non-immigrant, student-visa holding, green-card seeking, and American Dream-believing community from South Asia that I belong to. The only difference between us is that you have learnt to trust American capitalism and its empty promises of pleasure and luxury at the cost of erasing your softer feelings; I have not. The American media and our post-neoliberal conditioning lied to us that white masculinity is the way to rise and be civilized. Feelings are for the Bollywood loving, campy, curry-eater. Americans are too cool for that. They can compartmentalize people into ‘casual’, ‘real’, ‘one night stands’, ‘hookups’, ‘crushes’. You just have to know when to turn on those very carefully packaged, labeled and stored feelings and how much to put where. Or not put at all, whatever you want. You get what you order here. It’s your choice. Just like a Subway sandwich– multigrain, light mayo, no cheese, grilled chicken, and toasted for 15 seconds. I am a South Asian feminist. I believe in sexual liberation but do not buy into the capitalist, white feminist idea of sex without feelings, using people like sex toys. I did want to hold you and be held back, I will be honest. When you grabbed my arm to tell me that you would make it up to me last Friday, the touch of your fingers sent shivers right through my core. But I spilled my tea figuratively too. I could not contain, could not regulate, could not mechanize my feelings. I looked into your eyes and saw a companion; you looked into mine and saw the browns, that’s it. “I think the only feelings I have is confusion,” you said with a put-on, broken American accent the last time we talked. From where you were looking at me, you were right. What does not follow hard statistical number-crunching logic, confuses Americans. The people that do not fit calculated and profiled data, are not allowed within America and its ‘civilization’.

11 13

Maybe being accepted by America means way more to you than a brown girl from back home with unwaxed, non-blonde, messy feelings. I do not want to, but unfortunately, I do understand that. We have all trusted the American civilizational myth at some point in our lives. I am not sure if I will send this letter to you. Or if you will even understand what I am saying. In any case, relationships are organic and you build one with everyone you meet, whether you want to or not. You also built one with me even if the thought of it terrified you enough to shame my feelings. I do not want to ruin the memory of the first time I met you despite what it turned out to be. So, I have stopped talking to you. I don’t yet know how to lie through my eyes, Rizwan. Mujhse nahi hoga.

Goodbye, Mandira.

Pujarinee, Ph.D. '26

make a way Catie '26

The title "make a way" comes from a song played frequently in my youth. It was made by a Filipino singer, and in this context, I am using it to show how my family and my people have made a way for our future generation to succeed and have pride in our country. My favorite part of this piece is the tabo, the blue bucket-shaped instrument in the upper left corner. One of my most vivid memories from the Philippines is seeing a nude child, no older than 8, running around the bustling streets of Manila only holding a tabo to cover himself. This collage is a "quilt" of past and present Filipino culture. In the top is a passport picture of me, placing myself in my heritage despite a lacking physical connection to my culture. I feel that it is embedded into my being in other ways. I always want to remember where I was born, to be proud of my people, and where I'm from.

When I Was Born Shanaya '26 Mama said I was born in the monsoon rain, when the marigolds in our backyard were full in bloom, dyeing everything in hues of yellows & oranges. When everyone was craving for jamuns and litchis, For ripped papayas and juicy pomegranates, For something soaked but bittersweet. She said I was born with black eyes and black hair, black as obsidians, augites, and rutiles, a remembrance of the night sky from her childhood. But my skin was paler than the usual, a blend of light brown and a hint of olive. She would joke, “sitting in the sunlight, giggling like a little white baby.” When I was born, mama said my auntie lamented and sighed and grumbled about my cousin. How Anushi was a bit more brown and a bit more olive, more colorful than for her own good. How I was born just lucky. Mama, I wonder, if my eyes were no obsidians, But just a murky brown, If my skin was thousand shades darker or Another few tints of yellows and pinks, If I was born during the bone-chilling winter, When the sun never seems to rise, Would I still remind you of marigolds and the night sky? Would you still say “my sunshine” ?

Proud of My Parents

Chloe Pham '24

I sit at my desk attempting to obtain an exam’s worth of material before my urge to sleep overcomes my fear of failure. It’s nearly 1 am. Two silent knocks on the door. “Come in!” Slices of a peeled orange. A handful of grapes, still hanging on their vine. Half of a skinned apple cut into 6 slices. All meticulously placed into a repurposed, plastic half-quart container. No words exchanged. My room light is on but she leans over to turn on my desk lamp. “You need more light, you’re going to hurt your eyes.” I nod. “Don’t stay up too late, you need sleep.” I nod. She gently closes the door and I am left with the company of my notes, now accompanied by a bowl of fruit. It was a rare occasion to hear the words “I’m so proud of you,” and even when said, never felt completely sincere. My accomplishments seemed menial without the perception of those words. I used to resent my parents for giving me a false sense of guilt when I failed to do my best. Their tales of immigration, of how they spent their days adapting to a new environment, and a new language, and still managed to succeed to the greatest extent, made me feel little. Little in how even when I was given everything possible to succeed, I still managed to fall short. The classic tale of coming from nothing and becoming someone has haunted me. How could I be nothing if I came from everything? Everything that my parents have built for me has been set up for me. I came to resent hard work, for because of it, I could not fail without feeling the guilt of letting my parents down. As if a below-satisfactory grade on my report card was a dismissal of all my parent’s struggles and triumphs from it. As if being unable to succeed in perfect conditions was a direct translation of ungratefulness. The turmoil of success burdened me well into my college years, and it wasn’t until I was talking to my mother about how I was struggling with organic chemistry, that I felt free of this self-imposed burden. I was able to see a parallel in our struggles, while not exactly aligned, I realized that the pretense of perfection I had given my parents was not exactly the reality of the situation. My pent-up resentment for their success was simply just an excuse I had built in my mind for my fear of not being good enough. An Asian parent’s words of affirmation are not verbal but uttered through action. I never fully realized the amount of support my parents provided, all I could think of was wanting to hear the word “proud” coming from them. But as the years have passed, their support has become apparent to me through multiple vesicles. I no longer resent my parents for their success and even find it ludicrous that I interpreted it that way. I am so proud of my parents for their success and I only wish to be just like them when I grow up.

I. The Yellow Butterfly Kìa con bướm vàng There, Yellow Butterfly, Kìa con bướm vàng There, Yellow Butterfly, Xòe đôi cánh Spread its wings, Xòe đôi cánh Spread its wings, Tung cánh bay năm ba vòng Take its flight three to five rounds, Tung cánh bay năm ba vòng. Take its flight three to five rounds. Em ngồi xem She sits and watch, Em ngồi xem. She sits and watches.

Boy Anna Huynh '25

As the sun hovers patiently in the sky, grazing the earth with burning fervor, a young girl accompanies the beat of her footsteps with song as she walks home. Though she should be in a hurry after school to tend toward her chores, she treads lightly through the bustling streets she’s passed many times before. Everything would be waiting for her right where it was, just as it always had. The city was filled with tanned people, straw hats and crooked smiles, each beckoning customers to their carts with peaking golden teeth in return for silver coins. Their faces were drenched in sweat and sun spots that marked them with signs of poverty, melting under the harsh sun as they carried trinkets and the burdens of their country. There was nothing like the feeling of walking down these crowded dirt roads - it was familiar, and it was home. Even if there was barely anything left of it. While the girl moved through the streets, she counted her steps with the beat of the nursery rhyme she always sang. Today would be the same. She would walk with the eight dogs that accompanied her down the lonely road back to her house, cross paths with the drunkard who laid sprawled on the side of the road, taunting her for some money or food she pretended not to have, and be welcomed by the burden of having nine mouths to feed, every day. Some days, when the sun was especially bright and the walk felt particularly long, a yellow butterfly would fly ahead in the near distance, kissing the dirt every once in a while before leading her home. Only then did the song of the yellow butterfly ring true, giving her courage to move forward with her chin lifted and her eyes strong. It was just another day.

When she arrived at home, the house was empty. The only thing that could be 18 heard was the bustling on the streets and the static ringing from the broken radio no one cared to fix. There was never good news once the war started anyways. She looked out the broken window to the backyard, watching the hung laundry sway in the wind before her eyes trailed to the pile of dishes waiting for her by the water bin. Everything was always left to her. She set her school books down on the table, sighing loudly before going outside to clean the dishes that would eventually pile again in an hour’s time. Perhaps after her chores, she would take a guava from the tree to enjoy alone, since no one was here. She imagined herself climbing the tree by the gate like she’s done a million times before, reaching for the greenest, ripest one while the birds eyed her from a distance, waiting for her to drop just one. She would rip one from the tree and smell the aroma of her favorite fruit, smiling to herself as she sat there blissfully alone. The wind would kiss her cheeks and the sun would warm her skin. No one would disturb her, no one she’d have to share with. It would be her reward to herself. When the girl finally looked away from the fruit bearing tree, she was reminded of her responsibilities that sat before her under fiending flies and a fishy scent. She looked towards the house and listened closely. Still, no one was home. But it wouldn’t make a difference if anyone was home. She would have to wash the dishes alone anyway. It was always left to her. As she washed the dishes, with her back bent over the large pot while crouching on the concrete floor, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the dirty water. She stared and watched as the flecks of burnt grease freckled her skin in whooshing waves until the water stilled, sinking to the bottom and revealing a young girl at the ripe age of fourteen with a hard face, but kind eyes. She was a sister to nine but a mother to eleven, a young woman in a toughened, child-like body whose innocence was replaced by calloused feet and swollen hands. She did not know what it was to have a father or mother who nourished her deeply, so she became what she imagined that position meant to be. Her twin sister, Kieu, was identical to her, with the same curves of her face, the same breath of life, but the light in their eyes and their paths were different, unfamiliar. Only she knew what it meant to be the gears of their family. Perhaps to them, she was not the heart - that place was reserved for Kieu - but, she knew how to keep them moving, to keep them alive, even if her part was cold and without love. In the reflection of the water, she saw her complexion and wondered what she had done in her past life to assume such a role, now. "I want to be a butterfly,” she whispered. “I hope… I can be a yellow butterfly.” Gently, like a beckon from the heart, a yellow butterfly brushed her reflection, causing ripples to flow through the pot while it landed upon the rim, sitting idly. She smiled ear to ear as she stared at the creature who came at the perfect time. "You came, did you? What is it today-"

Before she could finish, the voices of her parents suddenly yelled through the house for her, making her drop the pot she was holding and the butterfly fly away. As the dark water spilled across the grass, making deep puddles around her feet, she whipped her head towards the frantic sounds of her parent’s yells. She couldn’t tell if they were angry, but the urgency in their voices made her heart sink. One last time before she left, she searched for the yellow butterfly in the graying sky above her. It was going to rain, and there was nothing in sight besides the sun shying away behind the black clouds. “Ut! Ut! Come out here! Do you hear me? Where are you?” Her father boomed as she stumbled into the living room, ready to kneel before him as if she had done anything wrong. He stared into her stony eyes, grabbed her shoulder, and gestured towards the front door. There, she saw her cousin’s husband, Anh, a major for the anti-Communist party, watching her closely. "Where is Kieu?” her father asked sternly. “She’s not here.” The girl responded, looking from her parents and back to Anh. “What’s going on?” “Hide him in the shed and stay there with him. The communists are looking for him. Don’t ask too many questions, go. They’re coming.” Her dad said without looking at her. Without saying anything more, she quickly waved for him to follow her to the backyard, leading him to the small wooden shed between the cracks of the farm. By this time, thunder cracked down onto the Earth, shaking the ground beneath her as she ran, guiding him as quickly as she could. As the raindrops fell, exploding like tiny missiles on her pale skin, she could only hear her quick breaths after each footstep. Between her breaths, she could hear her thoughts repeat the song of the yellow butterfly in an attempt to keep her pace steady. There, yellow butterfly, there, yellow butterfly, she repeated. Be calm. She slammed open what was left of the battered door and pointed into the small crawl space and stated simply, “In here.” They got on their hands and feet, feeling their palms sink into the mud as they crawled into the tight space deep between the farm. Once they sat beside each other with their backs on the splintered wooden walls, the girl held her knees to her chest and stared at what would be the wall in front of her. The stench of pigs, wet soil, and rain was intoxicating and unpleasant, making the space feel more confined than it already was. It was dark, it stank, and they could only hear the violent echoes of rain pattering on the roof of the shed. Anh didn’t say anything either, but she didn’t expect him to. Like millions of men

in the country, he became hardened, a man of stone and a man of silence. There was nothing that needed to be said. In the near distance she could hear the sounds of shouting and violent knocking on the wooden beams of houses. The pounding of their fists and the downpour of the rain chanted a song of war, a song daring for Anh to come out.“Have you seen this man?” One of the communists asked. No response could be heard from where they were, but she imagined her parent’s blank stares as they lied to him. Such a lie would be so little in another world, but here, their words were a dagger waiting to be used for punishment. The girl laid her head back against the wall and stared into nothingness. If they were found, she would accept fate, no matter which way it pulled her. All she could do was wait. “Are you scared?” Anh mumbled, side eyeing her from his position. “No.” The girl said so simply yet firmly. Anh chuckled under his breath, exhaling as he laid his head against the wall as well. Turning his head slowly, he eyed her, “What are you, a boy?” After that day, the girl and her family hid Anh for several months in their home. Though he was an honorable visitor, the girl paid him no mind. Like always, she went about her life quietly with love and courage. She had no time to think about her fears in a home that relied on her more than she could rely on it. If she wasn’t going to do it, who would? Everything was always left to her. Thus, she tended to her chores the same, cooked the same meals, walked the same paths at the same pace, and carried herself well with strength in her silence. One day, when the girl’s path home felt particularly long, the butterfly came again for the first time since Anh arrived. She smiled as she saw the yellow figure float in the near distance ahead of her. Kicking her feet in the dirt road, she began to sing, Kìa con bướm vàng There, Yellow Butterfly, Kìa con bướm vàng There, Yellow Butterfly, Xòe đôi cánh Spread its wings, Xòe đôi cánh Spread its wings, She finished her song by the time she arrived home, saying farewell to the butterfly who waited outside on the branch of a tree. As she entered her home, she saw that her parents, Anh, and her twin, Kieu, were in the living room discussing quietly until they saw her. The girl paused in her footsteps, taking in the entire room before questioning their stares.

"Ut,” her father spoke, his eyes not meeting hers. “We are sending Kieu to America.” "What do you mean?” The girl asked, composing herself to hide her shock. Why not her? “Anh went into the city today, and he found out that there’s a boat leaving in two days. He’s leaving for America with some of his siblings and he has one spot available. Kieu will take that place.” Kieu stood before her parents with disinterest, as if the idea of her escaping the ruins of her homeland was a waste of time, as if the fate of her entire family didn’t lay in her polished hands. “Okay, Bo.” Was all the girl could say even though there was a fiery ball in her stomach. After everything she has done for her family, from working like a dog, to cooking and cleaning like their slave, she was still never the first choice. After everything she has done, why wouldn’t they send her? Afterall, she was the most responsible, the most reliable. Without her, the family would have starved, they would have had nothing. Still, she bowed to everyone before leaving the room, making eye contact with Anh before she quickly looked away, pretending to be unfazed. The expression on his face was unreadable. Whether it was his suggestion to bring Kieu with him, she did not know. All she knew was that this was her fate and the decision was final. On the day the boat came, it was extremely warm and humid. The sun beat down onto the town, making people beg for shade and pray that it have mercy on their aching, sweaty bodies. The streets felt tighter once the news of a boat came. The desperation in the eyes of mothers, fathers, older siblings and the fears in children’s eyes flooded the town in crowds. Although today was important, Kieu hadn’t been seen all day. The girl didn’t know where she was, but she assumed that she was saying goodbye to her friends, or maybe even walking the streets around their home one last time before leaving it forever. At home, the house was quiet with tension looming in the air. The boat would leave at night and though it was only noon, the girl and her siblings felt antsy to see it for themselves. Out of all of them, Kieu was being sent to ensure their future escapes. They wondered how it would feel breathing in the salted air of the ocean as they sailed to salvation. Would they feel freer? Would they miss their home? How long would it be until they felt the earth under their feet, or to see the eyes of their loved ones? All they could do was say their goodbyes to their sister and wait for where the boat would lead them.

When the girl was preparing lunch for her family, wondering about how far the future was and if her days would be any luckier, Anh barged into the house in a panic, panting out of breath as his eyes looked past her, scanning for Kieu. "You, Boy, where is Kieu?” he asked exasperatedly, but continued to yell around the house, “Kieu!” as if it would make her suddenly appear before him. “What? What’s wrong?” her mother asked, standing with her eyes wide and wavering. The girl set the ladle back into the pot, looking up from her position silently. "The boat, the boat leaves now. They need to leave now, the communists found out about the boat. We need to hurry.” “Ut-” Before her parents could finish, the girl was already out the door before they could demand, “Find her!” She immediately ran to the town, barging into the masses of people who now swarmed the streets in panicked cries. She searched everywhere, searching for the eyes that always held more freedom than she did, more life than she did, more carelessness, but still she could not find her. The girl went to every corner, every store, and every bar on the street, calling out for her twin, shouting through the streets until her throat was raw and her frustration scratched at her chest, making her bleed with anger. Turning in circles, she searched the crowds while breathing heavily, her panic rising when she couldn’t find Kieu. In the corner of her eye, she spotted the drunkard sitting on a short stool on the side of the street, sipping lifelessly from a bottle. He had to have seen Kieu sometime this morning since all he ever did was sit there, waiting to tease them as they walked by. “Hey, you!” she kicked his feet to get his attention. “Where is Kieu?” “What does she look like again?” He questioned, squinting his eyes at her before ginning loosely. The girl’s face turned red before she pursed her lips and kicked his stool hard, yelling, “Like me!” Without another word, the girl turned, shoving her way through the crowds before running back to her home. Her heart pounded in her chest. She could hear in the distance, the shouts of people begging to be let on the boat, shoving their children on board or getting on their knees while digging in their pockets for coins that would not buy their escape. That stupid, careless girl, she thought. How selfish could she be? As she ran with her feet slapping the gravelly roads and breathless yelps, she felt the yellow butterfly graze her face before racing her home. Heavy wind whipped through her clothes, whispering encouragement in delicate song as the girl concentrated on the yellow butterfly.

Tung cánh bay năm ba vòng Take its flight three to five rounds, Tung cánh bay năm ba vòng. Take its flight three to five rounds. A decision had to be made. “Ma! Bo!” She cried out as she entered the house, falling onto her knees with sweat dripping down her face. She wiped her forehead and stared at her parents, her lips quivering but her face showing no fear. “I can’t find her. I’ve looked everywhere. Send me, send me instead. I promise I will go to America and work hard. I will do everything I can to send money home. I will bring you over. I will honor you. Me. I will do it, please just send me. I can do it.” The girl heard nothing but her beating heart pounding on the inside of her frail chest. There was silence as her parents looked at her, not paying attention to her siblings who now crowded into the living room. Though their mouths did not move, their eyes spoke of conflicting fears; was it that they feared she would fail them? Or were they afraid to imagine a life without her care? “Ma. Bo. When have I ever disappointed you? Please, send me.” She looked into their eyes, searching desperately for a spark of belief they might have in her. The shouts became louder outside, and she could hear someone yell for people to board the boat. The girl grabbed her parents hands, bowing her head. “Please.” After a few seconds passed, her father took his hand from hers, looking away before quietly saying, “Go.” She looked at them both as her breath caught in her throat and her hands shook. Gently, her mother squeezed her hand before looking away, tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you.” The girl hugged them. “I will work hard for you.” Although the girl had no time to bring anything with her, she ran with a folded picture of her family inside her small hands. As tears flowed down her face, her chest felt empty, and she knew that the hole in her heart that opened to a new world also gaped at the loss of her family. She was only fourteen. She still wanted to feel her mother’s embrace, she wanted to feel her father’s love. She wanted to make her family proud and to help them survive, but she was only fourteen. She was only fourteen, and for the first time in her life, she felt scared. When she reached the boat, she saw Anh waving his hands on the side of the crowd, yelling for her to hurry. She ran towards him, jumping with him on the boat as the sailors blocked others from boarding. All she could see was a mass of arms, grabbing, scratching at the boat, begging to be let on. She made it.

As the boat sailed off, the girl stood by the side, staring at the crowd of people waving them off with their straw hats and rags. She could hear them singing the song of their country in one voice, sending them away with a reminder of their people’s strength, love, and courage. The girl smiled wistfully to herself as the ocean breeze began caressing her cheeks in congratulatory strokes. “Hey, Boy.” Anh said, standing to her left side. “You did good.” She looked up at him and smiled. She did good. Turning back to the water, a yellow speck flew around in circles by the shore. The yellow butterfly, too, was sending her off on her journey. To herself, the girl hummed:

Em ngồi xem She sits and watch, Em ngồi xem. She sits and watch.

"When I was a little girl, I remember listening to my parents’ stories of their escape from Vietnam and their journey to their new lives to America. Even though thinking about my parents’ hardship was like my own scary story to keep me awake at night, it was also a dimmed light in the distance that wanted to be seen. My mother and my father have always been extraordinary people whose lives are from an epic movie that defines true tribulation and true conquest. However, the greatest thing about them is the humanity seen through their experiences which show how strong yet delicate life can be, from such a young age. There are stories that lay beneath the waves that carried my parents to a new country, and I hope to bring the memories that have been lost to the fate of their homeland to the surface, starting with the story of my mother as a little girl. She always sang her favorite nursery rhyme to me, which was a song about a yellow butterfly, flying high in the sky. After hearing about her life and watching her character become a concrete symbol of grace, love, and courage, I knew that the yellow butterfly that soared great heights was only a reflection of my mother throughout her whole life. So, I wanted to share her life as a testimony of how special of a woman she is, not just to my family and I, but to the world."

Anna Huynh '25

Eyes Ain Binaloch '26 A non-traditional name In the culture of America, Substitute teachers just pause Regular teachers didn’t care They say my name wrong all year It’s just Ann. When asked how to say my name It’s Just Ann. A bad habit Relearning to introduce myself Is not something I’ve ever done before Its awkward when they wait For me to figure out who I am It’s not a different name for the same person It’s a different name for a different person I want to be looked at with new eyes background art by Daniel Cho '26

for the hyphenated Isabelle Dela Cruz '24

Being the oldest-daughter-Filipina-American-first-generationimmigrant-college-student is a mouthful in itself, but this role I take on is something that I have been trying to come to terms with as soon as I started college. At the beginning of university, my identity felt like an obligation, a role and duty that I was born with. That all I do is for the future of my parents and grandparents because they gave up so much to give me the life they wanted for themselves. While this still rings true, I finally realized that I had to put myself first. Always. This artwork is an ode to my resilience and how I can maintain pride in my identity despite many difficult challenges in my life. How, despite moving around 8 times in my childhood, a pandemic, and uncertainty of my passions and goals, I can still remain rooted in my identity and love who I am. Finding my community on campus gave me an amazing support system that validated my struggles as we spoke of shared experiences and solidarity in diversity. I'm proud of my hyphenated identity and I hope this work resonates for the hyphenated everywhere.

'“That’s not for you.” This drawing represents the growth of an individual with the support of a loved one. A person’s identity is never defined by their struggles of their past, although such things do play a big role in shaping them into the person they were created to be. Old habits may die hard, but the love of those who know our hearts will always encourage us to grow. “That’s not for you,” gently says the loved one, guiding the individual away from the brokenness and towards a path where they will find true fulfillment.

Laura '23

when my parents left vietnam they were taking a calculated risk where the potential success was worth all of the years of pain and they hoped for generational opportunities they worked hours into the night neglecting the present with the hope of a bright future but they forgot i lived in the present when i started to live out their hopes- for myself there was an unaccounted for guilt to have such a privilege to experience life i wished they could live out my success but even with such privilege it causes a rift i constantly feel the guilt of wanting to self-actualize- to build the empire i call my life using the resources they gave me for years of relentless working but the mix of intergenerational trauma and financial help pulling me in both ways angry at the emotional pain they caused me and being called ungrateful and invalid especially when i still need them to get me on my feet financially i feel the heavy guilt of moving away and wanting to fly but the beckoning call of them wanting me to return haunts me i'm not spending enough time with them and someday i will feel the regret maybe i should have put myself down that one time to get another moment with them i'm caught in an emotional fight between creating a life of my own free from their expectations and spending time with the people i should owe my life to because i would be no where without them because even a calculated risk can hold some unaccounted for guilt

a calculated risk with some unaccounted for guilt Dana Dang '23

she wore red she wore red, she didn't need to her presence was enough. her face was a flag. her youth and her citizenship visibly invisible, her existence and her appearance, one and indivisible. the whispers around her seemed to elevate to screams, the frowns and the glaring, America, the land of our dreams. the longer she stayed, the more she hoped and she prayed, the neighbors and strangers, they sharpened their blades. she knew those like her were pushed onto the tracks, she knew those like her couldn't afford to relax. she knew those like her saw red, then black, then light, she knew those like her were too young, too old to fight. she refused to tell her parents back at home, so proud she knew her life to them was a pedestal on a cloud. she hoped that it would be worth it, all the dangerous days she wished that her people weren’t lost in the haze but still… she worked, washing dishes, serving plates after plates she still rode the subway, still ran through the gates she never backed down, always taking her place she knew that this wasn’t theirs, but our United States her face was a symbol. her story untold but sung hope and renewal, her existence a lesson to stay true, focused, and purposeful. she stood tall, she didn't need to her confidence was enough.

Sarah Voon '25

future self letter Every year, I write myself a future self letter. A future self letter almost became a diary, With periodic updates on my life, my thoughts, my dreams. A future self letter became a story. It’s funny to look back on the ones from when I was really young. I know I’m still a kid, sure, that’s what they all say. But who doesn’t have those silly memories from when they were a middle schooler Trying hard to make friends, as artificial or genuine as they may. “Hey future moi,” it read. “7th grade is boring. I wanna get out of here. Lucky you future Sarah- you're already leaving… Anyways.” “I still feel like I'm in 6th grade.” Interesting, right? And a theme that’s been present as I read all of my journal entries Is that I’ve always wanted to skip ahead to the future Past all of the troubles, the plights and the worries. In middle school, I wanted to be a tall high schooler. In high school, I wanted to be a cool university student. Now that I’m in college, it’s all about learning to slow down Because “entering the real world” is a language in which I’m not fluent. And I’ve always felt younger than I really am. Change is hard, just like how I keep writing 2022 on everything Even though it’s already 2023. And I still feel seventeen, despite the challenges that being an adult brings. As a college student, we’re in this sort of in-between. Transitioning to the real world, but secretly kids in a safe educational setting. We have homework and schedules to keep us in line, And we rely on our parents yet have independence like the world could be anything. Every year, I write myself a future self letter And it’s fun to look back in the future to the past. What I thought, what I hoped for, what I wanted to be But with a long time to go and a long time before… it’s time to be present at last.

The Indeterminate Dream Nat Chumpirom '26

I am blessed as to have been able to visit my homeland multiple times, though I know this does not come from pure fortune – my dad works long hours at his job, with the end goal of being able to take us to visit my grandparents who cannot endure the entire (upwards of) 30-hour and two-flight plane trip to get to the United States. The plane tickets are bank-breaking, and the trip itself is physically deteriorating, but arriving in Thailand brings me a new sense of identity every single time. The first time I went, with full consciousness and a near-adult brain, I was fourteen years old. My brother, mom, and I flew over during the summer after my freshman year of high school. In all totality it was like a culture shock because I had never been so immersed in my own culture before. I regularly listened to Thai being spoken at home, with my parents, and through the chatter of Thai talk shows going on in the background throughout the day. However, I was unable to procure my establishment as a true Thai person – speaking very infrequently or incoherently with locals in Bangkok and often having my mom translate for me ultimately destroyed any credibility previously possessed. My mom still had her native charm, and it was more than natural for her to get back into the swing of things while temporarily living there. My brother and I could not say the same. For two months that summer, he and I lived in our own secluded little sphere of life, somewhere in between being Thai and being American. For some perspective, in a way I considered my parents to be a biased

representation of my own culture – never with any negative connotation, but objectively. They were very much influenced by what they heard through the grapevine as the American Dream. My parents, first-generation immigrants who came from Thailand in the mid 1990’s, do their best to prevent my brother and I from worrying about anything. So it was widely a shock since that summer, I found out my maternal grandmother had Alzheimer’s. It was never distinctly described to me, just that she had a short memory and sometimes forgot who I was. She never spoke English, as far as I knew, so we often communicated in Thai anyway. During that summer, to the extent of my knowledge, she began to forget me. It wasn’t her fault, nor was it anything anyone could control. From a logical standpoint, of course I would be the first – I was a memory only present in the previous fourteen years of her life, and any time past that she would have no knowledge of her own granddaughter. It was a sad thought, but it didn’t come without obvious rationalization. Conversely, I believed that my grandma was exactly what my parents were not, and exactly what I was looking for: an unbiased representation of my heritage. My grandma and I, I like to think, had a special bond. I didn’t have any particular memories of her, or us, because most of the time I spent with her over my life I was too young to remember any of it. She liked to talk to me about what she used to do when she was younger, like participating in (and winning) beauty pageants. She often talked to me about what it was like to help my mom raise me, and never

failed to remind me that she was the first person to see me after I was born, besides my mom. Because she had such a short memory, most of our conversations were repeats of things we had talked about before. She told me what it was like to grow up in Thailand, getting married to my grandpa, and raising my mom and her siblings. Most of that summer, I sat with her even when she was napping. My mom likes to tell this story about how my grandma disappeared when I went to the bathroom and I thought she had gone outside. I ran after her, head-on colliding with a glass sliding door on my way outside. I landed on the tile ground, pushed myself back up, and immediately kept going. She happened to just be on the patio. Going back to the States at the end of the summer, I had a distinctly profound new perspective on my cultural background. Walking through the streets of Bangkok was new, it was exciting, and it was everything I was looking for, right in front of me.

In middle and high school, I found all kinds of Asian peers all around me. My childhood best friend was Vietnamese, and another was Filipino. We bonded over everything from the foods we ate, to the way our parents did not have many friends, to the shoes we did not wear inside the house. If not for that, sometimes I believe I could have lived a life completely separate from my own culture.

Specifically, being a Thai person growing up in America came with its own triumphs. These never quite came to fruition until I was in high school, when I realized how isolating it was to not know anybody Thai. This is somewhat of an exaggeration – I had a few Thai cousins, and there was always my brother. My parents, my grandparents, aunts, and uncles – it wasn’t like I didn’t know them.The problem that became gradually exacerbated throughout my teenage development was that I did not know a single Thai person in America that was Growing up in Texas was a very distinct my age, whom I was not related to. I experience; it was always difficult trying to particularly recall visiting the Buddhist explain how incongruent my childhood was temple in Dallas every so often with my with that of others. On paper, I am the family on the weekends, our parents equivalent of any other second-generation pulling us out of bed on an early Asian-American child. My parents Saturday to go visit our elders in the repeatedly instilled the idea in me that they community. There are multitudes of came to America for my brother and I, for photos stored somewhere deep within our a different future for both of us. We always archives of us visiting near-weekly, when believed it without any second thought, and I was a baby and toddler. At one point in I still know that fact to be true. However, it my teenage life, we stopped going, and did not come without any struggles. There looking back I realize it was probably was not much difficulty finding an Asian because the temple closed. My parents community in North Texas; luckily, I grew gave us a wonderful childhood, but to no up in a suburb so highly integrated into its fault of their own, I was somewhat urban counterpart that I felt connected secluded culturally. I spent the rest of my enough. life wondering what it would be like to be

culturally immersed, curious if there was a place I could search for to find that. The aforementioned discovery happened in July of 2022, when I was eighteen years and one day old. Since I was about twelve years old, I had longed to go to New York. This, always known to me, was such an unoriginal desire. From my personal experience at the time, there was nothing particularly special about the place that made me seek it so violently. I like to think of the Kurt Vonnegut quote: “So I went to New York City to be born again. It was and remains easy for most Americans to go somewhere else and start anew. I wasn’t like my parents. I didn’t have any supposedly sacred piece of land or shoals of friends to leave behind. Nowhere has the number zero been of more philosophical value than in the United States... and when the [train] plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with its lining of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth canal.” This was also about the first moment my parents realized I was becoming an adult. My cousin-onceremoved (whom I simply refer to as my aunt) owned an apartment with her husband in Brooklyn. It seemed like the perfect, most feasible opportunity, just within my grasp. One of my close friends and I put together the most ridiculously dirt-cheap budgets possible (considering where we were traveling), maxing out at about $400 for an entire eight days and seven nights. Our flight left on the day after my birthday at around six in the morning, and we asked my poor parents to drop us off at Dallas Love Field

Airport at three, on what was for my father, a regular workday. Both my parents wished us well, and we embarked on our first flight without parental supervision. Lanie and I both looked so young that the security officers let us through the children’s aisle, a testament to how unconvincingly mature we were. My aunt met us after we landed at LaGuardia some time before noon, and we took a cab that took us from Queens to her neighborhood in Brooklyn in a little less than an hour. Our taxi driver changed lanes without warning, never using his blinker, and almost got us into a few accidents on the way. The city smelled of cigarette smoke and polluted air, with the occasional undertone of street vendor hotdogs and just a touch of marijuana. I took in every breath like it was my last, and though it may have caused my immune system long-term damage, I would say it was worth every bit. We reached the apartment and admired its brick walls of history and culture, something impossible to find in the suburban streets of our hometown with its nuclear family monolithism. We ate at a nearby pizza place called Luliano’s, and I got to talk with my aunt for the first time in many years (if there was even a shred of memory remaining). She explained that she mainly worked as a translator, which was more-or-less a remote job with occasional calls that required her undivided attention. She gave us a brief unofficial tour of the neighborhood, explaining that though the city was extremely susceptible to the pandemic, New Yorkers had a stubborn enough nature to fight back. Most restaurants had installed outdoor seating, just next to the street, so people could eat in cleanliness and in peace.

She took us to the Brooklyn Promenade right next to the bridge, and for a moment we sat there on the rocks watching two jet-skis battle for the attention of park-goers and I had my Simon and Garfunkel moment. Especially along the promenade, while sitting and eating overpriced ice cream that was dripping on the sidewalk, Lanie and I watched as locals went on their evening jogs, some walked to eat out for dinner, and parents took their children to the park. I found some sort of introverted business that was completely absent within my hometown, something new, something special. I felt overwhelmingly small, in an appreciative way, to be a mere visitor in a world full of people who were just going about their regular lives. Our trip that cost hundreds of dollars and many months’ worth of saving up for, resulted in us being in the same place as native New Yorkers who were just at the Promenade for their normal evening excursion. It was a strange feeling; my wish for years and years had ultimately come true, and there I was, doing it without my parents, on my own schedule, with my own hard-earned money. My heart was full with every second I spent, as we gazed around the people-stacked streets and I wondered about the lives of all of them. The lady walking the dog would go home to her children in a few hours with a tired dog and a clear head and maybe a lottery ticket, and the man with the guitar case was on his way to busk in Central Park for extra money. My mother always wondered why I longed to live in a city with so much political tension, so much crime, a dirty place, with moral ambiguity, stray animals, and

poverty. I knew she was right, but she did not see the whole picture. It was a place of newness, of value, something that somebody like me could never find in suburban North Texas. It was the same newness to me as America was to her and my dad. It was everything I had thought it to be, and finally achieved the sentiment that I could be simultaneously nobody and everybody in this land of dreams surrounded by a thick harbor and thin ozone layer. On one of the last days of our trip, I sat in my aunt and uncle’s office and talked to them about life and school and all of the above while gently stroking their nearly-mute pug and waiting for my friend to get out of the shower. My aunt told me a lot about my dad growing up, and my uncle informed me of his studies and his career. It was so insightful to see how my aunt, Thai born-and-raised, moved to the States just like most of my relatives at the time. She established herself almost independently in North Texas, something highly admirable given the times. She and my uncle moved to New York some years back, a few years after I was born, and they have appreciated the liveliness and distinction of it from other places enough to call it their home. By some happenstance, two relatives close to my parents had found themselves in the place I wanted to call home. By some happenstance, my aunt was able to institute herself as a first-generation Thai immigrant in one of the most unpredictable cities in the world. I thought to myself, “if she can make it, so can I.” After the summer and my monumental trip to New York ended, I spent an

egregious amount of time during my first semester of college alone in my dorm room, or on the phone with my mom, in a mode of desperation and almost complete isolation. It was funny; I had friends and a decent social life, and my grades were fine. Something was wrong, though, and I could not quite put my finger on what exactly it was. After the end of the semester, I spent the entire winter break back in the motherland. My father was ecstatic – it was his first time going since before I could walk and was his first time seeing his brother since then as well. All according to plan, my brother and I drove from College Station back home to Dallas on the very last day of finals week, not even a few hours after his last exam. I was in a walking boot and on crutches, and he was so exhausted from studying and test-taking that he paused the 3.5-hour drive to take a nap in a poorly-lit gas station parking lot. We left for the airport the next morning at around four in the morning, and landed in Bangkok after a horrendously long flight. I slept maybe an hour total, and after the flight from Dallas over the Pacific Ocean to Tokyo, our short layover, and the flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, I was completely exhausted. My eyes were dry with sleep deprivation and my skin was furious with the clothes I had been wearing for upwards of thirty hours. We landed around midnight, and two of my mom’s siblings picked us up. It brought me so much happiness seeing their faces in person for the first time in several years. I spent most days watching television. Some days, my aunts would invite me to take their dog to the vet’s office which was about a five-minute drive or a ten-

minute walk away. My grandpa was more than interested in how the freshman fall semester of college went, and even inquired about my 9-page-long final research paper for Introduction to Forensic Science. Every weeknight, my aunt and I formed a routine of watching reruns of CSI: Miami. Occasionally, I would text friends back in America but we were rarely ever on the same Circadian rhythm, so it was never too frequently. Only one friend called me, and after a few long conversations we concluded, at his affirmation, that I was not missing out on much from being across the globe. We also spent half a week in Chiang Mai, with my paternal grandparents, exploring the countryside in the city surrounded by mountains. A nice surprise was being able to see my other aunt and uncle, my dad’s sister and brother-in-law, who used to also live in Texas but were now retired. I hadn’t seen them for at least a year or two, and it finally dawned on me that they sold the huge house my family and I used to spend every holiday break at, moved across the globe, and started learning languages for fun and riding motorcycles somewhat illegally. They now lived in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with their adult children in an opposite time zone, and a little part of me sparkled thinking about how that could be me in thirty-five years. My aunt took us to the Royal Gardens where we rented bicycles and self-toured, admiring the ethereal flora and fauna. During the nights her and my uncle would take us to the markets using a Tuk-Tuk, and we would scavenge for pieces of our dinner and souvenirs to bring home. We made it back to Bangkok after I said goodbye to my grandma and grandpa, the former

of which I perhaps may have seen for the last time. We spent a week and a half longer in the country, and every single day getting closer to the end of our time there made me question whether I was purposed to go back to the States. The month I had spent in Thailand felt like the beginning of my life. What was even more evident to me over the course of those four weeks was how much I was purposed for the city life. Bangkok in many ways was so similar to New York, it was baffling. The streets were scattered with people racing against the clock, milking the hours of the day dry until there was simply no time left to do anything. Easily observed was a clear juxtaposition of traditional Thailand and its twenty-first-century counterparts; my mom and her sisters hand-washed all of our clothes, and left them to dry in the patio-garden, but my uncle spoke to his house to turn the lights off. Right above the kind street vendors there were enormous billboards advertising the newest traveling data service. Most mornings I followed my mom to buy breakfast at the street markets, and we would get little snacks for the family as well. My aunts’ and grandpa’s hairdresser discussed what it was like living in America while trimming and putting highlights in my hair, and maybe the idea had formed that it wasn’t just my parents, but everyone else, like that here. How ridiculous that was to me, in so many ways, that my mother and father left their entire world to raise my brother and I in the United States and here I was again, in such a cyclical nature wanting to go right back to what was for them, square one. Sometimes I think of

it as an unintentional insult to them, or maybe they receive it that way, but personally it is nothing more than an impression of how well they raised me. I was never only an Asian-American child, nor just the child of my parents; I was the child of the American Dream, the Indeterminate Dream. My parents wanted me to be American more than anything in the world, but that was just not me. I was a hybrid, just like any other child of immigrant parents, but in an enlightening way. I was inadvertently under the idea that there were some pressures I had to live under, to either assimilate, to forget my heritage, or to embrace it in its entirety. This was anything but true – I was free from these restraints, with multiple perspectives of the world that I was so fortunate to have. This became something entirely unique to me; experiences from my time in Thailand and New York City; from the things I had and didn’t have, I wondered whether I would be a different person without all of it. Getting older, I always had this crippling fear that I would never be close with my relatives, but winter break had ultimately falsified that thought in its entirety. I felt more connected with my family and culture than I ever had before, and this constricting anxiety about my heritage and identity was no longer anywhere to be found. “And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” (Kurt Vonnegut)

Julia A. '26 Native to Asia, yet cultivated internationally. It is sown, buried, and after 4-5 years and sudden remembrance, erupts into a 5' 4'' tree that scarcely resembles the seed. The marrow love that oozes kisses and mittai ossifies into a sheltered, defying trunk who after remaining in the cloud, unknowingly drowns the exaltations of the sunbirds to its tender offshoots below. Who can blame it, plummeting too late 70 ft overseas into kas, ras, and das. Among the expected chakka puzhukku, it only knew how to be an exotic charcuterie spread. Yet, as its shredded manglish matures in turmeric - chakkakuru curry delight. Uses The jackfruit in American cuisine is gaining traction - We accommodate! The market is "hesitant to greet" the fringed chartreuse spikes with uniform repulsion, the pod's ectoplasm adherence to the foreign exterior. Rather than risk choking impressionable children, they instead coerce conformity of sole pallid flesh - the can. Similarly in India, unrivaled jackfruits mature - the rest mangled by dog slurps, or rotted by torrential floods. Yet, jackfruit, through its strength to retain cultures and bolster the fruits of its knowledge, can solve world hunger - only if welcomed. chakka - jackfruit puzhukku - unripe jackfruit dish manglish - malayalam/english mix chakka kuru - jackfruit seed curry mittai - candy kas, ras, das - malayalam letters sunbirds - native birds of Kerala

art by Stella Lee '23

asian american studies initiative | pavements zine