Potomac InLight May 2024

VOLUME III

SPRING 2024

INLIGHT is back.

Illuminating cultures, voices, and the power of students.

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Welcome back to InLight, Potomac’s literary and art magazine focused on diverse perspectives and social justice. InLight took a recess over the pandemic, but we are so excited to bring it back this school year.

Each year, InLight picks a theme for its issue. This year, we have chosen “Voices” to highlight the varied stories and songs of our Potomac community. Like a chorus, Potomac is composed of voices of different ranges and timbres. We can sing in rhythm. We can harmonize. We can sing solo. But every voice adds texture and richness to our collective song.

In this issue of InLight, we lift up the diverse voices of our Potomac community. We asked students to share their voices. Some of our submissions speak honestly and vulnerably about personal journeys. Other submissions aim to lift up the voices of those communities that historically have been silenced. Whether you resonate more with Aaliya Haque ‘26 ’s “Both” about her identity as Indian and Muslim, or Lin Baker ’24 ’s poetry about how we are remembered, we hope the voices of our Potomac students speak to you. And we hope that you are inspired to share your voice and stories with us too.

So without further ado, welcome to the 2024 Spring Edition of InLight Magazine. Thank you for reading.

Stay InLightened, Aliyah Majeed-Hall ’26 Tara Bansal ’26 Aaliya Haque ‘26 Madeline Magielnicki ‘24

OUR MISSION InLight is a journal featuring art, photography, stories, essays, poetry and other writings on topics that highlight issues of justice, equity, identity, and diversity. InLight's mission is to explore varied cultures and shed light on the experiences, customs, politics, and social issues that impact our diverse Potomac School community. The editors encourage varying points of view, aiming to generate meaningful dialogue in our community.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Managing Editors

Faculty Advisors

Aliyah Majeed-Hall ’26 Tara Bansal ’26 Aaliya Haque ‘26 Madeline Magielnicki ‘24

Mr. Stephen Wicker Mr. David Grant

Writing Aliyah Majeed-Hall ‘26 Aaliya Haque ‘26 Emmett Galison ‘27 Hafsa Abdulkadir ‘26 Donovan Dais ‘25 Tara Bansal ‘26 Lin Baker ‘24

Artwork Karrington Hayes ’25 Tara Bansal ‘26 Aaliya Haque ‘26 Iris Zhou ‘27 Emmett Galison ‘27 Aliyah Majeed-Hall ‘26

And thank you to our 3 anonymous submissions!

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THE SWING TREE Aaliya Haque ‘26, Karrington Hayes ’25, Tara Bansal ‘26 This painting encapsulates the Potomac experience and showcases all of the diversity found in our community’s interests and talents. It displays the togetherness and community that’s at the core of Potomac. Using an iconic element of the school’s campus helped us get at the root of Potomac’s spirit, and action shots of students participating in activities they love provided the perfect reference to allow us to capture the energy of the Potomac community.

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This butterfly is like my own scrapbook that represents all of the great memories I made at Oxbow. It visually tells the story of my growth and ability to flourish in a new environment.

I used acrylic paint, watercolor, sharpies, and pictures to bring this piece to life.

Karrington Hayes ‘25

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NOW

Iris Zhou ‘27

Anonymous

Donovan Dais ‘25

WHAT THE HANDSHAKE MEANS.

The DAP, short for Dignity and Pride, is a gesture that has gained popularity among celebrities and public figures like Lebron James, Chadwick Boseman, and even the former president. It originated in the late 1960s during the Vietnam War, where it was used to symbolize the unity between black soldiers in a hostile environment. However, the dap was banned throughout the military during that time, as it was considered a "form of communication for a black insurrection."

The dap goes beyond just being a simple handshake. It has a deep meaning that represents the shared emotions felt by a community. It has continued to evolve over the years and is still used today as a presentation of unity. The dap is a way for two people to express camaraderie and build a sense of closeness between them. Sharing a dap with my closest friends is a way for us to simply be there for each other. It represents the power of black minds and the importance of unity within the black community.

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IGNORANCE Tara Bansal ‘26

THE NIGHT SKY IS EERIE, DEADLY, CRAVING, MONSTROUS ENGULFING OUR WORLD, LEAVING NOTHING BUT AN EVIL ABYSS OF DARKNESS YET WE ONLY SEE IT HOUSES MILLIONS OF STARS, CONFIDENTLY PAINTED UPON A LONELY BLACK CANVAS STARS THAT SPOTLIGHT OUR GLORIOUS MONUMENTS, THE MOMENTS WE SO PROUDLY RAISE UPON A PEDESTAL A PEDESTAL OF BROKEN PROMISES, SILENCED CHORUSES; A BIASED HYPOTHESIS, BUT WE CALL IT FLAWLESSNESS, WE TWIST OUR CONSCIOUSNESS ACHING FOR A JOYFUL FANTASY, WHEN SOMETIMES ALL THERE LIES IS A PAINFUL REALITY THE PAINFUL REALITY THAT THE WORLD IS PLAGUED WITH RACISM AND HATE, SEXISM AND SHAME, VIOLENCE AND BLAME WHY DO WE SEE DRAGONS AS MONSTERS, WHEN WE ARE THE ONES CARRYING THE SWORDS? WHY DO WE PRAISE OUR PEDESTAL, WHEN ITS ROOTS ARE IN DECEPTION? AND WHEN THAT FINALLY COMES TO OUR ATTENTION, WHY DO WE CHOOSE TO IGNORE?

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BOTH Aaliya Haque ‘26 Last year for Around the World my friend and I ran a booth on Pakistan. We made a cute little posterboard, shared statistics on the country’s formation and national sports, displayed little Pakistani trinkets. We handed out pakoras and drew mehndi tattoos on little kids’ hands. Between the two of us, we only had one truly Pakistani grandparent. And I’ll go ahead and tell you, she wasn’t mine.

I am 100% Indian, half Bihari and half Hyderabadi, and I’m Muslim. This is a little bit confusing. When people consider the distinction between India and Pakistan, I imagine they think that after the Partition of India all the Muslims went to Pakistan and all the Hindus stayed in India. I mean, it makes sense. I think of it like that sometimes. But in reality, it’s not that simple. The extent of my knowledge on Indian and/or Pakistani history comes from that one episode of Ms. Marvel, where she time travels right in the middle of Partition? I joke about colonization but really don’t know anything about it. Ms. Marvel, however relatable (her nani literally looks like mine), is quite a sad place to have learned about the Partition from.

Perhaps being Muslim and Indian aren’t my favorite parts of my identity, but they are two of the most integral. They are what I think about most on a daily basis, more than my gender, more than my age, more than my socio-economic class. They are undivorceable from me, but also from each other. My view of being Muslim has, for 15 years, been framed by being Indian, and vice-versa. When my parents taught me to pray, they taught me to make my intention in Urdu. When we break our fasts in Ramadan, when we celebrate Eid, we do it with Desi food and Desi clothes. I can’t separate my religion from my ethnicity, or my ethnicity from my religion. “Brown” remains constant in complaints about unibrows and wearing leggings beneath gym uniform shorts.

“Brown” should unite me with other Indians, but sometimes I feel it cuts me off. Being constantly surrounded by exclusively Muslim Indians (and exclusively Indian Muslims) makes it a little hard for me to relate to, say, Hindu peers. Apparently seven Hindu families signed up for India at Around the World last year. That couldn’t have helped break down the Hindu Indian, Muslim Pakistani stereotype.

The first Indian Student Alliance meeting this year was celebrating Diwali, a Hindu holiday. I’d signed up for the group months earlier and had eagerly awaited the first meeting, but in the end I didn’t bother attending. Can you imagine what would have happened if I’d gone? Me, sitting in the corner, watching all these girls in their lehengas and bindis talking excitedly about the Festival of Lights, and nodding along whenever one of them glanced towards me.

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I don’t know anything about Diwali. I had to google it and double check that it actually was the Festival of Lights.

And then there’s Holi, another iconic Indian festival. You can’t have a good bollywood movie without a Holi scene.

Even the United Airlines safety video has one, a uniformed flight attendant with perfect teeth surrounded by screaming children and vibrant powder exploding through the air. FAA regulations forbid tampering with, disabling, or damaging lavatory smoke detectors. (Which is ironic, because of how poor Indian air quality is.) On the one hand, it’s nice to be represented! On the other, I’m not being represented at all.

I do love being Indian. It makes me special. I can make jokes about disappointing my parents with a B, and not being allowed to go to parties. I can make fun of Never Have I Ever, even if I do relate to it. I can be happy in an at least they’re trying way when the school serves “butter chicken” or “tikka masala” for lunch, even when the white girls complain about basmati rice being shaped weird.

I was raised on that rice. There is no other kind of rice. Also, side note, butter chicken is barely Indian food. They had to invent something less spicy for the colonizers. And the first syllable of “tikka” is meant to rhyme with pick, not peek. A teeka is something different. I can talk about all of that, by virtue of my Desiness.

But thanks to the fact that I’m Muslim, I can skip school on Eid. I duck into empty classrooms to pray between classes, I’m sleep deprived and inexplicably covered in glitter at least once a week during Ramadan, and I’m not allowed to wear short sleeves.

In the end, it’s both of these things that make me me. I can’t leave them behind. I rarely want to. Because the one thing that is true, brown or white, agnostic or god-fearing, apathetic teenager or concerned adult: you are special. Believe it or not, accept it or not. You are not like anyone else. I’m made aware of this every time I break the silence of my biology class to answer a question that’s been hanging in the air for thirty uncomfortable seconds. Every time someone asks if I have Snap. Every time I go against the grain in any way. But it’s nice to pretend sometimes, you know? It’s nice to have that connection with someone else. To think, we are special. Not just me. I am not an outsider to everyone else’s normal. I know you, and see myself in your different. We are the makers of our own little normal, and it’s beautiful.

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GREY Lin Baker ‘24

Loneliness bites at me Like an angry, cornered dog My fingers bleed and bleed and bleed Until the color leeches from my skin And my hair turns white Ghost girl, they call me Flitting between the walls Half there, half somewhere else Between worlds A walking corpse with ice cold hands Looking for love in every crack, every hollow, because if no one loves you Do you really exist?

Or are you just a shade Drifting on the wind, hollow dreams and vapor tears Waiting to be loved back to life

Artwork by Tara Bansal ‘26

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D O Y O U E V E N H A V E A D A D ? I ’ V E N E V E R S E E N H I M .

Anonymous My friend’s words rang in my ears as I struggled to reckon with the question. Do I have a dad? Yes. Despite this straightforward answer, the question forced me to reckon with the reason it was being asked in the first place. In my six years at the Potomac School, I can count the amount of times my dad has made an appearance on one hand. This is particularly shocking at this school, where parent involved events seem to come in the dozens every year. When he came, whether it be his refusal to speak to any parents other than his cousin, the father of one of my best friends, or his seemingly assigned placement next to the door, he was always signaling his eagerness to leave.

My life with my father differentiated my experience at my affluent predominately white institution and was a source of deep insecurity for me. I was always proud of my father’s accomplishments as an immigrant who with a high school diploma and minimal English proficiency worked his way up to managerial position in a Hilton restaurant. However, whenever I was asked what my dad's occupation was during his three years of unemployment, my shining confidence began to crack away. My shame surrounding my family’s situation clouded my understanding of reality. The reality was I had a dad who would brag about my little accomplishments to his friends, who may not have known what I was applying to but was overly ecstatic whenever I got in. However, my friend couldn’t see that when questioning my father’s existence. I had to provide her evidence because my skin color, my neighborhood, and even my ethnic background made me guilty until proven innocent.

“Do you even have a dad? I’ve never seen him.” Questions like those posed by my old friend drove a wedge between my home and school identity. In my naivety, I convinced myself that if I compartmentalized who my father is and who I am, then I would get further socially and academically at this wildly different institution. As I gained wisdom, I realized that there is no compartmentalizing our identities because of how profoundly they are intertwined.

M Y A B A B A I S W H E R E I D R A W M Y I N S P I R A T I O N , S T R E N G T H , A N D D R I V E A N D , W I T H O U T H I M , I C O U L D N O T B E T H E S C H O L A R , C O M M U N I T Y L E A D E R , A N D F R I E N D T H A T I A M T O D A Y .

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i wish i could Anonymous

What if the world fell to our feet We would be as high as the clouds Yet as low as the street Floating on lamposts silently aglow

How wonderful to be tall and small Feared and fearful The world just waiting for you Watching you

As golden stars shine the sky Daring us to fly We see the ground whispering As if to say we need you We want you We love you But oh, how grand it would be to fly

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THOUGHTS OF AN AROMANTIC Emmet Galison ‘27 I wish i could love you I wish i looked at you And felt something strong within I wish i felt Fire Coursing through my veins Fighting to take control of my mind Overriding my decisions and making me blind I wish i had nights Lying awake thinking of you Thinking of driving you to the ocean Thinking of sitting by the shore Letting the cool air calm The fire that you make me feel I wish i could keep lying Saying i haven’t found the right person Saying i can feel a flame Saying i’m not broken I wish i felt whole I wish i had a flame Melding my pieces together Mending any fractures I wish i had the strength to tell this to you

I have a photo of some drag makeup I did on a friend for their senior photography project on queer joy. I tried to split the face into traditional drag queen and drag king sides. The goal was to accentuate how fragile people's perception of gender based on appearances is.

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O U T S I D E R

Hafsa Abdulkadir ‘26 For as long as I can remember, my dad was always working hard to support my family. Often, these jobs involved driving, whether it was a school bus, uber, or a taxi. For the first 13 years of my life however, his main job was being a taxi driver. It never occurred to me that his job was out of the ordinary and in fact I thought of it as something to be proud of. He took pride in the cleanliness of his car that hadn’t suffered a single stain in the interior nor a scratch on the exterior. The taxi sign on his car was never something I was ashamed of, especially since many of my friends and family were drivers. When I thought of a working man, I thought of a taxi driver. Not a lawyer or a doctor or anything of the sort, but a taxi driver.

His job wasn’t the only “weird” thing I was accustomed to. I come from a family of five that lives in a two-bedroom apartment. I didn’t know any major name brands nor did I care to. We hardly ever went on vacation and when we did, my parents saved up for months. I used to think they were just stingy with their money when they made sure to get the knock-off versions of everything and got discounts wherever they went. I was young and innocent, but my parents made sure I never knew when we were struggling. After all, how would I know? All my friends lived in apartments too. We all came from free and reduced public school lunches, we all shopped at the same places, saved money the same way, and had similar lifestyles and still we were happy.

I thought nothing of the way we lived our lives until 6th grade, when I started my first year at Potomac. At first, the main thing I had noticed was a difference in my appearance compared to the rest of the students. I was a black student in my new predominately white school along with being the only hijabi in the entire school. However, this did not bother me. These were the parts of me I couldn’t change. I already knew I was black and I already knew I was Muslim, I have been this way even at my old school. I have built up an immunity to any sort of reaction when referred to as different because of my race or religion. I was secure in my identity because I’ve had all my life to accept it. But what I didn’t know, and what I suddenly realized, was that I wasn’t rich. Suddenly my dad’s job as a taxi driver was no longer normal, it became disgraceful.

My apartment was no longer a place I felt comfortable to have friends over in, instead it became what I hid from them. Having my own room was no longer a luxury, instead it became a shame that so much junk was stored in it. I realized that really only half of the room belonged to me. Half of the closetspace was full with my aunt’s clothes for whenever she visited from Ethiopia. All of the sudden, her living with us was something that I felt like I had to conceal. The extra bed that stayed in my room, awaiting her return, was no longer normal. Bedrooms are meant to be for one person, not two beds or two halves of a closet. Everything that I once considered normal was suddenly becoming shameful. Now, my new most dreaded question was: What do your parents do for work?

As the school year went on, things only became worse. All this talk about country clubs, allowance, vacations every break, au pairs, and other luxuries were things I thought only existed in the movies. It became more and more clear to me that I was not like the rest. To make things worse, everytime I complained about this to my parents there was nothing they could do. No matter how many jobs they worked or how much I tried I would never be like my peers. I always found myself stressed about how much money we had, but more importantly how to conceal it.

Insecurity became my new best friend but one I never asked for.

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Artwork by Aaliya Haque ‘26

When Covid hit, I was extremely overwhelmed. It became harder to hide the truth about my home when it was my new classroom. I knew I couldn’t have the camera showing my room, so I made sure to always have the least suspicious background: a white wall. I convinced myself that no one would suspect anything… until I saw their backgrounds. Whether they were in their commodious living rooms, spacious bedrooms, or a fancy office, I knew my plain old white wall couldn’t compete. Instead of online school being learning from the comfort of my own home, it became the biggest stressor of my day. I had no choice but to face my insecurities every time I logged onto zoom.

As online school started drawing to an end, my social circle grew which meant more people to keep this secret from. There were many instances where I wanted to tell them everything that I had been hiding. About my home and my room and all my feelings, but I never felt like it was the right time. And to be honest, there never will be a right time. That’s what I had to accept. No matter how long I held off on admitting it, nothing would change.

It wouldn’t make me any richer or any poorer. But most importantly, I wouldn’t be any different in their eyes because true friends do not care how much money I have or how big my house is. But somehow I convinced myself that the entire world would view me differently.

I remember the day I finally told them, it was the biggest weight lifted off of my chest. I was afraid that not only would they view me as less than them, but they would resent me for keeping this secret from them for so long. However, my delusions couldn’t have been further from the truth. I was immediately met with acceptance, it felt as if the room was a pool of embracement and I was slowly but surely drowning until I sunk to the bottom where I felt nothing but pure relief.

I was finally able to do the little things that I had always avoided. I finally turned my location on on Snapchat, showed them an angle of my room that wasn’t just me sitting on the bed or a white wall, walked around my apartment freely, and most importantly I built up the courage to invite them over to my apartment. Last March, I was celebrating my birthday with dinner on the last Friday before spring break and so I decided that having my friends over would help me break down that last wall that I had put up. They had seen my apartment before on FaceTime but never before in person. My mind couldn’t help but race with thoughts that they would judge me for the size or condition of my apartment and how inadequate it was in comparison to their three-story houses.

However, as I watched how they accustomed to my house rules by taking off their shoes, sitting on the majlis a type of couch or cushion typically found in Arab or Muslim households- instead of a traditional couch, and ate on the Sufra - a cloth placed on the floor where members of Arab or Muslim households eat - instead of a dining table, I realized that they had an immense amount of respect for me. No matter how little I had, they still loved me for me. There was no point in comparing myself to them anymore because in my eyes we were no longer any different. Watching them interact with my brothers and settle into my room as if it were second nature to them, I knew that what had been my biggest insecurity all these years was all in my head.

Upon realizing this, I felt foolish to have deprived myself of so many opportunities to enjoy life and for restricting myself by determining my worth based on how much money my parents earned. Thinking back now, I realize that everyone has their own battles. The biggest one I had to face was myself. A lot of people get in the way of their own success and happiness by tricking themselves into thinking they’re fighting their demons, when in reality, they face their biggest problem when looking into the mirror. It took me overcoming my own insecurities to understand that not just me, but everyone is only what they amount themselves to, so they shouldn’t stand in the way of their own success.

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Lin Baker ‘24 I write and write and write A thousand and one words and they’ll never be enough I fill pages of notebooks with endless paragraphs only to burn them later They say nothing is more common as the wish to be remembered And as the ash coats my hands, I wonder if that’s what this is So many pages and paragraphs and sentences that mean just three words

“Burn” by Tara Bansal ‘26

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KEEPING VIGIL

Lin Baker ‘24

My heart kept your lamps burning Against orders, running on bitter gasoline And vapors of hope So when you cross that threshold, my threshold, my orchids bloom, the lines fade from the corners of my eyes Somewhere, the stars sing in a distant corner of the universe I cannot help to wrap you in my arms, to know you again, how could I not?

Like puzzle pieces and my beat up converse

Aliyah Majeed-Hall ‘26

Polka dot socks and lense frames

We were made for each other Just as the moon is made for the sea

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Environmental Justice Corner T H E

C O L O R

O F

W A T E R

Aliyah Majeed-Hall ‘26 I.

II.

Flint, MI.

Navajo Nation, AZ.

You stand on tippy toes to reach the faucet.

Water rushes into your cup.

Like the poisoned apple Its toxins hidden.

Orange-red-yellow tincture swirls to the top.

You wake early.

Because “To’ ei ‘iina ate’.”

Water is life.

Sacred beyond all things.

And there is no water in your home.

Drink it, they say. It’s safe.

You wake early

Overflowing with anxious children

Punctuated by mesas and skyscrapers of stone

For months you drink it. So does your baby sister. Racing the sun that parches the desert landscape.

Driving for hours on a dirt road in a vermillion valley Between trips to the ER Who fidget in cracked plastic chairs Whose parents await answers

Towering like sentinels who guard ancient temple waters

Beneath flickering fluorescent lights.

Now dry.

You all come for different ailments.

You wake early

Rashes Hearing loss Delayed speech Brain damage Madness.

But you are all here for the same reason: They said drink it. It’s safe.

Traveling to a well miles away To wait in line To fill your jugs and barrels With too few gallons of water.

You wish for it to be enough for your children To wash, to drink, to cleanse.

To live.

You wake early For even though the Colorado river borders your land You cannot lay claim to it.

Even though they made promises a century ago They broke them.

Even though this land is your land You are still waiting For a home.

How can you have a home without water?

“To’ ei ‘iina ate’.”

And so you wake.

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Author’s Note: You and I may take for granted the ability to turn on the faucet and drink clean water whenever we are thirsty, but the reality is that an estimated 2.2 million people in the U.S. lack access to drinking water or basic plumbing in their homes. Underserved communities are most at risk.

In 2014-2015, in Flint, Michigan - where a majority of residents are Black and 40% of residents are under the poverty line - officials switched the city’s water supply from Lake Huron to Flint River to save money but failed to treat and test the water, resulting in high lead levels. Residents complained of discoloration and foul smells, but city officials dismissed them, maintaining for months that the water was safe.

Thousands of children and residents suffered life-long health damage because of lead poisoning.

One-third of the Navajo Nation’s 170,000 people on reservations in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico have no drinking water, requiring them to travel long distances, sometimes twice a day, to pump water from wells. A decades-long drought, exacerbated by climate change, has created the driest conditions in the region in centuries. Those who live in the region must depend on a few gallons a person a day that they get from a well far away, paying exorbitant prices. By contrast, the average American consumes 80-100 gallons per day and pays a fraction of the cost. The Navajo Nation has yet to receive water rights to use the adjoining Colorado River even though AZ, NM, UT and California have access rights.

The residents of Flint, Michigan, and the Navajo Nation are only two of many examples of communities without access to safe drinking water. It is astounding that in 2024, in the United States, which is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, so many lack access to the most basic of human needs.

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stay

INLIGHTENED.