2020-2021 AACC 295 Magazine Issue IV

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The Asian American Cultural Center at Yale presents

295 ISSUE IV SPRING 2021

from the editors

Dear Reader,

Born as a collaboration between the Asian American Cultural Center at Yale and the Yale Asian Womyn’s Alliance, 295 seeks to elevate the voices of Asian and Asian American student creatives at Yale. Now in the fourth year of its history, the magazine has expanded its scope from poetry and prose to encompass visual art, photography, and music composition.

This has been a grueling year for our community, to say the least. Yet the work featured in this issue is a testament to our strength and creativity. Even as we grieve tremendous loss, we hope you find solace and inspiration in these pages.

Love, Annelise Ratner ’23 Yuka Saji ‘22

Published by

Editorial & Production

Special Thanks to

The Asian American Cultural Center at Yale

Annelise Ratner Yuka Saji

Dean Joliana Yee Sheraz Iqbal

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table of contents wander 12 16 18

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Gwanjang and Seolseop at a playground in fukuoka, japan Good morning?

Austin Lee Sebastian Chang Victoria Lu

self 22

Teacher tells me to document my family’s history in the States and Beneath the Edge

Sophia Zhao

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grocery store, march 19, nightlife, and hopes and dreams

Alice Mao

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A Letter to My Doppelgänger

Ronak Gandhi

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山村 (Mountain Village) and 妖怪村 (Monster Village)

Pearl Hwang

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my days, lately

Dana Joy Loo

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DRAGONBABY Rain on a Wandering Boat

Sebastian Chang Yuchen Tan

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Photographs of my Grandmother

Clara Park

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Red and Yellow Where I could have been Chinese

John Nguyen Dora Guo

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Old Grandmother

Michael Min

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An Inheritance of Air

Sophia Zhao

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roots

awaken 58

A Box for All — Connecticut Center for Immigrant Services

Sze Wai Justin Kong

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I AM AMERICA: Evolution of Cities and the Conscience

Nina Lin

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Urinal cake, mystery meat say his name/uprising

Sarah Kim Dana Joy Loo

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Diary of a Dissident

Kelly Zhou

contributors 68

Contributor biographies and statements

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wander

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r

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Austin Lee

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gwanjang 13

seolseop

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at a fuku

Sebastia

the playground for the sunligh brillo-cones, a yellow guard r of blossoms (b in this bright, the playing san with many litt are sliding from the starbucks i like friends do swallows, koi fi clouds soft like and bike whee we are sitting on the faded h and down into and then japan she is good fri “kids these da and her mothe a cheery wave. so, when this l her shirt is ver like the lamp p (to the evenin from the top o waiting to nev

a playground in uoka, japan

an Chang

d is good friends with the city, yes ht embraces green as foliage pom-poms and bitter melon and the concrete is warm and simple, rails sway at attention, like swing sets, and summer branches dream buds) softly peeling, jungle gym city, nd is like a big zen garden neatly combed tle laughing feet, and the spirits m emerald tiles into the big stumbling lake, is selling seasonal ice teas for hot sweat, o, and roads are smooth, toy cars, concrete cracks for ants, fish, toddlers, toddling onto public buses, blue e bare feet and tatami grass, els whistle such quiet melodies.

half-pipe of a pastel slope where kids are falling up o the sand and a little girl of six comes and speaks to us in english, nese, and then french, you see, iends with the english teacher mr. seever from futaba gakuen, ays” er and little sister send . little girl (we do not know) smiles, ry pink, and her cheeks are holding the rusty summer sun, posts and trees and laughing cloudscrapers sending up fresh smells! ng) we are also smiling of our little wall in fukuoka, ver go home.

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Victoria Lu Good Morning?

“Good Morning is inspired by my visit to the Potala Palace. After I emerged from the incense-filled interior into the bright sunshine, I met eyes with a lion statue and imagined the little temple spirit within wishing me good morning.”

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self 21

Teacher tells me to document my family’s history in the States and I don’t know where to begin except with Baba showing up emptyhanded at the terminal, his bag of cherries and cakes lost to a stranger with a mean uppercut. On the way home, Baba bought her a baby turtle from an old woman by the edge of the road. She caressed the purpling bruise under his eye while Baba recited the names of the streets as if lines in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mott.

Bayard. Canal. One Nation Under God. They lived in darkness for the rest of the month, called about a leaky roof with no one but God on the other line. Turtle quit eating, fruit scraps and lettuce rotting in the corner of his box. Mama continued getting lost on her afternoon strolls. The scent of the streets stained her tongue the way their names never could. Too bad they smelled equally of fish and sweat. Turtle died quietly, before Baba could pay the bills and Mama could learn his name. She told me how she cried and cried in the middle of C-Town, not knowing their names, but knowing she had never seen so many cherries in her life.

Sophia Zhao

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Beneath the Edge I understood 13 and its buried tides before I learned how to count to 10.

When we arrived at the edge, we pressed our lips to the sand— you, to taste mortar and I, to develop a taste.

On the night of your coronation, I presented you with a qipao of brackish seaweed, pretended the glass and shells adorning your forehead was a headdress of jade.

It was of utmost importance that you maintained your composure before the lesser lords, lesser men vying for the carapaces that lay upon your temple. Yet you were the first of your line to break bread with a commoner, the last to pour a nectar of brine and mortar from your cupped hands down my straining throat.

That was years ago, before the tides dried and your people hurled themselves from the city walls.

I search for you now, deep beneath the edge, and find a diaspora of broken shells, a throatful of sand.

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Alice Mao grocery store

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march 19

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A D hopes and dreams

nightlife 28

Letter to my Doppelgänger

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Ronak Gandhi

ear Doppelgänger,

You probably don’t know me. I don’t think we’ve met. I bet we’ve never even run into each other before. Anyways, I stole something from you. I’ve since given it back, and although Chief Ronnell Higgins never sent an email exposé about me and I doubt anyone noticed my crime, I still feel compelled to write you an apology.

The story of my heist plan begins at the start of sophomore year.

At around 3 a.m. one morning, I woke up as my phone dropped from my nightstand, buzzing maniacally. I picked it up to find forty-six new notifications. Seventeen missed calls from people I hadn’t talked to since first year.

Twenty-five texts featuring far more winky emojis than I get in a year. Three tags in blurry Instagram stories. And a Venmo payment of $5.57 labelled “The

Sauce.”

What the hell is “The Sauce?”

I thought to myself. Still halfasleep, I plopped back down in bed. The next morning, I turned to my roommate as we were brushing our teeth.

“Ryan, did I get Popeye’s or something last night?” I asked, thinking perhaps I’d blacked out and forgotten a case of the late-night munchies.

“Did you? Pretty sure we all stayed in and played poker and 2K,” he replied. Seeing as I had to grind out a five-page paper that Sunday, I put those strange notifications out of mind and got to hammering away at the keyboard.

That week, I questioned my hazy memory more and more.

One of my distant friends sat down next to me in the Morse dining hall. He exchanged no

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pleasantries before grilling me about my new romantic interest, some white girl from Franklin.

He swore he ran into us on a date at Pacifico. He even pulled up her Instagram profile. After a few scrolls, I concluded that I had never seen this girl before.

their chemistry p-set. I stared back at them blankly. I told them I had zero idea what they were talking about and went back to reading a short story for my English class.

Tons of people started giving me friendly nods and waves Another friend insisted that as I walked up Science Hill for she saw me aggressively mak- my classes, but I knew none of ing out with someone at the them. What incredible camZeta basement. She pulled up a pus solidarity and warmth, I well-managed Instagram profile thought as I waved back to the too — of a completely different complete strangers. girl from before.

Around the end of that week, a gaggle of first-years surrounded me in the Morse library. They begged me to sign their schedule and let out a chorus of apologies for being late. Before I could stammer out a protest that I wasn’t a FroCo, one of the first-years blurted,

“

That’s when I realized I was consistently being mistaken “We had a hard time finding you, for another Nick. It must be because you’re usually wearing glasses.” That’s brown guy on when I realized I was consisbeing mistaken for anothcampus—you! tently er brown guy on campus—you!

People sitting next to me in lecture would press me about my J.P. Morgan internship application and an upcoming career fair in Boston despite the fact that I had minimal interest and negative skill in consulting and finance. While I was studying in Bass Library, a group of premeds approached me and began interrogating me for answers on

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I feel like I got to know you a bit through these types of interactions, and I’m really impressed. You’re a FroCo and a PL for La Casa. You have at least four majors. You’re on both the squash team and the baseball team. You’ve interned all over, from Microsoft to Bank of America to Medtronic to Hulu.

I know you’ve studied abroad

three times: once in Spain and twice in China. You built your own startup and nonprofit. And you’re a YPU hotshot. I don’t know how you do it all. It’s honestly kinda intimidating. Okay, fine. VERY intimidating.

At the end of my first year, I never thought that I could live that type of life. I spent that year exploring my interests. I ended up wandering around a bunch of majors and clubs, never really settling on one area and never giving myself the opportunity Initially, whenever people to grow. I looked at my peers pinned me for you, I corrected who knew their major from day them. After a while, it got ex- one and achieved at the highest hausting to constantly explain level, and I felt ashamed of mythat I didn’t write a novel and self. Each moment I spent tryI don’t do research at the Yale ing to find a passion was anothQuantum Institute and I’m not er moment that I didn’t spend a finalist for the Rhodes Schol- becoming the best in an area, arship and that’s just someone like you. I felt like I was primelse. Receiving so much praise ing myself to play an impossible only to have it retracted was de- game of catch-up whenever I moralizing. So naturally, I just decided my future path. stopped correcting them. If people thought I was you, I would leave the unaccomplished soph- omore in my backpack and temporarily trade in my life of video games and migraines.

And it was great. I felt popular.

I was that guy everybody knows when he walks into a party. I could wave to literally anyone on Cross Campus and guarantee a smile and nod in return. I met tons of your “let’s-grab-ameal-sometime” friends over five-minute exchanges, knowing neither of us was ever going to sit down in the Hopper dining hall to catch up over lunch.

Finally, I caught a glimpse of the glitzy and prestigious college life that my parents always wanted for me.

“

If people thought I was you, I would leave the unaccomplished sophomore in my backpack and temporarily trade in my life of video games and migraines.

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I wished I had done things differently, taken another path, chosen another major, or joined another set of clubs. I second-guessed every single decision I made because I ascribed so much weight to each one. But on the other hand, you, my doppelgänger, were living a full college experience with no hesitations. Your endless list of accomplishments astounded me. Whenever I inhabited your skin, I tasted power and confidence. So if I stopped correcting people when they mistook us, I could be the person I envied, the student who had everything in life figured out. I could forget my failures and lack of direction.

But the remote lifestyle of 2020 ended this bad habit of mine prematurely and thrust my own identity back into my arms.

With my name pinned to the bottom left of my video feed, Zoom ripped your stolen identity off my face, leaving me bare and exposed. I took the still-unaccomplished junior out of my backpack and reluctantly started being him again. If not for the pandemic, I think I would have continued to borrow your shoes now and again to wander across campus.

Remote life gave me a chance to reflect. I tried meditation. Who do I want to be? I asked myself daily during my two weeks of isolation after returning home.

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Each time I envisioned the person I wanted to become, your image surprisingly never appeared in my head. Not even once.

During this global pandemic, everyone’s anxieties and pressures became much more public. I could finally see that not everyone who has these fancy titles, positions, internships, lifestyles, and prestige is happy. Their lives are not perfect by any means. My own jealous eyes just painted them that way, just like they colored my mental image of you.

“

Whenever I inhabited your skin, I tasted power and confidence.

Although I enjoyed hiding behind the mask of a doppelgänger, I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I had to forge my own path.

Pretending to be you occasionally wasn’t fair to me or to you.

I’m truly sorry. Now, I’ve gone back to living my own life, but I still wonder about you sometimes. After all those times that I pretended to be you, I know next to nothing about you as a person. I can only remember your towering accomplishments.

I don’t even know your residential college—I mean, how I am supposed to ask when I’m supposed to be you? I’m curious how many times you’ve been mistaken for me. Did you ever borrow my shoes to take a walk around campus?

Anyways, if you read this letter, please send me an email. I really want to meet you and apologize in person. Plus, I’ve still got $5.57 in my Venmo balance for you.

Your lookalike, Ronak

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Pearl Hwang 山村 (Mountain Village)

sumi ink, watercolor, water-soluble ink

“Two Villages includes two Chinese brush paintings of scenery in Taiwan. The first, 山村(Mountain Village), is inspired by a photograph that my uncle took and shared in my extended family’s LINE group chat. 妖怪村 (Monster Village), the subject of the second painting, is a Japanese-style village built in 2011 near the Xitou Nature Education Area in Nantou, Taiwan.”

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妖怪村 (Monster Village) sumi ink, watercolor, water-soluble ink

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Dana Joy Loo my days, lately

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Sebastian Chang DRAGONBABY

“DRAGONBABY is a K-rap-inspired song about heritage and identity I freestyled late at night in my room. It draws on artists like ph-1, J. Cole, and Uzuhan. As a son of second-gen immigrant doctors, I wanted to write not just about cultural inheritance, but how we can carry the wealth, expectations, and even trauma of our elders. I was named “용아” because I had the potential to grow into our family’s future. But who do you grow into when you’re still figuring out you are?”

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Yuchen Tan Rain on a Wandering Boat A relaxing piece made with a blend of orchestral sounds, traditional Chinese & Japanese traditional instruments, and mild rain sounds. Inspired by an eleventh century ancient Chinese poem—the first part of Poem One in his anthology “Composed Drunken at the Lake-Overlooking Pavilion, Sixth of Months, Day Twenty-Seventh”. I try to convey the beauty of this poem in English, and with this thought I would like to share the aspiration for peace and tranquility through the musical language.

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《六月二十七日望湖楼醉书·其一》 （宋）苏轼 黑云翻墨未遮山，白雨跳珠乱入船。 卷地风来忽吹散，望湖楼下水如天。

Composed Drunken at the Lake-Overlooking Pavilion, Sixth of Months, Day Twenty-Seventh (Poem 1, Stanza 1)

By Su Shi (Song Dynasty) Trans. Yuchen Tan Black cloud splatters ink through a mount; white rain drops and unto my boat, beads of lake bounce.

Wafting winds roll ’til the clouds are unfound; beholden from the lake pavilion is a hush of sound.

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roots 42

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Photographs of my Grandmother Clara Park “할머니, 이 사진은 언제 찍었어요?” “Grandma, when was this photo taken?”

On my lap sits a heavy, leather-bound photo album, thick with memory, pages creaking. She keeps a cabinet groaning with these, stacked full of moments too important to forget.

Grandmother comes to sit next to me. Pressing one knee toward the sky and folding one knee beneath her, she settles herself into the warm, wooden floor. She runs a small, soft, blue-green-veined hand over the wrinkling plastic that covers her fading photographs. Looking toward the ceiling for a moment, she says, “그건 고등학교 때 사진이야.” “That was my high school photograph.” “여기는 할머니이시죠? 머리 짧고 흰색 옷을 입는 소녀이시 죠?” “This is you, right? The girl wearing her hair short and in white clothing?”

My grandmother nods and smiles. She pats my knee and says, “고등학교를 졸업한 후 할머니는 대학교를 엄청 많이 다니고 싶었는데, 할머니 엄마가 분안했고 할아버지는 너무 괜찮다 고 생각하셔서 할머니를 빨리 결혼이나 시켰어.” “You know, I wanted to go to college after graduating high school more than anything, but my mother worried so, and your grandfather was suitable. So she married me off as quickly as she could.”

She flips through the photographs as she talks. Despite the 44

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295 Magazine, Spring 2020

obstacle to her education her husband apparently presented, she pauses fondly on photographs of him as a young man.

I stare at the pictures, running a finger over them, as one often does with things that amaze. For 15 of the 17 years I had known him, he had suffered greatly from Alzheimer’s.

The face that stared confidently at me was not that face. His strong jawline cut a line across the page, and his eyes were my father’s eyes. Kind, and smiling. “인영아, 한국 전쟁 알지? 응? 우리 엄마가 불안했었어, 그떄.”

“In-young, do you know the Korean war? Yes? My mother was anxious then…”

This is all she says. I asked my father about it once, about how his family ended up in the South. He spoke bluntly, as he often does when avoiding harsh truths—as if saying it jarringly could, ironically, lessen the blow. “You know her dad—my grandfather—was shot.”

One by one, she picks out her friends from the fraying, sepia-toned photograph. These are her best friends, she explains; she still sees them often. They meet invariably at the café on the fourth floor of the Hyundai Department Store.

When she takes me out to eat, she insists on taking me to a department store or a hotel. We sometimes run into her 동창들, classmates from the past. My grandmother beams as she introduces me as her granddaughter. I am profusely fussed over—how pretty I’ve become, what a pleasant quality my voice has, how well I speak Korean (for an American, of course). When asked about school, my grandmother softly mentions Yale. The name is heavy. Sometimes, I can see an ember of pride sparkling in her eyes, simmering beneath a nonchalant expression. I must’ve taken after my father, they murmur. I watch her eyes glimmer quietly.

Imagine how brightly her eyes must have danced when she was a young woman, in a white blouse and calf-length skirt.

With her classmates by her side, she would’ve cut such a lovely figure on a college campus. Romantically—though perhaps unrealistically—I imagine her tripping down walkways littered 295 Magazine, Spring 2020

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with cherry blossoms for the spring season, and dusted with golden leaves for the fall.

Each time I meet these kind old women, I enjoy hearing their stories. They tell me about how they used to go dancing before they were married, and what a beauty my grandmother once was—still is. They laugh like schoolgirls and squabble over how reckless they were and who flirted the most. Sometimes they speak too quickly. Sometimes, they slip into the accents of their hometowns. Those times, it is difficult for me to understand. But I can see the emotion written over their faces; I smile with them.

Sometimes, I cannot understand my grandmother either. Korean slows—thick on my tongue. Honey in my brain. She does not bother to explain some things. She has thrown these away in translation, cast them somewhere deep in the sea between Korea and America. Details blurred, broken memories frozen in amber. What remains are the feelings—the have you eaten’s and dress warmly’s. She tells me, “인영아, 너는 누구나 결혼해도 괜찮아. 한국인이든 외국인이 든 너를 잘해준다면 다 괜찮다. 다 괜찮다.” “In-young, You can marry whoever you want. Whether they are Korean or not, as long as they are good to you, it is all okay. It is all okay.”

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295 Magazine, Spring 2020

Red and Yellow John Nguyen On 16 March 2021, a gunman opened fire at a spa in Atlanta, Georgia. Six of the eight victims were Asian American—another bullet point in the long list of hate crimes against Asians in the United States.

She cooks the sticky rice cakes, Brings in the snowy orchids, football mums, And yellow forsythias from the car.

It is the Lunar New Year.

Ma brings in the football mums and orchids and Places all the flowers on our Buddhist altar.

The Lunar New Year is dressed In ornaments of red and yellow.

The various plants sit beside the Buddha statue.

Our home is never this clean.

The house is a jungle of red and yellow, and Ancestors stare from the glass display, eyes glossy.

The home is clean, but only in the living room.

This is our America.

My ancestors gaze at us, bodies in Vietnam, souls Here. I can’t tell if they feel pride or pity.

This is the place my parents dreamed about, where Bodies are bruised, beaten, buried —uneasily the ancestors stare.

We didn’t know red and yellow could foresee death.

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Dora Guo

Where I could have been Chinese mixed media

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“Where I could have been Chinese draws from photos, memories, and feelings that the artist has with regards to China as a place and Chineseness as an identity. Through continuously unfolding contours and layers of linework, the piece aims to unsettle the spatialities (where) and temporalities (could have been) of Chineseness. The piece was completed as a final project for Yale Professor Quan Tran’s course ER&M 324: Asian Diasporas since the 1800s. The artist would like to thank and acknowledge the peers in that class with whom she was able to be in community and grow as a scholar/artist/activist.”

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Old Godmother Michael Min

You are the people who tell me—sixteen years ago— “Your pungent slop, it smells!”

My chow must be de-constituted, ground up, little terriers and chow-chows crying as I eat their hearts with lotus root and your parents put up posters asking where little Toto could be.

All eyes turn on me. “He’s the roaster of our family!” I am the Chinaman, even though I’m just a boy, and I don’t know when this began, when you went from pinching your nose as I passed by, your fingers, tilted at temples, pulling cold eyes into a mocking pose—

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how that became a rabid raving, a canine howl for Chinese food, and McDonald’s Szechuan sauce; my old godmother became upper fare, quite fine.

Have you forgotten your harms? I can see That even as you shovel my pungent slop down your throat, gaining worldly competence by splitting open bitter melons, you still call me Other, framing pale skin and milk as the center of everything. Decontextualized eating doesn’t fix wrongs; it reinforces the same boundaries, our same seats in life. You’re just older now, and subtler about it. Leave my old godmother alone.

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An Inheritance of Air (After

Chinese Proverbs) Sophia Zhao

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The key to kite-making lies in the silk you use: You see, it must be firm enough to withstand the typhoons of the south, light enough to ride the east’s measured breaths.

From Grandmother, I’ve inherited dark eyes, nimble knuckles, and a thirst for air.

When the power went out, we let loose our woven kite by the light of a thousand stirring fireflies.

People live like birds in the woods: When the time comes, each must take flight.

If you must know, before I drew my first breath, my grandmother’s lungs filled with silt, and the air became too heavy to bear.

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aw

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waken

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Sze Wai Justin Kong A Box for All—Connecticut Center for Immigrant Services

In understanding the needs of the assigned program— Connecticut Center for Immigrant Services—Hispanic immigrants were identified as socially vulnerable as they resided in areas that are susceptible to natural disasters like floods and hurricanes. In particular, areas like Fair Haven, West Haven, and West River are immigrant districts that demand emergency evacuation in case of a natural disaster. The proposed site in New Haven (red dot), is precisely sandwiched between the areas concerned.

Hurricane Evacuation Map in New Haven

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2F Plan

Legal consultation

Summer solstice

In light of the situation, an emergency management center that will primarily cater to immigrants is proposed. Under the recent national policy that could potentially hinder undocumented immigrants from seeking humanitarian aid, an immigrant service center that could offer protection to people regardless of their immigration status is a statement to uphold basic human rights.

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Semi-private space

Winter solstice

Model

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Nina Lin I AM AMERICA: Evolution of Cities and the Conscience

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Sarah Kim Urinal cake, mystery meat

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Dana Joy Loo say his name/uprising

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Kelly Zhou Diary of a Dissident acrylic

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contribu

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Alice Mao is a rising sophomore studying Painting/Printmaking. Her

work explores themes of isolation, desire, and alienation. While she primarily works on stand-alone illustrations, she hopes to move into narrative art. She intends to work as an illustrator in New York City after she graduates, ideally with a dog. See more of her work on instagram at @alicemaoart or on her website, alice-mao.com.

Austin Lee is a rising sophomore in Morse College, currently on a yearlong leave of absence in Seoul, South Korea. In his free time, he enjoys playing the trumpet, going on hikes, and driving an hour away to the beach just to read a book.

Clara Park is a would-be ‘22 who is currently on a gap year in South

Korea. She is an English major in constant crisis over what she’d like to do with her life. Though now fluent in Korean, the native language of both her parents and grandparents, she didn’t learn the language until later in life.

This piece attempts to evoke some of the words that get lost in translation when a language barrier exists within a single family.

Dana Joy Loo was born in Singapore and currently works as a pediatric psychiatric registered nurse while studying at Yale School of Nursing to become a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. Prior to coming to Yale, Dana graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Sciences and a minor in Asian American Studies.

She primarily enjoys working with art in panels and sticker-making. In addition to art, Dana enjoys bike racing, dogs, food (has a very big sweet tooth), scrapbooking, and spending time with friends and family.

my days, lately—It never gets easy asking the hard questions to my young patients in a psychiatric hospital. And during the pandemic, I’ve gotten to see the dark side: increased suicidal thoughts, self-injurious behaviors, abuse happening, and nowhere really to go. It’s been a lot of sleepless nights thinking about what these kids are struggling through, and one night I had to get my thoughts down, so I drew this piece. It’s such a strange thing to do, clock in, talk to kids about their mental illness, clock out, and then going across the street to eat a dinner of McDonald’s at 11:30 at night. say his name/uprising—References for certain panels are from The Daily Cardinal displaying Nathan Denzin’s photos (https://www.dailycardinal.com/ article/2020/05/i-cant-breathe-madison-erupts-in-riots-after-a-peaceful-protest-supporting-blm), Shirien Damra’s tribute to George Floyd (https://www. shiriendamra.com/), and Kenechi Unachukwu’s continuous documentation of justice on the streets (https://www.kenechiuna.com/justice).

Dora Guo’s parents are immigrants from Guangzhou and Hengyang,

China. She is from Vernon Hills, Illinois, where, between 2008 and 2013, all the Chinese kids went to the same drawing teacher. As a part of the New

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Haven community, Dora is involved with CityStep Yale and the Anti-Racist Teaching & Learning Collective.

John Nguyen is a first-year in Davenport who plans to major in English, History, or Ethnicity, Race, & Migration. He loves to sing, read, write, play with LEGOs, and eat bun bo hue. He is a National YoungArts Winner in Creative Nonfiction Writing. John aspires to be a writer and cultural critic.

I don’t consider myself a poet; however, writing poetry helps me untangle ideas and reach new meanings, which, consequently, enhances my prose, the style in which I feel more comfortable. I relish reading essay and poetry collections, memoirs, novels, and pieces of long-form journalism: authors who’ve helped me learn more about the craft of writing, and whom I’m inspired by, include Ocean Vuong, Kao Kalia Yang, Jia Tolentino, Toni Morrison, and Joan Didion.

In “Red and Yellow”, I essentially create a portrait of the Lunar New Year in my Vietnamese household. I hope this piece evokes comfy images in your mind as you travel throughout my home.

Kelly Zhou is a rising junior in Yale College majoring in Computing

and the Arts. Along with computer science and fine arts, she loves exploring a variety of disciplines and art fields, including poetry, music production, and ornithology.

Michael Min is a second-gen Chinese-American sophomore studying computer science in Pauli Murray from Boise, Idaho. His hobbies?

Doom-scrolling through social media amidst the pandemic and discussing all things food. Chat him up to talk fandom, bemoan existence, or about the intersections of queer and Asian identity! On campus, you can find him in his room, and that’s about the extent of where he goes, really.

[“Old Godmother” draws] heavy inspiration from Professor Quan Tran’s “Food, Race & Migration”. You should appreciate THB’s face on that little red chili oil bottle before it gets subsumed, or worse, caricaturized—Aunt Jemima exists, after all. But more than that, appreciate and support the little mom-andpop restaurants who use that familiar chili oil. Support them by wearing your masks, avoiding close contact, and recognizing that empty consumption does not constitute culture. Value cultural producers, and not merely the products.

Nina Lin is a first-year student from Fayetteville, North Carolina, ma-

joring in Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Architecture. Both visual and verbal storytelling are tenets of Nina’s artistic process. One of her most memorable works is her social practice piece, ‘Dialogue: The Immigrant Conversation’, which has garnered over 100 accounts of human culture in the cascade of immigration in America.

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Pearl Hwang grew up in Taiwan with a childhood spent alongside night market pinball machines, scooter-congested streets, and 7-11s around every corner. She took Chinese calligraphy classes when she was little, and remains fascinated by the ways language becomes art. She’s fond of desserts, crafts, tea, stories, and language.

Ronak Gandhi is a junior in Morse, majoring in Humanities. He’s

a PL for the AACC and involved with the South Asian Society on campus. During non-pandemic times, Ronak is also on the curling team—yep, that weird sport with the brooms. When he’s not blankly staring at his computer screen for Zoom classes, Ronak often plays video games with his suitemates, tries out new recipes in the kitchen, and hits the snooze button 5+ times every morning.

Real events from my life definitely inspired me to write “A Letter to My Doppelgänger”. I’ve been mistaken for different people constantly throughout my college life, and at the beginning, I was never really sure if it was the same person or different people. I guess that confusion sparked me to write this piece.

I tried adding a little bit of my usual flair for sarcasm and humor along the way. I hope you enjoy it!

Sarah Kim is a first-generation Korean-American from unceded Tongva territory, otherwise known as Los Angeles, CA. Prior to pursuing an M.Arch I at the YSoA, she earned a B.A. in Psychology from Northwestern University. Her interests lie in the interdisciplinary reconfiguration of architecture as it intersects the coordinates of visual culture and urbanism, with a particular focus on how the tilted scales of race, sex, gender, class, and power shape the experience of embodied space.

In Urinal cake, mystery meat (2020), a graphic pattern of tinned SPAM is mapped onto a men’s washroom. The serial repetition of this pantry item—itself both a beloved staple in many Asian immigrant households and a fraught icon of American imperialism—produces disorientation and a deadening uniformity to mask and belie the underlying gridded logic organizing the urinal cakes and human figures within the scene. As the poet Cathy Park Hong describes in her book Minor Feelings, to be Asian American is to be a “urinal cake of shame”.

This work attempts to explore how distortion in visual language might evoke the discomforting feeling of dissociation so familiar to the Asian-American struggle, one that entails enduring being pissed on regularly while dutifully diminishing the odor and pain of the experience.

Sebastian Chang is a Korean-Indian artist figuring out how to be

happy. When not watching food Youtube or making music with friends, he enjoys penning strange poetry, studying Japan, and beatboxing and dancing (respectively) for his Korean-language acapella group and openstyle/K-pop dance collective. He would love to have more conversations about mental health and (identity) politics, and can be found writing any-

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thing from multilingual rap music to a paper on race theory in ATLA. Please reach out to him. He likes his girlfriend and is scared of the dark.

Sophia Zhao is a senior in Pauli Murray studying English and

Political Science.

“An Inheritance of Air” is a reimagining of a Chinese proverb (People live like birds in the woods: When the time comes, each must take flight).

Sze Wai Justin Kong, raised in Hong Kong, has a keen interest in

urbanism and contextual design that forms a dialogue with the history but also the future of a place. He believes in the power of architecture that can improve the livelihood of people from all walks of life.

Victoria Lu is a first-year in Silliman College with a love for illustrating

environments. Her work can be found on her website, https://victorialu. portfoliobox.net/

Yuchen Tan is a first-year Master’s Student at Yale Divinity School

studying Philosophy of Religion and aspires to promote interfaith understanding and coexistence. Having grown up in Beijing, China, she enjoys performing and watching traditional Chinese performance arts, especially crosstalk comedy, Peking Opera, and Kun Opera. Besides learning about the experiences of faith traditions, she plays the piano, violin, and Zhong Ruan, a four-stringed lute. Her musical compositions are inspired by musical and spiritual traditions from around the world. She is grateful that 295 Magazine provides this opportunity for her to share her work and her joy in composition.

The music and poem translations are inspired by the first stanza of “Composed Drunken at the Lake-Overlooking Pavilion, Sixth of Months, Day Twenty-Seventh, Poem One” by an eleventh-century poet Su Shi (who was an amazing all-rounder in the arts). The music draws from its multisensory depictions of the rainy weather on a lake using different instrumental tracks, including orchestral instruments, Guzheng, Koto, and Tanggu. The raining sound in the background is accredited to the free and open sound website Zapsplat.

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