Category: Reflections

Loosening the Mother Tongue

“When I learned about the darker history of Zionism, I needed to reverse so much of what I thought to be true while undoing my deepest personal and communal language. Like leaving a cult, my whole world was turned upside down as I tried to gather the pieces of what was once a coherent story.”

by on

Responding to “Maria”

“But whether these vital conversations unfold in the pages and meetings of the Nass or elsewhere, we hope they will unfold nonetheless.”

by on

Community Service

“I arrived on my first day of work nervous, the sweat of my anxiety masked by the steamy September weather.”

by on

Close to Home

Jeff Nunokawa on Spelman Hall

by on

Hacking a Lung

Marlboro Reds. The choice cigarette of cowboys and cattle ranchers, of healthy corn-fed Westerners with tanned skin and rugged faces who dexterously smoke with their thumb and forefinger. In the October of my senior year in high school, this was … Read More

by on

Jennie from the Block

I’m always quick to spell out or clarify my name when it’s asked for. Call it my preemptive strike against the flicker of uncertainty in the barista’s eyes or the note of hesitation in the agent’s voice.

by on

Urinalysis

I peed before I ever spoke.

by on

Resolves

“The last time my dad broke in, he took a key to the bathroom screen. It still flaps in heavy wind.”

by on

Bags of Blood and Guts

This July I was standing in a dusty schoolyard in Nansana, Uganda listening to Icona Pop’s “I Don’t Care” at a party for the NGO where I worked for two months. My stomach was full of a mysterious barbecued meat and the Ugandan equivalent of PBR my boss had purchased for the occasion. I asked my friends who had been cooking what I had just eaten.

by on

PG Teen Rebellion

“We have a report of three men running out of the forest and chasing a vehicle, one of whom was wearing a trench coat and a hat.”

by on

The Loaves and the Pitches

The Church of Scientology New York stands right in the center of New York’s Theatre District on West 46th Street. The building blends into the glitzy fare, as loud in its own right as its neighbors—such mainstays of the famously … Read More

by on

Bickering Ivy

I always assumed that I would join an eating club, but put no effort into understanding the process of joining. As such, I found myself in a foreign country, learning that I had not only missed the first round of sign-ins, but that bicker started immediately after break.

by on