Paddling out into the endless blue, I smile as I enter my weekly escape. As I near the horizon, I realize I am the only girl and person of color in the lineup. A twinge of self-consciousness goes through me, but I quickly push it away as I…
One of the first articles I read from Pacific Ties Newsmagazine was the Roundtable Talk: Coronavirus, published in April 2020. I read it later that year when I was admitted to UCLA, exploring the ways UCLA’s publications addressed the pandemic and comparing others’ experiences to my own. Looking…
Microaggressions are commonplace verbal or behavioral slights that express derogatory attitudes regarding an individual’s race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality; they may be made consciously or unconsciously. When unintentional, microaggressions can be considered a manifestation of implicit biases, as their internalized prejudicial thought processes are expressed outwardly in the…
Christmas is not my favorite holiday. It’s easy to play off as an idiosyncrasy of sorts, easy to play into the disbelief such a startling statement elicits. I try to turn the conversation towards my favorite holiday – Halloween – and let the offensive disregard of America’s most…
In the corner of my dorm room there is a container of Naked Juice. It boasts mangoes, oranges, apples, bananas, all of the requisite nutrients in the most efficient packaging. I haven’t yet opened it, but I feel the memory rising to the tip of my tongue as…