Sutro 2022

Sutro Review 2022
SF State Journal for Undergraduate Composition

Cover Art: "424" by Ixchel Acosta

Dear readers,

We are delighted to present the sixth annual volume of Sutro Review: SF State Journal for Undergraduate Composition, an academic journal written, edited and produced by SF State students. In it you will find writing, photography and artwork from some of our most promising undergraduates. During such a tumultuous year, we are grateful to everyone who took the time to submit their work for consideration.

With so much upheaval in our world, from war to inflation to climate change, and an ongoing pandemic, it became clear as we read submissions, how important it is to have a creative outlet and interests that sustain us and get us through stressful times.

We have grouped the writing into four main categories: personal narratives, reflections on career pathways, investigative pieces, and essays related to education and learning. Whether you want to read about how someone found their cultural identity or how a song relates to the environment or the ways people find community, there is something for you here.

Thanks to all the professors who encouraged their students to submit their work and a very special thank you to Tara Lockhart for being such an unwavering champion of Sutro Review and promoting it continually throughout the year. Last but never least, we’d like to thank the SF State University Instructionally Related Activities Fund for making Sutro Review possible.

We hope you enjoy the issue!

Stay healthy and read on,

Sutro Review Editors

Faculty Advisor:
Robin Meyerowitz

Editors:
aleah antonio
Sonia Leah Getz
Gabriella Napolitana Melton

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Writing

Personal Narratives

Ixchel Acosta – My Ritual With Nature
Kailey Flores – Glitters of Healing
Sydney Wagman – White Butterflies

Reflections on Career Pathways

Ev Guzman – Finally I'm Running Towards Myself, Not Away
Yvone Perez – The Dangerous Comfort Zone
Nyla Raffety-Williams – Experiences with Racial Identity Development

Investigative Pieces

Mayer Adelberg – Exploring the Intersection of Ecomusicology, Sustainability, and Preservationism
Jared Bautista – Mined Your Business
Nathan Burns – Fighting Isolation Through Community

Essays on Learning and Education

Annie Dang – Critical Reflections on My Education
Fay Harris – Growth Mindset and Deliberate Practice: Success Strategies and How I Apply Them

Photography & Artwork

Ixchel Acosta
Breanna Barton-Shaw
Kunj Sevak

About the cover: “424” was taken by Ixchel Acosta in the Presidio, where approximately 2000 military families lived in the 1950s. In the photo, Acosta depicts one aspect of their lives: having a pet.

I pass by this pet cemetery in the Presidio two to three times a week on a run that my sister and I have done since the beginning of last year. Not until I walked this path did I realize that the gate was open. I went in and looked around, as I have always been intrigued by cemeteries. They represent a life that once was. The style, the decorative cut, and the age of the stones are always so cool to look at. It reminded me of watching Stephen King's Pet Semetery when I was growing up. Having this movie in mind helped me to create an eerily depicted photo. 424 represents the number of tombstones that are present in the cemetery.

I wanted my piece to depict the past, which is invisible to the eye, but we all know it exists. I dressed in military garb for the male and a vintage polka-dot dress for the female. The transparent feature allows me to merge the bodies of a husband and wife and give the idea that they are past lives that have come back to visit their pets. I chose to use a color that mimics photos of the past, and a white border to give it that extra detail, something that I have always loved about old photos.

Personal Narratives

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER:

Ixchel Acosta is in her senior year here at SF State. She wrote this piece in her first semester as a junior in her GWAR course. Professor Nico Peck assigned the class to explore the rhetoric of ecology through the lens of ecosexuality and (re)claim/decolonize their relationship with nature. Her take away: if we treat the earth as our lover, the world would be better taken care of.

Ixchel Acosta
My Ritual With Nature

I have a consistent workout that I do three to four days a week. Really, it's my excuse to indulge in nature. I need it to fuel me, it is my ritual. Throughout this ritual, I react with and to my (lover) earth. Through this reflection, I have learned about the relationship that I have come to have with nature, the communication that exists between us, the beauty she allows me to take in, and how I need this ritual to complete me.

Nature communicates with me, she tells me what to wear or even if I can complete my ritual for the day. I open my door and test the temperature; I look at the sky and it helps me to decide, I dress accordingly. I pop in my headphones and I will typically choose Beyonce, or Billie Eilish to serenade me. They help me get in step and I run to their beat. The music and dancing of the trees keep me moving. My journey starts on Lyon Street and Sutter, the trees that line the block consist of Cherry Blossoms. The colors of the buds are beautiful, pink, and soft. Depending on the temperature, at times, I breathe a little harder. The cold definitely gets to me, my lungs and throat burn. San Francisco is not flat, as we all know, so up the hills, I climb. The incline starts out very small and the last one almost kills me. Sweating, I get consistent bursts of natural air conditioning, she’s enticing. Once I get to the top I receive my reward: the view of the San Francisco Bay, the differences in the blue of the sky and the water paint a beautiful ombre picture. The Presidio lives to the left, I am tempted to enter. The Lyon Street steps are home to many: fellow workout nerds, pups, and tourists. They all have a ton of energy flowing through them, all different. Inhaling and exhaling as they run up and down the stairs. Wagging of tails. Excitement, maybe visiting for the first time. I run down the steps and in front of me is the biggest redwood tree, she constantly reminds me of how small I am.

Throughout my ritual I breathe in, I take in, I absorb, and I appreciate all that I have been given.

I continue down Lyon Street and I am allowed to enter the gates of the Presidio. Another beautiful treat that I am allowed to see. The smell of the Pine trees is amazing, especially when they are being manicured. I am surrounded by a variety of greens, browns, and blues. My path takes me up and down the Presidio and I end up at the water's edge. I take out my headphones and listen to all that is natural. I sit and enjoy the crashing of the waves, the dogs running in and out of the water. I believe they enjoy it even more than we could ever imagine. I take the water path and head home through the Palace of Fine Arts. I see ducks, birds, and turtles, and the blue sky above displays the birds like a portrait. My eyes have been pampered.

Throughout my ritual I breathe in, I take in, I absorb, and I appreciate all that I have been given. I receive my energy from being outside. The days that I do not make it out, I feel that they have been wasted. I need it. bell hooks (1996) shares a quote from Chief Seattle in 1854 that resonates with me, “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this Earth is sacred to my people...We are part of the earth and it is part of us”(364). When I take this path and perform my ritual, I constantly think how lucky I am, not required to pay a fee. This beauty is here for all of us to enjoy. I am fortunate.

This ritual is only mine, the experience and feelings that I share with my (lover) nature are only for me. I indulge in nature, we communicate, she shares her beauty and she completes me.

Works Cited

hooks, b. (1996). Touching the earth. Sisters of the Yam–Black Women and Self.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kailey Flores is a first year student studying Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts with a minor in Queer Ethnic Studies. Moving from Riverside out to San Francisco, they often found themselves in situations where they were looking for home in this new city. This piece is a love letter to The Mission, where they found home in this instance and many more.

Kailey Flores
Glitters of Healing

A couple of weeks ago I was out in The Mission district with a friend in Balmy Alley turned Lovers Lane for Valentine's Day weekend. We were sharing some thoughts over lunch, revisiting our childhood idols.

I asked her, “Who did you want to be when you grew up? Who were the women you looked up to?”

She began detailing to me an all-too-familiar story of wanting to be a kind of pretty that was deeply tied to a coveted whiteness. She expressed growing up with white women and eurocentric beauty as her pillar of THE ultimate beauty. She talked about how she thought the only acceptable type of beauty was locked into white skin, blue eyes, blonde straight hair and how she wanted each of these features eagerly although she couldn’t have told you why if you asked. I began to think about who I looked to during that time as a pillar of beauty and who I hoped to look like as I grew and matured. They were also white women. I imagined looking like Miley Cyrus (or more specifically Hannah Montana) at the age of eight or nine. I imagined my spontaneous adoption of her blue eyes and blonde hair, having a similarly small figure, or even her pale complexion. I remembered having not only an envy for these features but an additional distaste for the features I already owned. I never saw cool teen girls on tv with brown skin, hairy arms and upper lips and chubby awkward bodies. Girls like me never made it on Disney, we did not exist on screen.

I often revisit that younger me who wanted nothing more than to erase who I undeniably was.

After exchanging our sharp distaste for the influences of our younger selves, I followed with another question.

“Who did you think you’d be in your twenties?”

By this, I meant beyond that first white ideal. Who did she think she would be not at the age of eight or nine, but at the age of 18 or 19?
She described a woman who looked a lot like her. A woman brown and proud, a woman with her own sense of style. A woman who looked a lot like all of the women at this event. Like the women in both of our lives; moms, tias, abuelas, primas.

I remember asking this question because I wondered if being in this space with women dressed all the way out and showing all the way up filled her with as much joy as it did I. I wanted to know if her cheeks were aching under her mask the same way mine were due to a chronic smile that had found its way onto my lips the minute we had arrived just in eyeshot of Balmy Alley. I wanted to know if seeing brown women adorned in tattoos, beautiful jewelry, killer makeup and the flyest outfits was her dream as much as it was mine. I wanted to know if that younger version of her who could not see the beauty in her own skin was also looking in awe at this display of beauty in which she was now undeniably intertwined. I wanted to know if she felt just as at home as I did.

At this point in my living in San Francisco it had become seemingly hard to deny that I felt out of place in many of the spaces around the city. But in this alley I was home and that was equally undeniable. I swayed from booth to booth with nothing but the greatest smile painted across my face and a buzzing childlike joy overtaking my every step. Little awes and “I’m so happy’s” kept escaping from between my grin. My head was filled with the echoes of oldies and cumbias spinning at the other end of the alley as I watched all the women dancing and singing together with no care for anything but for their steps and this rhythm in the middle of this alley. I was transported back to memories of family parties and events in my hometown. I was home.

I often revisit that younger me who wanted nothing more than to erase who I undeniably was. I revisit her as someone who dreams of being one of these brown women who shows all the way up and takes up every last inch of their respective space in her statement earrings, tattoo adorned skin, sharp eyeliner and dark lips. There is a special healing that takes place every time I get to see women being joyful in this way or telling their stories or accomplishing their wildest dreams. Every time I am surrounded by women in this way, little pieces of that younger me are not only healed but returned to me to hold and re-examine. Similarly, that younger me is returned to my arms to be held and her wounds to be kissed. It is a reminder as I move through life learning and unlearning things that do and do not serve me of my undeniable right to be celebrated and loved. I often wonder what an eight or nine year old me would say if she saw who it is that I have grown up to be. I now believe she would be in awe of her features, her statement earrings, her tattoo adorned arms and mostly the way she takes up her space with no hesitation.

Josephine
Ixchel Acosta

About the photos: Created for COMM 556 Performance Art: Aesthetic Communication Criticism with Dr. Colleen Kim Daniher for the Alter Ego Portrait Performance assignment.

Acosta writes, "My Alter ego is Josephine Bustamante, born in 1913. Growing up in Santa Monica, she dreamt of becoming an actress. Her grandmother would scrounge up every penny she could to put her in dance classes at the age of five and made every costume for her to perform in. Growing up during WWI and WWII, the options for Mexican women in the workforce were taking care of someone else’s home and/or their children. This was not what she wanted, and her grandmother had bigger dreams for her. Her first big role was a chorus girl in Cover Girl, starring Rita Hayworth, her Idol. Josephine is always in the limelight, surrounded by Hollywood stars. On the arms of well-dressed actors, sharing stories while powdering her nose at the parties held in mansions. Always dressed to the nines.

When Josephine takes the stage, the world becomes her audience. Not until I sat down to think about my alter ego did I realize that she has always been a part of me. I am a people person. I get my energy from others. I love being out and about and dressing up. I have always loved this era, and it’s because of my grandmother, Josephine. Rita Hayworth was her favorite. As Josephine, I am way more confident. I hold my posture in a very different way. I’d say a little more feminine and quite flirty. When I get dressed up to go out, this is the style I prefer, not completely, but she’s in there. I actually take on a different persona. Even depending on where I am, I imagine myself as this person and the room sometimes actually changes as well. I think that I am a pretty confident person normally, but Josephine gives me a push. I can describe it as if I time traveled, and it’s just one day that I get to be this person, so I live it fully.

Josephine works with imagery depicting an American actress and dancer in the 1940’s, during a photo shoot. I have dressed in a 1940’s style vintage grey dress with embroidered black flowers on the right side. A dress that was purchased from the Golden Hour, a vintage shop in San Francisco. The night before, I did a pinwheel wet set (typical in the 1940s) on my hair and went to bed in a scarf wrapped around my head. The next morning I was transformed into Josephine. I woke up, combed out my hair, and styled it. I picked out my dress from two options. I applied a Victory Red lipstick by Besame cosmetics, a company that takes inspiration from worn colors during certain eras. A color inspired this particular lipstick from 1941. I applied black wing for my eyeliner and colored in my brows. I choose to use a photo style reminiscent of a black and white photo that added color. I wanted this photo to look like a portrait that would be autographed and given to fans of Josephine Bustamante."

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

   Sydney Wagman is a freshman at San Francisco State University. She wrote this piece for her English 105 course with Professor Michael Coyne. When Professor Coyne assigned a personal narrative based on global events, Wagman knew she would talk about her grandma. Wagman’s grandma valued the beauty in whatever life had to offer, a value Wagman herself held onto deeply as she watched her grandma battle cancer amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sydney Wagman
White Butterflies
In Memory of Grandma Diana Velez

Sometimes fragments of my life feel like a movie, although movies aren’t always directed to be perfect or pretty. At difficult times, I latched onto the hope that my film’s director would shout “CUT," but I know now that he doesn’t work that way. I learned this when my grandma was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer.

Eternity, by Calvin Klein, was a good indicator that I was at Grandma’s place. The scent was soaked throughout her dark and elegant clothes. It was her signature, along with Revlon lipstick kisses that left a garnet stamp on my pale skin-- a complexion she always insisted on complimenting.

“Mija, you have the skin of a porcelain dolly!”

Our sleepovers were the most meaningful. As the moon replaced the sun, we stuck to our sacred ritual. Saltine crackers and Diet Coke fueled endless hours of conversation. Together we laid side by side in a room that constantly ran hot, for a grandma who was always cold. As cracker crumbs lined our pillows, these nights contained moments when the best advice was given. Although I should pass her advice along, it was oftentimes uncensored for my ears only.

Rounded bubble-lettered balloons crinkled upon my dewy front lawn, announcing the year of my graduation. Busy with scholarships, final applications, and high school graduation around the corner, two months had passed since I had last seen my best friend. Prior to her diagnosis, my grandma made it apparent that she feared medical checkups, and with good reason. Her fear of doctor visits did not stem from superstition, despite her core beliefs that seeing owls or removing the emerald ring wrapped around her finger was bad luck. Growing up alongside five siblings, all but one passed away due to illnesses, and cancer was the cause of death for most. Her fear of doctor appointments caused her to make stubborn remarks as my family persisted in trying to get her to go to one. She always made sure her statements were comical when serious subjects arose:

“Shit, I’m not going to see a doctor, I am perfectly fine. I just need a Coke.”

I missed when she could refuse her doctor visits.

With the small window of time she had left before being hooked to an IV, she would call me. She sounded drastically different each time. While battling for the strength to overcome cancer, she still put my well-being first. Oftentimes, she would veil her pain by distracting me with constant reminders of how much she loved and missed me.

“I love you and I’ll talk to you soon, I’m just tired Mija.”

I would play my part in lifting her spirits. I kept her up to date with the latest news, but trying to find positive stories amidst a pandemic was challenging. I know it isn’t orthodox to ask for favors in prayer, but still I tried simply asking that she would get better. One day, I began seeing a single white butterfly flutter by my side. Then another one the day after that, and so on. I told my grandma about each encounter and painted her a large mural to brighten up her hospital confinements. The canvas showed a willow tree swaying in a field of flowers as butterflies peeked through the tall grass.

In the days following my grandma’s passing, white butterflies in numbers I couldn’t fathom danced around me.

I was finally able to visit her one afternoon. How our conversations changed so rapidly.

"This is my Tesla port Sydney, see." She pulled down the right side of her sweater to reveal a port for chemotherapy underneath her collar bone. I smiled at her jokes but excused myself to go to the bathroom moments after. I cried silently.

Month after month, COVID regulations became tighter. More restricting. I couldn’t visit my best friend in the hospital anymore and that killed me.
It was yet another restless night. My phone screen read 5 AM. The morning was silent, the birds didn’t sing, and gray clouds blanketed the sky. The loud silence was broken when I heard footsteps rushing along the tile floor. Making a distinction of sound, I knew they could only belong to my mom. After a tear-filled phone call, she was getting ready to leave the house and I ran into the garage quickly enough to go with her.

The time had come to say final goodbyes.

My mom acknowledged that my grandma didn’t look the same as the last time I saw her. It would have been far easier for her to say things happened too suddenly for me to have said goodbye, but I decided to go anyway. Comforting my mom while she was driving was one of the hardest things I had to do. Her words were shaky and tears drew as she repeated her frustration.

“Sydney— she only wanted a Pepsi. You know how she likes Coke, but during my last visit to her, all she wanted was a Pepsi. I ran to the vending machine. But Sydney, they didn’t have it. They didn’t have her Pepsi. They didn’t have a single fucking Pepsi. I— I couldn’t get her a Pepsi, it’s all she wanted. I went to buy one but they didn’t allow me to bring it back to her.”

“Mom, it's okay. She loves you, it was only a Pepsi, it’s okay Mom. It’s okay.”

That’s the thing about COVID. It unforgivingly changed our lives in the smallest and largest ways. Something as small as bringing my grandma a Pepsi wasn’t possible, as no outside drinks were allowed within the hospital during the pandemic. Among other constricting rules, only four people were allowed in the hospital room to say goodbye. I took my cousin's name tag after she retrieved me from the lobby and snuck in, pretending I was her.

On October 20th of 2020, I told my best friend that I loved her for the last time.

She didn’t like being cold. I wanted to comb her hair and put on her favorite lipstick. I wanted to do all of the things she loved to do for herself, even though the list was small. I have since erased the memory of her appearance in that cold hospital bed. In those final glances I took, my grandma didn’t look like herself. Cancer tends to do that. Being as stubborn as she was, she waited until the very moment my mom and aunts had briefly left the room to end her pain. Never had I known someone to put others before themselves so instinctively. My grandma made this gift visibly transparent. The Pepsi my mom got her sat in our fridge for months after her passing. I stared at it for hours sometimes. I’m not sure why.

In May, I graduated with my grandma; her photo in a heart-shaped locket on my graduation cap. I am eager for the moment when she can walk alongside me again during graduation, only this time from San Francisco State University.

The pandemic changed my life in every way imaginable; it took away so much. Yet, despite all that was taken, there was beauty to be found. Remember how I said my life is like a movie? Even sorrowful films have their scenes of lightheartedness if you watch them closely enough. In the days following my grandma’s passing, white butterflies, in numbers I couldn’t fathom, danced around me. Fluttering in such close proximity, they looked ready to land on the palms of my hands as I reached out to them. A few circled my head as if they were tracing the curve of a halo. It was their wings combined that showed enough strength to compose that of an angel’s. My grandma embodied an angel. I took this visual masterpiece as a message that Diana Velez gained her second pair of wings. I’m forever grateful that I don’t hold the power to say “cut” in my movie because if I had such power, seeing white butterflies wouldn’t be half as special.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER:

Kunj Sevak is a freshman majoring in Computer Science. After arriving in San Francisco from India, he was exploring the city with his friends and shot images of the places he went, as photography is his hobby.

Reflections on Career Pathways

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ev Guzman is a first-year college student majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. They wrote this piece for Professor Jason Jackl’s English 114 class in Fall 2021 as a way to tell their story of finding themselves freely. They moved to San Francisco for college and to grow as a person.

Ev Guzman
Finally I'm Running Towards Myself, Not Away

I never ran away from home, not once. I never did that thing kids do where they claim they hate their parents and then run down the street, only to come back crying an hour later. I did run from a lot of other things though. I spent most of my life trying not to make decisions and refusing to settle on one thing because I was scared of making the wrong choice. I claimed to have wanted to be multiple things when I was younger: a lawyer, a florist, a mathematician, and even a therapist. I ran away from myself and refused to accept who I was. Now, studying English at San Francisco State University, I feel as if I am finally starting to run towards my true self.

My whole life, no matter the age or time, I can only remember myself running. Not literally, but metaphorically. I don’t remember much from my childhood, but I do remember that my parents fought a lot. These were the first moments I remember running away. I would go to my room, as I was told, and immediately, as if it were second nature, grab the nearest library book. The words on the pages, and the characters in the stories, comforted me in a way no one or nothing else could; everything would fade away. Thinking back, it was here that I first fell in love with reading. Throughout elementary and middle school, I continued using reading as a form of escapism. I never wanted to be in my reality; I ran away to fictional worlds.

The words on the pages, and the characters in the stories, comforted me in a way no one or nothing else could; everything would fade away.

In the sixth grade, I began writing my own short stories. It was a way to sort out my thoughts and worries. Around middle school, I realized that I am gay. These stories helped me to express and explore the different parts of myself. This time was very hard for me as my mother’s homophobia meant I lacked the support system I desperately needed when first coming out. Because I did not have a good support system at home, my mental health took a turn for the worse. The only way I can describe high school is by saying that it was like I was on autopilot. I took the classes my counselor told me to, including AP and honor courses. I didn’t find myself truly enjoying any of my classes except for English. I always genuinely looked forward to English class; it was my escape. By the time my senior year came around, I knew that whatever career path I chose, I wouldn’t mind as long as it had something to do with English.

Going into college, I already knew I wanted to major in English. I was unsure how I would use my English degree post-graduation until I had the amazing opportunity to interview Lee Chen-Weinstein, a First-year Composition professor at San Francisco State University. Although I didn’t take one of Professor Chen-Weinstein’s courses, this was the first time I saw a non-cis-heteronormative professor, and I decided to ask them to interview for an English assignment. I asked, “How did you know you wanted to pursue a career in the field you are currently working in?” They explained how they did not know they wanted to teach writing until they found poetry written by queer authors and people of color: “The experience of being seen in poetry was a powerful one.” This inspired me to want to help people feel seen, to show people that literature has much to offer, and how sometimes we can see ourselves in the works of others. I also asked them, “What are some struggles that you faced throughout your career and getting to where you are now?” Their answer to this question gave me insight into what I could expect in the future if I were to pursue teaching. They told me that it was difficult to find work as a college instructor and how difficult it is to break the mold of, “the archaic systems in place in high education.” They also mentioned that they, “struggled with coming out as a trans and nonbinary person in a largely cis-heteronormative workplace.” This was by far one of the most valuable insights they could have given me, as a nonbinary person myself. While I know that most fields will be cis-heteronormative, it is encouraging to see such visible representation.

I also was able to interview Kathleen DeGuzman, an author and professor here at SFSU. This was another professor whose course I did not take; however, it was another instance where I felt seen as a person of color who is in the English program. Our conversation gave me additional insight into what my future in higher education could look like. I started by asking, “How did you know you wanted to pursue a career in the field you currently are working in?” She recalled how she spent a semester in London during college. It was here that her interest in the field of postcolonial studies was initially sparked, allowing her to be where she is now. She briefly mentioned how she had always loved literature and knew she wanted to major in English; this reassures me about my path as I feel confident in my passion for literature. I asked Professor DeGuzman, “Was teaching your first career choice? Did you consider other career paths?” She said that being a professor was her first career choice, but that she also wanted to be a filmmaker when she was younger. She said, “Even now, I write about film in my scholarly work… I’ve come to see my roles as an educator and as a scholar as practices of storytelling.” I hope that if I do end up teaching, I too can see my work as storytelling. Like Professor DeGuzman, I aspire to pursue what I love and incorporate other interests into my scholarly pursuits.

With the help of the interviews, I was able to get a better understanding of what I want and what I can expect for my future. My ideal self would be someone who is openly themselves; someone who has stopped hiding and running as they learned to truly love themselves. My ideal self is doing something they love. I want to become an English teacher of some sort, whether that be in high school or a college professor, I am not sure yet. I want to teach and I want to help people experience the comfort I do when reading or writing. I predict that I will be teaching in the future and that I will be happy in my career. I will be with someone I truly love, someone who accepts me for who I am. I will have cut out the people who do not support me or my identity and be surrounded by those who do. A lot of this contrasts with my “ought self,” the person people expect and want me to be. My ought self would have gotten a degree in psychology or sociology. My ought self would be working in a corporation that pays well and has good benefits. I wouldn’t be very happy as my ought self; if I was my ought self I would be the person my mom wants me to be. I would be straight and cisgender and I wouldn’t be disconnected from my family. I would feel trapped if I was my ought self.

I want to be happy. I want to do what I like, rather than what other people tell me to do. I have spent so much of my life running from everything and I am tired of it. I want to run towards myself. I want to run towards my future and not away from it. To do so, I have to run away from the doubts that keep me behind. I am eager for my future, though it is still unclear what exactly it will look like. All that matters is that I am moving forward. I am only able to move forward now because I am here, studying English at San Francisco State University.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Yvone Perez is finishing their fourth year at SFSU. They wrote this paper for English 216 with Professor Caroline Casper. The assignment asked students to connect a defining moment in their life with an animal. The inspiration for their paper stems from their college experience and the lessons it taught them.

Yvone Perez
The Dangerous Comfort Zone

I have had a fascination with chameleons ever since my parents took me to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park and I watched the creatures blend perfectly into their environments. Though I was just a young girl, I remember feeling envious of their ability to protect themselves by changing the color of their bodies. I did not know it then, but I would be mirroring this self-protection ability on my own in a number of different ways later in my life.

The first time I consciously remember changing myself for protection was in college during the recruitment process of joining a sorority. This was my first mistake in college. I was trying to be like every other girl who seemed popular. I was convinced that if I dressed, spoke, and associated with certain fraternities, I would find happiness at my new school. I never thought that I would become one of the statistics we often hear about in the news, but becoming a statistic would ultimately lead me to law school.

Being like a chameleon stripped me of my individuality. Changing the person I was, did not make me safer, as it so often does for chameleons. Nobody warned me that San Diego State University’s sorority recruitment was similar to that of Southern state colleges: grueling. The process forces so many women to forget who they were, just to be popular. The top sororities were not looking for individuality. They were looking to form a collective. A collective in which acceptance had everything to do with fitting into the mold—blonde hair and white skin with thousands of followers on Instagram.

I regret trying to fit their mold. I regret partying with the top fraternities and sororities, trying to get myself invited to exclusive events. I did not look like them. Although I am white-passing, I have dark features from my Mexican ancestors. I was the shortest one in my friend group, and I was the only one who was considered middle class. During SDSU’s Parent Weekend, my white friends’ parents would stay at the Hilton. My dad always chose Motel 6.

During my sophomore year, I was sexually assaulted. I was so inebriated that I do not remember the fraternity boy ever getting on top of me. If not for my best friend Mia accidentally walking into the room, I do not know if I would have snapped out of the non-consensual sex that was happening. When I saw the surprise on her face, I felt guilty and ashamed. Her face allowed me to stop what had already happened and wrap myself in a blanket.

Eventually, the bruises disappeared and I thought, like a chameleon that is constantly changing itself for self-protection, that I could continue to pretend like everything was alright...

Women like Ruth Bader Ginsberg (RBG) have recently inspired me to educate myself on feminism and analyze women’s issues on a deeper level. I connect with her story because she said she initially did not go to law school for women’s rights, but for her own selfish reasons. She explained that she felt like she could do a lawyer's job better than how she saw them practicing law. I immediately connected to her statement because she was not always interested in women’s rights yet was interested in law. She did not act like a chameleon; she stood out from everyone. She graduated first in her class at Columbia law, became the first person on both Harvard and Columbia Law reviews, co-founded the first law journal on women’s rights, and co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU. Nothing about her accomplishments can truly be compared to another woman of her time.

After the assault, I tried to ignore what had happened. Eventually, the bruises disappeared and I thought, like a chameleon that is constantly changing itself for self-protection, that I could continue to pretend like everything was alright by acting like my friends, who were happy. However, two weeks later, I started crying in the shower and could not stop. I was surprised that the first person I told was someone I was not even close to. It was a housemate who was living with us, and I broke down in front of her while she was eating dinner. I said, “I am not okay.” I realized I just needed someone to listen to me at that moment.

I was scared nobody was going to believe me because I waited to say something and did not report the assault immediately. But I eventually told the school and the fraternity that the boy was a part of.

Before being sexually assaulted, I had little interest in educating myself on feminism. I went to Berkeley High School, a high school that is arguably one of the most vocal about liberal politics, including feminism, in the East Bay. However, I still was not interested in studying feminism on my own. I had never felt unsafe as a woman or a young girl in my household. I realized after my assault that the most inspirational people for me to follow were successful women in law like RBG. I did not know it at the time, but my interest in criminal law was beginning to grow. I found power and strength in educating myself about feminism through examples of women who created policy changes and were highly educated in the law.

During my research in deciding whether or not to report to law enforcement, I read the jury instruction for proving a sexual offender guilty and it left me feeling extremely disheartened. California Penal Code [CPC] § 261(a)(3) reads, “The defendant is not guilty of this crime if he actually and reasonably believed that the woman was capable of consenting to sexual intercourse, even if that belief was wrong” (CPC § 261(a)(3)).

So much of this criminal justice policy regarding sexual assault has an effect on me. I would like to go to law school, to become exceptionally successful, similar to RBG, and change policy to help survivors of sexual assault. Before being sexually assaulted, I created ideas for stable careers based on television shows, without having a real connection to the career choices I was interested in. Again, I was subconsciously imitating a chameleon based on the popular culture examples that I would see. But I now have a different perspective on life, given what happened to me in San Diego. I no longer want to be a chameleon for reasons like fitting in with a crowd that does not promote emotional growth for me. I have also educated myself more on feminists like RBG and have read books about feminism to further my emotional and intellectual growth.

My own self-realization has opened my eyes to being emotionally aware that it is okay to want to protect myself by acting like a chameleon at times. Although I have stopped changing the person I am to appease others and give importance to irrelevant ideas like popularity, I know now that it is a survival tactic. I cannot be too critical of myself for simply wanting to protect myself. However, I also recognize that protecting myself in dangerous situations is different than trying to fit in. It feels safe to be in my comfort zone, but I will not emotionally grow there. I am done trying to mirror the colors of others; I am finally willing to accept my own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nyla Raffety-Williams is a first-year Africana Studies major. She wrote this piece for “Writing the First Year: Finding Your Voice,” taught by Professor Justin Robinson. In this piece, Raffety-Williams explores experiences that influenced her racial identity development and how this motivated her to embark on a journey for justice as a criminal justice attorney.

Nyla Raffety-Williams
Experiences with Racial Identity Development

The first thing I remember is being too small—a mere six-year-old with no understanding of death or loss, too small to even attend his funeral. I was too small to understand why my mom was screaming over the phone and why my grandma wept as she sat in front of the TV. The headline “Black man shot dead by BART Police” was in big bright letters on the news, and the video that became his legacy was on repeat on what seemed to be every channel. My grandma hugged me to her side, tucking my head in so I wouldn’t see what was on the screen. But I heard it: “I’m going to tase him,” a popping sound, the screams of bystanders, “You shot me.” On January 1, 2009, at 2:15 A.M. I lost my uncle to police brutality. It would take me five years to fully understand what happened that night and another three to begin implementing my plan to do something about it. I first had to educate myself, which started in high school when I joined the Race, Policy, and Law Academy at Oakland Tech. The murder of my uncle and the knowledge I gained from being a part of the RPL Academy at Oakland Tech is my motivation for embarking on my journey to achieve justice and a more equitable legal system for people of color, especially Black people.

My uncle was murdered because of a cop’s carelessness and ignorance about his skin color; it was from losing him that I learned skin color matters. Although I was able to assimilate to some degree, I was always treated differently because I was the only Black person in my neighborhood and elementary school. It wasn’t until my uncle’s murder that I understood why my teachers and peers would bully me. Why I was always singled out for scolding and punishments. Why my teacher allowed another student to punch me in the stomach and not say anything about it until my mom discovered the bruise. It was because I was Black; I was an other. The one and only in that community. I spent the rest of my time at that school reserved and consumed by self-loathing. I had been programmed to be ashamed of myself and my Blackness, but my environment shifted when I got to middle school. Everyone was like me, all students of color and I finally felt like I belonged. I went from being the one and only to being one of many.

At this middle school, I was introduced to much more positive narratives about my Blackness; they greatly contrasted the ones I had been force-fed in the past. I was motivated to accept the fact that I could not only graduate high school but also go to and graduate college. I began to learn more authentically about my culture and accept and love my culture as a part of me. However, while I was learning to accept myself, more people were being murdered by police officers for being themselves. People like Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice were murdered like my uncle. I became consumed by outrage and grief for the lives lost; I had an overwhelming desire to do something, but I wasn’t yet sure of what I could do. What could I expect to do as a mere 11-year-old? I was still too small.

I began to learn more authentically about my culture and accept and love my culture as a
part of me.

The anger and outrage remained, but the hopelessness I felt faded in high school. There, I became aware of the power I had and began making decisions that seemed insignificant at the time but inspired me to take my first steps towards making a change. In a moment of rebellion against my family, I applied for the Race, Policy, and Law Academy (RPL) at Oakland Tech instead of the Engineering Academy. I had doubts that I would even be accepted to the academy since I was originally waitlisted for Oakland Tech. However, I was indeed accepted, and I’m glad that I was. In the beginning, I was not sure what the relevance of this academy would entail in terms of courses, but as I went along, I began to better understand and grow passionate about the issues we discussed. My first course in this academy examined how the law in all its forms mistreats and discriminates against minorities, and has done so historically. I began to understand better what needed to be done for proper justice to be achieved. More people of color had been murdered, and this horrific trend of police brutality showed no signs of ceasing. RPL provided me with the knowledge and opportunities that would allow me to make a change. It was during my time at RPL that I attended my first protest against police brutality. It occurred in response to the murder of Stephon Clark; at this protest, I became aware of the power my voice held. Being in RPL encouraged me to be vocal about injustice and it was here I decided to be a lawyer.

I’m in college now with everything I learned about policy, the legal system, and racism from RPL. I’m studying as an Africana Studies major and planning to double in Psychology later down the line. My knowledge and the pain of losing my uncle serve as my motivation. I’m going to continue to work towards my dream of being a Criminal Justice Attorney to diversify the legal field and make sure that people of color, especially Black people, are never made to fall victim to the system again. I’m no longer too small, and I’m eager for my journey for justice to continue.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Breanna Barton-Shaw is a junior at SFSU, transferring in from Los Angeles City College after receiving her associates degree in English. This collection of work was created for a community college class in 2021. Currently in the Comparative and World Literature department, she is a lifetime art hobbyist and delivers artwork during the furies of frustration and anxiety from current events. She works in charcoal and symbolism, inspired by Käthe Kollwitz.

Investigative Pieces

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mayer Adelberg is a graduating Communication Studies major at San Francisco State University. He wrote this essay for his Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement course entitled “Writing About Environmental Rhetoric,” taught by Nico Peck.

Mayer Adelberg
Exploring the Intersection of Musicology, Sustainability, and Preservationism

Introduction

In 1970, Peter Matthiessen wrote, “Out here on the flat Valley floor there is nothing left of nature; even the mountains have retreated, east and west” (Wald). That same year, Joni Mitchell came out with her song “Big Yellow Taxi;” in it, she mentions the issue that Rachel Carson writes of in Silent Spring and what Matthiessen was so concerned about: the toxic and destructive pesticides that plague the Central Valley and beyond.
Forty-two years later, in his book Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment, anthropologist Mark Pedelty asks, “How might music actually promote and inspire the sort of collective action needed to make our towns, cities, and nations more sustainable?” (Pedelty). In his work, he looked at multiple pieces of so-called environmental music, or music that helps or harms the environment. In this paper, I will amalgamate the implications of ecology, sustainability, preservationism, toxicity, and social action, and the impact music has on all of these topics and more.

Background

Joni Mitchell’s 1970 hit “Big Yellow Taxi” came to her during a vacation in Hawaii. In a Los Angeles Times interview with Robert Hillburn entitled “Both Sides, Later,” she recalled that from her hotel window she “saw...beautiful green mountains in the distance,” looked down, and saw “a parking lot as far as the eye could see” (Hillburn). The song criticizes anthropocentric environmental ideology and profiting from environmental hoarding or destruction. Mitchell’s archived website defines some of the lyrics that may be more ambiguous to some listeners, especially those unfamiliar with Hawaii. The “pink hotel,” for instance, refers to the Royal Hawaiian in Honolulu, and the “tree museum” she describes is the Foster Botanical Garden, a museum that despite protecting and maintaining “native Hawaiian flora and endangered species” charges visitors a five-dollar admission fee. Mitchell writes about all the ways in which preservationism was not a priority in 1970s Hawaii (the efforts were directed at tourism) even the mainland United States, apparent in her criticism of the carcinogenic pesticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, an agricultural insecticide until the United States banned its use in 1972. Overall, and to this day, the bulk of “Big Yellow Taxi” is a critique on then-common environmental practices.

In between this critique, or perhaps lying on top of it, is Mitchell’s famous lyric about the realities of paving over paradise to “put up a parking lot.” This phrase, now an anthem for environmentalists and ubiquitous in environmental rhetoric, appears in dozens of journal articles and research papers and has appeared in essentially every cover of the song despite other profound lyrical changes. The lyric, appearing and reappearing nine times in a song only two minutes and sixteen seconds long, most importantly emphasizes and communicates preservationism and conservationism in not only its historical definition of “leaving the environment in a better state than the condition he or she found it” but also in its dominant and most contemporary sense, where “viewing humankind as an inherently intrusive interloper upon nature” (Harding).

Analytical Method

As recommended by Sonja Foss in her text Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice, I approached ideological analysis by first identifying the elements of my artifact, in this case, Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi:” paradise, trees, money, the birds and the bees, hotels, and hotspots. In identifying associations with these elements, I recognized inanimate and animate versions of living and non-living beings, protection, destruction, and toxicity. Formulating ideas out of these associations, I thought of the environment, human nature, ecology, air quality, breathing, walking barefoot, listening to nature without interference, and music. Finally, constructing ideologies from these ideas, I thought of preservationism and sustainability. This method was excellent for understanding how to transition from elemental items to ideologies.

Research Question

How does a song communicate preservationism and sustainability?

Report of Findings

Music, sustainability, and preservationism are three unique but intertwined facets of ecology. One could consider music as a means of listening to the environment. Others may consider the origins of musical instruments and their ties to native Brazilian Pernambuco wood (Titon). Some may be reminded of pieces of music that tie us directly to the world outside, such as Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons; many more might think of music and ecology as being tied together only when songs specifically mention the environment.

To consider the intersection of songs, preservationism, and sustainability, I believe it is only fair to begin with the natural world and the sources of how we make and play music. This, as Jeff Titon puts it in his book Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays, considers “music’s direct impact on the environment” (Titon). After all, the communication of music likely begins before music is created—this originates in sources of materials and wealth—and is mostly composed of trees. Trees, as Mitchell alludes to, are elements of the natural world that have occasionally been hidden from the public for a fee. As described in the introduction, one lyric in “Big Yellow Taxi” refers to the Foster Botanical Garden. Peter Crane, in his 2013 book Ginkgo: The Tree That Time Forgot, notes how this type of preservation and conservation, known as ex situ conservation, “is a key tool to preserve plant diversity for the long term” but falls short because it “cannot preserve the processes that maintain species in their natural habitat, nor can it sustain the ecological services provided by the community of which the species is part” (Crane). Ex situ conservation still potentially removes native flora from its natural habitat—in reality, so does using trees for musical instruments. In our current digital stage, it is possible to distance music from the environment, but truly only electronic music succeeds in this futile task. Guitars, pianos, bassoons, clarinets, and percussive instruments are sourced from around the world, sometimes removing the culture from the music. In contrast, when the Chopi of Mozambique created a xylophone in the presence of English ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey, Tracey emphasizes in a journal article entitled “Wood Music of the Chopi” how, “all the materials used in the making of this instrument, such as various woods, beeswax, palm-leaf string and resonators of hard shelled fruits, were collected within a few miles of the makers' village” (Tracey). However, it is sometimes arguably acceptable for music to communicate ecology when the materials are respected by the creators, even if the origins are different from the destination. For instance, in describing their soundboard, the esteemed piano company Steinway & Sons writes that Sitka spruce is “the most resonant wood available.” This spruce, combined with “the rigidity of hard rock maple,” creates the foundation for the “instrument’s superior tone” (Steinway & Sons, n.d.). (As an aside, my immediate family owns a 1954 Steinway & Sons that has been passed down through three generations. In comparison with today's Yamaha or Kawai pianos, simply looking at the wood of a Steinway makes one understand the complexity and care required to build one. Playing it is an entirely different, surreal experience.) From start to finish, it takes over one year to create a Steinway & Sons piano (Bambarger), and despite the removal of wood from nature to form the piano, the emotion conveyed through the quality and the player often signifies so much more than chopping down a chair; through craftsmanship, the quality and relatively local sources of the wood, and the artisanship that is required to construct it, nature, quite subjectively, flows freely through the music. It is through this sort of skilled creation that allows music to be interpreted as one with the music as opposed to a separate entity. Consequently, preservation is, at least in part, communicated by the music that emerges from fine instrumentation.

This is the music of the forest, and it is vast and wide and ever-changing and everlasting—much like nature itself.

Beyond their ability to convey meaning simply through instrumentation, songs and music can also inspire action. During the process of writing his book, Pedelty and an analyst conducted research about music fan blogs, more specifically activists, about “their musical interests and motivations” (Pedelty). He noted, “surprisingly,” that “72% of the activists” drew “important information from songs” (Pedelty). This information likely influenced their understanding of the natural world and provided a new perspective, which may be why “a 23-year old stated that … Big Yellow Taxi … inspired her to ‘work towards having a more sustainable campus’” and also may be why a “57-year-old explained that … Big Yellow Taxi” provided “inspiration during a struggle to keep development in Fremont, California from destroying 1,000 acres of local farmland” (Pedelty). Other songs that Pedelty heard were Neil Young’s After the Garden and Prairie Wind, Men They Couldn’t Hang’s Midnight Train, and even Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land. Additionally, Pedelty writes how activists “think about global music, even when their activism is mainly local” (Pedelty). Although “few North American popular songs are explicitly about environmental issues” and “the same songs get cited over and over,” music conveys preservationism, activism, and ecological awareness simply by existing in the mainstream, regardless of its dominance (Pedelty).

Not all ecological songs or those about preservationism, nor the feelings that arise from this music, come from what may be construed as the abstract. Many songs are wonderfully and blatantly about ecology, preservationism, and sustainability. For instance, even without lyrics, one knows that Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is delineated into Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter; one can feel these seasons within each piece of music. This would be an example of how some ecomusicologists approach this subject: by considering how “music as a representation of nature” and how music interacts with nature (Titon). This first approach is a prime example of The Four Seasons, as it does not interact but solely represents nature. Representing nature, much like defending it, communicates preservationism in the wholest way. The latter approach, however, is much more of an example of a relatively “new breed” of ecomusicology that has begun to “articulate an interest in social just as well as environmentalism in their work” (Schippers & Bendrups). I would argue that this “new breed” is directly reflecting upon the current style of ecological music making waves not only in the music industry but also in a world of newfound —perhaps, newly reignited—social justice and social action.

Of all the songs that explicitly promote preservationism and sustainability, and especially those that also promote social justice, The 1975’s 2019 lead single “The 1975” springs to mind. (The band name is the same as the song title.) A combination of original music and spoken word, the song is an in-your-face ecological message delivered primarily by activist Greta Thunberg. While most other musical genres and artists would weave messages into other lyrics (i.e. Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”), The 1975 took a direct approach to ensure a “formal documentation of her words” (Daniel) and to “see her exist formally in pop culture” (The 1975). It is in this case that music itself interacts with nature; when songs reach a level of promoting preservationism, sustainability, social action, and ecology, all that is left is simply taking action—the song inspires, maybe even pleads, action.

Contribution to the Research

This paper contributes to the research in how it sums a large number of research papers into one digestible format that reflects not only on preservationism and sustainability but on ecology, humanity, ecomusicology, social justice, and social action. I explored the intersection of all of the aforementioned topics and reflected on the culture of music and ecomusicology as they relate to the broader topic of music and ecological preservationism. Thus, this research contributed to the understanding of ecological preservationism from specific musical standpoints—a pop song, a romantic ballad, a hard rock song, or a classical violin piece—and how each of these can engage and transform not only music and its potential power but the way one interacts with the sound in her environment.

If a tree falls in a forest, it does make a sound—a big one. If nothing else, this paper hypothesizes and argues that the sound of a tree falling is not only heard but felt by the environment as the sound waves ripple through the surrounding areas. This is the music of the forest, and it is vast and wide and ever-changing and everlasting—much like nature itself.

Conclusion

Stella Čapek brilliantly articulates how “Mitchell set to music the classic tensions between natural landscapes and the built environment” and how “her lyrics describe a fast, one-way process of destruction that erases nature in its wake” (Čapek). The destruction of nature truly is a one-way process. Matthiessen concludes his writing by remarking how “the green fields” of the Central Valley “are without life,” yet how “pressed toads as dry as leaves gave evidence in death that a few wild things still clung to life” (Wald). Perhaps—and this may be a wildly out-of-reach dream—there is still hope. Perhaps, there is hope that those influenced by Mitchell’s music are still affected by her words; that the sounds of musical instruments built from the natural environment are heard worldwide; that the DDT Mitchell sings of is never to be used again; that ex situ conservation continues healthily; and that the music of nature remains in the mainstream for eternity.

Works Cited

The 1975. (2020, May 22). Notes On A Conditional Form (Apple Music, Ed.) [Album description on the Apple Music album]. In Album Notes.
  Notes On A Conditional Form. Retrieved May 13, 2021, from https://music.apple.com/us/album/notes-on-a-conditional-form/1473599936

Bambarger, B. (2018, August 23). What It Takes to Make a Steinway Grand Piano. Playbill. Retrieved May 10, 2021, from
  https://www.playbill.com/article/what-it-takes-to-make-a-steinway-grand-piano

Čapek, S. M. (2012). Exploring an Urban "Partnership-with-Nature" Frame. The Sociological Quarterly, 53(4), 566–584.
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/41679737

Crane, P. (2013). Ginkgo: The Tree That Time Forgot. Yale University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bhvn.39

Daniell, M. (2020, May 22). The 1975's Matty Healy talks new LP, Greta Thunberg and life under lockdown. Toronto Sun. Retrieved May 13, 2021,
  from https://torontosun.com/entertainment/music/the-1975s-matty-healy-talks-new-lp-greta-th unberg-and-life-under-lockdown

Foss, S. K. (2009). Ch. 7. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice, 4th edition. Waveland Press: Long Grove, Illinois.

Harding, R. (2008, October 2). Conservationist or Environmentalist? Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Retrieved May 4, 2021, from
  https://www.mackinac.org/9852

Hendry, J. (2003). Mining the Sacred Mountain: The Clash Between the Western Dualistic Framework and Native American Religions. Multicultural
  Perspectives, 5(1), 3 – 10.

Hillburn, R. (1996, December 8). Both Sides, Later. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-08-ca-6804-story.html

Mitchell, J. (1970). Big Yellow Taxi. On Ladies of the Canyon. Reprise Records, Inc.

Pedelty, M. (2012). Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment. Temple University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bt8qd

Schippers, H., & Bendrups, D. (2015). Ethnomusicology, Ecology and the Sustainability of Music Cultures. The World of Music, 4(1), 9–19.
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/43561463

Steinway & Sons. (n.d.). The Diaphragmatic Soundboard: The Heart of the Steinway Tone, Color and RIchness. Steinway &
  Sons. https://www.steinway.com/news/articles/the-diaphragmatic-soundboard-the-heart-of-the-s teinway-tone-color-and-richness/

Titon, J. T. (2020). Toward a Sound Ecology. Indiana University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv14npk5q.16

Tracey, H. (1964). Wood Music of the Chopi. Journal of the International Folk Music Council, 16, 91. https://www.jstor.org/stable/835090

Wald, S. D. (2016). The Nature of California: Race, Citizenship, and Farming since the Dust Bowl. University of Washington Press.
  https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwn2r8.10

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jared Bautista is a first-year business management major, and this piece was written for Professor Jason Andrew Jackl. As someone who both frequently uses the internet and studies the concepts of business and economy, this paper was extremely important to Jared. One of the biggest inspirations his writing were the words of Jia Tolentino, author of "The I In the Internet."

Jared Bautista
Mined Your Business

In the eyes of corporations, humans are comparable to coal, a resource meant to be mined and profited off of. The internet of today is a trap and a drug. It is a trap that holds its victims in a cycle of fiending for new information and personal affirmations every second of the day. It is a drug, not only in its addictive properties but in its decay of mental health as well. It’s difficult to escape the trap or quit the drug because everyone's trapped and everyone's doing it. The first step in the right direction is acknowledging the problem. So, what is it? I would argue that the new internet has derailed from its original purpose of fostering creativity and inspiration into a toxic coal mine of human data for the sake of money; while some may say such claims are inaccurate, I maintain that the happiness and safety of the user are no longer important to large internet corporations.

There’s clear and present danger in a version of the internet in which the wellbeing of the user is no longer of any concern.

Corporations are designed to dig and pry at our thoughts for the monetary benefit of others. Big businesses sell probability, betting on the chance that you’ll purchase the product that you are shown. Fewer, big-name product brands tend to benefit far more from mainstream media while smaller companies struggle to stay afloat. In an episode of the podcast Offline, a society and culture podcast centered around conversations about social media, guest and New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino says that it is, "our desire to be seen and to be loved, this is, the coal that is to be mined, and we are the mountain, and our heads are going to be taken off" (Favreau). In more ways than one, larger organizations like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram benefit from the mind-numbing that comes from aimlessly browsing the internet. While we’re aimlessly scrolling through misinformation, gossip, and fake news of all kinds, our habits, thoughts, and information are constantly refreshed and sold off to companies that could make use of them. The more we expose ourselves to the internet the more it understands us and what we look forward to seeing. It shapes algorithms that make it routine to refresh our feeds, and check who’s liked, commented, or viewed our posts and others. Tolentino goes on to talk about how this design leads to an extreme reliance on personal affirmation through praise from other social media users and constant new information that only fuels the cycle of data being sold off. It doesn't always feel as bad as it's displayed here. Being given advertisements that are within one’s interests, might not seem harmful. What is unhealthy, however, is the reliance on new and up-to-date information that often isn't even useful, along with personal affirmation from things like “likes” and “retweets.” It creates a fear of becoming out of touch, a fear of being disconnected from the rest of the world. Beyond the fear of being left out, there’s a “like” number and a comment section that determines whether or not one feels good about the way they look. As someone who neither posts nor comments on social media, I originally felt pretty safely distanced from the toxic sides of the internet. In hindsight, I still spend a terrible amount of time digesting worthless information for no one's benefit but the higher-ups who will sell my information. The problem is not that there’s money being made off of our behavior per se, but rather how our behavior is changed so that it can be the most profitable.

The business models of large corporations have turned the human mind and its data into resources to be mined, monetized, and sold like coal. Justin Rosenstein, one of the tech experts interviewed in The Social Dilemma, a documentary that unfolds the danger in social networking, argues that, “We live in a world in which a tree is worth more, financially, dead than alive, in a world in which a whale is worth more dead than alive... What's frightening and what’s hopefully the last straw that will make us wake up as a civilization is to see that we’re the whale, we’re the tree" (The Social Dilemma 01:25:31-01:25:37). He brings up the idea that so long as a dead whale or tree has more monetary value than one that is alive, we will continue to knowingly destroy the planet. What Rosenstein means is that by calling attention to the direct negative impacts social media has had on people we will, in turn, recognize what similar business models are doing to our environment. While Rosenstein maintains that there is a solution to the short-term thinking that's been fostered by social media, he later goes on to say he highly doubts we will recover as a society. Similarly. Tristan Harris, another tech expert in the film, is reluctant to say whether or not we will achieve what it takes to change the direction of social media and instead maintains that we just have to. There’s clear and present danger in a version of the internet in which the wellbeing of the user is no longer of any concern.

Every click, swipe, and tap of yours and mine have been recorded and sold to the highest bidder. In the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” author Nicholas Carr argues that with the increasing involvement of technology in our lives, our attention spans have been diminished in order for companies like Google to make a profit off of it (Carr). In discussing how our brains should work like high-speed data processing machines, Carr claims that, "the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements” (Carr), Distractions are created by the data left behind when we click a link. The advertisements hand-picked and shown to us are meant to lead us away from deep and undisturbed reading, as it is in their best economic interest to keep us bouncing off links. We’re fed information that we like, information that we want to see and will continue to click for. Though I don't necessarily believe this is making us “stupid,” as we remain reading through countless tidbits of information just lacking the rich connection of undistracted reading. However, there’s an issue much larger than this at play, and it lies in the design of the trap. By feeding into our biases and only reading information that we want to hear, we become radically different from one another. Nevertheless, the internet has no concern for its users nor the looming problems it puts into motion.

So now what? Are we trapped and drugged, never to become more than coal, a resource to be mined and profited off of? No, we’re not, but there is a need for sudden and dramatic change. I do not believe this is a sign to pull the plug on the internet; the internet has undoubtedly solved countless problems and uplifted the voices of people who otherwise would've gone unheard. What needs to be kept in check is what spreads easiest– misinformation– and the idea that what is said on the internet is automatically true. Instagram has already implemented a fact-checking AI into its system, but I believe it's still far from good enough. Confirmation bias, or the idea that we are more likely to believe information that supports our beliefs, should not be used as a tool against us; it must be acknowledged and fought against. How can we keep the benefits of the internet without harming its users? While there may not be a single adequate answer, I conclude it starts with stepping away from greedy business models. Prioritizing the happiness and well-being of its users is a must. Corporations must stray away from a model that seeks to advertise things like beauty products and diet plans disguised as body positivity. Recognizing our biases and human faults will allow us to be more open-minded and unify as a collective. We can start by using the internet to incentivize breaks and emphasize the value of real-world connections. It’s not too late to save our generation and the next.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, July/August 2008 issue, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-
google-making-us-stupid/306868/, Accessed 7 Mar. 2022.

Favreau, Jon, host. “Jia Tolentino on the Internet’s Endless Stage.” Offline, season one, episode zero, Crooked Media, 24 October 2021,
https://crooked.com/podcast-series/offline/.

The Social Dilemma. Directed by Jeff Orlowski, interview by Justin Rossenstein, 2020. Netflix.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nathan Burns (they/he) is a current third year Sociology major and LGBTQ Studies minor. They originally wrote this paper for SOC 300GW: Sociological Analysis with Dr. Valerie Francisco in Spring of 2021. The theme of the class was "Mobilities and Kinship," focusing on immigration and family. As a queer person and someone dedicated to queer studies and intersectional work, Nathan decided to write their paper on LGBTQ Latinx immigrants and mental health.

[headshot description at request of author]
Nathan Burns smiles for the camera. They are a white nonbinary person with short dirty blond hair.
They are wearing square black glasses, a septum piercing, and a thick black jacket over a grey sweater.

Nathan Burns
Fighting Isolation Through Community

For many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or otherwise queer (LGBTQ) Latinx immigrants, feelings of disconnect from both the LGBTQ and Latinx communities can occur. For some, their immigrant communities can prove to be homophobic or transphobic, while the larger LGBTQ community in the U.S. can prove to be racist or xenophobic, meaning that they have no one to turn to—isolation which can have negative effects on mental health. Queer Latinx immigrants often deal with conflict within family, social isolation, and legal conflicts due to their intersectional identities. As a result, they do not have access to the resources needed to alleviate these stressors. While the community has been resilient despite such effects, LGBTQ immigrants need dedicated resources, including economic allocation to community efforts, policy change, and future research on the mental health of LGBTQ immigrants.

The intersection of queer identity, socioeconomic status, and cultural influence come together to create a variety of reasons someone may immigrate to a new country. Immigrants choose to leave their home country for a variety of reasons, including fear for their safety and better prospects for the family. For queer Latinx immigrants specifically, financial opportunities are often a prominent reason. It is impossible to analyze the financial reasons for queer immigrants immigrating as its own subject because social location inherently affects a person’s socioeconomic opportunities, as Lionel Cantú writes in “A Place Called Home: A Queer Political Economy of Mexican Immigrant Men's Family Experiences” (265). For example, prejudice may influence someone’s decision on whether or not to hire a woman of color. For some queer Latinx immigrants, social pressures also prove to be a reason for immigrating as the gender roles taught to children in their home countries are limiting and conflict with their identity (Cantú 264). In these cases, the hope is that the new country’s cultural expectations will allow them to be free from pressures faced in their home country. Whether the main motivation is economic or cultural, queer Latinx immigrants immigrate in search for a better life.

Upon arriving to the United States, queer Latinx immigrants face new challenges. Many queer Latinx people, immigrant or not, experience disconnect from the American LGBTQ community. In “Being out to others: The relative importance of family support, identity and religion for LGBT latina/os,” Antonio Pastrana emphasizes how many LGBTQ Latinx people choose to remain in the closet due to “dominant discourses and stereotypes of racialized LGBT identities that often excludes Latina/os” (104). The lack of support and community available impacts the ability to seek community and thus many queer Latinx immigrants remain isolated. This is especially true for undocumented immigrants. Because of the dangers of being an outwardly undocumented person, many undocumented immigrants remain very private about their lives, including their queer identity, as Jesus Cisneros and Christian Bracho write in “Coming Out of the Shadows and the Closet: Visibility Schemas Among Undocuqueer Immigrants.” Familial and cultural attitudes against queer identity also feed into feelings of isolation (Cantú; Pastrana; Cisneros and Bracho). Queer Latinx immigrants may face a lack of support from their old and new countries, families, and the communities they encounter in the United States.

Previous literature highlights the ways in which queer identity and immigration status intersect and create new problems for queer Latinx immigrants. This research is necessary to understand the nuances of this intersection and the ways these identities affect day to day lives of these communities. These unique struggles cause feelings of isolation from their communities due to exclusion and prejudices, and thus future research needs to address such effects. This lack of support can lead to queer Latinx immigrants feeling isolated. As described in Nicole Grey et al.’s paper “Community Connectedness, Challenges, and Resilience Among Gay Latino Immigrants,” which interviews gay Latino immigrant men, for queer Latinx immigrants, inhabiting a multitude of marginalized identities “was seen as a source of conflict and potential stress” (208). Being at the intersection of their various identities, queer Latinx immigrants face hurdles from many directions. The consistent conflict between their identities creates forms of stress, tension, and isolation that can be damaging to mental health as stated in “Life in the pandemic: Social isolation and mental health” by Kim Usher et al.

... It is important to note that queer Latinx immigrants have historically found ways to be resilient in the face of such isolation.

Within this literature, there is a significant gap in researching the effects of this damage. Previous generic physiological and psychological analysis can offer assumptions as to these effects; however, the direct research is sparse. Future research must narrow its focus and explore the mental health of queer Latinx immigrants. In Gray et al.’s paper, it is specifically mentioned that their sample of interviews possibly “underestimate[s] the severity and prevalence of problems” queer Latinx immigrants face (210). While their study highlights how this community looks out for themselves, the direct effects on mental health are merely touched on via one interview in which a subject discloses his previous thoughts of suicide (210). Future research can aid stakeholders in crafting possible cultural and infrastructure changes to address the needs of LGBTQ Latinx immigrants. In the following section I explore ways the field can move forward, the benefits of such research, as well as ways in which these communities have been resilient.

Amongst the few pieces of literature that do touch on the subject, many focus on LGBTQ asylum seekers, those who have fled their home country due to persecution, and the effects on their mental health. In both Rebecca Hopkinson et al.'s “Persecution Experiences and Mental Health of LGBT Asylum Seekers” and Romy Reading and Lisa Rubin’s “Advocacy and empowerment: Group therapy for LGBT asylum seekers,” they discuss the particular mental health challenges of queer asylum seekers. Researchers must understand asylum seekers’ experiences to better understand their needs and areas for improvement within the medical field, community organizing, and U.S. policy (Reading and Rubin; Hopkinson et al.). Asylum seekers often survive trauma and thus policy makers and healthcare professionals view their needs as more apparent and critical. Because their needs are more obvious, these communities are overrepresented in the field of research on LGBTQ immigrants. While such research is important, it is imperative to note that this research does not fully address the previously mentioned gap in the literature—not all LGBTQ asylum seekers are Latinx, and not all queer Latinx immigrants are seeking asylum. While this literature does give some insight into the intersection between queer identity and immigration status, it does not fully cover the scope of experiences felt by queer Latinx immigrants. Researchers must explore these communities further.

Despite such effects on mental health and this gap in literature, it is important to note that queer Latinx immigrants have historically found ways to be resilient in the face of such isolation. Being at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities results in unique challenges and struggles, but also affords unique ways of connecting that otherwise would not be present (Gray et al. 213). Queer Latinx immigrants are able to form bonds that help them survive despite isolation from their communities. On the experience of queer Mexican men, Cantú cites the importance of chosen families as systems of support: “members of these ‘chosen families’ assist one another through the trials and tribulations of being a queer Mexican-immigrant man” (270). Studying queer identity in conjunction with immigration highlights the ways these communities adapt and seek support. The shared experience of being a queer Mexican-immigrant man is a source of connection for these found families and thus they are able to create their own support systems. While this work focuses solely on Mexican gay men, it applies to the queer Latinx community at large. Within each niche identity combination, and even transcending specific labels, queer Latinx immigrants are able to connect and be the support they are not getting elsewhere.

The future of research in LGBTQ studies, Latinx studies, and immigrant studies must bridge this gap in literature, and specifically the effects of this intersection on mental health. In researching this specific intersection, all three fields, as well as other fields that intersect with them, would benefit. Such research would allow for a better understanding of these communities and their intersection. It would also be a good resource for identifying ways in which the healthcare system can allocate mental health resources and how future government policy can be shaped.

For queer Latinx immigrants, their unique intersection of identities can lead to social isolation, which has effects on their mental health. While such groups have historically been resilient through a unique subculture rich in multiple forms of survival (Gray et al. 213), related academic fields have not done enough. Isolation and exclusion from communities is extremely damaging, especially when this exclusion is compounded with other prejudices. Because queer Latinx immigrants are at the intersection of multiple prejudices, resources at the national and community level are necessary to combat this isolation. The current state of policy, research, and community tensions mean that the state and healthcare system does not prioritize queer Latinx immigrants, and thus do not provide the resources they need. In “Identifying the Needs of LGBTQ Immigrants and Refugees in Southern Arizona,” Karma Chávez writes how queer Latinx immigrants are often unable to obtain healthcare, including mental health care, due to financial restraints, once again highlighting the connection between finances and the experience of queer immigrants (Cantú; Chávez 202). Future research must center the experiences and mental health struggles of queer Latinx immigrants. It would impact communities at the policy level, inform organizers on how to best serve their communities, and serve as a basis for future research. It would create an informed understanding of such intersections and pave the way for policy change in which the government and other bodies can allocate more resources for community building programs such as counseling, education, and sex and health workshops. These programs, and others that future research may suggest, would work to alleviate that isolation, improve the mental health, and help build community amongst queer Latinx immigrants.

Works Cited

Cant, Lionel. “A Place Called Home: A Queer Political Economy of Mexican Immigrant Men's Family Experiences.” Perspectives on Las Américas,
1 Jan. 2003, pp. 259–273., https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470753538.ch15.

Chávez, Karma R. “Identifying the Needs of LGBTQ Immigrants and Refugees in Southern Arizona.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 58, no. 2, 2011, pp. 189–218., https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2011.540175.

Cisneros, Jesus, and Christian Bracho. “Coming out of the Shadows and the Closet: Visibility Schemas among Undocuqueer Immigrants.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 66, no. 6, 2018, pp. 715–734., https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2017.1423221.

Gray, Nicole N., et al. “Community Connectedness, Challenges, and Resilience among Gay Latino Immigrants.” American Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 55, no. 1-2, 2015, pp. 202–214., https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9697-4.

Hopkinson, Rebecca A., et al. “Persecution Experiences and Mental Health of LGBT Asylum Seekers.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 64, no. 12, 2016, pp. 1650–1666., https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2016.1253392.

Pastrana, Antonio (Jay). “Being out to Others: The Relative Importance of Family Support, Identity and Religion for LGBT Latina/OS.” Latino Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 2015, pp. 88–112., https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2014.69.

Reading, Romy, and Lisa R. Rubin. “Advocacy and Empowerment: Group Therapy for LGBT Asylum Seekers.” Traumatology, vol. 17, no. 2, 2011, pp. 86–98., https://doi.org/10.1177/1534765610395622.

Usher, Kim, et al. “Life in the Pandemic: Social Isolation and Mental Health.” Journal of Clinical Nursing, vol. 29, no. 15-16, 2020, pp. 2756–2757., https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15290.

Kunj Sevak

Essays on Learning and Education

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Annie Dang is a first-year student currently studying Conservation Biology. Written for Professor Lee Chen-Weinstein’s English 105 class, the paper below encompasses the highs and lows of Dang’s journey through education and self-discovery, reflecting on the banking of education and referencing select chapters from Final Stories by Asao Inoue, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire, and Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks, that were discussed and analyzed in class.

Annie Dang
Critical Reflections on My Education

Education has always been a measure of one’s value; at least, that’s what I grew up to believe. Before I read the works of Asao Inoue, Paolo Freire, and bell hooks, all my critiques toward the education system were swept under the table by my teachers. They believed I was too young to understand, to be taken seriously, and that I was just trying to start problems. It was evident that my school faculty cared little about me as an individual, and that in turn molded in me a resentment for the education system, and the chain of other systems that follow. Questions I had regarding the purpose of certain teaching methods were always responded with aggression, and, as my former performing arts teacher said, “until [I] had a high school diploma, a college degree, and a teaching credential, [I didn’t] get a say on how [they] run a class.” This coupled with my peers passively, and perfectly, complying to the system led to the decline of my self-worth. However, the few educators and faculty that challenged the traditional teaching formula planted the seeds I needed to think critically as I grew.

In high school, I was notorious for skipping assignments. One year I skipped 30 homework assignments in math and still managed a B. It was hard finding a reason to work, and the thought of dropping out was always in the back of my mind. It’s not like I was necessarily bad at the subjects (in fact I understood them with ease), but these classes offered no value or expansion for how I was to apply these skills, and eventually it felt like I wasn’t learning anything at all. Math was always one of those subjects that had little to no value in the eyes of my peers and I, yet it remained at the top of the educational hierarchy. The key to succeeding in this field was to memorize different formulas for finding different outcomes, and to an extent it felt as if school treated our education as one giant math problem. Students were forced to go through a certain formula as variables only to be defined by the output of that single formula. Regardless of whether or not I actually learned anything from the class, all I was measured on was whether or not I could follow a formula, and perhaps it was this that caused me to refuse to do homework entirely. As administration focused less and less on the individuality of their students, I eventually gave up on education as a whole.

In sophomore year I was introduced to my English 2 teacher. She was new and she glowed with purpose and possibility. As always, we were assigned books to read and analyze, and while on my own I wouldn’t even bother to pick up the book, I found myself enjoying the story when given time to read in class. After we read, she would ask us questions regarding the text, the symbolism, the morality, and, most importantly, why we felt that way. The first book we read together was The Catcher in the Rye, and I remember the question she asked about the ducks in the winter. At first I thought it was silly, there were so many other things to talk about, so why the ducks? But then she told us about the fish in the lake, how it only freezes from the top and the fish can go on about their day below. Why did the fish get an easy pass while the ducks got an eviction notice? Here I was, thinking about the very same ducks I dismissed earlier, but there was something different. Next thing I knew, I was raising my hand for nearly every discussion, excited for the next activity, and actually eager to learn. I’ll never forget when I pointed out that in Lord of the Flies, there were three boys that died on the island even though they confessed to two when they were rescued at the end. Not even my teacher noticed that part! I thought to myself, “When did I become the smart one?” It was the first time I felt capable. My teacher held an open door, inviting all of her students to be a part of the conversation instead of watching it aimlessly. It was this welcomeness that made me feel worthy, and her compassion that strengthened my confidence as a student, scholar, and writer.

As always, we were assigned books to read and analyze, and while on my own I wouldn’t even bother to pick up the book, I found myself enjoying the story when given time to read in class.

   Although I found solace in the thought-provoking discussions offered in her class, I still struggled to bring myself to complete the papers she assigned, considering the fact that I despised the mere thought of an essay. Five paragraphs, including the introduction and conclusion, thesis statement clearly stated, attention grabber beginning, three cited quotes per body paragraph, analysis of the quote, transitioning conclusion, do I need to go on? There were always rules and structures that I had to abide by, and any slight deviation resulted in a grade deduction. What haunted me the most was the red pen on returned drafts. Condescending messages against my grammar, my word choice, my creative liberty always screamed silently in front of my eyes; it was as if the tip of their pen were striking me with every “error” they wrote down. And if I somehow did manage to avoid any corrections, there wouldn’t be any recognition for my efforts because “that’s what [we] were expected to do in the first place,” something I heard much too often from faculty and administrators. I found myself relating deeply to Asao Inoue; the way he viewed writing for an educator and how he described the suffocating, hostile environment he grew up in completely reflected my own childhood education. It wasn’t until grade 11 that I realized I was repressing my own sense of self; I was living my life trying to please others instead of formulating my own thoughts, ideas, and opinions, and subjecting myself to conform to whatever my authoritative figures stated as “correct.” I internalized all the mistakes, errors, and problems they had put on me to the point that I buried my identity entirely. I felt as if I couldn’t even verbalize the inner turmoil I was experiencing for fear of someone devaluing my emotions, and it seemed as if nothing I could say would ever be valid.

   Then, I was reminded of my English 2 teacher’s weekly journal entries, an activity that allowed us to reflect on anything that plagued our minds. I began writing down my own thoughts, pouring everything that ached my heart out onto a blank slate. While it took some time for me to realize that what I wrote didn’t need to be perfect, that this process was for none other than me, for the first time my feelings had space to be acknowledged fully, and though there was no one on the other end of my telegraphs, I felt like I had a support system. The blank pages of my notebook became my community, ready to listen to whatever it was that I needed to let go of, and they gave me an opportunity to step back and reflect on the issues that I was not able to see clearly before. No longer was my linguistic ability limited to the confines of educational standards; instead I was free to critique and analyze the deeper themes that roamed my mind, not having to worry about whether or not my writing met the checklists of criteria. Two acts so similar in practice greatly diverged in benefit, and from that difference blossomed within me a passion to redefine my views of what true knowledge really means.

   Slowly as I advanced through high school, I began reclaiming my education, finding ways to work around restrictions and recognizing failures in traditional teaching methods. I questioned everything I grew up learning, and as I learned to speak upon these critiques and analyses, I discovered firsthand how militant educational ideals really were. Remember the performing arts teacher I mentioned earlier? In my senior year, she assigned my class this poem to complete immediately after we had completed and performed a large monologue, one that exhausted me of my introspection. It was titled “I Am,” and asked us to fill in the blanks to several “I am” statements. At the time, I was struggling with extreme mental health issues, so all the answers that I put down were, to put it simply, depressing. I turned it in, hoping that would be the end of it, but then she wanted us to perform it with other classmates as well to create a “moving, united front” type of feel. How could I bring myself to admit to the entire class about how poorly I felt about myself, not to mention recite it beside close peers who wrote positive, empowering answers instead? I confided in my group members about this and decided that I couldn’t bring myself to perform this piece, so instead I was going to give a short apology to my classmates acknowledging this and let them go on without me afterwards. It seemed like such a simple plan, but this teacher was known for having a dictator-ish style of teaching and a fragile sense of authority, always reminding us that we were all replaceable. So when I went about the plan, she predictably interrupted my apology and told me that I have a right to my own opinion but I’m being disrespectful and disruptive. I proceeded to try and explain, but she wouldn’t give me the time of day and eventually kicked me out of class, granted it was on Zoom.

   Following the incident, I was required to have a mediation meeting with her to determine my status in that class, though it was less mediating and more her projecting every negative assumption she had about me for 15 minutes straight. Some of her words included, “your feelings don’t matter,” “all you want is attention,” and my personal favorite, “Nobody cares about you.” And the funniest part was that she expected me to apologize to her after that. In a class where creative liberty is at core, we were treated as props, removed of our artistic freedom, and forced to follow what she believed to be correct. Even though everyone felt this way, we all feared speaking up because of the repercussions and sheer power she had over us. I’m glad I found the courage to speak up because if I didn’t, I don’t think anyone ever would. Paulo Freire states in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.” While every single one of my classmates had the desire to speak up against my teacher, it was evident that the conditioning of passive compliance dominated their perception of their own significance (Freire, 73). I remember one of my classmates asking me after the incident, “Why didn’t you just bite the bullet?” Biting the bullet would just break my teeth. Is it really worth breaking all my teeth if I won’t be able to feed myself later? If education is supposed to prepare us to lead lives in the “real world,” then we should be given the opportunity to speak upon our assessments on our educational environment and promote constructive change with our administrators, working together to build a system committed to liberation, not domination.

   Knowledge isn’t just a measure of skill, but a fundamental part of living, so when we destroy that relationship through passive education, we lose the ability to connect our thoughts to our lives. Though the banking system is still prevalent in modern education, it’s individuals like my English teacher that strive to change the way we view our capabilities. Bridging the gap between scholar and educator, she demonstrated to me the wisdom we each are able to impose on each other and the universal duality of teaching and learning, acknowledging the humility that can exist within true education. And through the experiences of Inoue, Freire, and hooks, as well as my own, I can better understand the internal and external effects my educational past has had upon my own critical development.

Works Cited

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th anniversary ed.). Continuum.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Fay Harris is a freshman majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Music. She wrote this essay for her first-year English class with Professor Doreen Deicke. She enjoyed researching and learning more about study skills.

Fay Harris
Growth Mindset and Deliberate Practice: Success Strategies and How I Apply Them

   During the spring of 2020, I decided I wanted to audition for a music conservatory. I had only been playing piano for about four years and I was still working on my technique. My fingers were clumsy and stiff; they fumbled through most songs. When I would play, there would be an array of wrong notes and a confused tempo. Despite my limited ability, I set my sights on a specific conservatory. Thus began my audition journey. Once settling on my audition pieces: Debussy’s “Claire De L’un,” Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in C Major,” and one of Beethoven's Sonatas, I began to practice.

   It was an incredibly daunting task, but I knew that I could do it. All of the songs went smoothly, except for “Claire De L’un.” When I played it, it sounded wrong and stiff; I was struggling to understand the fluidity of the piece. It felt frustrating to devote all of my time to the piano and hear little to no improvement. As it began to feel more and more overwhelming, I reached out to my instructor and explained that practicing “Claire De L’un” felt hopeless. After I communicated my difficulties, he explained to me that it wasn’t hopeless and that I could learn this piece. He explained that it wasn't that I couldn't do it, or that I wasn't able to play the piece, but that I couldn't do it yet. With practice and devotion, I would be able to play “Claire De L’un” beautifully.

   My instructor worked with me to improve the piece, and eventually, he gave me the project of practicing it along with recordings. At first, this was a very difficult task. I would fall off the beat or play too loudly in the wrong parts. But after many hours of practicing this way (4-6 hours on a good day), it began to sound full and colorful. After nine months of practicing and studying other people’s performances, it was time to record my audition tapes. I recorded and submitted all of the songs. I was able to play through “Claire De L’un” smoothly and naturally, and even got accepted into the conservatory I had applied to. I always knew that with time and effort, I would be able to do it, and thankfully I was right.

   In the past, I have implemented successful strategies to be able to grow and improve my piano playing. Utilizing these strategies allowed me to stick with my practice, and gain a deeper understanding of the technique and ability required to play these songs. I have come to realize that these strategies have specific names: growth mindset, and deliberate practice. These skills helped me to stay positive and motivated while practicing in a way that produced results. I plan to continue utilizing these skills as I move forward with my piano practice and any of my other endeavors.

Without a growth mindset, I would have given up and lost one of the most important parts of my life.

   Looking back on my hard work, it's clear that a large factor in my success was a growth mindset. As described by Carol Dweck in an article written by Michelle Trudeau for NPR entitled, "Student’s View Of Intelligence Can Help Grades," a growth mindset is knowing that you can learn and that your brain can grow (Trudeau). This is the opposite of a fixed mindset: believing that you have a fixed amount of intelligence that can not be changed no matter how hard you work. A growth mindset helps students engage with their learning and to think about how their brain is actively forming new connections as they practice and work at a skill. A fixed mindset makes it so that students underestimate their ability to improve and grow. A growth mindset is advantageous over a fixed mindset in many situations. An example of this is a study that Dweck conducted using seventh-grade students as participants. She taught half of her test subjects about growth mindset, and the other half of the test subjects about study skills. After two years, Dweck found that the students who learned about growth mindsets had improved their math grades, compared to the students who learned about study skills, whose math grades had decreased. Being educated about the way that your brain grows and forms new connections can allow one to engage in one's learning more enthusiastically and can make it easier to feel confident in one's ability to learn.

   I used a growth mindset every time I or my piano instructor reminded me that I would be able to learn “Claire De L’un” if I continued to practice. I used a growth mindset when I didn't let my mistakes and constant failures discourage me, but instead actively decided to learn from them and try again. Although it was hard, while I was practicing “Claire De L’un” I constantly reminded myself that I would be able to learn the more advanced parts if I continued working on them. The middle section of the song was difficult for me. At times, it felt impossible. But I knew it wasn't, and with time I was able to learn the correct techniques. Soon, playing “Clair De L'un” became easier and easier until it was muscle memory.

   Without a growth mindset, I would have given up and lost one of the most important parts of my life. A fixed mindset would have been detrimental to my success and my passion because it would have meant that I did not believe that I could learn “Claire De L’un “with practice. Having a fixed mindset would have meant that I had a deep-rooted belief that even with effort, I would not be able to improve my technique. Such beliefs would have led to less practice and a negative perspective of my playing. Instead of focusing on my small successes, I would have focused on my failures. A growth mindset gave me the motivation to keep working at “Clair De L’un,” helping me to keep a positive mindset throughout the learning process. In turn, my growth mindset allowed me to continue practicing to gain the skills that I needed to pass my auditions and further my study of classical piano.

   A growth mindset is a success skill that I will continue to utilize. I am currently studying for a piano competition, and the song I am playing has fast-paced triplets that make my hands twist in uncomfortable ways. A quarter of the song consists of these complicated triplets, and playing them has been a formidable task. I have been remembering to visualize my brain forming new connections while I am practicing. Doing so encourages me to push past my mistakes without feeling discouraged. I have found that having a growth mindset keeps me motivated and excited for my practice, even when it feels hard. Over time, and with a lot of practice, using a growth mindset has become easier and now comes naturally to me.

   Deliberate practice is a skill that I have used during my time playing the piano that has allowed me to improve over a long period. Anders Ericsson, the author of The Making Of An Expert, is a psychologist who has studied how people become experts, believing that he has figured out the answer. A New York Times article, “A Star is Made,” describes Ericsson as, “[the] ringleader of what might be called the Expert Performance Movement, a loose coalition of scholars trying to answer an important and seemingly primordial question: When someone is very good at a given thing, what is it that actually makes him good” (Dubner and Levitt)? One of Ericsson’s earlier studies tested memory. He had a test subject recite as many specific numbers as he could. At first, he was able to recite seven numbers. Twenty hours of practice later, the test subject was able to recite 20 specific numbers in order. After 200 hours of practice, the test subject could recite up to 80 specific numbers. Ericsson later concluded that memory is a “cognitive exercise” (Dubner and Levitt), proving that, with practice, you can improve and strengthen your memory.

   Ericsson studied many people’s practice habits, from surgeons to expert pianists, and in the end, came to the conclusion that it was not inherent or genetic talent that made them great, but instead it was the way that they practiced. The experts that Ericsson observed all practiced the same way. Ericsson describes it in his book as, “[a] practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort” (Ericsson, K. Anders, et al.). Ericsson explains that when you practice things that are out of your comfort zone for extended periods and work with experienced coaches that teach you how to self-critique, you will improve. This method of study is called deliberate practice. Practicing skills that you are already comfortable with will not help you to improve; being blind to your deficiencies will not help you get better. When you practice deliberately, your skills will increase.

   The difference between non-deliberate practice and deliberate practice is in the environment a person is practicing in and their intentions while practicing. If you are practicing a skill that you already are comfortable with, teaching yourself new skills, and practicing sporadically, this would be considered non-deliberate practice. If you are practicing skills you are not comfortable with, learning under a skilled instructor, and practicing regularly, this would be deliberate practice. Deliberate practice involves a specific and detailed intention, while non-deliberate practice is more general. For example, if you are deliberately practicing chess, you might focus on a specific opening. You would repeatedly practice that same opening until you know it, then move on to another, more complicated opening. In comparison, if you are non-deliberately practicing chess, you would play a chess game or multiple chess games to play chess. Ericsson notes that having an enthusiastic and supportive environment is very important for learners. Having people that support you: family, friends, and instructors will help to keep you motivated and passionate about the subject you are studying (Ericsson, K. Anders, et al.). The main things that differentiate non-deliberate and deliberate practice are your environment, and more importantly, your intentions.

   Deliberate practice has already helped me in many ways. An example would be my preparation for piano auditions. I practiced every day for nine months and met with my instructor two to three times a week with a specific intention. I worked hard at technical piano skills that were out of my comfort zone while practicing regular self-assessment. I paid attention to areas where I was deficient and studied under an expert. Engaging in deliberate practice allowed me to improve the quality of my playing as well as my technical ability and succeed at my auditions.

   Moving forward I plan to deliberately practice unit conversion in chemistry. I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, and I am taking my first collegiate-level general chemistry class. It has been an amazing experience so far, but I have been struggling with unit conversion. I will use deliberate practice to improve my unit conversion skills over this semester. I will engage in deliberate practice by working through all of my chemistry textbook’s end-of-chapter questions that pertain to unit conversion, as well as working on weekly challenge questions provided by my professor. I will be meeting with my lecture professor weekly during office hours to clarify any questions that I have, and I will actively work on being aware of areas that I am lacking. This qualifies as deliberate practice because I will be practicing skills I am not comfortable with, unit conversion and the math that is involved, while studying under an expert, my professor, with the specific intention of learning how to convert between units commonly found in chemical equations.

   Thinking about how we successfully learn has given me an in-depth plan on how to move forward with my studies of piano and chemistry, as well as any other skills I wish to pursue. I now know the names of skills I have previously used, and have a deeper understanding of how to employ a growth mindset and deliberate practice in my current studies.

Works Cited

Summerskill, John. "Address to Faculty." University Archives, J. Paul Leonard Library, San Francisco State University. 1968-1969 San Francisco    State College Collection.

Dubner, Stephen J, and Steven D Levitt. “A Star Is Made.” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 7 May 2006,
   https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07wwln_freak.html.

Ericsson, K. Anders, et al. “The Making of an Expert.” Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Publishing, 1 Aug. 2014
   https://hbr.org/2007/07/the-making-of-an-expert.

Trudeau, Michelle. “Students' View of Intelligence Can Help Grades.” NPR, National Public Radio, Inc., 15 Feb. 2007.
   https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7406521&sc=emaf.

About the Editors

aleah antonio

aleah antonio is one of three editors for Sutro Review. She is a Liberal Studies major and a rising SFSU senior from Los Angeles, California. As an editor for Sutro, she wants to help writers of all kinds flourish and grow in their craft and encourage people to think critically and creatively. She personally loves to write about music almost as much as she loves to listen to it.

Sonia Getz

Sonia Getz is a graduating Sociology major with a minor in Race & Resistance. She is grateful to the English Department for allowing her to infiltrate not only as an editor at Sutro, but also as a peer mentor in ENG 114, 216, and 218. Besides compassionate education and writing for self-discovery, Sonia is a fan of libraries and dance.

Gabriella Napolitana Melton

Gabriella Napolitana Melton (she/her) is an upcoming senior majoring in English Literature and double minoring in Italian and Comparative World Literature. She joined the team at Sutro Review because she wants publishing to be an achievable and accessible goal for all students at SFSU. Outside of class, she enjoys reading for fun, writing “junk-food” fiction, and going to the beach with her dog, Pascal.

Robin Meyerowitz

Robin Meyerowitz is a Lecturer in the English department teaching Composition courses. In addition to teaching and advising on Sutro Review, she likes to mine her life for writing material, traipse around the city with her dog, toil in her garden despite her lack of a green thumb and watch way too many movies.

Throughout my ritual I breathe in, I take in, I absorb, and I appreciate all that I have been given.

Works Cited

I often revisit that younger me who wanted nothing more than to erase who I undeniably was.

In the days following my grandma’s passing, white butterflies in numbers I couldn’t fathom danced around me.

The words on the pages, and the characters in the stories, comforted me in a way no one or nothing else could; everything would fade away.

Eventually, the bruises disappeared and I thought, like a chameleon that is constantly changing itself for self-protection, that I could continue to pretend like everything was alright...

I began to learn more authentically about my culture and accept and love my culture as a
part of me.

This is the music of the forest, and it is vast and wide and ever-changing and everlasting—much like nature itself.

Works Cited

There’s clear and present danger in a version of the internet in which the wellbeing of the user is no longer of any concern.

Works Cited

... It is important to note that queer Latinx immigrants have historically found ways to be resilient in the face of such isolation.

Works Cited

As always, we were assigned books to read and analyze, and while on my own I wouldn’t even bother to pick up the book, I found myself enjoying the story when given time to read in class.

Works Cited

Without a growth mindset, I would have given up and lost one of the most important parts of my life.

Works Cited

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Contact Us

Subscribe Today!

Throughout my ritual I breathe in, I take in, I absorb, and I appreciate all that I have been given.

Works Cited

I often revisit that younger me who wanted nothing more than to erase who I undeniably was.

In the days following my grandma’s passing, white butterflies in numbers I couldn’t fathom danced around me.

The words on the pages, and the characters in the stories, comforted me in a way no one or nothing else could; everything would fade away.

Eventually, the bruises disappeared and I thought, like a chameleon that is constantly changing itself for self-protection, that I could continue to pretend like everything was alright...

I began to learn more authentically about my culture and accept and love my culture as a ​part of me.

This is the music of the forest, and it is vast and wide and ever-changing and everlasting—much like nature itself. ​

Works Cited

There’s clear and present danger in a version of the internet in which the wellbeing of the user is no longer of any concern. ​

Works Cited

... It is important to note that queer Latinx immigrants have historically found ways to be resilient in the face of such isolation.

Works Cited

As always, we were assigned books to read and analyze, and while on my own I wouldn’t even bother to pick up the book, I found myself enjoying the story when given time to read in class.

Works Cited

Without a growth mindset, I would have given up and lost one of the most important parts of my life.

Works Cited

Back to top

Contact Us

Subscribe Today!

I began to learn more authentically about my culture and accept and love my culture as a
part of me.

This is the music of the forest, and it is vast and wide and ever-changing and everlasting—much like nature itself.

There’s clear and present danger in a version of the internet in which the wellbeing of the user is no longer of any concern.