Author: verag

The streets of New York have always been agents of social change, not just within the United States but for the world at large. These streets embody a profound narrative—where New Yorkers rally, celebrate, and live their lives while shaping the course of history. They were influential during the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the 19th century, the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century, and they continue to be significant today in Immigrant Rights and DACA Advocacy, as well as Climate Change activism. The Museum of the City of New York aims to capture NYC’s multifaceted role as a global city in their exhibit Activist New York. From pins to posters, videos to audios, the exhibit delves into thematic categories focusing on immigration, gender equality, political and civil rights, religious freedom, environmental advocacy, global issues and economic rights through mixed mediums. 

A particular section that captured my attention focused on the advocacy for disability rights. Among the various movements highlighted in the exhibit, this specific cause stood out as one which I possessed the least knowledge of. Despite having watched the documentary Crip Camp, which, much like the play Ching Chong Chinaman we explored in class, seeks to reclaim and transform a derogatory term, I realized the limited awareness surrounding this movement in most history classes compared to other rights movements at the time. The first act of civil disobedience against disability discrimination was organized by the League of the Physically Handicapped as a response to the lack of employment opportunities created by the New Deal for individuals with disability during the Great Depression. Decades later, and Judith Heumann was still fighting the barriers to employment, having been denied a teaching license solely for her inability to walk. Pictured above is her Identification Card for Long Island University where she trained during the late 1960s in the hopes of becoming an elementary school teacher. She played a key role in what are known as the 504 sit-ins, which brought awareness to the government’s failure to implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This act was the first time it was legally acknowledged that inaccessibility is not a personal matter but the responsibility of the society to address.

Another major concern of the disability rights movement was transportation. It’s easy to overlook how inaccessible New York City really is to this day. Despite the visible presence of elevators in some MTA stations and priority seating in buses, the reality is that only 126 out of its total 472 stations accommodate individuals with disabilities. The picture below is of a 1990s campaign flyer detailing the information of a demonstration spotlighting MTA’s consistent failure to provide adequate accessibility for individuals using wheelchairs on buses. The bus operators often cited reasons such as a lack of access keys or malfunctioning equipment as excuses for their inability to operate bus lifts. Growing tired of hearing the same excuses and being stranded for hours at bus stops, Carr Massi acquired a copy of the key (seen below the poster) and presented it to the bus drivers whenever they claimed they couldn’t operate the lift for her to enter the bus. The accessibility struggle is in many ways still ongoing and does not only pertain to transport and employment but many other areas of life for many New Yorkers. 

Preceding the exhibit was a mural titled Raise Your Voice by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya depicting 2 powerful activists of their time: Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama. Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya has been a prominent activist for many Asian American and Pacific Islander communities during the pandemic when many acts of violence and anti-Asian hate in NY were on the rise. Her artworks have been featured on Times Square billboards, bus stops, subway stations, buildings, and the cover of TIME Magazine. Her mural featured at the museum also poses the viewer instigating questions: How are you using your voice? What is your legacy? What do you stand for? Who will you protect? Why are you here? Unlike the exhibit, the mural puts the viewer in the spotlight, probing them to find their own role in present day activism and one day be part of the history contained in the evolving exhibit. Placing the mural in front of the exhibit really solidified that artwork can be just as much of a form of protest; although silent, its message is loud and clear. 

Activism has undeniably changed over the past century, incurring more and more ways to include everyone’s voice through different mediums. Today, many people employ social media to spark social change and mobilize movements on a global scale. As activism continues to evolve with society, we gain increasing power to become major players in dictating our future and what movements will one day be contained in the exhibit. 

In the satirical play Ching Chong Chinaman by Lauren Yee, Desdemona Wong is a 17-year-old going through the bane of every high schooler’s existence: the college admission process. Beyond the surface irony posed by Desdemona’s seemingly perfect life being the very thing setting her back from achieving her dreams of getting into Princeton, Yee points to a deeper issue at play. Through the character’s journey writing her personal narrative, we are brought to question the societal and self-imposed pressures that surround academic success and the pursuit of Ivy League acceptance. These pressures can oftentimes push students to tie their self-worth solely to their academic performance and even compel them to make morally wrong decisions to increase their likelihood of getting admitted. 

Personally, Desdemona’s storyline resonated with me the most, having gone through the college admissions process quite recently and seen firsthand just how many of my peers embellished their applications. Many students believe that unveiling some sort of trauma or obstacle in their life is the key to crafting a successful personal statement and, frankly, the only interesting thing about them in the eyes of an admissions officer. This belief evokes Desdemona’s desire to have experienced some sort of turmoil in her life just to have something of substance to write about: “If I had cancer, if you disowned me, then I could be myself. Then I’d have a chance. Then I could say something interesting in my personal statement.” But “unfortunately” for her she’s from an upper-middle class background, sheltered from any hardships that she could exploit. This brings out another irony of the play as being privileged is seen as undesirable by Desdemona; she goes as far as to say, “I’m an Asian-American female with a 2340 and a 4.42 GPA at an elite public high school. That’s like the worst thing in the world. Nobody’s gonna want me.” Desdemona is not alone in her sentiment as many students cater to what they think admissions officers would find of interest or value, now more so than ever. This makes it easy for applicants to forgo authenticity for marketability, much like in the play, as a stellar GPA, multitude of extracurricular activities and accomplishments no longer seem to be enough to get accepted.

Moreover, Desdemona’s struggle with her personal narrative mirrors her family’s broader struggle with the loss of cultural identity. From her name to her family’s dynamic, Desdemona is completely assimilated to American culture and has dismissed much, if not all, of her cultural identity. Although the family originated in China, they have no personal connection to their roots or speak the language. Only when it becomes of benefit to her does Desdemona begin to consider her heritage for the sole purpose of exploiting it in her college statement, further underscoring the hollowness of the connection she is attempting to form. In a telling scene, she finds herself at a loss for words when coming up with hardships Chinese Americans have faced during her interview for Princeton, as she had not personally experienced any of them. In scene 19, Desdemona resorts to Wikipedia to fabricate her struggles of “discrimination, lack of access to education and contraception, [and] machismo.” Through this dialogue, Yee exemplifies her blatant ignorance in trying to paint herself as a marginalized and oppressed individual and points out her insensitivity when it comes to the people who are actually struggling and dealing with these issues. 

In a twist of irony, Desdemona does get admitted to Princeton with her fabricated sob story, exemplifying Yee’s critical stance on the admission process. However, by the end of the play, Desdemona begins to see the fallacy of her sentiment that “there is nothing more important than school” once the news of getting into Princeton becomes a forethought in her journey of finding her true identity. As she ultimately finds herself grappling with the realization of what truly matters in her life, and the extent of her disconnection from it, I couldn’t help but feel empathy for her character.

When home becomes the land thousands of miles away, does it cease to be one’s home? Does one truly feel at home ever again? Many refugees have to grapple with this notion of home as they find themselves leaving their homelands to embark on the unsettling process of adapting to their new surroundings. So when Ramussen begins his Documentary Flee by asking Nawabi, a refugee forced to leave any sense of home he had, to define “home,” I found it to be quite an effective and thought-provoking introduction. Is it cruel to ask someone who hasn’t had something in the capacity others have to define what it is? Our experiences and lack thereof change the way we view and define things; they change the weight certain words take on, and to Nawabi, the word “home” holds a heavy burden of his past. His experiences as a refugee reflect the definition he gives: “someplace safe, somewhere you know you can stay, and you know you don’t have to move on” (Flee 1:49), a permanence he hadn’t known for a while in his life. Ramussen’s narrative choice of starting with this question as well as the accompanying animations of running figures set the precedent for the rest of the documentary as it explores Nawabi’s struggles to live and deal with the everlasting trauma of fleeing his home, a pain that is no stranger to many refugees.

The way the documentary goes on to capture Nawabi’s story goes beyond the surface details typically told on the news about refugees, allowing the lifeless numbers and statistics to obtain faces, stories, voices, and most importantly, the humanity that they are stripped of. When reading such accounts on the news, it’s hard to find a moment to latch onto and relate to, yet when told on such a personal level as in Flee, we get to view the emotions, the fears, and the desires of the person and their nuanced story as told directly from their perspective. These universal parts of being human that the animations are able to capture are what we can understand and empathize with without necessarily experiencing the same plight. The documentary acquires this raw and authentic feel as we get to view the deep, heavy breaths Nawabi takes to prepare himself, the furrowing of his brow in moments of frustration and distress, the way he closes his eyes to relive his memories, and the way he pauses, reluctant to retell them. These little details in the animation carry so much weight to them that stays with the viewer throughout the entire documentary.

Moreover, the way Nawabi’s traumatic memories are intentionally depicted in this abstract, almost nightmarish animation devoid of both color and detail captures the indescribable pain that haunts him every day. This change in style is seen when Nawabi and his family were being human trafficked into Sweden by ship, in which his vivid memories begin to turn into a murky, gruesome depiction of drowning bodies and later into the harrowing shadows of the police that caught them. It’s as if we’re viewing the memories Nawabi buried in the depths of his mind out of self-preservation and is only now beginning to confront them, explaining the hazy effect and lack of details in those scenes. This stylistic choice allows the viewer to further resonate with Nawabi’s experiences through the feelings evoked by these scenes.

I was initially taken aback and hesitant about the choice of animation as the documentary’s medium, but I was ultimately swayed by it. It not only served as a way for Nawabi to stay anonymous, but it was also the best approach to telling his layered story in a way that allowed the viewer to connect with him. The versatility of animation to not only paint the physical turmoil he was going through but also the emotional turmoil makes it an extremely powerful storytelling medium.

Photographs, once aimed at capturing the world around us as it appears to the eye, have now assumed a new expectation: to be picture-esque. Ever since photography transitioned into a mainstream and readily accessible medium, its primary function has been to document the essence of our world in a tangible way, allowing us to look back on for our own sake or for the sake of sharing our experiences with others. But is it even possible to capture the whole essence of our experience through a single frame, and can this inability potentially lead to a false reality? The exploitation of photography in the realm of social media further complicates this question as photographs begin to take on a much different role. They became tools of curation motivated by likes and follows. They paint an altered reality that romanticizes the “aesthetic”, favorable moments—which it puts into the spotlight—all while concealing the less appealing, unattractive aspects. But when did a picture become synonymous with perfection, as suggested by the word “picturesque,” and is social media completely to blame?

In the first of her essays in On Photography, Susan Sontang reveals this nuanced complexity embedded within the simple act of capturing a photo. On one hand, she argues, we wish to hold on to the present moment, but on the other, we are “refusing it—by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image” (Sontang 6). This dual desire leads us to miss out on capturing the genuine experience as we are too engrossed in the quest to photograph it flawlessly, and this has only been exacerbated by social media. We assume specific poses, coax smiles to convey inauthentic feelings, and manipulate camera angles to present ourselves or our surroundings in a more favorable light, forgoing the organic experience itself. By seeking this portrayal of perfection, social media and photography “alter our notions of what is worth looking at” (Sontang 1), as appearance trumps everything else.

Harnessed by this need for perfection, photography has become not only “the device that makes real what one is experiencing” (Sontang 6), as Sontang and the commonly used remark “But If You Didn’t Post About It, Did It Really Happen?” point out, but also a device that makes real out of what is not. The “Instagram vs. Reality” trend, in which users show an idealized post alongside a not-so-perfect shot of the same subject, brings awareness to the incomplete reality crafted by selective posting. For instance, stunning images of New York City’s skyscrapers often exclude the less glamorous, littered streets that plague the city. While influencers that always appear flawless in their posts share moments in which they didn’t feel as confident and faced self-doubt. Through the photos that we choose to post and exclude, we craft a portrayal of reality that isn’t complete and is sometimes even fictional. This forces viewers into a false sense “that time consists of interesting events, events worth photographing” (Sontang 8), as they see influencers living glamorous, exciting lives through their instagram feeds, when in reality there are more mundane, imperfect moments behind the camera that fail to be documented and seen online. However, this trend also started a separate movement to foster genuine and unfiltered content, bringing back the beauty and essence of photography. In doing so, social media is taking a huge step in a positive direction, where reality once again shapes photos.

Having immigrated and separated from my extended family from an early age, my ties to my family’s heritage had largely been severed. For a long time I believed I had no culture, my family didn’t have any traditions like many others, we didn’t celebrate any holidays in particular and my house barely had any visible hints of my Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian roots. Whenever I had to discuss my culture and family traditions in class, I would often spin a stereotypical narrative about matryoshka dolls and ushanka hats to appear to be somewhat connected to my motherland when in reality, I felt gravely detached. Blindsided by the idea that cultural heritage had to take on a physical form, I failed to notice the intangible cultural heritage teeming around my household which the article brings into spotlight. Once I began to realize that “cultural heritage is not only limited to material objects that we can see and touch” but “also consists of immaterial elements,” I started noticing my culture still preserved in what I thought to be an “Americanized” household.

Many hints of slavic traditions did in fact weave into my family and express themselves through the intangible core values and beliefs behind them. For one, the Khorovod- a folk dance in which the members retain a circular formation by holding each others’ hands for the entirety of the performance. Usually part of celebrations within a community, a khorovod encourages an unbreakable bond between its members through its unifying choreography. The importance of unity and a close knit relationship within my family is a vastly present one and although we do not break out into a dance, we do find ourselves surrounded by each other, hand in hand- bearing much resemblance to the linked circle formed by the dancers. Despite leaving the physical aspect of the tradition behind, my family still upholds the familial values at the core of its elaborate gestures, and that—to me—makes it intangible and ever so alive. Another way I have come to realize my culture is through superstitions, which oftentimes have little to no logical basis but are still beliefs that continue to be part of my life as they also once were in that of my ancestors. It’s a connection that transcends pure logic and byway of believing in these superstitions you are respecting the beliefs of your ancestors and their traditions. In my household, for instance, we never congratulate someone before their birthday, let alone give them an even number of flowers as both are viewed as bad luck. Every culture has their own variations of superstitions and how they originated, indicative of the experiences, stories, beliefs, and ways of life specific to the people part of that culture. Although superstitions may involve doing a physical action or a tangible object, the choice to believe in the power of that action is intangible, making superstitions immaterial. They are simply passed down as children see their parents giving importance and following these superstitions which they then choose to or not to adopt into their own lives. This choice is a “result of a selection process: a process of memory and oblivion that characterizes every human society,” making the parts of our culture that stay preserved fully up to us-the present generation. 

Through my journey trying to figure out my culture, I’ve come to learn that even though the physical aspect of traditions may change throughout generations, much like it did in mine, they still transform and find their way into the lives of its descendants in ever changing and immaterial ways. The article aims to capture this very idea and keep the intangible aspects of culture just as alive as the tangible ones.