Non-Fiction

What you wish you could tell the girl you are babysitting when she says her opinion doesn’t matter: a monologue

 

You’ve bent my limbs and condensed my still growing body into the tight container of me when I was nine. It’s not your fault, how could you have known? I sit parallel to your long division homework and you keep scribbling correct answers like the air in the room hasn’t disappeared. If you looked up, you would see the bruise your words gave me. But you haven’t disconnected from that sheet and I haven’t yet grabbed your small hands and given you all that I have learned the hard way. I won’t tell you, because there’s math homework to be done and the cruelty of the world will flatten your hair and shrivel your kindness, but not really. You’ll never not be kind. But, you’re allowed to ration your empathy and use your best judgment. (You’re allowed to use bad judgment sometimes.) If you looked up, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from extending your bedtime to the moment a man apologizes and means it. Your voice is a hand-me-down that grows every time you don’t apologize for something you didn’t do. You’re allowed to say “excuse me” instead of sorry. You’re allowed to stand in line and get to the front. You’re allowed to not be chill. The rules of long division don’t apply to the volume of your voice. You’re allowed to use your outside voice in suffocating rooms. And while we’re talking about it, wait as long as possible to get Instagram. Wait to post the first infographic you see when you do. I had to learn too that people die whether or not your favorite social justice account posts about it. Build core beliefs. Abandoned them. You’re allowed to have a value change. Look at your screen and see burning buildings and cry during SAT tutoring. Dip your toe into politics, run for president and then get a little depressed and meet a boy at a party and forget about it all. You’ve got my vote already.

You’re allowed! Who is going to stop you? The dickhead who’s never left New Jersey? Yeah, and I’ll tell you another thing: he’s also allowed. He’s allowed to shame every person he thinks is below him, and when it’s his turn to share pronouns, he’s allowed to say, “Ummm, I’m a guy?”

You’re allowed to get on CNN and villainize. You’re allowed to get on Fox News and lie! You’re allowed to eat a soft pretzel and two cigarettes for breakfast. You’re allowed to break up with your partner for no good reason, and when you get sad and scared under your covers, you’re allowed to go back! I’m telling you, the best opinion is the one you believe in wholeheartedly. I am not as lucky, but that’s another story. No, please. Don’t ask.

Your opinion is already better than mine. I’ve read every book about the Ottomans and sat down with those who have survived and those who haven’t. Put yourself in a dangerous situation and tell yourself you can’t do it, and then leave yourself no choice but to do it well. You’re allowed to cancel a coffee date because your stomach hurts and the New York Times op ed section has selected a date for Doomsday and it’s when the reboot of “And Just Like That” season four comes out.

The opinion you have about doomsday matters, even if you don’t believe in it. Especially if you don’t believe. I’ll educate you. The history, the personal stakes. I know a soldier and a baby. I know the recoil and the sprint. But you, you, you you you don’t need permission. Not like me.

Run into the streets and stick stickers of the face of the service worker who took too long making your order. Drive a truck around with her home address on it. Tell your grandma she’s beautiful. You’re allowed to love the lines that dance on her face, and you’re allowed to love your own dancing. Steal a diary and cry like you lived through all their hardships. You’re allowed to steal, if it means empathy blooms in the corners of steel. And, I know you’ve been advised against this, but you’re allowed to pray, and actually believe. Trust wasn’t born a weapon, you’ve just been taught how to wield it.

Your opinion is so important, and I am never going to ask you back it up with footnotes. I know what it feels like to lose a best friend because my dad’s opinion on a war was so offensive to her  parents’ that   there was no other option than to stop all communication. I’m cleaning up the rubble from the havoc that opinions have wreaked. The rubble came from the Gaza Strip.

The worst offense to me is when you say you aren’t smart. You’re the smartest damn girl I’ve ever met and I’m not just saying that because I see myself in every question you ask.

Call that best friends’ dad and ask if he misses his childhood dog. Tell him you’re so sorry. Tell him you will never forgive him for not asking what you thought. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to demand someone ask your opinion and then not share it. Write a poem. You’re allowed to like your own poetry. Make up a word. Get a patent for it. Only share it with someone if they are honest with you, or buy you an expensive coffee, or listen to you ramble about a non-fiction teacher in the hand state that you’re pretty sure changed your life. Cut your hair. It looks horrible. You’re allowed to look ugly. No one deserves your beauty; they must earn it. I have spoken to every living creature and they all told me to tell you that they love your short hair.

 

Naomi Beinart is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her parents on the Upper West Side. She attends school at Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn, where she squeezes out poems on her notes app in between classes. Her writing has been recognized by multiple institutions, including Rider University, Blue Marble Review  and Scholastic.

El Morro is a place that lives in my memory, tucked deep into the folds of yearly visits to la patria. Hidden in the depths of the mental file folder: Puerto Rico, blurring together until stirred anew. My first visit  to San Juan occupies another category of my mind. I am a tourist, a sightseer with the overactive imagination of any ten-year-old. We embark on our first stop of three: El Morro.

From my field of view, I can hardly see the fort compared to the grassy expanse lying before it. Before entering, my dad and I walk across the slightly inclined cobblestone pathway leading to the fort. Overexcited children stand at the top of the hill, waiting for their parents to join them. Other tourists watch waves crash against the nearby rocky shoreline.

At last, we cross the fort’s sixteenth century bridge, show our tickets, and walk into the open clearing where yellow walls surround us, interrupted by arches leading to a network of hallways. We stay on the first level for a while, going into some small rooms with three hundred-year-old cannons and information on weapons spanning from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.

As we walk, I run my hand across the stone. Despite its age, it’s still rough. Would it be hardy enough to combat an attack, even now?

We climb to the top floor, where the roof disappears. Our view of the horizon is unobstructed save for the fort’s watchtower jutting out towards the water. My dad snaps photos of me looking out the tower while I imagine us… Papi and Mami and Abuela and I are sailing on a boat that finds the rocky shoreline after a long journey. We marvel and gaze at the esplendor of El Morro, because from the ocean we can see its height. From the ocean, I imagine eighteenth century soldiers in shining metal are knights ready to save us. And we feel safe.

We keep walking until we’re in the heart of Viejo San Juan. After a tour of the capitol, we enter a restaurant: Raíces. It claims to make authentic food at the core of Puerto Rico’s roots.

Raíces marks the first time I’ve tried camaron al ajillo- shrimp smothered in minced garlic and butter. Mami told me she’d eat a lot of seafood growing up, but it’d grown less widespread. Each year, the people she knew who’d catch and make mariscos became less and less. This feels like a part of Puerto Rico she grew up experiencing, a raíz I missed when she uprooted herself and came to the mainland before she even met Papi.
But I think about everything else I’ve gained- Mami battering her fingers to grate bananas for pasteles and me joining her, almost-yearly trips to Moca, her pueblito, in time for Christmas parrandas, my family in Puerto Rico spread to Florida, New York, and beyond. Would our raíces have the strength to hold on, despite the diaspora?

We keep walking. Out of El Morro, out of lively Viejo San Juan, and back to our everyday lives in Florida. We wonder if we’re missing out on what we left behind.

A year and a half later, I’m back, but we’re not in San Juan, and we’re not tourists. We’re in Moca. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, buildings are powered by generators. We get into the car brimming with sweat and crank up the AC before making our way to our dreaded destination. Abuelo has died, and Bisabuelo is crying-hyperventilating in the funeral home’s hall. He is a WW2 veteran who watched nearly a century go by without blinking, but he doesn’t care who sees his racking sobs. The weight that’s been expanding gradually ever since Abuelo came to live with us to get cancer treatment becomes unbearable as I hear him wail, “Mi hijo, mi hijo – why did my son die before me?!”

The boat my family and I sailed to El Morro has a hole at the bottom that I’m not sure I (or naively imagined knights) can repair.

Less than a year later, I’m back again. Tiabuela  rests in the coffin and her kids, her grandkids, one of whom is Karla, are standing over it and sniffling. I’d never seen Karla cry until today.

 

 

I long to go back to El Morro, park our sinking boat on its coast, and seek cover. Surely, its walls will protect me, my family, from further impact.

Tired of tears, we take a three-year hiatus until 2021. Coming back, I am left breathless, stunned. How did I forget about the lush carpets of leaves curving bamboo shoots? Or the endless fields of banana trees running through the mountains? Or my other Tiabuela Dary saying “MUUUCHACHO” every five seconds? Or my primitos getting their mom to honk at my Abuela’s house so we can play ball? Or the juicy and punchy taste of Longaniza, and crisp-soft Mocano bakery bread? As we walk out of the bakery, ripping open the bags of bread, I think about life back home. I go to school, eat three times a day, do homework until 11pm, text friends, sleep, repeat. Occasionally, we visit family in Miami. We can’t walk anywhere, really. Traffic traps us in an hour-and-a-half commute.

Here, we drive five minutes and get to five different family member’s houses. I play outside with Bisabuelo’s chickens, and my primos and primas. I walk through sun-dappled plazas and outdoor markets, avoiding the potholes in mountain-cracked roads. I leave my phone at home for a week and don’t miss it.

I keep coming back. Bakery bread still tastes just as good, and did I mention the mall and the boutiques? Baratisimo!

Then Tio dies, and an inheritance war ensues. I see my primos less and less. Parrandas become a distant memory. Tiaabuela is bitter.

Boutiques become my Morro because they beget conversations about dresses instead of death. During my last visit, I bought my senior prom dress and shoes and jewelry, submitted a portfolio to a college, and heard my Tiabuela and Abuela scream.

Returning to Florida, I wonder if Puerto Rico is my true home,— too much left unresolved to be just a week-long visit, too colorful and eventful even on a cloudy day.

But we keep walking- driving- along Florida’s coast from the Ft. Lauderdale airport, the transience of life passing me by.

Before I left Puerto Rico, I parked my boat on El Morro’s coast. Mentally bookmarking in my file folder the spot I’d like to come back to. Back to the days when most Puerto Ricans didn’t own generators, and Mami wouldn’t avoid going  during Christmas.

In the meantime, I’ll keep moving. A constant back-and-forth motion between Florida and Puerto Rico, home 1 and home 2, and I’m walking, I’m boating, I’m flying.
My boat will stay there until I can tend to what’s fallen out of it, see my primos and tell them I love them, relive the parrandas in the back of my memory, and set sail to Moca once again.

 

 

 

TRANSLATION

abuelo- grandfather
bisabuelo- great-grandfather
El Morro- colloquial way Puerto Ricans refer to Castillo San Cristobal
La patria- the mother/homeland
tia- aunt
tio- uncle
tiabuela- great-aunt
primo- cousin
primito- little cousin
pueblito- little town
baratisimo- super cheap
longaniza- sausage Mami- mom
raíz- root
raíces- roots
mi hijo- my son

 

Yelaine Aguilar is an nineteen-year-old writer from South Florida. Her writing has been recognized by The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, Apprentice Writer, Ice Lolly Review, and local publications. She loves to write and perform spoken word as a way to create new worlds, explore the meaning behind impactful events, and connect with those around her. Outside of writing, Yelaine practices Chinese and French, eats what she bakes, and hangs out with friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To the gunman who opened fire on the intersection of Market and Montgomery, right outside the Ghirardelli Chocolaterie at approximately 8:30 pm PDT, 7/1/23

 

You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you; sitting on the stoop just right of that rich mahogany arch in a soft brown puffer, joint rolling between your thumb and forefinger.  Your gaze fixed straight down the crosswalk, past the traffic lights and off towards those far-off high-rises; your head turning gently back in just as my sister and I walked past; the spiral of your sweet, warm smoke as it curled by the dancing hem of my too-thin summer dress.  The brassy clang of the store bell as I pushed open its door.  How we just about made eye contact.

I wonder what may have happened if I’d turned back to talk to you.  Hi there, sir, I’d have said.  Lovely evening, isn’t it? It’s my first night here, and I had no idea it got so chilly at night.  It’s sort of beautiful how crisp the air is though.  It’s never this brisk in Florida, let alone Abu Dhabi.  Abu Dhabi? Yeah, it’s near Dubai, in the Middle East.  No.  No, there’s no fighting there; it’s super peaceful actually, and it feels like home.  This fall it’ll be ten years since we moved.  Have you lived here long?  You know, everyone said that San Francisco was a mess, but so far it seems wonderful.  And all the buildings seem to have the prettiest little fairy lights hanging from their awning —they seem to be everywhere here.  Fairy lights make everything feel so magical, don’t they?  You can’t help but smile when you see them.  I just love summer, don’t you?  I wonder how you’d have responded.

Gunshots are quieter in real life than in the movies.  The first one I heard, I almost thought it was a firework, perhaps set off by a street performer, or by one of those red-white-and-blue vendors down the street, or by a dad, surprising his awed toddlers as the holiday weekend began.  I was so sure it was a firework—so I don’t know why I was so quick to edge closer to the nearby counter as the second went off, or how, by the time the security lady was yelling to get down, I was already curled into a ball; the stool my ankle had caught on lying next to me.

I’m not sure how long the next part lasted—that popping, driving metronome; my mother’s heaving breaths as she covered my body with her own; the sheer terror in the previously unflappable security lady’s eyes as she inched slowly away from the reverberating glass panes.  I remember trying to breathe and not hearing my breath.  My left foot going numb.  Thinking that I should probably pray.  Wondering why my life wasn’t flashing before me in the highlight reel too many reruns of dramatic Bollywood movies had led me to expect. I remembered an argument I’d had with my ninth grade English teacher about nature and nurture and evil.  I remembered Mayella Ewell and her jar of scarlet geraniums.

And then the fireworks stopped, and it was over, and we were scurrying, huddled, through the side door into a hotel lobby.  And then we were in the elevator, and then our room, and I realized my sister was crying, and I realized my parents were talking to me, and I realized I was shaking.

I’m okay now, not that it would matter to you.  Not that it should.  I mean, you had a gun in your hand and reasons to pull a trigger and I’m just a sheltered expat brat who escaped untouched to the safety of starched white sheets in a brass-detailed, crown-molded hotel room existence.   You did what you had to do, and I’m okay now.  So I don’t know why I’m even writing to you—like this is some pathetic exercise in radical forgiveness or some simperingly charitable gesture to stick on my resume for college.  But I don’t know who else to write to.

Lately, it seems like everything’s falling apart.  Ukraine.  Palestine and Israel.  My cousin was in a car accident last week.  My friend’s brother just died, and he was only twenty.  My choir director’s wife—one of the most kind, graceful, vivid people I know—has advanced breast cancer.

And on top of all of that, I have to watch my sister flinch every time a balloon pops, every time an engine starts, every time a door bangs?  Of the two of us, she’s always been the brave one.  The one that forces me to get on roller coasters and wear the crop top I’m self concious in and audition for the role I don’t think I can get and stand up for myself.  Now she glances nervously around whenever she’s in a crowd, scans for exits in every new room, worries whenever my parents are home just a few minutes later.

And I know, things could be worse.  And I know, this is life.  But I’m scared.  And of all of the things I’m scared of—war, cancer, accidents, you—you—might be the least impactful but I can’t stop thinking of that first shot.  I can’t stop wondering what would have happened if I’d talked to you.

If Mayella could endure years of her father’s depravity, years of bruises and hunger and terror; and still, somehow, coax buds to effervescence in the middle of a scrapyard, then, despite it all, I can’t bring myself to hate her.  I can’t believe that anyone can be purely evil.  So maybe this is some pathetic exercise in radical forgiveness.

But really, it’s an I’m-tired-of-everyone-pretending-the-world-is-normal-because- people-dying-for-no-reason-isn’t-normal-at-all and it’s a there’s-so-much-going-on-and-none-of- it’s-good-and-I-don’t-know-how-to-process-any-of-it-let-alone-all-of-it-all-at-once and it’s an I’m-scared-of-the-world-and-everything-that-seems-to-be-going-wrong and really, it’s an of-all-of-it-you-scare-me-the-most-because-you-were-the-most-human-and-I-saw-you-there-and-I-saw-you-there-and-we-just-about-made-eye-contact-and-we-may-have-spoken-and-we-could- have-been-friends.
Because we didn’t.  And we’re not.  And I’m still scared.

I’m still scared.

 

 

Ananya Venkateswaran is a high school junior from Tampa, Florida, currently living in Abu Dhabi, UAE. She was a finalist in the Pulitzer Center’s 2022 Fighting Words Poetry Contest, and a winner of the 2023 Harvard Write the World Poetry Competition. In her free time, she enjoys all things reading, writing, music, travel and nature.

 My friends have turned it into a game: how badly will the substitute teacher butcher my name? So far, “Qianqi” has been mangled into Kyankey, Chonky, and Jonjee, as the most egregious errors. The actual pronunciation in Mandarin Chinese is “chian-chi,” but I usually spare them from further embarrassment and tell them to call me Roger instead.

Roger is my middle name. It fits my background as someone born in Nashville, Tennessee, and spent his entire life in the United States. Qianqi fits my face, even though I spent years wishing it didn’t. My unpronounceable name seemed to flag me as a foreigner whenever people tripped over the consonants. Among the Steves and Kates at my school, I was the odd one out.

Some people might have embraced their cultures more out of defiance, but I was uncomfortable about sticking out from the crowd. Since my town had a large Jewish population, I ended up knowing the dates for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur better than Chinese New Year or the Mid-Autumn Festival. I attended my friends’ b’nai mitzvah ceremonies, all while refusing to bring any home-cooked meals that might have smelled weird to lunch. Although I could carefully control many aspects of my life, one thing troubled me the most: my name.

Finally, I went to talk with my parents about legally changing my name. The mispronunciations, misspellings, and stereotypes associated with having an Asian name had created a constant feeling of isolation as if I hadn’t lived in this country all my life. I felt that my own name was stripping away my American identity, leaving only the narrow perception of my Chinese ethnicity, a part of me I had grown to be ashamed of.

To my surprise, my parents were not upset; instead, they patiently spoke about their intention behind giving me a unique name like Qianqi. They had hoped it would shape my individuality and encourage me to carve out my own path in life. “We know you are American,” they told me, “and you should be proud. But you are also blessed with a rich Chinese heritage. We take you to weekend Chinese classes so that you can learn the language of your ancestors. We teach you Chinese history so that you can understand where you came from. We immerse you in Chinese traditions so that your life can be enriched by another culture. We hope all these elements will set you apart, just like your name.”

At that moment, I began to see “Qianqi” in a new light. Rather than striving to fit in as one of 425,514 Rogers in the United States, it is more meaningful to be myself as Qianqi.

The newfound appreciation of my name took me on a journey to not only embrace my heritage but also celebrate it. Once I accepted Qianqi, I started to fall in love with the name. I began to learn the meaning of the two Chinese characters that make up my name. Qian, the first character, means “one thousand,” while Qi means “wonders.” “When you put Qian and Qi together, it represents many wonders,” my mom tells me with great pride, claiming that it suits me perfectly, because it reflects the worth and potential she sees in me. I learned to write the two Chinese characters stroke by stroke in their block-like structure. Dating back thousands of years, Chinese characters are logographic, meaning each character has its unique stroke order. Now whenever someone tries to pronounce my name, I would welcome the chance to teach them how to say “q” in Chinese: it is a soft “ch.” It’s that simple.

Instead of hiding my name, I took it as an invitation to look deeper into my heritage, starting with my family name, Ye. My dad told me that it was actually a shortened form of Yehenala, a bloodline that can be traced back to Aisin Gioro Nurhaci, whose successors completed the Manchu conquest of China that led to the Qing Dynasty in 1636. Under the Qing Dynasty, the Yehenala clan held the highest positions in the imperial court and produced several of China’s most extraordinary emperors. The discovery blindsided me, since my last name only ever came up in endless terrible puns for “yeah.” But my last name had history to it. It had an entire dynasty behind it. And it was linked to another culture as well.

In the past, Chinese American youth considered themselves Americans, only to be called “others” when they ventured outside home. Am I an “other” still, if only within my own mind?

I have struggled with this sense of in-betweenness for as long as I can remember. Just as Qianqi and Ye both carry ties to my background, so does Roger. As first-generation immigrants, my parents hope to pass on the traditional Chinese values and philosophy that have lasted for over five thousand years. But I was born in Nashville and grew up in New York City – American youth culture is the only one I have been exposed to. Within me lies a combination of the influences from my Chinese family with all its strengths and flaws, my personal perspective shaped by the individuality and rebellion inherent to American teenagers, and the broader world with all the assumptions people make when they see my name and face. The richness of American and Chinese cultures has contributed in incredible ways to the Qianqi Roger Ye that I am today. Rather than seeing the struggle as a betrayal, I now see that the process exists in every generation and in everyone. Born Chinese by heritage and raised American by culture, I carry both the legacy of my ancestors and the opportunities of this great nation. In balancing the two cultures, I will keep looking for my equilibrium.

Just as I am typing these last words, a call comes in from my best friend Srijit.

“Do I look too Muslim?” Srijit asks, voice shaking.

My heart sinks. I know why he is asking the question: he’s been attacked, again. Since the Israel war began on October 7, Srijit has been called a Hamas supporter and spat at. I also know how he is feeling: confused and afraid, just like how I felt after COVID-19 fueled anti-Asian racism and xenophobia. His question cuts straight to the core of my being, because I, too, used to tell my parents I hated my narrow eyes and pushed-in nose, features that make me look too Asian.

The Islamophobia ignited by the Israel-Hamas war is all-too-familiar to me in the wake of COVID-19, with the onslaught of anti-Asian hatred. My face has made me a target for racists and fearmongers. People who look like me were in the national news because they were harassed, beaten, killed. Asian Americans were portrayed as threats, even as we became the victims. It doesn’t matter that I was born in Nashville and lived my entire life in the United States. It doesn’t matter that I love American football and English literature. My eyes and my name mark me as an outsider.

Srijit’s family is from Bangladesh. His appearance should be something he takes pride in. Instead, he wants to cover himself up so he can feel safe. So he can live his normal life.

The reality that Srijit and I, in the 21st century, find ourselves wishing to dissociate from our background because we don’t want to live in fear isn’t tragic – it’s enraging. I am angry, really angry. It’s a primal rage that questions the very fabric of progress and challenges the facade of acceptance in our society. It’s a collective frustration, a cry for change in a world that clings to stereotypes and biases.

Do I cover my face and accept the label of “other?” Do I remove Qianqi and pretend to be Roger?

If that’s the price for belonging in America, then it isn’t the America I’m interested in belonging to. Writer and poet Audre Lorde writes, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” To heal a divided world, we need to acknowledge our individual and collective differences. Acceptance is always our choice to make, after all. And I hope we choose to see people as they are. Before judging the hijab, let’s face the fear of the unknown that makes us uneasy. Before dismissing the accent, let’s confront the subconscious biases that make us speak differently. Before silencing the voice, let’s challenge the assumptions that make us ignorant.

For me, acceptance begins within. The people who hate us for how we look and where our families came from want us to turn away from our background. So instead of rejecting mine, I choose to celebrate. I celebrate my parents’ accents, my face, my unpronounceable name.

I’m Qianqi and Roger. I am not either-or, I am both.

 

 

Yifei K. Niu is a Junior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he founded a sports newspaper called The GOAT and captains the varsity tennis team. He is heavily involved with sports journalism and loves to report on topics that deserve more recognition in the world.

Several of my friends, peers, and I experienced a sudden school lockdown because of a misunderstanding where a student was suspected of carrying a gun on school property.Though no one ended up getting hurt, it was a disturbing wake up call for all of us involved. In the aftermath, I recalled every detail I could of those long fifteen minutes we spent locked in that dark, quiet room and tried to reflect on how it made me feel, how the situation said something significant about the way firearms and school shootings are currently handled in our country, and what it was all for. One question specifically, has been rattling around in my head since that day: “That was all because…of what?”

 

We sit here in the corner
all because
of the alarm that rang for a few seconds longer than usual and because afterward, the voice did not say “Please remain calm, this is only a drill.”

We’ve stopped laughing
all because
it’s not a joke this time; this time there won’t be any afterward for some of us.

We’ve scurried to hide in the darkness
all because
we know that if we do not become one with the shadows of the room, then we will not be walking out of it.

My friends, the people that I know best and cherish most, and more than a dozen others huddle in this blanket of silence and shadows(I think the world is quiet here, but, then again, if anyone shifts in their seat or breathes wrong we all flinch because those tiny sounds are mistaken for footsteps or firing or fleeting moments).
all because
as children, we were taught to huddle and hide before we were taught addition or subtraction or how to write our names.

My teachers hold several students a few feet away from me, and I see their hands gripping keys and chair legs, eyes narrowed at the loosely locked door, but I also see them shaking as they try to hush the sobbers: “It’s alright,” “It’ll be over soon,” “Don’t be scared,” and other sweet nothings(I can’t tell who they’re trying to convince: us or themselves)

all because
they know for every one of their students who does not emerge from this building, they will have to add another funeral, another memorial, another speech, another weight of guilt to their shoulders.

A girl I’ve never particularly gotten along with is having her tears dried and her cries muffled by her friend and a boy I’ve never spoken to is crouched frozen, wide-eyed, praying
all because
they’ve only read headlines, only heard stories, only made jokes about the ‘monsters’ like the one supposedly roaming our halls at this very moment.

I turn over my shoulder to see my ex, someone who in another life I’m sure would be my friend, shuddering against the shoulder of his friend; I think our eyes meet for a moment through the mist of darkness and I think maybe we’re all sorry for a moment, maybe we have more to say,
all because
finding yourself on death’s doorstep makes you realize how much of life you missed out on while you were busy holding grudges.

My best friend is curled up, trying not to gasp too loudly for air through the knot in her stomach, wondering what she did to deserve her fate,
all because
bullets don’t think or choose the way words could and should.

I’m kneeling down, holding her tightly as if I fear she might float away if I don’t anchor her to this cold, tile, Earth, letting her clutch my hand, and making sure my body is ready to move between
her and the door,
all because
I’d rather she go to college, start a family, chase her dreams, and live her life than I. At least that is the decision I make in this split second I’ve been given.

I’ve watched everyone, observed denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance all scattered about this one small corner, and now I sit and wonder how long it has been,
all because
my heartbeat is reminiscent of a round of shots getting faster and faster and because we feel like we’re living on borrowed time, trying to stretch our last seconds into hours, days, years, lives.

We hear footsteps and my eyes dart from face to face- they know it too- and suddenly, I wish I had more hands because some people don’t have any to hold right now and what they don’t tell you in the articles and news stories is how the scariest part is the silence because in the silence all meaningless noise gains new, deadly definition and just as we realize all the things we mean to say to each other the silence muzzles us but we’re begging:

not yet-
please, I’m not done-
I need to tell him-
I need to be there for her-
I need to call my mom-
I need to make sure my sister knows-
I can’t-
I’m not ready-
But those words never escape our mouths,
all because…what?

All because of a prop? All because of a toy? All because someone misspoke, mis-saw? All because a boy cried ‘gun’. But there never was.

“What luck!” a teacher exclaims.

I wonder how many times we’ll be ‘lucky’ before the boy is right.

 

 

Eden, a student who plans on continuing her studies in the humanities and arts into college and her career, has always had a passion and respect for storytelling, and the importance of relaying  of innate emotions, experiences, and lessons around the globe and across generations through these stories. She continues to write and publish her work not only for her own betterment, but in the hopes that one day her work will inspire someone else like her to do the same. She believes that tales told through writing, music, art, and all other mediums have truly saved lives, made significant changes in the world and will always do so.

In Chen Chen’s deceivingly simple poem “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen,” names are far more than the words on our birth certificates: they’re insults and affirmations, histories and experiences, intricate portraits of our identities and aspirations. By writing a loose sonnet consisting solely of anagrams of his name — including its “flaw” of having “No Middle Name” — Chen explores his multifaceted Chinese-American self, from the insults he’s received to the surprising adjectives with which he describes himself. Though the words that comprise “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” may be difficult to find within the poem’s title, they have always been part of Chen’s name — therefore, they are an inevitable and indelible part of his being.

Unfortunately, many of these words are aspersions, ranging from innocent mistakes to microaggressions to slurs. Chen is “called Chad            called mini / called homo” (1-2), words that both define and demean his identity. He learns that he is not who he considers himself to be, but what society views him as; he is no longer “Chen Chen,” but “Chad,” a “homo, a “Chinaman” (1-3). The world turns his simple descriptors — “gay,” “Chinese” — negative, replacing his true identity with degrading racial epithets. In the next stanza, when Chen recounts how “one man called [him]     Hannah / then mad,” simply correcting his presumably White persecutor reveals their racial privilege: that they have a right to be angry when all Chen did was assert himself. The persecutor’s defensiveness is a display of White fragility, but at once it’s a reminder that others’ perceptions of Chen — in this case, as “Hannah,” — outweigh the truth of his name and his being. Eventually, the oppressive name-calling Chen faces in these two stanzas causes him to question: “am I a man?” (4).

Following the tradition of the sonnet form, these eight lines form the octave of “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” and set up Chen’s internal conflict: his loss of power when both his name and his identity are determined by outside forces. Western sonnets are comparably White and restrictive, mirroring Chen’s own confinement by White, heteronormative American society. However, the next two stanzas show how Chen is able to create something beautiful out of the sonnet’s strict rules, as he breaks free from the traditional rhyme scheme and ten-syllable lines. The poem soars as he exercises the agency taken away from him in the first lines to make this sonnet defined by him, not by straight White men from 400 years ago.

The second half of “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” begins with a volta, or a shift in the sonnet’s direction, signifying a resolution to the conflict introduced in the octave. By switching from past to present tense, from “[they] called me” (5) to “call me” (9), Chen reclaims his name as something he gets the last word on. He is “mad,” as he should be after facing both racism and homophobia, and he is “mean” because, sometimes, he needs to be callous in order to defend himself. Simultaneously, Chen is “ammo” because of the hostility his assertiveness may cause — like the White man’s self-justifying retaliation in the second stanza. As Chen wields the dual identity of being Chinese-American, he is also “alchemical,” transforming and blending parts of himself depending on the situation. Though these adjectives aren’t all flattering, what’s meaningful is that now Chen is doing the “calling,” not the anonymous figures who called him “Chad,” “homo,” and “Chinaman” (1-3) in the stanzas before.

Chen, however, still knows he deserves complimentary words, despite being forced to see himself through the lenses of racism and homophobia, and despite his “blemish” of not having a middle name, spelled out in the poem’s title as if it is something missing. In the final stanza, in which every word uses letters from the phrase “No Middle Name,” Chen lists a series of beautiful nouns, like “ocean,” “dahlia,” and “eel-dance” (13-14). Through his “blemish” of having only a first and last name comes so much more — the poem itself, these elegant words. Chen may be a “nomad” (14), constantly traveling between cultures, and “loam” (14), split between identities like the soil is split between sand and clay. Still, Chen knows he is more than the negativity spewed at him in the first two stanzas, whether he received it from others or from himself. He knows he is worthy, and throughout this poem, he chronicles his journey towards declaring himself as such. Chen reveals how, though the world may try to restrict our identities, language ultimately prevails. Unlike anything else, as Chen learns, words allow us to claim and reclaim, define and redefine, who we are. By its final stanza, in the tradition of most sonnets, “Chen [No Middle Name] Chen” is a poem about love — not for others, but for ourselves.

 

 

Lila Raj is a junior at San Francisco University High School with passions for writing, music, and psychology. She is a 2023 Juniper Institute for Young Writers alumna and 2024 recipient of numerous Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. When she’s not writing, Lila can be found curating her many Spotify playlists or playing jazz on the saxophone.