Prose
Iva Sopta
This piece speaks to the difficulty of belonging and the guilt of leaving your home.
It is about old dreams that somehow never got fulfilled because of how life took certain turns. However, there are still so many signs that remind us of what we once were and what we dreamt about - and even though we know there is no coming back we still enjoy the bittersweet memory of it.
Bettina Hofmann
Soup Story is a reflection on growing up and the way things have stayed the same in my family and the way things have changed a lot. Its a way for me to look at a few specific points in my life and navigate the ever changing dynamics in my family as my brother and I grow up and our parents grow old. There is a soup recipe written in to the story from a Joy of Cooking cookbook that's been with my Dad since he moved out of his parents' house at least 30 years ago, and it's delicious.
Zak Struck
⭐ Hazel Medina Morin
This story was written for my Spanish class. We were learning about journeys and asking if our homes exist if we no longer live there. I wrote this story to write about the fact that, yes, our homes—specifically our home countries—dissappear once we leave because they are always changing; however, they will never fully be gone because we get to hold on to the memories we made.
poetry
Ashley Alonso
Dulce Local, Local de Dulces follows the story of Lilli, the granddaughter of an owner of a candy shop in rural Mexico. The client, Gaby, is an older woman who has this curious spirit over her shoulders. She is simply astonished by the linguistic- yet basic skills of Lilli the youngster. Lilli, as a youngster, strays away from answering the big question of “Dónde está tu abuela?”. As the poem develops, the two have an innocent and insightful casual conversation.
Benjamin Alonso
This piece is meant to be reflective and meditative on the relationship with my father. I pose the question of what it would be like to have met my father when he was a child. In doing so I allude to a time in which both of us could've been good friends.
Visual Art
Robbin Głowacka
Digital painting shows a silhouette in traditional Kaszubski clothes. It was made during winter break, as it was my first time so far away from home for so long, from people who speak my language and share the same history. I missed home, ironically. Drawing myself in the clothes from my region I wanted to connect to it, as I only had very few things reminding me of Poland.
Zak Struck
seraph/serif is partially a kind of love letter and partially an exploration of my history with naming myself.
Camille Akers
A poem dedicated to Ivy. I will love you through every hardship, through every language.
Emma Paris
In my work I find myself perpetually focusing on womanhood and water as instruments of the revolution.
Tomas Medina Arriaga
When I was around 4 years old, I was visiting my family in Mexico. At the time, I was one of the two who was born in the states, my other cousin Yessenia hadn't come with us. I remember feeling lonely and ostracized by my family in Mexico. I was sitting on the steps of my and my mother’s room just playing with some toys I had gotten in the market. My eldest cousin at the time came over and sat next to me. He took out his phone, and for the rest of the time we sat there together looking at cars he thought were cool and asked me which ones I liked. I no longer felt alone and unseen, I felt like he cared about me. It saddens me that I never got a photo with him.
Last term, I found myself thinking a lot about the distinct ways in which people back home express love, and the kind of expression of love that I grew up with being rooted almost entirely in selflessness and acts of service. In thinking about this, I drew parallels with the space in which I exist now - where love is expressed in an entirely different, and yet almost hesitant way. 'I only know the kind of love that has messy hands' explores my longing for the expression of love that I know so well -- embedded in acts of duty.
Nawal Aziz