Adventures Abroad: Aquatic Butterflies

People who know me know I've been home for a couple of days now. I've visited family and friends for the holidays. My parents have posted about me being back. I've been silent. Silent is not something anyone who's ever known me has associated me with. Rightly so. Silent is not me, but since returning I've found myself at a loss for words.

Right now, I feel stuck. Usually, writing is what unsticks me, but for the better part of two days I have been staring at my journal feeling at a loss. I have always felt things intensely, and yet I'm not sure I've ever felt anything quite this intensely. Leaving C-283 and the Cramer felt like leaving home, but without the easy guarantee that my family would stay in one place that I can come back to at any time.

I'm overwhelmed by this, and I'm not sure how long I'll stay overwhelmed. I'm not sure how many days it will take of staring at my journal, starting a sentence, stopping, only to feel too full of something I don't know how to put words to and trying again to get it out before the words will come. So for now, I'm going to borrow some old words and hope they fill the space.

Every day on the Cramer, we had class on the quarterdeck. The quarterdeck is the raised deck on the very back of the ship where the helm sits. Class consisted of three reports from the students and a main event or two from our professors and professional crew members. Our steward, Ger, gave galley reports that were popular with the students. The three standard reports were the Science, Nav, and Weather Reports. Closer to the end of the trip, I did a mock science report with approval from our science professor, Jeff. Behold, the Lifecycle of the Mermaid!

As you can see, I couldn't quite get through the parody presentation with a straight face. According to the class's local fiction writer, mermaids begin their life as eggs. These eggs are attached to Sargassum, because Jeff has a special affinity for that particular ocean plant. Next they are butterfly-like creatures which can be determined from a normal butterfly by the small scale patterns seen on the wings. From there, they transition naturally into a type of zooplankton we caught in or nets commonly referred to as sea butterflies. Then they move into a small juvenile stage, and finally adults. There are three species of mermaids which become identifiable in their adult stages, likely correlating to the three different known species of Sargassum.

I wish I were creative enough that this came out of thin air, but it was inspired by something we saw on the trip. When we were on Barbuda, yellow butterflies constantly fluttered around our ship. When we lifted anchor, they followed us our into the deep water. I asked Jeff if they were a species of aquatic butterflies. I had never heard of such a thing, but I had already seen so many wonders on this trip. Why not add butterflies native to the sea to the list? At first, Jeff explained that they were not aquatic and had likely been blown out over the ocean by the wind. Then, Jeff decided to humor me and acknowledged them as mermaid larvae. This conversation would eventually lead to my "science" report.

Something about those butterflies spoke to me, though it took me a while to figure it out. I probably spent hours watching them dance perilously just above the waves. They shouldn't have been there. The ocean is not an environment they are equipped for, jokes about mermaid life cycles aside. But they were so beautiful, so mesmerizing, so important out there on the sea. If nothing else, they were important to me. It took a wave of emotion to make me work out why they mattered. When I finally did, this poem was born:

Aquatic Butterflies

I think I know what it means to be an aquatic butterfly,

to soar out over great waves to an even greater unknown,

to soar where you know you don't belong

and have others wonder why you're there.

I think I know what it means to be an aquatic butterfly,

to soar out where your wings shouldn't work,

weighed down as they are by water and salt,

and soar higher than you ever did where you were supposed to belong

because the act of defiance makes you feel so much more alive.

I know what it means to be an aquatic butterfly

and find yourself surrounded by other aquatic butterflies

soaring higher than you could before, because you are together,

and learning you were mermaids all along.

Those butterflies were the embodiment of everything I was feeling at the time. I wonder if any of them ever made it back to land. I wonder if they wished they hadn't. Did they figure out the transition? Did land ever feel right again? Could their wings lift as high or take them as far without the water and salt?

Maybe it doesn't matter how the butterflies did later. Maybe it only matters that they were there in the first place. Their fate, good or bad, does not determine mine. Something pulses inside of me now, real and alive, something that heard the call of the sea and answered, something that has to find a way back some day. Even more important than that, there is a connection between all of us. A tangible place to go back to does not make or break a family. We will always have places to go back to: the places where we live in each other's hearts. I'm glad I made it back to land, where my first family lives, in time for Christmas and my older brother's birthday. I'm glad to share this with them to the degree I'm able. And I'm glad to know that from now on, wherever we go in life, my sea family goes together, even if some of the time the going is only figurative.

Adventures Abroad: Arriving in Germany

Let me tell you about the scariest thing I have ever done in my life: getting on a plane heading off to Germany for my first semester abroad. It feels, in retrospect, kind of silly to think about it that way. While I was actually away, I did a number of things that honestly should qualify as far more frightening, but there’s something about that first moment, that first step into potential oblivion, that will always feel like it was the worst (and in a way the best).

Maybe it’s because, up to that point, I had been safely with my dad. The excitement in the car while we made the drive to JFK was palpable from both of us. I knew Dad was extremely proud of me and what I had decided to do. We listened to Wanderlust King by Gogol Bordello at least twice on the drive; this is a classic “on the way to college” song for us, but that was the truest the lyrics had ever rung in my head. First semester I had been in New York, only four to five hours away from my home and family if something happened and I needed them. Once I was in Berlin, I knew that would be it. I would be truly on my own for the first time in my life. The anxiety I felt over this fact didn’t really start buzzing in the back of my head until Dad and I were getting lunch at the airport, some sort of Chinese noodle thing. It began to set in then because I knew that was the last thing I was going to do before checking in for my flight, at which point Dad and I would be forced to separate by security. For hours yet, I would still be in the country, but I would be alone.

Dad, I’m pretty sure, was feeling this anxiety too. The exact moment I said goodbye to him is burned into my memory and probably always will be. We stood right outside security. There was a bathroom nearby, and he asked if I wanted him to watch my bag while I went. I said no. He joked about only having so much dading left to do, but I felt something real behind it. Within the next day, I would be in Berlin, Germany, out of reach. I put my bag down to hug him, long and tight, then grinned, waved, and headed off. In a way, it made me feel better to think that Dad was nervous too. It’s nice to have confirmation that you’re not freaking out over nothing. But also, he was still sending me. If Dad could be nervous and still send me, I could be nervous and still go. Though, I must admit, the confidence this gave me did not last.

A piece of advice for first-time travelers: always be early for your flight. Being early and having to wait is far preferable to being late and missing a flight,  or important information about a last-minute gate change, or any other of a million things that could go wrong. While I stand by that advice, being as early as I was for that first flight stressed me out. The reason Dad and I drove all the way to JFK despite living in New Hampshire was an arrangement with the school. If students took this specific flight, someone from the school would pick us up on the other side and we wouldn’t have to try to navigate to a new country where most of us didn’t know the language. Otherwise we would be on our own. For the first hour or two I was waiting, I did not see another student.

It was during this time that the implications of my decision to do what I was doing fully set in. Every possible thing that could go wrong tormented my mind. What if we had accidentally put me on the wrong flight? No one would be there to meet me. I’m from a small town. I had never dealt with public transportation before. How would I even get to campus? What if I never figured it out? What if I was just lost in Berlin? What if this confused swirl of fear was all that defined my semester abroad?

I actually thought about “missing” my flight. I knew if it happened, Dad would come back and get me. We couldn’t afford another flight, so I would have to spend the semester in New York. It would be embarrassing and disappointing, but I could pass my decision off as some sort of idiotic but pitiable first-time traveler’s mistake. No one would have to know that I was a coward. But the problem remained that I would know, and I didn’t want that to be true of myself. So I stayed.

Part of me wonders, in retrospect, if I was thinking that way because it would be easier for me to deal with making a poor decision than making a mistake. I don’t like not being in control of things or not knowing things. The largest source of my anxiety was probably the uncertainty and the things that were out of my hands. The longer I was there and no one else showed up, the more it seemed like some sort of horrible mistake had been made, something out of my knowledge or control. If I decided to miss my flight, at least it would be willful as opposed to a failing of my planning or intellect.

These dark feelings passed when I finally did meet up with other students on their ways to Bard Berlin. We all sat together and talked for a while. I don’t actually remember, for the most part, what was said, but it was comforting not to feel quite so alone in a world that suddenly looked much, much larger than it had been a day ago. When we boarded, I was reminded by the fact that none of us were seated together that none of us knew each other (or at least that I didn’t know any of them). But it was okay. I had a whole row of three seats to myself so I could stretch out, and I loved looking at the stars over the ocean from my window on the plane. The view renewed the excitement I had been feeling before Dad left me at the airport that afternoon.

The day I arrived in Garmany was hands down the longest day I’ve ever had in my life. I had not slept much, two hours tops, on the plane despite the best efforts of the flight attendants, and when we arrived in Berlin it was somewhere around seven in the morning. Some Juniors who were there for semester abroad instead of the special Freshman Begin in Berlin program I was doing lead the way. The RA who met us packed us into two cabs and on the way to campus pointed out landmarks and things about the city. I half payed attention to him, but a lot of my focus was put on figuring out how to make my phone work so I could let my parents know I had made it in one piece and been picked up.

All of us students were exhausted. Jet lag is a hell of a drug. They dragged us through orientations, campus tours, and getting IDs within the first few hours of us being in the country. I don’t know that I could tell you anything that was actually said. Every single one of us looked like a freshly-minted zombie in our ID photos. I know they talked a lot about the party scene in Berlin and how drugs are bad, kids, but everything else is pretty much a blur.

I met my Berlin roommate, Annabelle, for the first time that afternoon. She was a whirlwind of a woman who basically seemed to personify city life. She was already settled into our room, as she was doing the full year instead of a one-semester program. Annabelle was in and out, already having places to go and people to see. I was not surprised at all when she decided to transfer to Berlin at the end of the year. Much as I would’ve liked to have her around, I still can’t imagine her thriving on the quiet Annandale campus, knowing what else was out there for her.

That night I wanted to have at least one adventure in this new country that wasn’t my school info-dumping, and I knew if I just sat around at home I would likely fall asleep too early to beat the jet lag. I needed some stuff, so I ran to the grocery store. Going to a grocery store might not sound like much of an adventure, but let me tell you everything is an adventure when you’re in a new country for the very first time and don’t know the language yet. I couldn’t actually read anything. I had to guess at body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. I didn’t actually figure out conditioner that night. But I did pick up a couple of German snacks, and a bottle of beer to go with my dinner that night, because 18 is the legal age there (for all types of liquor; beer and wine are legal at 16). One awkward interaction with the cashier (we could not understand each other) later, I headed to drop my stuff back off at the dorm. Then I ran out one more time to get food.

My pick was based on a recommendation from Annabelle. There was a nice little Doner place a two-minute walk from our dorm that was a staple among students. At the time, I just thought it was a really good cheap college food, and technically that was true. You could get a giant, filling sandwich for just about two Euros. Later, however, I learned Doner is a cultural phenomena invented by Middle-Eastern immigrants in Berlin. The giant spinning sticks that meat was sliced off of hinted at the cultural influence, or would have if I’d had any clue what I was talking about. A friend of mine did a project on Doner at the end of the year, which is how I was eventually clued in to its significance.

While I understood none of that at the time, I was still excited. It was my first genuine Berlin food! I fumbled through the order and happily scurried back to my dorm. I sat down at my desk, pulled out my sandwich, and uncapped my beer. Everything was delicious, and casually having an alcoholic beverage with my dinner was a novelty for my 18-year-old American self. That was how I ended my very long first day in Berlin: eating the local food, drinking a local beer, and looking over a map of the city they had handed out during orientation, imagining all the places I would explore and adventures I would go on in the coming semester.

An Open Letter

An Open Letter to our National Embarrassment of a President and his Morally Bankrupt Administration;

I have watched the majority of what this administration has done with embarrassed horror. But this recent action has truly taken the cake of what you could do. I was embarrassed, horrified, but disappointingly not shocked to see that you have decided to remove the United States from the UN’s Human Rights Council. This decision is a tragedy on so many levels, but as you and those advising you clearly do not understand that, it seems a history lesson is in order.

Eleanor Roosevelt, one of history’s most beloved first ladies, was an undeniable driving force behind the creation of the Human Rights Council. Her influence was so important, in fact, that when the International Declaration of Human Rights was voted in by the UN, Eleanor Roosevelt received a standing ovation from those gathered. It is her legacy you betray now, Mr. President, with your decision to remove us from the Human Rights Council. The major powers involved in the commission were the US, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China, one of the countries you, sir, protest the presence of.

China was also involved in the commission created to develop a structure and mission for the Human Rights Council. The US, Norway, France, Belgium, Peru, India, Yugoslavia, and the USSR were also involved. At the first meeting of this commission on April 29, 1946, these representatives unanimously elected E. Roosevelt as their chair. They got to work immediately on the International Bill of Human Rights, a document that is of great importance still today. It is a guiding beacon of human rights goals, and has been the basis of bills of rights in new nations. The first meeting of this commission took place in Lake Success, New York. John Humphry compiled a list of rights for the committee to use as a base, and they discussed it at length. There was tension that easily could have halted the committee’s work between western and non-western nations. Western nations were apt to put an emphasis on the rights of the individual when drafting, while non-western nations were apt to emphasize the rights of the group. E. Roosevelt deftly steered the commission through these issues, and was chosen for the team of three delegates who created the first actual draft of the document. In addition, she chaired the committee in charge of revising their work.

Through the entire process, E. Roosevelt was a strong advocate of the people. When originally offered the position representing the US at the UN, she hesitated. Though she had been active in the political sphere for years before she went to the UN, she had concerns about her own qualifications, lacking a background in either politics or law. This potential deficiency turned out to be one of E. Roosevelt’s greatest strengths through the process. She was insistent that the language should be accessible to the common person, that anyone reading the document ought to be able to understand what their rights were. She regularly talked her colleagues down from overly-legalistic language and navigated cultural and economic differences well. E. Roosevelt insisted on a lack of specific instructions on how to uphold the rights; rather, she believed the only requirement should be that the rights are upheld. This way, countries would have the wiggle room to uphold these rights in a way befitting their own means.

I must stress that it is impossible to overstate the importance Eleanor Roosevelt had to the creation of the Human Rights Council. When the International Bill of Human Rights was passed, E. Roosevelt was given a standing ovation for her work. It was openly acknowledged that, without her unwavering leadership, the document that is the cornerstone of the Human Rights Council never would have been created. Thanks to Eleanor Roosevelt, the US can claim a place in history as one of the most ardent forces in creating what we are now abandoning under your leadership, Mr. President.

The fruits of E. Roosevelt’s labor include 30 International Human Rights. I will not list the articles here as originally intended due to length considerations, but I will provide a link to the document in case you feel the need to familiarize yourselves. I suggest that you, especially, do, Mr. President.

https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Compilation1.1en.pdf

In the hopes that we can now mutually agree you more fully understand the implications of your decision to leave the UN Human Rights Council, I will move on to your officially reported reasons for leaving. According to your release, you believe the UN needs to end its anti-Israel bias and reevaluate who is welcome on the council due to the human rights records of some nations included. Even if I were to believe in the sincerity of these reasons, and I do not, they are poor reasons to abandon the work we have already done for the council.

First, I will address your claim that the UN needs to back off of Israel. Again, sir, you seem to show a blinding ignorance of the history of the UN with this decision. Israel was created following the Holocaust. The idea of Israel emerged from Zionism among fears of antisemitism that lead Theodor Herzl, a Jewish journalist, to believe the Jewish people would never survive outside of a nation of their own. A UN vote created Israel and displaced 700,000 Palestinians. Given this central role the UN played in creating the initial conflict between Israel and Palestine, it would be egregiously irresponsible for the UN not to keep a close eye on this conflict. If you do pay attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Israel does not look good.

By no means do I intend to minimize the complexities involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Regardless of how it became one, Israel is an internationally-recognized nation. The people there can’t simply disappear, so some sort of mutually-beneficial peace agreement needs to be reached. Divisions between the Palestinians make it difficult to sit down and have these negotiations between the two nations, because the Palestinian factions are not in agreement regarding negotiations, and there is no way to be sure that more radical factions could be brought in line under any one agreement. Negotiations are also made more difficult by the lack of trust on both sides, a problem that you, Mr. President, exasperated with your decision to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol despite the fact that Jerusalem remains a largely-contested piece of land.

These difficulties being acknowledged, it remains that a majority of international lawyers, including a lawyer hired by Israel, agree that Israel is in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention with settlements along the West Bank, territory that is supposed to belong to Palestine. Under this convention, moving populations into occupied territories is prohibited. Defenders of the West Bank Settlements claim that the settlements are not in violation, as they are not forcible military occupations. However, when you have to nitpick a Geneva Convention, you are walking a thin line into cartoonish villainy. This is not something we ought to be supporting Israel, or any other ally we might have, on. If they are being investigated, allow them to be investigated. If they’ve done nothing wrong, they’ll be fine. But if they have, we should not be defending those who would ignore human rights.

As to your second claim, that the US should not be on the Human Rights Council until sitting countries with poor human rights records have been addressed… Again, Mr. President, I wonder if you have ever in your life been acquainted with a US history book. Our country was literally founded on a couple of history’s greatest human rights tragedies. When Columbus “discovered” our already inhabited nation it meant mass-death and genocide for the natives. As if that initial genocide were not enough, our country continued to be built on slavery. We also had the Trail of Tears, segregation and Japanese internment. Marriage Equality was passed while I was still in high school. Our own human rights record is far from spotless, so I do no believe we can claim the moral high ground as a nation to say which other nations should and should not be allowed on the Human Rights Council.

But none of that was you, Mr. President! It’s all in the history books! And I know! Which is why I’m prepared to bring up your own record as well. Shall we start with your campaign? I was still in high school for the majority of your campaign run (the election occurred in my first semester of college), so I was not aware of the scope of the issues with you that did not affect me, but I remember being exceptionally worried watching you run as a bisexual woman. In an interview with FOX “news”, you said that you would consider appointing justices to the Supreme Court with the aim of getting marriage equality repealed. That concern of mine was often dismissed as unlikely to come to pass but given Bermuda’s decision to repeal marriage equality it still seems like a real concern to me. As though that were not enough reason for concern, you ally yourself with Vice President Mike Pence, a man whose voting record makes him anything but an ally to the LGBT+ community.

You were no better once you took the office, Mr. President. One of your first acts as president was to sign an executive order pushing the Dakota Access Pipeline through. Ignoring the environmental implications, this did nothing to improve our poor human rights record in relation to Native Americans. Standing Rock Water Protectors came out in droves due to concerns that the Dakota Access Pipeline would negatively affect the water supply on tribal lands. Protected tribal areas are already abysmally small in the face of what we took from them. The decision to push a project through them was nothing short of appalling and does nothing to distance this administration from our poor human rights records in regards to native peoples. It also seems questionable under Articles 3 and 25 of the International Bill of Human Rights.

Your controversial travel ban, focused on predominantly Muslim countries, was another violation committed by you. This did not go as far as the UN, because our own Supreme Court ruled this action unconstitutional, but it was in violation of the International Bill of Human Rights. It violated Article 2, which states that discrimination based on religion and place of origin is prohibited, as well as Article 18, which gives citizens of the world freedom of religion. On that note, this attempted ban also violates the First Amendment of our own constitution, which also provides freedom of religion. Your lack of success with this action does not mean you did not make the attempt, and it does not mean that the American people will forget. You tried to ban immigration from certain countries based on religion in direct violation of the First Amendment. 

The third version of this ban, which did make it through the Supreme Court, does not absolve you of these wrongdoings, partially because we will not forget and partially because the current ban is equally morally bankrupt. The administration may have managed to couch your intentions in the proper legal bubble wrap, but that does not mean we are no longer aware of the affects or intent of the ban. Adding North Korea and Venezuelan officials and removing Iraq may make the ban look less targeted, but the fact remains that the ban still focuses on six Muslim-majority countries. And though language of national security may have brought the ban past the Supreme Court, we still perfectly aware that this was a decision based in bigotry. This began with your intent to ban Muslims from this country. You yourself, Mr. President, have even referred to the ban as a Muslim ban yourself, as you did in a May 2016 interview with FOX’s Greta Van Susteren. The ban, even properly legalized, still shows a gross disregard for human rights on behalf of the administration.

Under your administration, Puerto Rico was largely left to suffer in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Six months following the tragedy, eleven percent of Puerto Rico was still without power. Aid was not readily provided, and evidence from NPR and PBS shows that FEMA lied to Puerto Rico about what aid would be available prior to the storm. The attention given to Puerto Rico stood in sharp contrast to the speedy response in Texas. Your response here also showed a gross disregard for human life. The first day after the hurricane hit, you spoke about how dedicated you were to helping Puerto Rico rebuild before spending the weekend golfing. You didn’t have your first meeting about the situation in Puerto Rico, Mr. President, until the sixth day after the hurricane had mad landfall. After aid did arrive in the form of 10,000 shipping containers of food, that food remained stuck in port for lack of resources and man power that we should have been able to provide. You didn’t make your first visit to the suffering territory until the tenth day after landfall, sit, and rather than reassuring a devastated people you made cracks about the affect this would have on the budget. Even if this could all be overlooked as gross incompetence rather than willful disregard for human life, the fact that eleven percent of Puerto Rico was still without power following the tragedy is telling. One has to wonder why the infrastructure of one of the wealthiest nations in the world was so easy to destroy completely and has taken so long to restore. The continued lack of resources in Puerto Rico is a violation of Article 25 of the International Bill of Human Rights, which tells us that our citizens should have what they need to survive and be healthy. It is also telling that you had a meeting about your travel ban the second day after landfall, before any meeting about Puerto Rico had occurred. Taking rights away from other people was far more important to you than taking care of the people in Puerto Rico who were dying.

This is clearly something you did not want us to be thinking about, Mr. President, as you also took the time to go off about NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem on the second day after landfall. As much as I hate to give you or your advisors credit for anything, Mr. President, this was a pretty savvy move as a distraction, because, while not as pressing in the moment as Puerto Rico was, the protest in the NFL was and is important. They are protesting not the National Anthem, but the way police violence in the United States disproportionally affects people of color. And the President of the United States of America verbally attacking people for peacefully protesting is chilling. While there was no direct violation of the First Amendment, as you did not use government power to silence the protestors, the attitude it reveals about protestors is concerning.

Your global gag order, something you are trying to make domestic as well, is a horrifying assault on the rights of women. This order is a targeted attempt to take healthcare away from women and other people with uteri. The right to safe, legal abortion is a right that was upheld in the Supreme Court decision on Roe vs. Wade based on the Fourteenth Amendment. Forbidding doctors from recommending abortion as a treatment to their patients is a transparent attempt at circumventing this decision. The rule would also make it more difficult for people with uteri to access birth control. Whether you and your conservative colleagues like it or not, people have a right to abortions. As the president, sir, it is your job to uphold the laws of the land, not circumvent them. Again, your actions domestically and abroad with this gag rule also violate the International Bill of Human Rights. It is in violation of Article 25, which gives all people the right to proper medical care, as well as Article 27, which gives all people the right to the benefits of scientific advancement. The rule skates a fine line on religious freedom both in the United States Constitution and the International Bill of Human Rights, as I have yet to hear an argument for limiting access to abortions or birth control that is not rooted in Christian faith.

Currently, Mr. President, you are putting children in cages at the border. I do not care that you signed an executive order ending family separations (an act that you claimed to be impossible shortly before doing it). You still separated 2,700 children from their parents between October 1^st, 2017 and May 31^st, 2018. Many of those children are still missing. And the language of your order was disturbing, to say the least. Detaining families together indefinitely is not a solution and would constitute a large human rights violation. You are keeping children in jail, and indefinite detention without a trial is unconstitutional. The way you constantly attempt to dehumanize immigrants to this country is appalling. We were all immigrants once, sir. Your wife is an immigrant. Forgive us for mistrusting anything you do at the southern boarder when you built a campaign in part on calling Mexicans murderers and rapists. And seeking asylum, a process you deride, is a completely legal action under Article 14 of the International Bill of Human Rights, and an action many of these families need to and are trying to take. Detaining families trying to seek asylum also violates Article 9, which states that no one should be subject to arbitrary arrest, and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, which give people the right to due process under the law and speedy trials. How you, as a father and grandfather, can ignore the cries of so many children is beyond me. If anyone is inhuman here, sir, I would say it is you.

Perhaps these rampant human rights violations are the real reason you are choosing to distance us from the UN Human Rights Council, Mr. President. We were already being investigated by the UN for extreme poverty as of December of 2017. The report from that investigation was not glowing, to say the least. And the UN Human Rights Council called for this administration to stop separating children from parents seeking asylum at the border. It is my sincere hope that we are investigated for these atrocities as a nation, and that we are held accountable for what we have done. There is overlap in these issues, in the demonization and criminalization of immigrants and the poor. These are not issues that should face one of the world’s richest nations. These are problems that could be remedied with a little effort and compassion.

More than being a representative of the state, Eleanor Roosevelt was an activist. E. Roosevelt organized the Women’s Division of the State Democratic Committee, and lead the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Consumer’s League, and the League of Women Voters. She advocated for her husband to appoint more women and African Americans to positions of power during his presidency. She helped to create the National Youth Administration and Federal Arts programs, and during the Great Depression she traveled around the country and spoke to people about their experiences, publishing her findings in her popular column “My Day”. Notably in relation to our current issues, in the debate that established E. Roosevelt’s competency in the UN, she successfully advocated for the resettlement of refugees created by the actions of the Nazis. She was also perfectly aware as the International Bill of Human Rights was drafted of the contemporary issues facing her country, and of the fact that the US would be in violation given our policies on race at the time, but she was in favor of the inclusion regardless. No one can deny that she was dedicated to her country, but more than that she was dedicated to people. E. Roosevelt was not about to let her government off the hook for its treatment of its people, even in the face of the international community. Eleanor Roosevelt’s spirit is what we all need to embrace now in the face of the horrific decisions of this administration. We are a nation of people, not a nation of subjects, and I believe we have it in us to learn to care about human beings rather than racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic rhetoric.

In the true American spirit,

Alyssa May White

P.S. As some of us believe in facts and proper sourcing…

Sources on Eleanor Roosevelt and the UN:

Alston, Philip. “Extreme Poverty in America: Read the UN Special Monitor's Report.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Dec. 2017, www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/15/extreme-poverty-america-un-special-monitor-report.

“OHCHR | Home.” OHCHR | Convention on the Rights of the Child, www.ohchr.org/EN/pages/home.aspx.

(PDF of the International Bill of Human Rights and the related fact sheet can both be reached through here.)

“OHCHR | Statement on Visit to the USA, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights*.” OHCHR | Convention on the Rights of the Child, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533&LangID=E.

Silver, Marc, and Nadia Whitehead. “The U.N. Looks At Extreme Poverty In The U.S., From Alabama To California.” NPR, NPR, 12 Dec. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/12/12/570217635/the-u-n-looks-at-extreme-poverty-in-the-u-s-from-alabama-to-california.

“Universal Declaration of Human Rights - FDR Presidential Library & Museum.” Home - FDR Presidential Library & Museum, fdrlibrary.org/human-rights

Sources on Israel-Palestine:

Beauchamp, Zack. “What Are Israel and Palestine? Why Are They Fighting?” Vox, Vox, 31 Mar. 2014, www.vox.com/cards/israel-palestine/intro.

“Welcome to the United Nations, It's Your World.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/.

(Fourth Geneva Convention can be accessed from here.)

Sources on Puerto Rico:

Florido, Adrian. “6 Months After Hurricanes, 11 Percent Of Puerto Rico Is Still Without Power.” NPR, NPR, 7 Mar. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/03/07/591681107/6-months-after-hurricanes-11-percent-of-puerto-rico-is-still-without-power

Meyer, Robinson. “What's Happening With the Relief Effort in Puerto Rico?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Oct. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/what-happened-in-puerto-rico-a-timeline-of-hurricane-maria/541956/.

Sullivan, Laura. “FEMA Blamed Delays In Puerto Rico On Maria; Agency Records Tell Another Story.” NPR, NPR, 14 June 2018, www.npr.org/2018/06/14/608588161/fema-blamed-delays-in-puerto-rico-on-maria-agency-records-tell-another-story.

Source on the Dakota Access Pipeline:

“These Are the Defiant ‘Water Protectors’ of Standing Rock.” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 26 Jan. 2017, news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/tribes-standing-rock-dakota-access-pipeline-advancement/.

Sources on zero-tolerance policy:

“Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation.” The White House, The United States Government, www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/affording-congress-opportunity-address-family-separation/.

Lind, Dara. “The Trump Administration's Separation of Families at the Border, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 11 June 2018, www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17443198/children-immigrant-families-separated-parents.

Savage, Charlie. “Trump's Executive Order on Family Separation, Explained.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/politics/family-separation-executive-order.html.

“UN Calls on U.S. to Stop Separating Children from Asylum Seekers | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 5 June 2018, www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-criticism-us-child-separations-1.4691801.

Source on Pence’s LGBT+ record:

Drabold, Will. “Mike Pence: What He's Said on LGBT Issues Over the Years.” Time, Time, 15 July 2016, time.com/4406337/mike-pence-gay-rights-lgbt-religious-freedom/.

Sources on the “travel” ban:

“Donald Trump Full Interview With Greta Van Susteren (5-11-2016).” YouTube, YouTube, 11 May 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=abXAx_wCSoE&feature=youtu.be&t=3m9s.

“Opinions.” Home - Supreme Court of the United States, www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/opinions.aspx.

“Timeline of the Muslim Ban.” ACLU of Washington, 26 June 2018, www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban.

Sources on the gag order:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Roe v. Wade.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Dec. 2017, www.britannica.com/event/Roe-v-Wade.

“More than Two Hundred Members of Congress Oppose a Title X Domestic Gag Rule | U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.” Home, 15 May 2018, www.hassan.senate.gov/news/press-releases/more-than-two-hundred-members-of-congress-oppose-a-title-x-domestic-gag-rule.

Planned Parenthood. “Trump-Pence Administration Introduces Nationwide Gag Rule.” Planned Parenthood, National - PPFA, 22 May 2018, www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/trump-pence-administration-introduces-nationwide-gag-rule.

“Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 15 May 2017, www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/05/270866.htm.

“Trump's 'Mexico City Policy' or 'Global Gag Rule'.” Human Rights Watch, 14 Feb. 2018, www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/14/trumps-mexico-city-policy-or-global-gag-rule.

Where I've Been

The first thing I really remember doing at Bard, after the whirlwind of moving in and last goodbyes and first meetings had passed, is getting lost. We all had to go to a talk by President Botstein late at night our very first night, which I know was a ride of its own despite not really remembering anything specific. Getting there was easy. Everyone had to go at the same time and we moved across the campus like a river ending in the lake of the Fisher Center. Leaving was less easy. I had to stop in the bathroom, and when I came out the current had moved on without me, and the river had divided into little streams heading towards different dorms.

I took a wrong turn and ended up in a part of campus I had never been to before, which at the time was most of the campus. I know it was a dirt road. In retrospect, I think I ended up near the treehouses. I remember my old sneakers, dead now, on the dirt and rocks of the road, I remember the total darkness, and I remember the fear of being completely alone in a new place in the dead of night. But I also remember looking up at the stars, shining as brightly as they did back home, and finding my favorite constellation, Orion. And I remember the wonder that I felt staring up at the vastness of space that was so familiar, yet so distant and adventurous at the same time.

There’s a lot I don’t recognize about the girl standing on that road in the middle of the stars, but I recognize that feeling of wonder. I clung to that feeling, and I think it’s buoyed me through the last two-and-a-half years of my life. I needed it, too. L&T was a rough time for me. My area coordinator made a big deal about how we would get kicked out of Bard if we did anything wrong. I spent those weeks on high alert. I did more during L&T than I thought I was capable of and walked away feeling utterly wrecked, as though I had never really known anything. Then my L&T professor praised me on my first ever crite sheet, and I felt that wonder again, along with an overwhelming sense of relief.

One of my favorite classes my first semester of Freshman year, and by far the hardest, was Homer for Beginners: The Iliad and The Odyssey. I was pretty routinely up until one or two in the morning the night before that class reading despite starting my homework almost as soon as I got back to my dorm. In a lot of ways, I feel like I should’ve thought that class was hell. The first and only time I have ever called the BRAVE hotline was because I wasn’t sure if I couldn’t handle the first essay for the class. BRAVE told me to get drunk about it. I didn’t call again.

Regardless, I handled it, and without the use of alcohol. A B+ on my first ever college paper didn’t seem like too shabby a showing to me. That notion was complicated when I got to class that week. I had been used as an example plenty of times in high school, but the idea that would happen with my first college paper, in a class with plenty of upperclassmen, never even crossed my mind. Only this time I was being used as an example of what not to do. But the professor also said it was one of the highest-scoring essays in the class. I was caught in this strange place between feeling proud of myself and feeling viscerally ashamed. I had done well enough to be near the top of a class that was not all freshmen, yet at the same time the many mistakes that I had made, mistakes praised by my high school English teachers, were laid bare. I called my mom right when I got out of class, because at that point I didn’t know what to feel. Eventually, it all added up to that same vaguely-frightened feeling of wonder.

I didn’t realize it at the time, didn’t realize it until Moderation made me feel the need to wax philosophical in retrospect, but that feeling is really what has kept me going the entire time I’ve been at college. The next big thing for me was the Begin in Berlin program. It doesn’t really feel like beginning when you go for the second semester program, but I didn’t feel like nitpicking the thing that was going to get me out of the country for the first (I thought maybe only) time in my life. Before college, I had barely even left New England. The application process was fairly simple, but I still considered it to be one of the most stressful things I had ever done in my life, because to my mind so much was riding on it. I’ve never really looked at careers that will have me rolling in dough, so if I don’t travel now in college with financial aid to help me, then when? (My views on that have since changed. Once the world has been opened to you, it’s harder to convince yourself it’s been closed again.) I followed the sense of terror and wonder all the way to Germany, the feeling of elation assuring me I was on the right track despite the sharp sensation of terror scraping across my veins at the idea of going so far from home alone.

I almost lost track of this amalgamation of significant emotions once during my semester in Berlin, in what can clearly be defined as the darkest night of the soul in the story of my Freshman year. I knew this moment was coming, had been coming for years by the time it finally showed, but I had come within scant inches of praying to a God I don’t believe in that it wouldn’t happen while I was away in Berlin. My grandpa, who had been slowly wasting away due to dementia for years at that point, died. I think the sensation of the moment I heard will be burned into my mind for as long as I live. It was a bright, sunny day contrary to what literary themes about weather would have me believe. I had been walking one of my friends back to her dorm so we could talk more, and my phone started ringing. My phone had been on silent, but for some reason I took it out anyway, and saw my mom’s face taking up the screen. I felt an immediate sense of dread. When I answered, she asked if my classes were done for the day, and when I confirmed that they were she told me that Grandpa had died in the middle of the night in his sleep. No one ever told me of what.

In the middle of the street in Berlin, I began sobbing. I hated that I was out in the open, but I couldn’t help it. My friend walked me back to my dorm and checked if I was okay several times before leaving. I tried to talk to my RA, but she wasn’t there. The whole week after that passed in a blur. I don’t really know any of what happened in a significant way. My roommate made sure I made it to meals. People offered me tea all the time. I had never liked tea before, but I didn’t have the capacity to do anything but accept it. I don’t think I was really capable of tasting anything at that point, anyway. Even now, thinking about this moment in my life sends psychosomatic pain ripping through my chest. The one-year anniversary is coming up in a month. I don’t really know how I’m going to handle it.

Still, I was in Berlin, Germany, out of the country for the first time in my life. Everyone kept asking if I wanted to go home, and honestly I did if only for a while, but my family doesn’t have the money for that to have been an option, so I always replied with a firm no. Even if I had been able to go home, Grandpa’s ghost would’ve haunted me if I did. He wasn’t a sentimental man, and he would’ve thought it incredibly stupid to give up an opportunity like that to go back to a place he wasn’t anymore just because he went and died. So I didn’t miss a class, I kept moving, I went to one of the best ice cream places in Berlin with some of my friends, and I got a tattoo of an island he used to take us camping on when my brother and I were kids. I kept moving through the motions and hoped at some point that would work.

It didn’t really, at least not until Spring Break. In my opinion, the spring semester is the best time to travel. It’s pretty easy to get from place to place on the other side of the pond, so you can go wherever you want for Spring Break. For me, the place was Scotland. This wasn’t why I decided, I had started planning before Grandpa died, but his last name was Jameson. It’s a few generations back, but that side of my family came over from Scotland. I traveled from Edinburgh to Inverness, and spent a few days on the shore of Loch Ness looking for Nessie. I really felt like Grandpa was with me the whole time I was there. Especially when I was on the water. I remember Grandpa being happiest on his boat. I tell people I was looking for Nessie, but maybe it’s really him I was looking for. If that’s true, I’m certain I found him.

I came back from that break better than ever. I was more confident than I had ever felt in my life. The fact that I had planned the trip, actually gone to Scotland, run around the countryside, and made it back in one piece was nothing short of a miracle to me. I couldn’t believe it. Using the public transit in Germany had been really intimidating to me, a country kid, almost the whole time, but after Scotland it felt like nothing. I went on adventures, studied, and had a great time. My very last weekend in Germany I spent a night on the coast right near the border of Germany and Poland. The first day, some friends and I walked to Poland and had a beach day there. There was no one at the border, and we just enjoyed a walk through the forest. The border was marked, so we knew the exact day we made the switch. The last day we relaxed on the beach.

This might sound crazy, but my favorite part of traveling might actually be coming home. By the time I was boarding the plane back to New York, it had been four months. I’d never been out of the north east that long before, let alone out of the country. I cannot properly describe how excited I was when I saw the rocky Atlantic coast. The day before I had been on a beach in Germany, and it looked just like what you usually see in the movies. Soft white sand disappearing into the horizon, not a rock in sight, and I actually like our beaches better. I love the rocks. I love the pockets of life that get caught in the tidepools. And it had been way too long since I had appreciated all of that properly. My dad and my brother came to get me at the airport (my brother was a surprise) and we had one last adventure in the city. I fell asleep to the fading lights. And I felt wonder.