With all the talk about immigrants and the work force

With all the talk about immigrants and the work force my grandkids asked me if they would have to do the jobs that no one else wanted to do just because they were Hispanic. Even though my wife and I are not, we have helped our son and their mother raise their children quite a bit and a lot of times their questions come back to me. I explained to my grandkids that even though they were of Hispanic descent that didn't mean they had to do the jobs nobody else wanted to do. I told them to keep their grades up and pay attention to what was happening in our world. If they did well in school and then wanted to go to college they could or they could learn a trade and become a skilled tradesman, that way they wouldn't have to work in the fields or wash dishes or work a minimum wage job that they hated. Just because they were not white didn't mean they were destined to work in a job that no white person wanted to do. All my grandkids had to do was learn and follow their interest and then they could find a job they liked or even start their own business and be their own boss. (pictured with his son, Eric, who's 3 children are the aforementioned "grandkids")

~Steve Wardlaw

I want our nation to continue to welcome, but wisely

During the course of our marriage, my wife and I have had close to 30 people live with us at various times in our home as guests. We see hospitality as a gift that we can offer to others. In 2002 we purchased a home with extra room for the express purpose of having two to four university students live with us in an intentional Christian discipleship community. This idea never came together, but with the added space, other people continued to live with us. In the spring of 2004 a friend contacted me about a co-worker who had an urgent housing need. I will call his co-worker "John." We met. He had his idiosyncrasies - he described himself as a poster child for ADHD. John gave me the name of a reference in his home state that by and large vouched for him. I decided to allow John to live with us in a room off of our carport, a room John was glad to call his. He stayed through the summer and into the fall. He was laid off his job, but picked up odd jobs detailing vehicles. He enrolled in a local community college with the goal of pursuing a nursing degree. Over time it became apparent that John was dealing with more than ADHD - that he had some type of mental health problems. Being untrained, however, it was difficult for me to put my finger on what wasn't right. During this period of time we also had another person staying with us as well - "Sally." Conflict between John and Sally developed and in January 2005, I asked John to move out within the next 30 days. He refused. He became verbally belligerent insisting that Sally move out and not he. He started regularly drinking in excess. Sally temporarily moved out. Because he had lived with us for several months in exchange for some occasional work, the police could not remove him from the property as a trespasser. The police advised that he could not be placed on a mental hold unless he was a danger to himself or others. I gave him a 30 day written notice to move out. In mid-February he became so belligerent that my wife and children moved out of the house and my brother-in-law and nephew moved in the house to secure it while I was at work. One night, John went on a rampage and began destroying his own property in our drive way. Another night he had a panic attack and the police and paramedics were called around midnight. He was hospitalized, but released early the next morning and returned to the house. Finally, John agreed to move out. The month long ordeal was finally over. The next day my wife and children moved back home. Two days later, after the children had gone to school, and I was preparing to leave for work, John drove up and asked to get some belongings he had left behind in his room. I unlocked the room and went back into the house to finish getting dressed. There was a commotion in the hall. John was attacking my wife with a baseball bat hitting her on her head and shoulders. I wrestled him into our children's room yelling for my wife to call the police. John and I disengaged. He walked out of the room. I thought we had reached a truce of sorts. As I walked into the living room I saw him again attacking my wife on the back porch. He was attempting to strike her with a splitting maul and she was grabbing the maul handle close to the head. I tackled him again and we rolled out into the back yard. Again we disengaged and I ran away into street finding my wife. The police came. We were taken to the hospital. My wife, covered in blood, had lacerations to her scalp and chest and a contusion on her back, but no permanent injuries. At the hospital we learned that John had set fire to our home. These events occurred almost 12 years ago, but they are still tender wounds. It was a time of upheaval in our home. The events connected with the election of Mr. Trump point to a time of upheaval in our nation as well. This upheaval has many strands, but one is the balance between being welcoming and being wise. How can we as a nation be a welcoming nation? But in our welcoming, what does it mean to be wise? At the time I invited John to stay with us I thought I was being wise. In hindsight I see that my "vetting" process was very inadequate. We need to make sure our refugee vetting procedures are up to snuff. John, as subsequent court proceedings established, had significant mental health issues - issues not appropriately addressed in a family's home. How do we best help the refugee and the immigrant? Is the uprooting from one hemisphere to another with significantly different cultures, the best solution for the refugee? Once the welcome had been extended to John, it was difficult to end his stay. This reality underscores the need to make good decisions upfront. With the passage of time, my wife and I started having people stay with us again, but much more selectively. At first only family members, but then people referred by friends who knew us well. I want to continue to welcome ---but wisely. I want our nation to continue to welcome, but wisely.

~Michael Duggan

We used to think it was so fucking funny

So there was this place me and my friends used to go to back in college. We used to think it was so fucking funny. And I guess I still think it's kind of funny, but for an entirely different reason. We used to sit on the steps of this old abandoned church and roll our joints on a King James Bible. It was the early nineties and for a lot of my friends, college was their first time away from their parents. My dad died when I was young and my mom was always working so I was always doing what I wanted to do, for the most part.

~Anonymous

It was supposed to be funny, you know?

It was supposed to be funny, you know? There was this old looking house in our neighborhood that we would joke about being haunted. We knew there was someone living there but we were kids, so we liked to imagine things. Well, anyway, one day when my younger brother and I were playing with a girl from our neighborhood we decided to 'check out' that house's yard. I was about eleven years old at the time and my brother was about eight-ish. I was the oldest out of all three of us. Anyway, I hopped over the fence into the backyard first. There were these big bags of soil that we used as steps, but when I hopped over I realized that I couldn't leave the way I came. There was nothing stacked against the other side of the fence for me to step on. I told my brother and of course he jumped right on over to help me. But then we were both stuck. The neighbor girl that was with us thought that if she jumped over the fence we could figure out something together, I'm sure you can guess that we didn't magically figure it out with her on our side of the fence. If anything, we panicked more. We couldn't go around the front because then we might get caught by the person living in the house. (We later found out they were on vacation and weren't even home.) I could hear my dad calling my brother and I because I had soccer practice soon. The neighbor girl started crying and saying we were going to make the ghosts in the house mad and then my brother started crying and then I started crying. We cried for a good ten minutes until my brother kicked a rock in frustration and it hit these crate boxes. I swear I probably screamed something like, "We're saved!". Long story short, we dragged those stupid things over to the fence and made some stairs and climbed out of there. It was probably one of the most stressful thirty minutes of my childhood and I guess the moral is 'make sure you can get out before you go in', or something stupid like that. I didn't go to soccer practice that day, by the way. And my brother didn't come out of his room for a good five hours.

~Anonymous

Your daddy and I are twenty years apart

Your daddy and I are twenty years apart - have I told you that? I had him when I was twenty. Sometimes, I think I was too young to have a baby then. Oh, God, he was so small! I remember I would stare at him sometimes, when he was that small, and think 'is this a real baby?' 'is it real?' and I would move him, just a bit, so he would start to fidget and then I would say, 'yeah, he's real'. Your grandfather worked construction and had to stay overnight most weeks, so I would be alone with your father 'cause I didn't work when the kids were little. Just me and him. I was so young! I used to dress him up in little outfits because he was like my own little baby doll. I loved it. He was a calm baby and let my put little shoes and hats and mittens on him without much of a fuss. I treated him like a little doll for a long time - until I had your aunt eight years later. I was more mature when I had her, I like to think. Your first baby is so exciting, you just get caught up in it! But, with your aunt, I was a little more reserved, and your daddy was older. I'm glad neither you or your brother have had kids yet. You shouldn't have them so young. You don't think they're real when you're that young. I wasn't ready for him. I wasn't ready. But he was so sweet, and he turned out okay. I think that's all that matters.

~Anonymous

Political correctness has gone too far

Political correctness has gone too far and is unobtainable due to the fact that it is subjective and what one person may find offensive another finds totally acceptable.  While the original intent may have been a good concept (to encourage tact and sensitivity to others feelings regarding, race, gender, religion, etc.) it has resulted in a population of emotionally fragile individuals that have never learned to accept dissenting viewpoints.

The pursuit of political correctness is crippling our ability to communicate freely and grow as individuals. It is hindering our ability to interact and get to know those that are different from us and embrace our differences.. Young adults feel persecuted if someone says something they disagree with.  Managers, such myself are fearful of giving critical feedback to subordinates of a different race, which is vital for job growth, for fear of being perceived as a racist. 

The pursuit of political correctness is undermining the freedom of living in a free society. The world is not perfect where everything we see and hear is controlled and it never will be. You will be offended in life and it is not acceptable to think you are entitled to a safe space to recuperate.  

My point is that political correctness has become a bigger problem than the problem it was intended to fix.  If we must self-censor any conversation pertaining to race, gender, religion and sexual orientation in an effort to protect everyone’s feelings, we perpetuate the very barriers we want to overcome.  In order to progress as a free society, we must be exposed to different perspectives, viewpoints, feelings and life experiences.

~Anonymous

I was born in December

I was born in December. So in 2008 when I turned 18 I missed the presidential election by a month. I think the experience made voting very important to me. When I went to vote in this last election It felt more important than ever before. I didn't really support either candidate, but one felt so much more dangerous to me than the other. I went early before work to cast my ballot. I waited all day to see which candidate would win. I watched a map all night to see the states turn red or blue. Every time calculating how many states were left, and how many my candidate needed to win. I feel like I started holding my breath that night. I still haven't been able to exhale.

~ Nick Rouke

Mayonnaise is healthier than ketchup

Mayonnaise is healthier than ketchup. How do you feel about that?

It's true! Mayonnaise consists of olive oil and eggs, yet twenty-five percent of ketchup is made of sugar.

Living by this factoid was one of my first steps to changing my life for good.

I work as a graphic designer, marketing assistant and brand illustrator all rolled into one at my local premium supermarket, DeCicco & Sons. Naturally, I had an employee discount. Anything on the floor under the offices I worked in was at my fingertips. By the time lunch rolled around I would get in line for a gourmet chicken parmesan cutlet BLT with ranch dressing and top it off with coffee doused in a sweetened creamer. Sometimes I'd sneak a granola bar upstairs for a snack, and head out to have some free sweets at the bakery displays.

Yet every day at my desk on lunch break, I would reflect on why nothing fit me anymore. I was embarrassed that the only pieces of proper, fitting workwear I owned were three large size eighteen dresses my grandmother had sewn for me within the last year. I was twenty-one years old, exactly five feet tall, and pushing one hundred and eighty pounds on the scales. For the majority of my life from middle school into college, I was unhappy with my body. I never felt healthy or had enough energy, or ever feel comfortable shopping. My personal example of the vicious cycle would start with apathy and say, "Oh, I'll work out later," and when I'd get to that I'd say, "I deserve a treat for running three miles," and in the time that followed I'd realize, "Okay, I shouldn't have eaten that...but I'll just work out even harder next time!"

In early June I broke the cycle by answering one simple question.

"Is this who I will be for the rest of my life?"

Every morning I would answer that question with self-discipline. My last meal from a deli department was that lovely chicken parmesan cutlet BLT with ranch dressing. The lady at the bakery who would normally make me my mocha latte with vanilla creamer and sugar was surprised when I asked for hot water with lemon and cinnamon. My lovely coworkers in the office were genuinely concerned about my eating habits, not because I was eating healthier, but because the change happened so rapidly, quite like night and day.

My favorite part of the job, and the main backbone of success, was the dual screen display setup I was given. I would retouch, design, illustrate, tweak, and type on one monitor while I would listen to lecture upon lecture about sugar, fat, carbohydrates, debunked diets, genetically modified foods, processed foods, macronutrient and micronutrient intakes, obesity, anorexia, diabetes, you name it. Some of my favorites included raw vegan documentaries and British television series, "Supersize VS Superskinny." I went vegetarian for a week. I went vegan for a week after. Finally, around July I supplemented my consumption of nutritional information with a community-based source of information centered around a diet not well-known to the majority of the world today: the ketogenic diet.

The ketogenic diet has been my saving grace. Essentially, it takes the standard American diet and flips the fat and carbohydrate percentages. Instead of continuing a diet based on seventy five percent carbohydrates and five percent fats, I began to base my consumption around seventy five percent fats and five percent carbohydrates. If we go back and look at the mayonnaise versus ketchup example, you'll see that this suits the rule of fat in the keto diet. I wanted to follow the diet as strictly as possible.

I gave up all forms of sugar, no more than 10 net grams of carbohydrates, and cut out all processed and genetically-modified forms of foods whenever possible. As an added bonus, my severe cystic acne cleared up completely when I gave up all forms of dairy. Along the way I discovered a huge amount of information. Did you know most carrots and fruits are genetically modified to be sweeter to the average consumer? Did you know that many grams of sugar hide in cured bacon? Did you know that most iceberg lettuce does not contain any significant nutrients whatsoever? Did you know that bananas are actually one of the most sugar, carbohydrate, and calorie-dense foods you can eat? Did you know avocados and spinach contain more potassium than a generic banana?

In a matter of about ten days I went from shopping and consuming anything in my supermarket to fervently avoiding the highly-processed, boxed, packaged, ninety percent in the middle. My paychecks didn't go to clothes or books, or things for leisure. Half my money went to purchasing the food that was good for my body. Being of Hispanic background, it was understandably a very different environment at home when it came to food, especially since I gave up rice and beans, plantains and empanadas. I would have to cook my own meals, eyeball my grams and ounces of protein, carbs, and fats.

Food was no longer a comfort to me. Taste was not my anchor anymore. It became a science, a really complex game of Tetris where I would track everything I ate in a food diary, pick the best foods I could so that they would hit my macronutrient and micronutrient intakes and clear the level for the day.

By the end of the summer, I fit back into seven other dresses that had been collecting dust beyond the light of day. After five months, I discovered an old photo taken when I was a sophomore in college. I did not recognize myself whatsoever, and was stunned speechless because I thought I was making minimal progress. By February of the 2017 semester, only three outfits fit me properly because everything else began to billow, sag, and quite literally fall off.
You can't out-train a poor diet. A calorie is not just a calorie. Nutrition is ninety percent of maintaining a healthy body for life. Don't believe what you hear about sodium intake and cholesterol. I eat eggs every day and my bloodwork has never been more consistent on this diet, sleep has never been more refreshing and deep, and most importantly, I feel that I have finally begun the best chapter of my life.

At the time of writing this piece I have lost over thirty five pounds, am now smaller than a size eight in women's dresses, size six or small in women's tops, and can fit into a size twenty six in US bottoms.

How can you deny a diet that allows bacon and butter, eggs and avocados, spinach and salmon?

~ Erika Rosell

The morning after the election

The morning after the election was surreal for me- Guys dressed up in suits with 'Make America Great Again' hats like Trump had won the Super Bowl or something. I still can't believe the way people on campus behaved. Classmates. People I knew. People who I know don't know much about politics either. I didn't stay up to watch the coverage of the ballot counting, but I heard the cheering early in the morning.

Nobody should be that happy that they put a jackass in charge of our country. That they gave him nuke codes. I thought a Trump presidency would have terrible consequences for a lot of people; that's what every speech he's made is about. It's not something to celebrate. It's weird-I didn't really care about politics before this election, but I know that it shouldn't be a spectacle. Everything Trump does has real repercussions. I'm so frustrated-the guy is a giant idiot.

~Anonymous

Peggy McIntosh wrote that

Peggy McIntosh wrote that privilege meant the ability to decide what causes you fight for and what voices you listen to. For example, a white person in America has the option of whether or not they want to support racial equality while the matter is not nearly as much of a choice for a person who is not white. While everybody should support racial equality, a white person's opportunities and quality of life is not at stake, their basic rights and proper treatment is not at the center of the battle for racial equality. This is privilege, being given a choice as to who and what you want to support because you want to, not because your basic humanity is at stake.
In regards to the events of the last couple of months, the point that I keep coming back to is the juxtaposition between those whose rights have recently been greatly threatened and those who have not been put in such a position. My parents, two white middle aged people with savings and stable jobs, can watch the news and frown upon political protests. They can spin the recent election by saying that a president who was not a politician could be good for America. My parents can say that people protesting the recent election need to accept that Trump won and move on, that that these people are being whiny and immature. I have butt heads with my parents on a lot of issues recently in our country and I know that I am not the only person my age to experience this. I have given up arguing against their view because they simply do not see the gravity of what has been going on. To draw on McIntosh, my parents have the privilege of not being put in such dire a situation over recent events.
I have friends who are not white middle aged people with savings and who do not have jobs that are as stable as my parents. These people do not have the ability to be so far removed from the recent upheaval in our country. My friends who are not white are worried, my friends who are not straight are worried, many people my age are worried, my female friends and I are worried, my fellow special education teachers are worried. Many people who live in this country have just been sent the message that their rights can be threatened because of something as fundamental as their race, their gender, or their sexuality.
In response to the notion that Trump hasn't been in office for that long or that some of the things that he supposedly said can be attributed to the media, more damage than people who fail to recognize the problem can see has been done. In his SNL monologue, Aziz Ansari spoke about all of the people who voted for Trump, people who feel that they no longer have to hide their prejudices in today's America. The "KKK with a lowercase k", so to speak, refers to the notion that people with bigoted, biased views now feel affirmed and supported in their beliefs.
On a more personal note, I work with special education students. Many of my students are on the autism spectrum and a main worry of mine is about them, about the future of IDEA and other provisions in place for them, about propter treatment for them.
In my Educating Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students class we watched a documentary on Latin American immigrants and the reasons that they came to this country. The documentary highlighted that fact that, in many Latin American countries, the United States' actions led to upheaval that caused people to flee to America. Many of the people in the documentary said that they came to the United States illegally but that this was not a choice of theirs. These people did not want to leave their homes and their families but the United States' involvement in their countries had led to such violence and instability that they did not have a choice. These people are some of the people threatened by the current events in our country.
I am not well versed in politics and I do not keep up enough with current events but I know enough to know that what has been going on in our country is not okay. The story that I keep coming back to is the gaping divide between those who have the privilege to look down upon people who are fighting for their basic rights or the rights of others and those who suddenly feel unsafe, unwanted, and abandoned in their own homes. This divide is what gives so many people, people who may have the power the help, the feeling that nothing is wrong and that they can ignore all of the recent turmoil. This divide is part of the problem as to why some people rightfully feel unsafe in America.
This divide strikes me because it is why two people who live in the same country, same state even, can feel very differently about current events. One person can feel that things are fine and that people need to accept what's happened and stop protesting and fighting it while another person can feel trapped and helpless, unable to protect themselves and the ones that they love. This should not be the case. We need everybody to be fighting for equality, for the rights of all Americans, we cannot have some who feel that they are safely removed from the battle. The juxtaposition between these two positions is not only striking but harmful. Such as juxtaposition is not uncommon but now is a good a time as any, if not a better time, to fix this problem. Getting past this divide will not only help people struggling and facing an unsafe environment and unfair treatment now but it will set a precedent that just because one may not feel at the center of a fight for others does not mean that they can turn away from it so easily.

This image was taken and posted by a summer camp that I work for. I chose this image because the special needs camp that posted it is a place of acceptance and a great example of a community of support. The community at this workplace is one where everybody is treated like family and we work hard to ensure that every member of our community is treated fairly and equally. Communities like this one help to exemplify what I think we need in America right now.

~ Cristina Ulto

I became I journalist because

I became I journalist because I needed a way to channel my social justice. I entered college a gender studies major with little hope of ever finding a job in that field. After taking a journalism class, I realized I could help people by shedding light on corruption while making a living. I never imagined in my freshmen year that, by the time I graduated, being a journalist would be so important. I never thought that the president would attack journalists for printing facts. Freedom of the press was founded on the idea that the people should be able to openly discuss and critique their elected leaders. If publications are scared to publish information for fear of being attacked by the new administration, can we still call ourselves a democracy? If nothing else these attack have encouraged me to fight harder for the oppressed people, to lift the veil and reveal what's happening in the shadows of government. My feminism is intersectional. My reporting will be too.

~ Angel Gierisch

Last semester, after the election

"Last semester, after the election, I went to a march to make my campus a sanctuary campus. While we were marching, a guy came up to me and asked where the churros were-I went off on him, I was really upset. Then he told me to 'chill out, it's a fucking joke.' But it's really not funny- there are so many problems with that sort of statement, let alone the situation. A lot of the students here come from wealthy families. I don't think they understand how serious this is. I'm an immigrant. My mother is an immigrant. But we're white, so we aren't the immigrants who are under attack. I think that's why this guy came up to me: because I was also white, and he thought I'd identify with him. But legal status, what we look like, where we come from, shouldn't have anything to do with the way that we're treated."

~Anonymous

In August of 2015

In August of 2015 I took a week-long vacation to Cuba with my family. I was so excited for the trip, Cuba has for years fascinated me, from the polarizing figure of Fidel Castro to the stories of my relatives leaving Cuba to escape the upheaval of the Revolution of 1959 to start a new, better life in the United States. During that time my views of Castro and his regime has been similar to other Americans, in that he was a dictator who made Cuba into a police state. Yet the story is much more complicated than that, and my trip showed me that Cuba's story isn't so black and white as it has made out to be.

My Mother booked a "Cultural Tour", through a tourist agency which is why we were even able to go, since the United States does not allow travel to Cuba freely. We were going to Cuba during a very exciting time, that week The U.S. embassy was reopening for the first time since 1961 when diplomatic ties severed between the two nations, we were about to witness history. The flight we took from JFK went straight to Havana, something that had started only a month before. The check in point was near baggage claim in a small area of the airport. On line with us were mostly all Cuban families with TVs, furniture, play stations and other goods wrapped up in blue plastic. Right then I realized this wasn't going to be a normal summer vacation to a tropical island. We arrived at Jose Marti Airport in Havana Cuba on a Friday afternoon. The airport is very small and split into two sides, arrival and departure. When walking into customs you are transported back to 1950. The room is filled with private booths with a door with blurred windows so it's impossible to see the person who goes in. After getting through customs and waiting almost two hours to get our luggage. We finally met up with our driver. That's when our experience began. As we were driving to downtown Havana, you could smell the fumes in the air, old fashioned Fords, Buicks and Chevrolets lined the streets; all in funky colors of baby blue, red and yellow, along with people riding horse buggies. Me, my Mom and Brother looked at each other with amazement.
I remember when we were driving through the city thinking, "This is how people live?". The buildings were deteriorating, some had collapsed, there weren't any windows in apartments. Clothes and linens hung all over outside, kids were playing outside with little pieces of things that once looked like parts of toys. There were no supermarkets, department stores or pharmacies in sight. When we got to the hotel. It felt like all the people hanging out outside were looking at us like we were aliens. Before we came to Cuba I thought that I was going to see a bunch of very sad people living in poverty. Instead what I saw were people partying, laughing and dancing. They seemed to be the happiest people in the world despite having very little materialistic things. Across from my hotel room was a big family that lived on the top floor of a building that had a makeshift roof. I watched them like hawks since there was no internet or T.V. to entertain me in the time I was in the Hotel. However, from the time that I watched them I realized how much Cubans value family. The grandparents would be playing with the grand kids. The father would come out on the roof and be playing with the children and the family dogs every evening. The wife would be making dinner for what looked like twenty people. These people would be crowded around one Television at night and laughing all hours of the night. To me, they seemed to have nothing, but to them, they had everything they wanted.

On our trip we got the real experience, we drank and ate with the locals. We visited sites and monuments to the Revolution, even rode a soviet truck up the Sierra Maestra Mountains where Castro and his rebels waged guerrilla warfare. We also learned about Cuban art and visited Ernest Hemingway's house. Everywhere we went, all I saw were people literally dancing or singing. Even workers working, I also saw that Cubans are rainbow people, coming in all different shapes and sizes. I didn't feel out of place being a tall white boy. My trip showed me that the Cubans are the backbone of Cuba. Their dream in achieving freedom haven't faltered, even when living in a world with limited freedom. I was surprised to learn that Cubans have access to healthcare, education and that there's virtually no racism, crime or prostitution. However, despite this, several Cubans I asked, did express their displeasure with the government. Saying that getting jobs is hard and that they hope the new relations with the U.S would open the door for the embargo to end. It seemed to me, that Cubans have a firm belief that the embargo is the one thing holding them back, and that the ending of it will finally see Cuba return back to prosperity. If that is actually true remains to be seen, as personally, I believe that the government moving to a more democratic form of government will truly see Cuba become a more modern, unified nation.
Lastly I found myself questioning my opinions about Castro. When driving around Cuba, you see bill boards and monuments. All to the July 26th movement. Yet what you don't see is anything made for him. All the monuments are of other Cuban revolutionaries, the likes of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, JosŽ Mart’ and Frank Pais. Our guides told us he did this to not create a cult of worship around himself. Perhaps he did it for propaganda purposes, or maybe he did because he really did want the revolution to be about the people and not himself. It's hard to really say, because he's so charismatic that you almost forget he's the guy who has committed human right violations on his own people.

My trip only lasted a week, yet in that short amount of time. Being without internet, phone and T.V. really helped make my experience more memorable. It allowed me to get to know new people from a place that is entirely different than mine, I was able to able to see how grateful I am for my family and friends. It also made me realize that no matter how hard I think my life is, the Cuban people have it ten times worse than I do and are still able to have a good time. Lastly, the new connection that I made with my heritage will forever make me feel proud to be a Cuban American and not the other way around.

~ Alex Gisondi

When I think of upheaval

When I think of upheaval I think of social services and the people and agencies that provide much needed services to a growing, needy and underserved population. Those seeking social services have experienced upheaval in their lives in one form or another often not due to faults of their own. Many people choose to ignore this population or blame their bad luck on their own wrong doing, while in reality many of the people who are in need of social services are the subject of unfair social stigmas, regulation and racism. Through my work with nonprofit campaigns I have seen people working nonstop to improve these lives, and many of these people rely on such services to achieve improvement. I have also seen the people providing services and those who work at agencies make sacrifices in their lifestyles for the betterment of society as a whole. In this day and age more people need to be willing to do so to improve the lives of all others, not just themselves.

~Anonymous

When I think of the word "upheaval"

When I think of the word "upheaval," what I immediately think of is results. Upheaval is always caused by something else, and when all of those results are negative, then the causes must be negative too... right?

I think that a secondary result of our world being in a time of upheaval is that many people place the blame on themselves and others for the state we live in, and that we forget that not 100% of everything and everyone is constantly in this state of upheaval.

The story I would want to tell would be one about good intentions. I would want to show in a concrete but human way that to be a good person, you have to start with good intentions. We all make mistakes along the way, whether it's out of ignorance of another culture, thinking that that boy or girl you had a crush on was the one, etc. To live a full life, however, is to learn from those mistakes and to grow, and the reality is that some people mourn their failures and get stuck in a rut, and some people grow. Beyond that, there are many ways in which a person can grow.

I want to tell a story of a group of people who all face the sudden change in their life (it could be a death in the family, alien invasion, or buying a new house), but who come from a variety of different backgrounds and who face their similar situations in seemingly opposite manners. It would be a human experiment in fiction depicting that it always makes sense to have different opinions and reactions to the same thing, depending on where you come from and who you are at your core. I want to tell a story that might instill the reader with something that this time of upheaval lacks: acceptance.

~Anonymous

When I was growing up I was always told

When I was growing up I was always told that I could be whatever I wanted to be. When you're three or four or five you don't think that there are any exceptions to that kind of idea. I didn't know that my being a girl, or my being Latina, would hold any weight on my ability to be whatever I wanted to be. As I got older, it was easy to tell myself that the world was becoming more progressive with each passing year. I grew up in a diverse town, went to schools that had predominantly African American or Latin demographics. I went to an all girls high school, where we were taught to empower and exhibit leadership. We heard whispers of the difficulty women faced in the working world, but we told ourselves that things were getting better. Once I got to college it didn't take long for me to realize that my ethnicity and my gender weighed heavily on how I was perceived by the world, and how I was going to be treated. I worked hard in college, building my resume while still taking on leadership roles on campus and maintaining a social life. Watching Hillary Clinton, a candidate I'd so passionately supported throughout the 2016 Election, lose, crushed all of the hopes I had that a woman like me really could be whatever they wanted to be. If a qualified woman could lose an election to a severely under qualified man, what was stopping the world from preventing me, a Latina woman, from taking on the roles I deserved. This period of my life has taught me that I can work as hard as I can, but it'll only be through a change in the attitude's of others, and the perception of women and minorities in this country, that women like me can have the world open up for them. I have faith that one day it'll happen, and I'd be honored to say I was one of the millions of women that marched, spoke out, and stood up for their rights and made their voices heard. I hope that one day, Hillary Clinton's words will echo true: "To every little girl who dreams big: Yes, you can be anything you want-even president."

~Anonymous

The only thing I can think of in this time of upheaval

The only thing I can think of in this time of upheaval is that - I'm thinking about myself and how I hate politics. I hate politics, and I hate politicians. Especially, coming from Hudson County, where politicians have been historically crooked - y'know, that disdain has always been there. But, what I do realize is that by taking the ostrich approach - saying you're not going to listen or pay attention because it doesn't affect me - if enough people start thinking like me, then that could be a serious thing. Because that's how these immoral and corrupt people do take over. Because nobody is paying attention, nobody's watching, and you're thinking 'well, it's not really affecting me directly' but ultimately it does. I guess my new thing is, going forward, not so much getting into politics myself, but respecting those who are out there paying attention and making sure that the Constitution is being upheld, that the liberties that are set up in this country are still there for the majority of the people. We have to make way for those who really feel passionately about it so that they can continue. And even if we don't really feel 100% involved in it, you do have to keep your eyes and ears open, you have to be vigilant. You can't just let people change the reason that this country was set up... I'm in a state of turmoil. I'm in a state of internal turmoil, I must say.

~Anonymous

When I was a kid I was obsessed

When I was a kid I was obsessed with being cool. I always wanted to have the in clothes, the in shoes, and whatever all of the other kids had. But I wanted to go one step further, I wanted to have the things they didn't have yet - the latest upcoming trends. I wanted to be a trendsetter. So, I was really excited when I got an email - in sixth grade - from this company that said they would send me these free clothes, and I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was going to be the new trend, and nobody else would have these clothes yet. I was really excited about it. I responded, told them how excited I was - I gave them my home address, which might have been a mistake, but anyway... I got these clothes in the mail, which is a miracle that this wasn't actually a scam. I tried on the clothes and I was so excited because they seemed so different from what everyone else in my class was wearing. I don't remember exactly what made it different - but it made me feel more adult. I had broken my arm at the time, so my mom had to help me with getting dressed every morning. I showed her the clothes and even she was excited, she thought the outfits were really cute, and somehow I managed to get away with not telling her I'd give a strange company my address. I went to school, and all of my friends seemed really excited about this outfit too... but then I was sent to the principals office. I couldn't figure out why, I'd only been at school for a couple of minutes.

The principal told me I had to be sent home because my outfit had broken our school dress code and was too 'provocative.' I couldn't understand what he meant. I didn't see anything wrong with my outfit - it was really just jeans and a loose, patterned shirt. The jeans weren't even ripped, something that kids had gotten reprimanded for but never sent home over. I asked him what it was about my outfit that was too provocative, but he wouldn't answer and my mom was called to come and pick me up. When my principal filled her in she was livid. She couldn't understand why my outfit was coming under fire when no part of me was exposed. The principal, after much berating, finally told her that my shirt had exposed too much of my shoulder, in a way that could be considered inappropriate. I don't know why, but I can't remember what happened after this point in the conversation. I went home, changed, and came back to school, but I don't remember telling my friends about what had happened, or wearing the rest of my new trendy clothing. I was too embarrassed. To this day I spend a lot of time picking out my outfits. I worry more about my outfits now, but I think I'm worried for the wrong reasons.

~Anonymous

So, when I hear this question

So, when I hear this question, for some reason I just think about my childhood. And I guess it's pertinent to say that I come from a family of divorce - I don't know if that's the right way to phrase it? - my parents are divorced. My parents divorced when I was really young, like younger than I can really remember them being together. And so, I actually only have one memory of my parents being together - which is when I was like... God I must've been like four, or younger. The only parts of it I remember are, I was in my house, and it was nap-time, and I never liked naps. It was nap-time and I looked out my back window and my parents were doing yard work. And then, my mom found a bunny that had hidden in the garden, or something. She picked up the bunny, and since I was watching them I ran down and they were like 'it's fine that you're awake, this bunny is clearly more important than nap time.' So we pet the bunny for awhile, and then my mom let it go. For a long time I thought maybe that was a dream, and not a real memory, but it was just a recurring dream. But then one day I asked my mom and she said no we did find a bunny in the backyard once. She couldn't remember the details, but she remembered it, so I thought it must be true since my mom confirmed it separately.

I guess my parents later divorced, but they were always amicable, which isn't always the case, I know, because my dad was remarried, and I had two step-brothers. One day I came downstairs, and I saw my stepmom and the kitchen table and she was just crying. And, I was like "my God, are you okay?" - all the regular stuff you ask. My step-brothers' dad, he was a bad guy. He got restraining orders against her for the kids. Like, imagine if one day you went to pick up your kids and you were told no because there was a restraining order against you, you can't pick them up. She's a regular suburban mom, there's no reason for that. He was just a bad guy. So she was just crying because of all the things the boys' dad had done at that point, because he'd done so many things, she was like "I just wish me and my ex-husband could have the same relationship that your dad and your mom can have" - that they can be amicable, that they can be in the same room. That's what this question makes me think about. Those two moments, together.

~Anonymous 

The period of upheaval that most upsets

The period of upheaval that most upsets me is the use of electronic media for personal relationships and communication. Even though people seem closer than they used to be, particularly those living overseas communicating with family and friends, there isn't the letter writing and the phone-calling, and the personal contact that we had in previous years that brings people closer together. Along with this, is a trend, for young people in particular, to ignore books. There's no longer an emphasis upon reading the classics, either Western Literature or Easter Literature. People don't read anymore. They don't communicate effectively, verbally, or in writing, and this deterioration of their language skills I think will lead to long term consequences, if they haven't already in terms of societal divisions and violence.

~Anonymous