Column

Why playing video games isn’t a bad thing You’re skydiving; you’re free-falling at top speeds until your parachute deploys. Except, once you land, panic sets in, as you need to find a gun before someone kills you. It’s called “Fortnite,” and everyone’s playing it. Imagine if someone took “The Hunger Games” and turned it into […]

Why bad stories are so good I wanted a word that describes a story that’s so bad it’s good. I can think of stories from my own life that fit this definition. But words shape our understanding of the world. If a certain word doesn’t exist, how can the idea exist? I noted a few […]

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s film reaffirms that details matter After years of #OscarsSoWhite and in the throes of the #MeToo movement, it wasn’t surprising when the Academy of Motion Pictures nominated a diverse group of actors, producers and directors in 2017. A persistent and vocal public has begun to shape the course of […]

Pack your journal and leave the rest behind At this moment, as I scramble to finish this piece by a generously extended deadline, a coffee-colored journal lies on a desk shared with a cup of lukewarm tea and and a bunch of free Russian newspapers. It hasn’t moved in a few weeks, which seems to […]

How broader culture has grown to love cartels This article contains major spoilers for the Netflix show “Narcos.”   Television and news have consistently been complacent in glorifying and packaging narco culture for viewer consumption. This is most readily evident in “Narcos,” the popular Netflix series, which glamorizes drug use and cartel violence and at […]

An argument for no climate boundaries across nations and race Reflecting on my childhood, I realize that my relatives and friends all showed the same level of disinterest in climate change. In fact, I don’t remember discussing climate change in school very much, either. In my lifetime, I’ve noticed environmentalism used to be a concern […]

Foreign commentary on America’s strengths and flaws Fish need water, and we need the news. There was a point in my life when I hated the news. News bookmarks on Chrome were deleted; political pages on Facebook were unliked; Sunday newspapers at coffee shops went unpurchased. That attitude thankfully changed — and with it came […]

The factors that separate us start affecting us earlier than imagined There are many social determinants of education: money, access to good teachers, extracurricular activities, school infrastructure. From the first day a child enters school, there are factors that abruptly put them ahead or behind students of the same age bracket. These discrepancies exponentially increase […]

Marvel’s newest installation sends a much-needed empowering message After most late-night movie theater excursions, I return home exhausted and only slightly emotionally piqued. However, walking out of the movie theater after watching “Black Panther” left me buzzing with excitement and incredibly squealish. I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie for days, and the soundtrack has […]

How living in the U.S. affects Latinos’ Spanish proficiency As a Mexican-American, I’ve had to traverse a weird limbo of being proud of my heritage while also embracing American societal norms. For instance, growing up, I was teased about my accent. My Mexican friends said I sounded too white when I spoke, while my American […]

Environmental fads are only good while they last You might have seen what appears to be overly enthusiastic clean-up crews — individuals running with hefty bags scouring the streets for trash. Most likely, you have witnessed plogging, a running trend from Sweden that combines jogging and litter pick-up. The activity gets its name from a […]

A relationship that requires a deeper cultural view It’s a common thread in travel writing: how we can learn about American society by immersing ourselves in a foreign culture. The relationship between Russia and America is obviously fraying, if not completely fried, so the complex web of cultural differences needs to be uncovered and hopefully […]