¿Qué es un milagro?: A story of love, perseverance, and choosing to live

By Anna Goodman ’28 

Staff Writer

Content Warnings: this article discusses death, grief, plane crashes, extreme cold, hypothermia, extreme starvation and weight loss, and (briefly, undetailed) cannibalism. 

Spoilers for La Sociedad de la Nieve (The Society Of The Snow)

Nothing grows in the Vallé de las Lacrimas (Valley Of Tears). It earns its name. 12,000 feet above the ground, surrounded on all sides by the stoic, near-vertical cliff faces of the biggest mountain range in the world, there is nothing for a dozen miles but blinding snow and blinding sun. It is always dead silent. 

And then a plane falls from the sky. 

“On October 13, 1972, an Uruguayan plane crashed in the Andes. Some say it was a tragedy. Some say it was a miracle.” Thus begins “La Sociedad de la Nieve,” or “The Society of the Snow,” a spellbindingly unflinching, often brutal, incredibly moving production that tells a story perhaps too unbelievable to seem real. Thus begins the question: ¿Qué es un milagro? What is a miracle?

The forty-five people on board Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were headed to a rugby match in Chile the next day when their plane struck the mountain. A dozen or so were part of an amateur rugby team in Uruguay; the rest were their friends, their family, and a small crew. 27 left the wreckage alive.

I know what you’re thinking, but wait. Because this isn’t the story you think it’s going to be. 

The first time I watch “The Society of the Snow,” I’m eighteen and in the midst of a depressive episode, in one of those agonizingly liminal moments when you can’t decide whether to sleep or to keep your eyes open, only to stare up like the ceiling is going to give you the secrets to the universe. I don’t remember why I end up watching this movie, but I do. 

“Me llamo Numa Turcatti. Tengo veinte cuatro años,” our narrator says. “[My name is Numa Turcatti. I am twenty-four years old].” Numa is not a member of the rugby team, but three of his friends are, and they convince him to come along.  He doesn’t know most of the team well; he’s our point of view character for a reason — a quiet, compassionate observer that often shrinks from the spotlight in favor of louder personalities, like players Roberto Canessa or Nando Parrado. 

Our main cast begins their story as a bunch of college-aged rugby players in the early 1970s, who talk about women like they’re foreign creatures for conquest, and only touch each other to slap shoulders affectionately in the locker room or in millisecond-long hugs for photos. When their plane begins experiencing turbulence, several ask each other mockingly: “Are you scared?” and “Are you going to cry?”

But then they crash. 

Then society is gone, and they scream for their mothers. They ask to be held: the first night Numa begs his friend: “Hold me. Hold me tighter, Pancho”. They keep each other as warm as they can in a place where nightly temperatures can be under -30 degrees Fahrenheit. And when the elements rip them away from life, they kiss each other goodbye. 

They lay the injured on the side of the fuselage with the strongest sun and treat head wounds with snow wrapped in torn fabric. They string a hammock made of broken seatbelts to carry a man with broken legs and lace their hands together on his chest to ease the fluid in his lungs. They create a makeshift water purifier that magnifies the sunlight to melt ice into water, fix a broken radio with parts from a lighter, and fashion snow-blindness glasses out of the tinted cockpit windows. 

And they compose bad, sappy poetry to pass the time in the fuselage. They mimic bird songs to make each other laugh. They have a snowball fight in the middle of nowhere. They smoke 130 packs of cigarettes, because it’s 1972.

In short, they live in a place where, as Numa says, living is an anomaly. But it does not come without a cost. 

This movie is brutal; there is no use pretending otherwise. You are witnessing the characters become skeletons, with cracked, frostbitten lips and ever-growing sores on their arms. I don’t know if it happens at the same scene for everyone, but I clearly remember the moment when I thought to myself: These people are dying. 

You have already read the content warnings. “Cannibalism.” Yes. 

When, on the eleventh day, the crash survivors make the fateful decision that will define this story in the eyes of many, the film treats it with the gravity and respect it deserves. They recognize that there is no way to survive in a place that is only snow if they do not eat the bodies. Unlike many stories in this vein, the crash survivors kill no one, only scavenging from the already dead with as much care and dignity as they can; even still, they do not do this lightly. They agonize. They pray. They weep.

“If we do this, will God forgive us?” one asks. To which another answers: “God has nothing to do with this.”

And perhaps “the” God doesn’t. But “a” god does. 

“I think everyone has their own god,” my sister told me once. It was late July, but it was freezing; we were sharing a pair of earbuds, listening to Noah Kahan and rubbing our hands together inside her pocket, trying to make a starmap on top of a 14,000 foot mountain where the air is so thin that you’re out of breath just standing still. She told me of people with vengeful Old Testament gods, people with forgiving, nurturing ones, then confessed she didn’t know what hers was like yet. I told her then that I like to think God is in people. Looking back, I think that standing there with her was the closest I’ve been to understanding what “god” is. 

“I have more faith than I’ve ever had, but my faith isn’t in your God, Numa,” Arturo Nogueira says, even when his legs are broken and his heart is slowing. “I believe in the god that Roberto keeps inside his head when he comes to heal my wounds. In the god that Nando keeps in his legs, that lets him continue walking no matter what. I believe in Daniel’s hands … Fito’s strength. And in our dead friends … that’s the god I believe in.” 

Sometimes faith alone is not enough. Sometimes–

“Me llamo Numa Turcatti,” our narrator says once again, two hours in, once we’ve grown to love him and his quiet dedication and his settled compassion. Then, “I died on December 11th, 1972. In my sleep.” And you think, no. No, wait. Because after a point, you think you care for these people too much for them to die. That they are too young. That this could not happen. 

But you are wrong. That is not how death works. 

“I’m twenty-five years old, Pancho,” Numa says as he starts to fade. “I have my entire life left ahead of me. I want to see my siblings again. My mom, my dad. I want to dance.” 

“Numa, you don’t dance.” 

“I know. But I want to now. I want to do it all. I want to laugh. I want to cry.” 

“Then cry,” Pancho tells him. “Cry. Please.” So he does.

It is only at the moment that Numa dies, still in Pancho’s arms, that we realize the entire film is a tribute to him. It is only at that moment that I realize I’m crying too. I haven’t cried in months, and now I can’t stop, because I have never before been confronted by how deeply I want to live. But, god do I want to live.

And sometimes, it’s hard. Sometimes someone I care about dies and sometimes I’ll twist my ankle and sometimes I’ll throw up my hands and ask, what’s the point? 

On those bad days — though slowly, painstakingly, there are less — I think of mapping the stars with my sister on top of a mountain I could never have climbed alone. Of movie nights and microwave popcorn with my friends. My dad and his viola and his plaid shirts and his hugs. My mom and her forever changing hair color and her love for discovering recipes. And I remember that there are people who would give anything to live, to do it all over again, laughter and tears and everything in between.

That there are people out there somewhere who wanted to dance but never got the chance to.

That la vida es un milagro — life is a miracle.

In Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “To The Young Who Want To Die,” she writes: “Sit down. Inhale. Exhale. The gun will wait. The lake will wait … will wait, will wait. Will wait a week: will wait through April … You need not die today. Stay here - through pout or pain or peskyness. Stay here.”

The day after Numa Turcatti died, Roberto Canessa and Nando Parrado began a nine day, thirty-eight mile hike through knee-deep snow, three of those days up the cliffs surrounding their valley. On the tenth, they reached Chile, reached help, and promptly collapsed. 

Speaking to the Guardian, Nando said: “I said: ‘Come on, Roberto, I cannot do it alone. [Either way] I’m going to die looking into your eyes.’ Roberto was very weak. He gave everything that he had. Everybody gave everything that they had. He was the best associate, the best companion, the best friend I could have had in this expedition.”

Including Roberto and Nando, sixteen people survived, against all the odds, seventy-two days in the Vallé de las Lacrimas, where nothing lives and nothing grows. This gave the saga its name: “El Milagro de los Andes.” 

Every year, three days before Christmas, the 12 remaining survivors of the Milagro de los Andes — and their families — meet to mark the day they were rescued. “This is a story of life,” Nando said in the same Guardian article. “We celebrate the memory of our friends who didn’t come back.”

And together, the survivors, the families, and a team of passionate, dedicated actors, cinematographers, and directors created “The Society of the Snow.”

We are living in a world where hope is hard to come by, I know. I’m not here to tell you that it isn’t terrifying to stare the unknown in the face. And we cannot save the world. But we can save each other. We can be there for the people we care about.

“Keep taking care of each other,” Numa, still and forever our narrator, ends the movie saying. “And tell everyone what we did on the mountain.”

¿Qué es un milagro? On October 13th, 1972, a Uruguayan plane crashed in the Andes. Some say it was a tragedy. Others, a miracle. Perhaps it was both.

I would like to dedicate this article to the 45 passengers and crew of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571: 

Eugenia Parrado. Graziela de Mariani. Dante LaGuarara. Esther Horta de Nicola. 

Francisco Nicola. Julio Ferradás. Julio Martínez Lamas. Felipe Maquirriain.

Francisco “Panchito” Abal. Fernando Vásquez. Carlos Valeta. Susana Parrado. 

Gastón Costemalle. Ramón Martínez. Ovidio Ramírez. Alexis Hounie. Guido Magri. 

Daniel Shaw. Liliana Methol. Marcelo Pérez. Carlos Roque. Juan Carlos Menéndez. 

Enrique Platero. Diego Storm. Gustavo “Coco” Nicolich. Daniel Maspons. Arturo Nogueira. Rafael “Vasco” Echavarren. Numa Turcatti. Javier Methol. Jose Luis “Coche” Inciarte.

Daniel Fernandez. Álvaro Mangino. Roy Harley. Roberto “Bobby” François. Gustavo Zerbino. Eduardo Strauch. Ramón “Moncho” Sabella. Pedro Algorta. Adolfo “Fito” Strauch. 

Antonio “Tintin” Vizintin. Carlitos Miguel Paez. Alfredo “Pancho” Delgado. Roberto Canessa.

Fernando “Nando” Parrado. 

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact-checking.

No more waiting: MHC must add APA studies to curriculum

Sachiko Arai ’29

Contributing Writer

Mount Holyoke College prides itself for its “inclusive, pluralistic and free of discrimination” community. In fact, it proudly states those exact words on the college website.Yet, in light of the recent Asian hate on campus that has unfolded both in person and on online platforms such as Fizz, perhaps it is time for us to reconsider whether the college is actually keeping true to its word. 

In order to discuss this issue, I sat down with Michelle Li ’27 and Angela Kim ’28, the co-chairs of Asian American Students in Action, abbreviated as AASIA. Through the conversations I had with them, what became apparent was how the college has failed to satisfactorily implement Asian Pacific American — APA — studies in its educational curriculum. Not only does this impose negative impacts on the educational experience of Mount Holyoke students, but it has direct ramifications for our Asian American students’ overall college experience here at Mount Holyoke. Through our conversation, we discussed why it is so crucial for Mount Holyoke College to implement Asian American studies in its educational curriculum in order to protect Asian students who compose an indispensable part of the community. 

Michelle Li and Angela Kim were both born to be fighters. “I’ve always been kind of like a person who wants to fight the good fight … wanting to take actions … wanting to do something political.” Li told me. Kim also stated how she has “always been very action oriented.” 

The fact that they ended up becoming the co-chairs of AASIA at Mount Holyoke is in a way, not surprising at all. It was simply a continuation of what they had always been doing: Fighting for their own people. 

“It was pretty apparent,” Kim noted, recalling the moment when she had decided to join the organization. “I was like, okay, these are the bunch of people I can get behind.” 

Currently, AASIA is attempting to fight for two major goals. The first is to finally have the College hire a professor who researches the field of Asian American studies and Indigenous studies. The second is to get departments outside of the Critical Race and Political Economy — CRPE — department to also offer APA studies. 

They first realized that the Mount Holyoke education curriculum lacked APA studies last semester, when they compared Mount Holyoke’s fall 2025 course offerings between the other five colleges. All the other five colleges offered numerous APA studies courses, such as “Asian American Women Writers” taught at Smith College, or “Intro to Asian American Lit” taught at Amherst College. Mount Holyoke, however, offered none. 

Kim emphasized the issue that this educational curriculum “gap” causes. “APA studies is so intrinsically tied to everything … no matter what discipline, it also speaks to how it’s tied to the climate on campus. If you are not learning or teaching APA studies on campus there is going to be a hostile environment for the Asian students on campus.” 

Li also shared with me their personal experience where they were “mindblown” after taking Asian American studies at Umass, and then afterwards, discussing with their fellow CRPE majors at Mount Holyoke what they had learned. Oftentimes the other students would “have no clue” what exactly they were referring to, even if they hadn't tried to explain a complex academic concept. 

While they have been urging Mount Holyoke to revise its educational curriculum to include more courses within APA studies, so far they have been met with continuous opposition. Li mentions how despite the fact that the CRPE department at Mount Holyoke College has been attempting to apply for tenure faculty lines, he College has been rejecting the applications repeatedly. Even worse, the College has not offered any proper reasoning behind their decision. 

Therefore, Mount Holyoke College still has only two professors who teach APA studies, one who is a Five College professor who will likely soon retire, and the other, professor Iyko Day, who is currently on sabbatical. 

Their shock was only further increased when they started to rummage through the archives of Mount Holyoke College and learned the shocking truth: They were not the first to demand the college to "establish an Asian American studies program." In fact, there have been numerous protests by students in the past that demanded it. 

To this, Li could not hide their deep anger and disappointment towards the college. 

“In the archives, student protests in the past have laid out the demands that we want Asian American studies, and [so] why do we still not have Asian American studies?” 

While the battle is still ongoing, and one that is still anticipated to be rough, Li, Kim, and many other Asian American students still continue to be fighters. They have been continuously discussing the issue with the provosts at Mount Holyoke College, and have gained support from various people affiliated with the Five Colleges, or by inspiring Mount Holyoke alums such as Barbara Smith. 

“I really believe that you cannot be liked by the institution you’re trying to change.” Li states strongly. “I feel like these things need to be said, because students in the past have said them. That’s why we have the College we have today, and we have to keep saying them so the college can become better and better.” 

If Mount Holyoke College endeavors to keep true to its words of DEI statement, it cannot continue to keep silent about the absence of APA studies in its curriculum. We can’t keep on chanting “Mount Holyoke College forever shall be,” and fail to acknowledge the continued microaggressions that our Asian community faces at college. Until all members of the community are truly protected and recognized, our College’s DEI statement will continue to be untrue.

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact-checking.

AI on music streaming platforms is causing strife in song selection

By Quinlan Cooke ’29

Staff Writer

Spotify’s AI DJ was released in early 2023, but lately it has been causing some strife when it comes to easy listening. The AI tool was developed by OpenAI using their own technology. Users, like myself, report that Spotify’s dedication to customization and personalization does not come through with their DJ; instead songs you skip are repeatedly suggested and overplayed. 

Spotify’s DJ is designed to talk about the music it is going to play for you, then play 5 songs. This pattern repeats itself until you decide to turn it off, or to switch things up by hitting the designated button to stop the set of songs you are currently listening to. You can also request any prompt from the DJ, and it will do its best to comply. I once asked my DJ to play Garbage (the band), and it took it as playing music that it (or someone else) thought was “bad” or “garbage”. 

Sometimes, the AI DJ says nonsensical sentences, or pronounces artist’s names entirely wrong. My DJ, for some inexplicable reason, cannot pronounce Tyler, The Creator. It also cannot handle when artists have obscure or plural names: It almost never pronounces Arctic Monkeys correctly, or Cyndi Lauper. 

The main issue I find with the OpenAI DJ is that the songs which are consistently recommended are ones that I often skip, or even ask the DJ not to play. One in particular is “Rules” by Doja Cat. The DJ suggests this song so often that it winds up being in my “On Repeat” playlist that Spotify also creates. 

Spotify has rolled out another AI feature, this one to do with playlists. This “prompted playlist” feature allows premium Spotify users on the mobile to type a prompt, and Spotify will generate a playlist that best fits the parameters. It is unclear which AI system Spotify has teamed up with for this feature. 

Prior to this, Spotify’s closest feature to this was “Spotify Generated” playlists that users could not edit or request. These playlists followed very niche queues. These playlists are custom for each user, so the music in each playlist is skewed for each listener. This might sound thoughtful and ideal, however there are big issues with this method. If you look up a playlist and are wanting new music, you are unlikely to find it. 

These playlists constantly recommend music you already like, or artists you are familiar with. There are also playlists with different titles/themes that end up being almost identical because it leans so heavily on the user’s pre-existing music taste and listening history. 

If you are looking for new music that you have yet to hear and discover, I recommend finding playlists that other users have created. If you want to hear what Spotify recommends for something new, listen to one of their public playlists that do not say “made for you,” so there will be no bias towards the user listening. 

It is important to note and acknowledge the widespread use of AI in something so personal as making a playlist. There is no shame in taking advantage of one of these Spotify features, but I feel it lacks personality. Many people take pride in their playlists and underground song discoveries; but this is in danger if the same songs are recommended over and over again by playlists and AI DJs run by AI. Individual music taste could slowly be overtaken by readily available playlists and recommendations if people are unaware that AI has a part in their streaming. 

If you find yourself frustrated with AI infiltrating your music taste and want new music, ask other friends for recommendations and listen to a playlist on their profiles. If you want something niche, there are endless possibilities with searching other people’s playlists. Spotify users are very creative, with playlists ranging from being based on fictional characters to the most classical music you can imagine. Don’t feel that you need to depend on pre-made recommendations, there is endless music to discover; and isn’t that part of the fun? 

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact-checking.

All the snubs and all the dubs of the 68th Grammy Awards

Graphic by Audrey Hanan '28

By Quinlan Cooke ’29

Staff Writer

The 68th annual Grammy Awards were held on Feb. 1. The ceremony featured many surprises, including underdog winners, presenter mishaps, and performances. This famous award ceremony is run by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, also known as the Recording Academy, and presents various awards to musicians in a variety of categories. The eligibility period for the most recent ceremony spanned from Aug. 31, 2024, through Aug. 30, 2025.

There are over 75 categories of awards to be given out, but only a select few are televised on primetime. The most coveted awards, known as the “big four,” are Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. These categories sum up the highest achievements of the eligibility period, and people are always eagerly awaiting the results.

Nominations for these categories are very prestigious. Record labels and members of the academy, months prior to the ceremony, submit who they think would be the best fit for certain categories. These suggestions are sifted through to just a few finalists to be nominated.

The first of these four categories to be announced was Best New Artist, and per recent Grammy tradition, the prior winner of this category announces the new winner. Chappell Roan opened this year’s envelope, announcing Olivia Dean as the winner. The other nominees were Katseye, The Marias, Addison Rae, Sombr, Leon Thomas, Alex Warren, and Lola Young. This was a shock to most. Dean has garnered a lot of attention on social media and a lot of play on the radio.

Some believed Addison Rae was going to win this category, as she was the most “pop-girlie”-esque of the nominees and has been building her image for years. However, my prediction had been Lola Young; she quickly rose to fame and has since been through a lot. In Sept., Young collapsed on stage while performing in New York. The blame for this was extreme stress from touring. Young did her first live performance since this unfortunate event at the Grammys during the “Best New Artist” medley performance.

I would say that all of the “Best New Artist” performers/nominees worked hard, and Dean was an underdog to me, but she earned the award and completed a stellar performance.

“Song of the Year” was a shock to just about everyone watching. The Grammy went to Billie Eilish for her song, “Wildflower,” which was released in May of 2024.It was open to Grammy eligibility because it was rereleased as a single in Feb. of 2025. Many were surprised to see this song nominated, let alone win. The other nominees were Lady Gaga with “Abracadabra,” Doechii with “Anxiety,” Rosé & Bruno Mars with “APT,” Bad Bunny with “DtMF,” Hunter/x with “Golden,” Kendrick Lamar — feat SZA — with “Luther,” and Sabrina Carpenter with “Manchild.”

Bad Bunny was the fan-favorite for this category, and many, including myself, were speculating Hunter/X to win. The sheer popularity of the animated movie made it such a strong contender, and it seems monumental to have a song from a children’s movie be nominated for such a prestigious award. I know I hear this song at least four times on the radio in a workday, and there were so many people of varying ages rallying for it to win.

“Record of the Year” differs from “Song of the Year” in the sense that “Record” refers to the production, engineering, and artistry of the song. “Song of the Year” is about the lyrics and composition. “Record of the Year” went to Kendrick Lamar ft. SZA for “Luther”. Their fellow nominees were Lady Gaga with “Abracadabra,” Doechii with “Anxiety,” Rosé & Bruno Mars with “APT,” Bad Bunny with “DtMF,” Chappell Roan with “The Subway,” Billie Eilish with “Wildflower,” and Sabrina Carpenter with “Manchild.”

I have yet to hear any opposition to this win; many garner it as well-deserved. There were so many nominees for this category that it was difficult to make predictions. My personal guess was Chappell Roan, but I may have a small bit of bias with this. There were so many strong contenders: Bad Bunny, Rosé & Bruno Mars and Sabrina Carpenter. It is important to note here that despite six nominations for the night, Sabrina Carpenter went home with zero awards. She arguably had the biggest snub of the night.

The most coveted award of the entire night is always saved for last: “Album of the Year” brings tears to the eyes of the contenders. The winner of this highly desired award was Bad Bunny for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.” His competitors were Justin Bieber’s “Swag,” Sabrina Carpenter’s“Man’s Best Friend,” Clipse’s “Let God Sort Em Out,” Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem,” Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX,” Leon Thomas’s “Mutt,” and Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia.” When Bad Bunny was announced to accept his award, he appeared to be in shock and started to tear up. His album was also the first non-English album to ever win this category.

I have only seen people celebrating this win and saying they understand and sympathize with the topics of the album. Some are even saying his acceptance speech was the best they have ever seen, and that is exactly why they believed he deserved to win. This win was hard-earned; the charting speaks for itself. I thought Sabrina Carpenter was another strong album contender, partially because by this point in the ceremony, she had no wins, perhaps because of her intense radio play. I also thought that due to how much buzz there has been since the last Grammys when it comes to Kendrick Lamar, he also had a strong chance.

Overall, this year’s Grammy Award ceremony brought a lot of surprise wins and losses, especially considering the sort of last minute and precarious nature of some of the nominees. Nevertheless, many of the speeches for these awards made viewers feel that the winner truly deserved their award, even if they did not think that prior. I enjoyed the ceremony, even though none of my personal favorites went home with awards, and I think that many others can share that sentiment.

Eden Copeland ’27 contributed fact-checking.

Never again, except when it’s us: Jewish identity and Gaza

Photo by Anna Goodman ’28

Some Mount Holyoke College students have been chalking on the roads and pathways around MHC’s campus with messages in support of Palestine.

By Anna Goodman ’28

Staff Writer

Content Warning: this article discusses genocide at length, as well as famine, antisemitism, mass murder, Islamophobia, and the Holocaust. 

I’m eight years old, swinging my legs because they can’t touch the floor yet, the first time I consider myself Jewish. It’s April 2015 and hours past my bedtime when a friend of my father begins the fifth of — what seems to me as — endless Passover readings, and I don’t understand why any of them matter.

I don’t go to Synagogue. I don’t speak Hebrew. I eat Challah bread on Friday evenings and pretend to like grape juice, and that’s about it. But that has never mattered to my family, because to us, being Jewish is not just a religion, but also about the preservation of our culture. In truth, an act of defiance.

Yet, despite my boredom, it’s at this table, at eight years old, that I start to understand that defiance. To grasp what the Holocaust was. And I don’t understand. How could anyone let this happen?

Later, it’s December 2023 and I’m sitting at my desk as my teacher recounts the week’s news. I sit there as my classmates debate terrorism and occupation and retaliation and who deserves to die screaming and who’s innocent. For perhaps the first time in my life, I bite my tongue. 

Because I am not thinking of the people in my class. I’m thinking of family. Of a man — a boy — I consider like a brother, who was drafted into the Israeli Army just after he turned eighteen. Who, for safety reasons, I will refer to by the Hebrew word אחי: “ach-khee,” literally “brother,” but in colloquial use, close male friend.

אחי is only six months older than me. He messaged me the other day and asked if I was also getting gray hairs. 

And a part of me feels for him. Another part doesn’t know if I should.

Just this year, several experts at the United Nations declared, “While States debate terminology — is it or is it not genocide? — Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza … massacring the surviving population with impunity. … No one is spared — not the children, persons with disabilities, nursing mothers, journalists, health professionals, aid workers, or hostages.”

In the six months since, the scale of destruction has only gotten more horrifying.

As of Nov. 29, 2025, “Palestine’s official health ministry has tallied the dead at over 70,000”: An already horrific number that many experts have stated is likely a severe undercount. 

By the Israeli military’s own numbers, every five out of six of those people were civilians.

“Every genocide depends on the dehumanisation of its victims,” Guardian reporter Owen Jones wrote, “Mainstream media outlets have airbrushed the truth about Israel’s genocide — whether that be broadcasters or newspapers. They’ve failed to report multiple atrocities, failed to show the horrific consequences, repeatedly regurgitated Israeli lies about their war crimes. ” 

Entire textbooks could be written about the horrifying dehumanization of Palestinian people, Palestinian children in particular. But I’ve seen much less said about the opposite: The almost gentle language and strangely subdued anger surrounding the people committing these atrocities. 

Every Nazi — from the guards at the camps who pulled the levers on the gas chambers to the everyday enablers who registered party membership just to keep their heads down and live, to those who shut their windows and turned away from the people with pinned yellow stars being dragged down the street — was a person who made a decision, just like אחי. 

And when we wave our hands and say things like, “well, they had no choice”, or “well, that’s not the same,” we clear the path for ourselves to expunge our own guilt. 

“I didn’t do anything!” But, see, that’s the problem, isn’t it? You didn’t do anything.

There’s a very famous poem called “First They Came” by German Pastor Martin Niemöller, that I’m sure many of you have heard before. “When they came for the Jews,” it says, “I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” 

We read it every year at Passover. We recount the story of the Holocaust, raise our glasses to those it stole from us, dip our bitter herbs in saltwater. We promise them, promise ourselves, that we will never forget. 

Perhaps, the darkest truth is that we haven’t forgotten. And what does that tell someone? What does that tell not only the Palestinian students on our campus and across the country, but every Muslim person with the right to exist in a world that hates them for no reason? That they’re lesser? Unworthy of basic human decency? 

“The fact that you’re Palestinian, you have to prove that you’re not a threat, you have to prove that you’re not an extremist, you have to prove that you’re just a human,” Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student whose arrest earlier this year sparked a whole spate of protests, tells Zeteo.

Did you know that the word אחי, brother, in Hebrew, is the same as أخي , brother, in Arabic? Why is my “אחי”  worth any more than theirs?

I am ashamed to say, in the last two years, most days I tried not to think about Gaza. I donated, I protested, I cried, I declared that I would do something. I decided my empathy made me morally superior. And most of the time I couldn’t bear to even read an article, much less write one.

The truth is, I could have written this any time in the last two years and I did not, because I was just too scared. And in a decade, in two, in three, how am I going to answer when one of my students raises her hand and asks me what I did when I watched a genocide happen in real time?

“I felt bad,” I’ll say. “I pretended that that meant something.” 

Now, it’s October 2025, and I’m eighteen years old. I sit down at my desk to write this article. My feet touch the floor now. It’s been 10 years since that first Passover, two years since this genocide began, and I understand now. 

It’s so painful to realize that you are now one of the people whose inaction you condemned, back when you didn’t have any reason to be scared. 

Through it all, I come back to אחי. Who got his friends to help him fake a scar so he could get a permit to grow out his hair. Who admitted to me once that his knowledge of Christmas is based on movies, and then asked for recommendations on the worst ones I could think of. 

Who I couldn’t tell I was writing this article, because it would get him thrown in jail. I see his shadow in every headline. I feel my stomach twist when I remember, every time we complain about our coworkers or share anecdotes about our moms, that his hands are bloody. 

And still I fear that someday I’ll wake up to a call from his little brother telling me that he’s gone, and I won’t know what to do with myself. 

Now, just imagine that same fear, that same agony, multiplied tenfold, for the people whose loved ones are, or, were, Palestinian. Who have crawled out of the rubble of the places they called home over the bodies of the people they called Mom. 

“Gaza has become a place where death is so constant and survival so compromised that even silence now speaks louder than any appeal for justice,” Muhammad Shehada wrote for the joint Israeli-Palestinian newspaper +972 on the second anniversary of October 7th. “And the legacy of this genocide will be with us for generations.”

The legacy of this genocide, as much as we would like to live our lives not admitting to it, is on America’s hands too. For the last two years — and decades before then — it’s been America’s bombs, America’s missiles, America’s money enabling the Israeli army to rage a campaign of abject violence and terror on civilians. Our tax dollars are killing people, and our government has been, at best, quiet, at worst, actively promoting it.

“The decision is stark,” the UN stated in its official report on Gaza: “[we can] remain passive and witness the slaughter of innocents or take part in crafting a just resolution. The global conscience has awakened, if asserted - despite the moral abyss we are descending into - justice will ultimately prevail.”

“Right now the Israeli government is waging a genocidal war on Gaza,” the organization Jewish Voice For Peace says in their mission statement,  “claiming the support of all Jews who live in the US… we say, ‘Not in our name!’”

And I may not go to Synagogue. I may not speak Hebrew. I eat challah bread on Friday evenings and pretend to like grape juice, and really, that’s about it. But when it comes to defiance, I am as Jewish as my ancestors. 

In his response to Niemöller’s “First They Came” poem, written in the wake of the 2016 election, American Rabbi Michael Adam Latz said, “Then they came for the Muslims and I spoke up—Because they are my cousins and we are one human family … They keep coming. We keep rising up. Because we Jews know the cost of silence. We remember where we came from. And we will link arms, because when you come for our neighbors, you come for us—and that just won’t stand.”

It would be naive to say that writing an article that will reach a thousand people at most will cause any tangible chance or will save any lives. But it is still something. 

I may be a child. But so is אחי. So were the countless people and their אחי s, their أخي s,  who have died at his army’s hands.

And I am Jewish. 

I remember where I came from. I remember all those Passovers spent listening to the stories of the Holocaust. I know the cost of silence. I know the power of linking arms. I stand on the shoulders of all that came before me, all those who lived and died and fought for a better world. And on their behalf, I say: not in our name. 

Angelina Godinez ’28 contributed fact checking. 

When life imitates art: Appearance and politics in ‘Wicked’ and the U.S.

Graphic by Betty Smart ’26

By Paige Comeau ’26

Managing Editor of Content 

Over Fall Break, I was able to spend some time with my family and visit our local movie theater to watch “Wicked: For Good.” While I’m generally not a fan of musical theater, my family are, and I did enjoy both “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good.” However, despite my best efforts to give myself a break as a politics major deep in my senior thesis, I could not watch the film through a neutral lens. Rather, I found myself analyzing it as a piece of political commentary, which I would argue “Wicked” largely is. There are many prevalent themes throughout both films that deserve analysis: The use of scapegoats in politics, the way censorship and propaganda work to uphold non-democratic governments, and how activism can veer into extremism when actors are without hope, just to list a few. 

I found one theme in particular especially interesting, considering current discourse around the “Wicked” cast: The way appearance can be used for more sinister ends. 

This is rather obvious throughout both movies: Glinda is blonde, white and conventionally beautiful, so she is seen as good; Elphaba is played by an actress of Nigerian descent and her skin tone is green, so she is seen as bad. It is a cliché trope that is easily traced back to the racial prejudices of the time the original “Wizard of Oz” was written. In the real world, however, life is imitating art just a little too well, as the “Wicked” cast continues to endure heavy discourse around their appearances and what ideals they are promoting. 

Specifically, many of the female members of the cast, particularly Michelle Yeoh, Ariana Grande, and Cynthia Erivo are under intense scrutiny for their extreme weight loss over the last few years. Many photos of the cast before and after “Wicked” highlight the intense emaciation of the main actresses, all of whom sport protruding collarbones, gaunt faces, and a skin-and-bones appearance. Many fans are speculating on convoluted theories about the women, such as “on-set Ozempic swaps, eating disorder competitions among cast mates, or blind items alleging the actors tried to mimic Judy Garland’s harmful weight-loss methods from ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” none of which have any real evidence supporting them, according to Cosmopolitan Magazine. 

While this focus on the “Wicked” cast in particular is the most prominent discussion on thinness right now, it is by far not the only one. In fact, it is part of a larger societal trend of celebrities and influencers prioritizing the pursuit of thinness over body positivity. 

This has had noticeable effects on the content people consume, with more than 2.4 billion views on the TikTok hashtag #SkinnyTok and the amount of plus-sized models on runways diminishing from 2.8% in 2024 to 0.8% in 2025, according to Dazed magazine. This is particularly true in more conservative circles, where “trad wives” and “fascist fitness groups” are promoting extreme diets and weight loss as a part of their more political ideologies. 

Largely, society is beginning to see an ideological shift around body size that bundles appearance with morality, politics, and religion, not unlike that seen in fascist, eugenicist regimes like Nazi Germany, or even Wicked’s Oz. Considering the current rise in both conservative extremism and extreme thinness, it is worth taking a look at the reasons why these two ideologies are interlocked or reinforcing, especially if we want a chance of combatting either. 

Historically speaking, bodily appearance, and specifically thinness, has long been associated with oppressive, hierarchical regimes. In these societies, there is usually an idealized version of the human race or human body, one that is aligned with the people in power. Often, this version includes thin bodies, for several reasons: They are seen as the results of discipline and dominance over the body; they are seen as more likely to be able-bodied, and therefore more able to fight for or birth the dominant “ideal” race; and, perhaps most importantly, the thinness that is prized as ideal is the thinness of a white body, legitimizing the racial politics that have so often been the underlying force behind oppressive regimes. 

University of California Professor of Sociology Sabrina Strings highlights this in an interview with the Daily Kos blog, stating, “by the 18th century, race science was built out, expanded to include additional physical characteristics. To the extent that people were linking indulgence in the oral appetite to an animalistic inability to control oneself, fatness became linked to the racial group [judged] to lack the capacity for self-government: Black people.” 

Today, the conservative movement is reiterating such an ideology by tying thinness, and by extension whiteness, very heavily to morality. Like The New York Times opinion writer Jessica Gross says, “there’s a distinct idea that overeating or gluttony — which is one of the seven deadly sins — is immoral. And if your body size is not whatever society thinks is an appropriate body size, that is a sin.” This is especially true for white women, as “trad wife” influencers increasingly press the importance of a specific body type for the lifestyle they are promoting; that “feminine virtue lies in thinness, servility and domesticity.” 

These ideals of feminine thinness promoted by conservative women also help legitimize a sexist agenda pushed by many conservative men. If women are physically smaller, if they literally take up less space, they are not fit to be the ones in power; they should sit by while the larger, more dominant men make the decisions. Meanwhile, people of color are shamed for being larger and told they are incapable of taking care of themselves or others, making it seem as though they should also stand aside and allow others to take power. It is this sort of hypocritical rhetoric that has fueled many long-standing, majorly oppressive hierarchies in the past. 

So, conservatism promotes thinness, and utilizes an idea of ideal bodies to promote their political ideologies. But more than that, thinness and a focus on the body pull both men and women towards conservatism. For men, research has shown that the far right uses online fitness communities to recruit young men to their cause, starting with fitness tips before encouraging men to join closed chats where they push far-right ideology. While this is problematic in that this strategy utilizes people’s genuine worry about their health to entrap them into extremist groups, it is also problematic in the ways that it works. 

By utilizing wellness as their topic of recruitment, these groups ensure their members associate positive changes in their life with far-right ideology, creating a sort of pavlovian effect for fascism. Also, in doing so, they create soldier-esque group members who are more than willing to commit acts of violence on behalf of their beliefs. For women, this emphasis on thinness often results in an extreme individualistic focus on the body and their habits, encouraging disordered eating and exercise which can have an array of negative effects on a person; these effects create vulnerabilities that extremists target as a part of recruitment. For instance, disordered eating combines extreme obsession with personal appearance and a lowered capacity for critical thought due to starvation, making it very easy for such people to be convinced of the eugenicist, gendered ideology that conservative radicals push. 

In a community heavily made up of women like Mount Holyoke College, it is especially important that we recognize and combat such patterns; due to patriarchal norms, women are asked to place particular importance on their physical appearance, and are especially vulnerable to such messaging. Especially when public discourse makes it seems as though their favorite actresses, like Ariana Grande or Cynthia Erivo, promote a similar message. 

This is not to say that either Ariana or Cynthia are allies of the far right’s agenda; in fact, I would actually venture to say the opposite. However, it is important to acknowledge the slippery slope that their images promote. And it is also important to take a lesson from the movies these two actresses are most famous for. Appearance is not the most important thing about a person, nor is it always what it seems. Instead, it is important to look beneath the surface and see what people really stand for, rather than what they want you to think, about them or yourself. 

Maeve McCorry ’28 contributed fact checking. 

The Associated Press standards regarding Palestine are political

By Karishma Ramkarran ’27

Copy Chief

The freedom of press has always been viewed as a cornerstone of democracy. Journalists seek out what is concealed, corrupt, and entirely animus to the well-being of a nation and shed light upon it; perhaps they do not carry out societal transformations, but they are certainly the stimuli which sparks it.

To say my journalistic career began with this belief may be to admit a starry-eyed sense of naivety that imbued my perspective of American journalism. For my high school newspaper, under my staff profile, I once wrote that one “appreciates journalistic writing because of its unique ability to protect democracy by keeping the people informed. Journalists have, since the foundation of America, played a pivotal role in holding those in power accountable.”

Under the tutelage of John Stuart Mill and greatly inspired by my AP U.S. history class, my younger self saw the brilliance of American journalism. Journalists such as Ida B. Wells or Upton Sinclair only seemed to prove the power of investigative journalism by exposing the insidious injustices of a dominant status quo. To me, Wells’ campaign against lynching as a form of socio-political terror against Black Americans or Sinclair’s exposé on the stomach-churning working conditions of immigrants in seedy meat-packing factories confirmed that journalism was the inertia that pushed America ever closer to a hazy dream of egalitarian democracy.

To me, journalism continues to hold a monopoly on justice and democracy today. Still, the Wells or Sinclairs will not be found locked away in a room at the New York Times: They are in Gaza, risking their lives to tell the stories of Palestinians.

One does not need a degree or experience to be a journalist. As I sit in the Williston Memorial Library and write this opinion, I do not think of myself as more qualified than Renad Attallah, a young chef from Gaza who not only shares Palestinian recipes, but also the experience of hunger as Israel blocks aid from reaching Gaza. People become journalists everyday as they are subjected to the most horrifying and heinous injustices. That kind of journalism is often more valuable than the work of the most qualified journalists in America, simply because oppressed people have nothing to gain from whitewashing their own experiences to fit a dominant narrative.

Do these American journalists not feel some semblance of shame when we censor Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, especially as journalists in Palestine are systematically targeted and killed? While we type away in an ivory tower of privilege, more journalists have been killed in Palestine than any other modern conflict.

On Aug. 10, Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, along with Gaza’s Chief Correspondent Anas Al-Sharif, were killed by Israeli forces in an airstrike on a tent near al-Shifa Hospital in eastern Gaza City. A statement by the Israeli military had confirmed that the killings were targeted; Al-Sharif was accused of being the head of a Hamas terrorist cell.

I cannot help but interrogate my own complicity in creating an environment in which journalists in Palestine — who are legally protected by international humanitarian law during times of war — are acceptably murdered by Israel. American journalism, through whitewashing and the policing the language around Israel’s genocide, has failed Palestinians.

Language is a powerful tool, and every word that we write has significant weight. No singular journalist has the superpower to be completely objective; our personal belief systems will always animate the spirit of our words. Yet the issue with American journalism is not a plurality of opinion, but a systematic and hegemonic framing that is subservient to a dominant narrative of American exceptionalism.

As copy chief of the Mount Holyoke News, I spend plenty of time making sure that articles adhere to a specific set of guides set by the Associated Press, a not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Although we often consult these standards for conventional grammar usage or how to refer to different subjects, things become murkier around the reporting of certain issues.

The Associated Press’ topical guide for “Middle East Conflicts” outlines how journalists should discuss the relationship between Israel and Palestine. Although it may seem like semantics, the way words are used always have political connotations to them, especially within the context of an active genocide.

As journalists, we are meant to refer to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians as the Israel-Hamas war. The term “war” in this context is meant to represent a period of armed conflict between two actors: In this case, the state of Israel and the militant group Hamas. The definition not only disregards the unique status of occupation that Palestinians have been subjected to since 1967, but also suggests that Israel only engages in war tactics with members of Hamas.

Israel does not engage in war with Hamas, but the Palestinian people at large. The ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Palestine is unprecedented in modern warfare: Five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces have been civilians. Almost half of Gaza’s population are under 18 years old, and the U.N.’s Human Rights Office has reported that 70% of those who have been killed were women and children.

In a guest essay published in the New York Times, Feroze Sidhwa — a trauma surgeon in Gaza — described regularly seeing “a young child that was shot in the head or chest, virtually all of whom went on to die.” In the very same article, Sidhwa compiles the testimonies of 44 doctors, nurses and paramedics who had attested to seeing similar patterns in Israel’s war conduct.

To use the term “war” instead of “genocide” or “occupation” to refer to Israel’s actions in Palestine is to become complicit. Although the International Court of Justice has not made an official ruling on the case brought forth by South Africa, several human rights organizations, scholars of genocide and a U.N. commission have since found Israel’s actions in Gaza to amount to genocide.

On Sept. 16, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council reported that an Independent International Commission of Inquiry had found that Israeli forces committed four of five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. On Oct. 22, the International Court of Justice itself had issued an advisory opinion on Israel’s obligation as an occupying force, including “safeguarding the rights and promoting the best interests of the occupied population” while protecting “its security interests.”

Additionally, the Associated Press warns journalists not to even say “Palestine” to refer to those territories which are historically part of Palestine. One may not say “Palestine” or “the state of Palestine” but rather “the Palestinian territories,” which refer to the West Bank and Gaza. Palestine may only be referred to as a “nation” within the context of “the international bodies which it has been admitted to.”

The ramifications of such language are clear: Not only does it serve to diminish the struggles of the Palestinian people for self-determination, but also, more insidiously, to deny Palestine the legitimacy of being a nation in its own right. To be referred to as a legitimate nation is to recognize that Palestine should be guaranteed the rights that the international community promises to a sovereign nation — it is to ascend from the status of being a mere “occupied population.”

When exactly will Palestine be internationally recognized as an independent state? When its occupying powers allow it to be? If a state must have defined borders, a government or a standing army to be considered sovereign, how shall Palestine ever achieve that under the present conditions of genocide and occupation? Regardless, Palestine is recognized as a state by 75% of U.N. member states, Israel and the United States excluded.

Although there has been a ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed over another 104 people, including 46 children, across Palestine.

Will we, as journalists, fall into line with America’s aiding and abetting of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people? Or will we begin to question the way in which the very language we use encourages complacency to a dominant narrative?

Cat McKenna ’28 contributed fact-checking.

Editor’s note: Mount Holyoke News’ style specifics have been updated to deviate from AP guidance, and will hereafter explicitly refer to the State of Israel’s ongoing campaign against Palestinians as genocide.

Courses at the College shouldn’t be restricted based on class year

By Quinlan Cooke ’29

Staff Writer

With course registration quickly approaching, many are scrambling to find courses that fit their majors — or prospective majors — and that align time-wise. As a first year, it seems that because of my intended major, my options are quite limited.

ENGL-199: Introduction to the Study of Literature is one of the only English courses available to first years, and I am currently in it. As someone who is interested in taking more English courses, and who intends to major in English, I was looking forward to taking another course in this subject for the spring semester. Looking at the course information told me that the next course many English students take, Intro to Creative Writing, is limited to sophomores and above.

I understand that this gives upperclassmen a better chance to get the classes they need for their major requirements, but some first years might also want to get ahead. I feel that a solution to this would be adding more courses for all years.

For almost any class I would want to take, I would have to email for instructor permission. This can get really difficult to balance alongside advisor meetings and planning out backup classes. Instructors might also have further questions, or might not be able to respond to prospective students before advisor meetings. As a result, courses might have to be changed during the add/drop period, and some students might begin courses after the start of the semester, setting them behind on work.

Other classes open to first years and listed under a certain department might have prerequisites that are outside of that department, so there is still a delay when it comes to being able to take them.

For myself, I am starting my second semester with the classes from my first semester, alongside other college credits that I have previously accumulated under my belt. I will have to email several professors to forego prerequisite introductory level classes that I have already taken elsewhere, and I will have to request permission to take classes that other first years might not have the opportunity to.

Of course, these scenarios mentioned are the exception and not the rule – but, at a school that generally prides itself on rigorous academics, I would assume it would be more encouraged for students to try to challenge themselves when the opportunity arises. If a student wants a challenge, it should be encouraged, no matter their class year.

Another aspect of this is that advisor meetings were not required to register for first years’ first semester classes, but they are for the second semester. Perhaps first year students creating their schedules over the summer should be assigned a temporary counselor or advisor, so they become familiar with the concept of having help with their courses.

The Mount Holyoke College website says, “Whether it’s across disciplines or around the world, one thing’s for certain: You will achieve more than you thought possible. Along the way, you’ll be challenged. ” Perhaps part of the challenge is advocating for yourself, to prove that you belong in the classes that might challenge you academically, and to push for your own education in such a safe environment.

Cat McKenna ’28 contributed fact-checking.

New “Party Policy” will produce, not reduce, unsafe party behaviors

By Paige Comeau ’26

Managing Editor of Content

Beginning on Oct. 20, 2025, the Division of Student Life instituted a new “party policy” for Mount Holyoke College students and residents, aimed at “clear and structured guidelines to host fun, responsible and safe gatherings that respect all residents and residential spaces.”

In sum, the Party Registration Policy mandates for students to use residential spaces for throw parties, they must first register as party hosts, complete a host training, request use of the space they intend to have the party at, and comply with a list of other provisions regarding the actual party, the hosts, and the attendees.

For instance, parties must be confined to the pre-approved space, end by 1:30 a.m.,comply with public safety, follow very specific rules around alcohol’s presence and consumption, and may not exceed the space’s capacity, or exceed four hours in length..

Hosts in addition to registering themselves as party hosts and completing a host training, must remain sober throughout the party and agree to hold responsibility for: Ensuring the party remains under the max capacity, following all alcohol requirements, cleaning spaces within twelve hours of the event’s end, working with public safety, and upholding any relevant state and federal laws as well as College policies. Attendees must have received a personal invite to the party, and therefore know the host, and agree to follow all party policy guidelines as stated above.

While I understand the College’s desire to somewhat regulate gatherings on campus, especially in an attempt to secure student safety, I cannot believe that this policy is going to do anything except push students to make unsafe decisions in fear of getting in trouble with administration. Students are going to want to experience “traditional” college parties where they are in a dark room, dancing with two hundred strangers, and drinking out of red solo cups. If they cannot experience this safely and openly at Mount Holyoke, they are just going to find some other way to do so.

Let me explain further.

The first, most obvious option that students will take is to simply party somewhere else, either locally, or at one of the other Five Colleges. I have already heard students talking about beginning to host parties in the woods around the College or other local structures, like the Amherst Water Tower. Neither of these would be safer for students, or easier for authorities to access in case of emergency. And, while some students already go to other campuses for parties, I imagine the implementation of this policy will lead to a major uptick in this. This will like leading students to risk driving drunk or high since the PVTA’s schedule late at night and on weekends is largely unpredictable.

As Hattie Nichols ’27, a Mount Holyoke student with experience in harm reduction, said to me, “If you're going to a party in like, a campus that you're not familiar with, that's inherently a lot less safe.” This is only magnified when students are intoxicated. Recently, I had a friend badly break one of her legs at a Hampshire College party while being only slightly tipsy, because she was unfamiliar with their woods’ terrain. I can only imagine what sorts of things students will get into if they begin to go off-campus consistently for parties.

The second option, however, is that students will resort to holding parties in secret, acting recklessly to avoid being caught, and putting themselves and their friends in more danger than they would be at a normal MHC party. While the current Amnesty Policy at the College states no student will get in trouble for having or consuming substances should they call for help for themselves or their friends, it also states that students may still be held liable for other violations outside of substance use, such as property damage or, I imagine, not following the new Party Registration Policy.

Students are going to be less likely to call for help for themselves, their friends, or fellow students if they fear retribution for being at an unsanctioned party. This fear will only be magnified by the fact that the policy encourages students to police each other's partying, something that was made obvious to me in one of the frequently asked question answers on Student Life’s website. It says under, “What will enforcement look like?” that “a secondary goal of this policy is to encourage autonomy and advocacy among students in respect to their peers. Therefore, we hope that this policy also sets students up to intervene between one another in the event that additional steps need to be taken.”

Knowing that Student Life is actively encouraging other students to monitor me and my partying, I feel pressured not to draw any attention to myself, including by calling for help. I’m rather certain that other students will feel the same way.

When discussing this new policy, Nichols voiced the same concerns, stating, “ I feel like a big part of harm reduction is making sure that what you are trying to do is not going to inherently oppose what people are hoping to … do, and that you have to kind of work with it and, like, meet people where they are … [and] saying, ‘Let's do things in a safe space,’ right, or … in a place where we know that the people around us would help us. And by trying to not have parties here, you're taking that away from people.”

“It's so frustrating,” Nichols said, “It's kind of like when there's a big drug bust of somebody who's dealing a lot, then there's a bunch more overdoses, because everybody's going and getting different products, right? And so I'm like, thinking different things, but the same principle … we want to have fun.”

Cat McKenna ’28 contributed fact-checking

First year’s lack of experience with live music on campus

Photo by Marri Shaeffer '29

Pratt Music Hall

By Quinlan Cooke ’29

Staff Writer

As a first year student who has been on campus for less than two months, I can’t help but wonder if the lack of live music is something I should expect for the remainder of my four years. So far, there has been one live music performance on campus this semester: MHC Alt hosted three bands on Oct. 4. This performance was in Chapin Auditorium, and hosted by a student organization, not the College itself. As such, I believe that the College itself should host more live music events for the community and students.

Live music does wonders for communities. It brings people together as they flock to the sound. Music has also been widely known to engage the brain and be very stimulating. This means that music fits right in when it comes to a college setting. Mount Holyoke College is based in community, so much so that on the first page of the school’s website, there is a tab labeled “Build a Lasting Community.” This tab showcases how tight-knit the people here are, and is a focal point for prospective students. More live music on campus would only further help to strengthen this sense of community.

The College used to host mainstream artists for the annual spring concert, and tickets were available for students. A retroactively poor example of this would be when Kanye West performed in 2004. The only live music I have been privy to so far has been student musicians at Orientation-related events.

Music should be readily available for students to hear. There is always so much positivity and conversation drummed up when WMHC has a booth and DJson Skinner Green, so it is clear there is space for music here. There have been many thrift and jewelry pop-ups on Green, so why not more music? How mood-lifting would it be to walk by live music on your way to class? Or hear someone playing instruments and singing as you eat lunch on the Green? How nice does it feel to hear the song you queued on Rockbot while eating lunch with your friends? Or hearing a song none of you knew you all liked and having something new to bond over?

I always see fellow students walking around with earbuds in or headphones over their ears; if there was live music playing, students would not have to resort to their headphones. People do not talk to each other when they have headphones in, but if they were all listening to the same music right in front of them, there would be an invitation for conversation and community.

When you look up “music” on the Mount Holyoke College events calendar, the next event coming up is a tea with the music department, not a performance. When you search the same prompt on the CampusGroups app, there is only one event in December. Both of these events are indoors, and you would have to actively seek them out in order to be included. Music should also be something to stumble upon; You don’t find new favorite songs by searching for them, you find them by chance.

Music should be encouraged by the College, even if they have to bring in outside resources for it to be present for students. The live music we do have on campus should be more highly promoted by the school, and there should be a spotlight put on it. I feel that Skinner Green has a lot of potential as a casual music venue, even just in passing. Students deserve to reap the vast benefits of live music, especially on a campus where community is encouraged and so foundational.

Cat McKenna ’28 contributed fact-checking

MHC has a responsibility to make psychology classes more available

By Danny Alajawi ’28 

Staff Writer

The class registration process is stressful for everyone, but it’s definitely more stressful for some majors than others. Psychology classes are some of the hardest classes to get into at Mount Holyoke College, as it’s the most popular major here. Undoubtedly, the College should offer more psychology classes to make this process easier on students.

Psychology majors, particularly second semester first years and sophomores, struggle to get into the classes they want and or need for their major. Many students end up on waitlists, and have to plead their case to get into classes. It’s not fair that psychology students have to go through so much stress to try to get into the classes they need. It shouldn’t be normalized to have to beg professors to let you into classes. It’s a lot more than dignity that’s at stake, as the ability to get into required classes impacts a student’s ability to do a lot of things like study abroad, early graduation, double majoring. The impact of this is profoundly felt by Springies. Though these things are still possible with the psychology major, the stress and weight of these things on student’s minds becomes overwhelming, and is clearly a fault within the College’s system.

So, things are even more stressful when people are trying to explore 200 levels in psychology. Students may not realize they want to major in psychology until later on, which can make it really stressful to complete requirements when classes are so hard to get into. Even if someone is in a situation where they know exactly what they want to do, they aren’t able to knock requirements out of the way very quickly.

In writing this piece, I wanted to get the perspective of the psychology department, to see if they saw the same problems. So, I interviewed the Co-Chair of the Psychology department and a Mount Holyoke College alum, Professor K.C. Haydon ’00.

Haydon and I discussed issues surrounding people getting into classes and the way the system is set up. She talked to me about how she has worked closely with the registrar and knows they have a massive job at their hand. Haydon also spoke about the fact that we are dealing with a “limited resource environment,” as any college is, which makes it really difficult to fix these kinds of issues.

I’m a firm believer that the College should open more classes, and in talking about that with Haydon, it was clear that the department has considered that option. However, there are limitations. Haydon shared, “If we had more faculty, we would offer more courses, and we would have more seats. But that's not a viable solution for the College. We can't just keep adding faculty unlimited in an unlimited way, because each faculty member costs the College a certain amount of money. You know, if we add a faculty member to one department, the College can only afford so many at a time, and so that means another department isn't getting that. So those are very difficult decisions to make in terms of the allocation of faculty positions across departments.”

It was clear to see that the department nonetheless works really hard to meet the needs of the students. Haydon discussed the survey program: “The survey was a pilot program that we developed with the registrar and the provost office. The survey is for any student who is waitlisted in our 200 level area courses … If you show up on our waitlist, you get a ping from us. Our department coordinator, Janet [Crosby], sends out a QR code and a survey link to say, ‘Hey, you're waitlisted on this course. Fill out the survey.’ That gets populated to a Google form, and every registration period in spring and fall, the co-chairs and our department coordinator. So …[we] sit down and look through those by hand, person by person.”

As they do that, they consider each student’s circumstance to determine who they should move into classes based on need. The program is incredible because it demonstrates the care faculty has towards their students and the dedication they have to get people into the classes they need. Part of the problem, however, is that even though it’s very helpful in the long run, it doesn’t seem to reduce the stress of the students.

Another issue I have noticed this brings up is increased class sizes. Haydon explained that classes are expanded based on the needs of the students and gave an example: “Our course is capped at 28 but look, we have these nine people who really need this class this semester. We request from the registrar to expand that course to 38 and then we've moved those people with the highest need for the class into those nine seats.”

That’s not only understandable, but is helpful for so many students. However, it does change the dynamic of the class. When asking about the professor's perspective of this, if it was fair to the professor to have to take on more students, Haydon explained that “fair” is a tricky word. She shared that handling different class sizes is a skill that is developed by professors over time. But she also stated that “the more students we have in classes, the more recommendation letters we're asked to write, the more office hours we need to have, you know, and so it becomes kind of like, how do we deliver the same quality of experience on a larger scale? That's really challenging.”

I believe the larger class sizes have an impact on the students too. Haydon said for psych majors “the first chance [they] might get for a small class is the 300 levels,” which I find to be concerning. Mount Holyoke College is a small college and a big part of that attraction is small class size with 9:1 student to facility ratio. Of course, I would take a bigger psychology class over no psychology class any day, but should I have to? I don’t think so. More classes should be offered so more people can take them within smaller class sizes.

There's a financial aspect to consider too. The classes and the class sizes are reasons people chose to go to Mount Holyoke College College. They’re one of the things students are paying for, so I think it’s only fair that they get it.

When classes are desperately needed, new sections should be added and new instructors should be hired to take that on. People should be able to easily take the classes they need.

But it’s not just the very essential classes that are a problem. I talked to Haydon in detail about what people want to take. It’s clear at this point that people love to take 200-level psychology classes. Some need it, but some people want to explore or take something fun! The way I see it, psychology is a really expansive field of study. It makes sense that people would want to explore its different areas, and they should be encouraged to do so.

One of the ethical considerations we discussed was the idea of “super majors,” which are people who take more classes than required within the major. As a psychology student struggling to get into classes, I understand how that can be frustrating. I understand that frustration from the department, too, because one of the ways they’ve tried to navigate the problem is by minimizing requirements for the major, yet some people are still taking a lot of classes they don't need.

At the same time, I do think other, non-psychology students have a right to explore their interests to the extent they want. They struggled with this process earlier and if the system isn’t working, why should they have to stop themselves from taking a class that they're interested in now that they have the chance to register for it?

This expands to the people outside the major too. Some seniors in different majors chose to explore a psychology class or two because they find it interesting. As upsetting as it is to watch them take seats in a class they don’t need, while having friends in the psychology major be turned away, it’s not those seniors’ faults. Students have every right to explore their interests without feeling like they’re taking away opportunities from other people.

With that said, I want to make it clear that I don’t think it’s the psychology department’s fault. In speaking with Haydon, I gained a lot of understanding about the way the system works. I never blamed them for the issue, but now more than ever I see the way that the department truly cares. To me, that’s part of why this is such an issue. Not only is psychology incredibly fascinating, but the professors in the department are truly wonderful and are involved in incredibly fascinating research. I have been very lucky to have gotten to know some of the facilities in the psychology department and I have nothing but great things to say. So, of course people would want to take their classes.

The issue at hand is that the College needs to give more funding to the psychology department. I believe the department should be expanded to allow students to fulfill the major with less anxiety as well as to give students the opportunity to explore their interests. The funding the psychology department gets should reflect the need and interest of the students.

Cat McKenna ’28 contributed fact checking

Administration should stop holding Mountain Day on Friday

Graphic by Hale Whitney ’26

Abby Paull ’28

Staff Writer

“I hope the rapture doesn’t happen so we can still have a Mountain Day!” was the internal monologue of many Mount Holyoke students during the week of Sept. 21. Fortunately, the rapture did not happen that week, but Mountain Day did, on Friday, Sept. 26. The reception for this was overall poor. Some rejoiced that it had finally happened, while others were left confused.

Many students do not have class on Fridays, so many spend this day off campus or sleeping in and resting. Over the course of my day I heard many disappointed conversations. President Holley’s choice of holding Mountain Day on a Friday leaves out students who typically use Friday as a day off.

Mountain Day is a well-loved college tradition where every year, the president of the College cancels morning and early afternoon classes. On the day of, the clock tower’s bells ring a hundred times at 7 a.m., commencing Mountain Day. Students and faculty alike hike to the summit of Mount Holyoke, Joseph Allen Skinner State Park. Historically, Mountain Day has been held on a weekday, giving students a break from their classes.

However, by holding Mountain Day on a Friday, the majority of students who have few, if any classes that day, and who may have already had plans are left neglected.

The various issues associated with this year’s Mountain Day likely come from poor planning on the administration’s end. For example, the week of this year’s Mountain Day was also the week of ​​Rosh Hashanah, a Jewish holiday in celebration of the Jewish new year. The administration would have known about this prior to booking Skinner State Park for the week: Calendars exist for this reason.

There was also a torrential downpour the night before Mountain Day, Sept. 25. Despite this, administration still chose to hike the mountain. The planners of Mountain Day should have taken proper precaution after the rainfall. Rainfalls like this in Western Massachusetts are pretty awful mud-wise, which could have endangered students.

To plan Mountain Day better, College administration should have booked the mountain for a week where there are no major religious holidays or significant rain showers, both of which present limits and challenges to student participation.

The College puts an emphasis on community on Mountain Day. But how are we to have true community when most of the student body is off campus, attending to other matters? You are not giving students a break by putting Mountain Day on a Friday, because most students have already finished their academic week. Mountain Day should be held on a weekday — not a Friday — to give students a true break.

Mountain Day’s true purpose is meant to bring students out of their stress and remind them of their community. Mountain day can’t be perfect every year, but instead of holding it on the Friday after a major rain storm and religious holiday, the College should have eaten the cost and rebooked it for the next week. Friday is not a major academic day, so most people already have a break and use this time to go home or catch up on well-needed rest.

Either way, Mountain Day should not be on Friday.

Karishma Ramkarran ’27 contributed fact-checking.

Queer operas and us: Representation is important

Photo courtesy of Anna Goodman ’28

The all-Korean production of “Bare,” an American musical from the early 2000s, inside a performing arts center in the heart of Seoul, South Korea.

By Anna Goodman ’28

Staff Writer

Content warnings: homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia.

(This article uses “queer” extensively as it is how the author identifies; if this makes you uncomfortable, please do not read.)

It’s already past 6 p.m. and I’m standing at an intersection in the middle of Seoul, conspicuously blonde and conspicuously lost, when I admit to myself that this was a terrible idea. I’m searching for a performing arts center, and in it the all-Korean production of a show most people haven’t heard of.

“Bare” is an American musical from the early 2000s, and in many ways, it feels like it. Set at a Catholic boarding school in 1990s America — MHN’s entire queer readership is already wincing — it follows two boys, Jason and Peter, who are secretly lovers, in their final semester before college. It’s moving, it’s heartbreaking, it features a bewildering amount of Bible verses and Shakespeare quotes for a two-hour show, and, like most queer media of its time, its ending is undeniably tragic.

But why go? In an era with hundreds of hours of media at my fingertips that make it a point to emphasize queer joy, why am I sitting in this theater, hoping for a happy ending when I know there won’t be one? Thinking, “maybe it will be different this time?”

Well, the first time I listened to “Bare,” at the ripe old age of twelve, I had been teetering on the edge of telling my parents the truth for at least a year.

“911 Emergency” is a song written so long ago that its main hook is about putting change into a payphone and telling the operator to connect you. But its message — that your parents will love you anyway, and that you deserve to live as who you are — is evergreen. I replayed it more times than I can count. Because, finally, someone understood.

Peter picks up the phone. And so did I.

I soon began wondering if other people also felt this kind of deep, immediate emotional connection when seeing themselves for the first time. So I asked twelve people, six Mount Holyoke students, six not, ranging from ages 15 to 68, to name me queer media that meant something to them as a teenager or young adult.

The difference in their responses — which amounted to 34 separate pieces of media — is telling. The four non-students I asked, aged 36, 40, 53, and 68, took much longer to answer and had far less to choose from. Every one mentioned at least one work with what I’d consider a “tragic” ending, where at least half of the couple dies or where they do not end up together because of societal pressure.

By contrast, my fellow students, and the two other interviewees younger than me could point to any one of a number of shows, movies, musicals, songs, video games, et cetera, that fit their specific experiences. “Red White And Royal Blue.” “Heartstopper.” “Our Flag Means Death.” “Alien Stage.” “She-Ra.”

My mother, who’s roughly the same age as the writers of “Bare,” said, “When I was in high school and most of college [from 1985 - 1992] it was the time of the AIDS crisis … I don’t think the word ‘gay’ was said in any of my high school or college classrooms. If I try to think back I just picture, hazily, a few caricatures on TV and very serious news reports and films about people dying.”

“The queer media representation that came out of the AIDS crisis can be seen as a double-edged sword,” scholar Lillian Joy Myers says in an overview of the changes in queer media. “On one hand, the representation of this time was incredibly powerful and influential … [in describing] how this crisis shook the queer community…[yet] these depictions continued to perpetuate the queer trauma narratives of years past, maintaining a one-dimensional, negative view of queerness and the association between queerness and trauma.”

The effect growing up in this environment has on a queer person can’t be underestimated and is palpable throughout “Bare.” To this day, I come back to Jason’s lines at the end of Act 1 of: “Not all tales have happy endings …‘cause there's no such thing as heroes who are queer”. To this day I wonder how many children still grow up feeling the same way.

The answer: Too many.

But, hopefully, because of media like “Bare,” less.

Speaking to Playbill on the 15th anniversary of the show, “Bare” writer Jon Hartmere said, “I came out while writing ‘Bare.’ I didn't learn I was gay. But I learned it was okay.”

Hartmere’s characters may not have gotten their happy ending. But he helped create a world that meant that he could. He’s now openly gay, and still with his partner of nearly 20 years.

Hilariously, despite all of my preteen angst, neither my parents nor I remember the specifics of when I came out to them. It ended up being so unimportant in the grand scheme of things that the most any of us could remember was that I was probably still twelve.

And, despite the fact that I (thankfully) had what was probably the least eventful coming out in history, “Bare” has held a special place in my heart since. Not only as the capstone of my own journey, but as my reminder not to grow complacent.

In a way, it’s heartwarming that a show made almost thirty years ago can still connect with someone who is lucky enough to have never experienced what its protagonists — or its writers — have.

But it’s heartbreaking too. Because when I watch “Bare,” I don’t just see Peter and Jason. I see the little kids in each of my friends that aren’t quite healed from that feeling of growing up on their own. I see the kids of generations long gone — and far too recent — that never even had the chance to live the lives they wanted.

And then I see my friend Ella, who I often call my ‘honorary little sister.’ When I asked her about what it was like growing up seeing people like her on screen, she said, “Seeing so much casual queer representation at such a young age was amazing for me and my girlfriend … Nothing to make a huge deal about, just something that you are and can be happy with.”

Clearly, we have made progress. We have made change. But I can’t and won’t sit here and argue that we’ve made enough.

In 2024, GLAAD reported that the number of explicitly LGBTQ characters on television was 468, which, while an incredible change from thirty years ago, is still a decrease of over 100 characters since the year before, and less than 1 in 10 characters overall.

When you consider that over 1 in 5 of Gen Z identify as LGBTQ+ today, it’s clear that our media still lacks the numbers that would allow the diversity and humanity really present in our community.

As Myers puts it, in the same piece as above, “Queer characters and storylines are still underrepresented compared to … non-queer plots … Many of them still center white, cisgender, affluent, able-bodied, adult, and/or male characters… [there’s also] the continued use of stereotypes and the prevalence of queer tokenization.”

It's easy, especially for someone like me, to get so swept away in how far we’ve come that we neglect the fact that we still have so far to go. I have two very progressive parents who, despite the time they grew up in, have always made it clear that their acceptance does not come with an asterisk. I go to Mount Holyoke, a very queer-accepting college. I am publishing this in their newspaper. I do not need “Bare” in the same way my twelve year old self did.

But that’s okay, because someone else always does.

Back in Seoul, when I look to my left in the theater, I see something stuck between realization and fear in the eyes of the boy next to me. When I look to my right I see the palpable guilt in the faces of nearly every person old enough to have kids. When I look down at the stage, I see tears on the faces of every performer as the actors who play Peter and Jason hold each other one more time as the curtain closes.

So, I turn to that boy, with fear in his eyes, and we talk. And we keep talking. He’s 15. He walks me home and he complains about his math classes and I gripe about how terrible my Korean is.

I want to ask. I’m scared to ask.

It’s past midnight and I’m standing at an intersection in the middle of Seoul, when this boy tells me, quietly, half through a translator, half through hesitant English, about his best friend. When he stumbles over the words, and he just can’t say it. I hug him. I tell him I understand. That it’s going to be okay.

He’s just a kid. He should be allowed to just…live.

When my parents’ plane lands the next morning, I hug them harder than I have in a long time.

The truth is, I know how the story of “Bare” will end every time it starts, and still, every time, I think to myself: maybe it will be different. Maybe it’ll have a happy ending. And then I realize: Who says it can’t?

My mom grew up in a world that gave her stereotypes and fear; Ella is growing up in a world that gave her “She-Ra.” I’m not naive. I know it’s not easy. It’s a scary world out there, and it’s only getting scarier.

In just a few months, the Trump Administration has rolled back Biden’s protections of LGBTQ+ youth as a whole, made it even harder than it was before for trans youth to access gender-affirming care and surgery, cut federal funding for HIV research and treatment, and issued an executive order stating that that there are only two genders, based on “biological sex.”

They tried to erase us before, and they’re trying again.

But it will be different this time. Maybe not for Jason, or for Peter. But for Ella. For every friend who’s ever called me late at night on the edge of something they don’t understand or told me they were scared to go home. For the boy who hugged me in the middle of Seoul because he had no one else to tell.

For me and for you.

The people who came before us fought tooth and nail for us to be where we are today. And there is no way on this side of the grave that anyone is going to tell my children that “there’s no such thing as heroes who are queer.” Don’t let someone tell yours either. Call your mom. Hug your friends. Tell someone you love them.

Be brave. Be loud. And live.

Karishma Ramkarran ’27 contributed fact-checking.

Fizz goes against the Mount Holyoke Honor Code

Graphic by Brianna Stockwell ’28

By Abby Paull ’28

Staff Writer

“I will honor myself, my fellow students and Mount Holyoke College by acting responsibly, honestly and respectfully in both my words and deeds.” For those who are not aware, this is the Mount Holyoke College Honor Code pledge. Students during their first year are expected to sign the honor code in order to show their commitment to the school’s ideals. It was put in place to hold the students of Mount Holyoke to a certain standard that reflects the College. But due to the rise of anonymous social media apps, students are no longer able to be held accountable for breaking certain aspects of the code. The only way we can prevent this in the future is to get rid of this pathetic anonymity. 

Fizz is an app that allows Mount Holyoke students to sign up through their school email and post their thoughts anonymously, similar to apps such as the University of Massachusetts’ Yikyak or Smith College’s Confesh. The problem with Fizz is its anonymity; allowing students to engage with each other namelessly gives them the opportunity to cyberbully each other without consequence. 

Over my first year, I saw Fizz users express Islamophobic, antisemitic, homophobic and transphobic sentiments. And, Fizz doesn’t have a limit on how much you can post, making it possible for these controversial comments to be created by one student or a collective of like-minded students. The effect of this is that it floods the app with these comments, setting a standard for the conversations the students are having, and distorting the overall image people have of the campus community 

One may argue that the app’s anonymity is actually helpful because it allows students to share resources and ask questions about campus they might’ve not been able to or comfortable doing before. One student can ask another the easiest way to get back to Mount Holyoke from Smith on a weekend. Though this is helpful, it is few and far between. More often, Fizz being anonymous allows students to ragebait each other and target individual students without consequence from the school. 

The Honor Code  tells us that: “A Mount Holyoke student demonstrates their respect for individual freedom by conducting themselves with maturity and honor, and by showing due concern for the welfare of other members of the community.” I ask this question: How are Fizz and other anonymous apps helping the welfare of the community? To help the welfare of the community, we should work on students being able to respectfully confront people and communicate instead of brewing hatred and letting it explode online.

It is urgent that we hold students at Mount Holyoke up to the standard of The Honor Code. Hiding behind anonymity creates the opportunity for ragebaiting, discrimination and bullying to come into the community. There is enough discourse outside our college. If you as a student are going to use your Mount Holyoke College email to spew hatred about your community that you CHOSE to be a part of, you owe it to your fellow students to reveal who is spewing that nonsense.

The College’s community fears confrontation, and some believe that anonymous platforms such as Fizz will heal our ailments. But what good will getting into an argument with your classmate online do for your mental health? I urge the Mount Holyoke community to address this and find different ways to express their emotions.

Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact checking. 

Jimmy Kimmel's suspension is a threat to free speech

Graphic by Mari Al Tayb ’26

By Angelina Godinez ’28

Opinion Section Editor 

Sept. 17 marked the suspension of Emmy-winning late night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, after the host, Jimmy Kimmel, made comments regarding the shooter of Charlie Kirk and his affiliation to the far right. Shortly after MAGA media personality Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, outbursts from both the left and right sparked debate on not only the Second Amendment, but also the first: The right to free speech, regardless of your political viewpoints. After weighing in on the debate, and calling out Kirk’s shooter for his affiliation with MAGA, Jimmy Kimmel was temporarily suspended from ABC, a television network that is widely controlled by President Donald Trump's censorship. 

This suspension is quite ironic, considering Kimmel’s comments on Kirk's death are also a form of free speech, something Kirk has been celebrated for posthumously; yet, Kimmel was not glorified nor promised a Presidential Medal of Freedom by the president as Kirk was. The fearmongering influence Trump holds over big news and broadcasting companies should be no surprise, as censorship and bribes have been seen within The New York Times, ABC, PBS, and even The Washington Post, which is owned by right-winger Jeff Bezos. 

Kirk was a close confidant of Trump and a great supporter of his agenda. He was very passionate about traditional, all-American ways of living, such as the right to own firearms. Prior to becoming a victim of gun violence, Kirk once stated, “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.” This rationale seems to only be true, however, when the violence is not being perpetuated against the far right, but against marginalized groups such as transgender youth and people of color.

Minutes before losing his life, Kirk was being questioned about gun violence. He continued to voice biases against supposed gang members and trans youth, painting them as the stereotyped perpetrators of gun violence. Despite these beliefs, Kirk was ultimately killed by a white and cisgender man. This discovery led left- and right-wing politicians alike to debate the glorification of a man who once preached that gun violence — which is most commonly perpetrated against minorities and children — is in fact necessary in order to maintain the right to bear arms. 

Most American late-night television shows use lighthearted rhetoric to discuss politics, so it is in no way shocking for Kimmel to speak on recent events in this way himself. He said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it." This comment is nothing more than a mere observation, especially when compared to the radical and violent threats that MAGA participants commonly make. Regardless, Kimmel was temporarily suspended for his comments criticizing the United States government. It is clear that the current administration would not only rather protect access to firearms over protecting its own supporters, but also has no hesitation in using dystopian censorship to silence anyone who even attempts to rebut their statements. 

It is alarming to see the amount of coverage given the shooting of one cisgender white wealthy man by another, as opposed to the paltry amount given to the Colorado school shooting that occurred the same day as Kirk’s. Or to the teachers, students and international advocates who continue to face daily threats for advocating against what the United Nations Human Rights Council has recently deemed a genocide in Gaza. Prior to this declaration from the U.N.H.R.C., even mentioning genocide and Palestine in the same sentence came with extreme risk, a hypocrisy that is a perfect example of the dictatorial administration we are forced to live in silence under. 

Although it is unfortunate that Kimmel was suspended after such minor comments about the right wing, the same is happening every day on a much smaller, but nevertheless important scale; something that is failing to be covered by news outlets out of their own fear of censorship and lawsuits from the Trump administration. 

It is no doubt that, regardless of Kimmel’s suspension status, he still holds great status and voice within American news outlets. Now, how he and other white men respond to censorship still remains a question. In a day and age where even wealthy white men are at risk of censorship, who will be the first to cross the line and speak up for the years of silencing and threats that marginalized groups have faced? 

Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact checking. 

Without memory, there is not a future: Fascism and you

Photo courtesy of Steve Goodman

Anna Goodman in a former Portuguese prison.

By Anna Cocca Goodman ’28

Staff Writer

“You know,” my father said, “Portugal is supposed to be sunny.”

But instead, it’s 2 p.m. on a rainy Sunday in January 2024, and I’m tumbling into a museum whose entrance is tucked into a Lisbon street corner, with soaking wet hair, rudimentary (at best) Portuguese, and an umbrella broken in ways I didn’t know umbrellas could break.

To be honest with you, I agree to go inside partly just to get dry.

But once there, ticket in hand, I find myself faced with a deep red wall, painted with the words: sem memória, não há futuro. I ask the first person I see to explain. “It means,” the woman replies, “without memory, there is no future.”

When someone says “fascism,” what do you picture?

I asked three Mount Holyoke College history professors who specialize in different time periods and continents to see what they thought.

“In Ghana, around the …'70s and the '80s, there were several revolutions and what a lot of people may consider authoritarian rule,” Professor of Pre-Colonial African History Ishmael Annang said.

“I mean, there's a lot of oligarchies in history,” Professor of Modern African American History, Caleb Smith replied. “But if you're talking about a dictatorship, I mean, Putin … that's as good an example as there gets.”

“Especially as a Jewish studies professor,” Yiddish Book Center Director and Professor Madeleine Cohen said, “when I think of fascism, of course, I tend to think of Nazi Germany.”

Whatever you think of, I don’t think it’s Portugal.

So let me change that.

The story of Portuguese dictatorship officially begins with a military coup in 1926, when António Salazar came to power; a man, who, according to the Huxley Almanac, was “a rather strange dictator … Despite being an autocrat, he didn’t build any palaces for himself, nor did he wage any wars … [but] he remained at the top for 36 years, becoming the longest-ruling dictator in Europe.”

Salazar’s reign of terror was marked not only with extreme violence but with a widespread suppression campaign which was nicknamed “Lápis Azul,” or “blue pencil,” after the tools his censors used to strike out content deemed unsuitable for publication.

In 1936, after drafting a new “constitution,” Salazar made a speech whose most famous lines were as follows: “We do not discuss the fatherland and its history. We do not discuss the family and its morals. We do not discuss the glory of work and its duty. We do not discuss authority and its prestige. And we do not discuss God and his virtue.”

“It sounds like a really good, almost textbook example of dictatorship,” Cohen said, later in our interview, “So what it makes me think of is, why in the U.S. do we only talk about Hitler?”

And it isn’t just the U.S. either. The Museu do Aljube, the museum I mentioned at the beginning, says in their mission statement, “[We] intend to [take] on the struggle against the exonerating, and, so often, complicit amnesia of the dictatorship we faced between 1926 and 1974.”

The museum itself is actually located in a building that was once used to imprison and torture political dissidents, and it is a hauntingly immersive experience. There are the sudden flashes of camera light. There are the cell bars criss-crossing the ceilings. There are the telephones that ring through the loudspeakers, making your heart race out of your chest before you can remind yourself that you haven’t done anything wrong.

But the most affecting part is a dark, silent space, a seven foot by four foot room, kept pristine from its days as an isolation cell. Inside, there’s just enough room next to the wooden pallet and flea-bitten blanket masquerading as a bed for seventeen-year old me to walk up to the opposite wall and see, scratched with some kind of sharp rock, 12 tally marks and the words: “João, 1940.”

It is an image that will never leave my mind. And, really, that’s the point.

“Sem memória, não há futuro,” or, as the stranger I met kindly translated, “without memory, there is not a future,” is a quote all over the museum. Its mission statement, as it says on its website, is “[to preserve] the memory of histories and active citizenship, and [to break] the silence in which everyone was submerged and rescue them in order to educate the younger generations.”

But who are those younger generations? Who are these people that the museum is fighting for?

I’ll tell you.

It's the Angolan teenager in the cafe who showed me a video of him playing fútbol with his team and said with a wink, “Promise you’ll look for me on the TV one day.” Fifty years ago, they wouldn’t have let him play.

It's the German waiter who bartends part-time for fun, and, in between spouting cheesy pick-up lines and unserious marriage proposals, tells me about his gay brother and what he said when he came out to him. (“The way I see it, if everyone only liked rice, nobody would buy pasta. And then all of Italy would be out of business. You need variety!”) Fifty years ago, he would have been arrested.

It's the Korean exchange student in the Museu do Aljube, who managed to teach me the little phrase in Portuguese that made this article come to life with her own alphabet. (“No-no, ha, ha, like laughing in Hangul.” Ah! Jaraesseoyo!). Fifty years ago, she wouldn’t even have been there, and she definitely wouldn't have been allowed to study journalism.

It’s the seventeen year-old American girl who complains when her father drags her to some museum because he remembers when he was her age and hearing about a revolution half a world away, not knowing that she’ll be just as moved by the story as he was in real time. She’s also a reporter. But she hasn’t written this story yet.

And it’s you too.

Because knowledge, protest, dissent – it isn't just important for those at the highest level. From the dissidents imprisoned in claustrophobic isolation cells to the journalists who printed their calls to action in secret, to the people marching in the streets, to everyone who had the strength to keep living anyway, their actions matter.

After thanking each of my interviewees for their time, I asked if I could read a short quote from a poem by Manuel Allegre, drawn on the museum’s walls. “Mêsmo na noite mais triste, em tempo de servidão, há sempre alguém que resiste, há sempre alguém, que diz: não.” Even on the saddest night in times of servitude, there is always someone who resists, there is always someone who says: no.

“It is so true,” Annang said. “I think society has created the false notion that those who do not get on the streets or those who do not gather on the field are probably not in some form of dissent or resistance. But just saying no is resistance.”

It’s 2 p.m. on a sunny Wednesday in May 1974, and a waitress is walking home from work. When she passes a young soldier, she hands him a carnation, which he puts in the barrel of his rifle. Within hours, every soldier has a red flower in his gun, and thus, because of Celeste Caeiro, the day the Portuguese dictatorship crumbled is known as the Carnation Revolution.

And I would be lying if I said all this and didn’t tell you that, in writing this article, I was a little scared. I’m still scared. Just a little over a week ago, ABC was intimidated by the White House into pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show from the air after he even dared to insinuate that President Donald Trump was not as broken up about Charlie Kirk’s death as he claimed. I’m eighteen now, and we are watching a fast-paced descent into fascism in real time in our own country.

But I’ve seen change happen with my own eyes, from the women’s marches in 2016 to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, and, on a smaller scale, on campus, with the protests over fair wages for our staff.

Change wasn’t just made by the members of the Mount Holyoke workers’ unions striking, but by the students who marched with them, by the choir who turned their backs during Commencement, by the speakers who took pains to show their support, by the people who painted signs even if they couldn’t walk, by the photographers who documented the protests and by the journalists here at MHN who wrote so beautifully about them.

“The museum is what taught me that you can do something small,” I said to Smith during our interview. “I'm kind of curious what you think, say, an average person could do?”

“I would challenge the word ‘small,’” Smith answered. “I would use everyday acts of resistance. Truth is, no act of resistance is small ... And so that has been something [constant] throughout, especially looking at the American Civil Rights Movement [in the] African American context. Everyday resistance has always been a thing. And collective organizing, whether it is pickets, boycotts, or even, putting on stage shows. It all counts.”

“I think that there is so much that students can do,” Annang said. “You have the ability to educate yourself and educate your peers so that when we have people protesting, it's not just because they're following the crowd, but they really know and have a conviction of what exactly they are protesting about.”

Sem memória, não há futuro. Without history, there is no future. Without history, there is no us. And without us, there is no history.

Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact checking.

Controversy arises with Mount Holyoke’s usage of Gemini AI and promises of sustainability

Photo courtesy of MHN

Angelina Godinez ’28

Section Editor

On Aug. 19, 2025, Mount Holyoke College made a public announcement to students that Gemini, Google's AI software, is now one of the many softwares available to Mount Holyoke students. This announcement instantaneously brought to surface the frustrated voices of students on campus. Within just a few days, flyers appeared around campus saying “Keep AI out of MHC. Support freedom of thought. Protect artists and scholars.” Despite Mount Holyoke’s administration’s controversial and contradictory compliance with artificial intelligence, it should be no surprise to students, as the College continues to use artificial intelligence through Workday, our campus hub for student and staff employment.

When attempting to apply to an on campus job students are pushed to complete what is known in Workday as a “quick apply,” where you upload your resume and experience will be uploaded automatically as opposed to manually entering it. In addition to the application process, AI is widely used in the hiring process making it almost impossible for students to get hired, whether they are on work study or not. If students don’t use nonsensical keywords that AI can understand, good luck getting hired. Last fall and spring semester I applied to over 25 campus jobs and despite qualifying for work study as a first-generation low-income student, it took months before finally finding a job.

Recently graduated alums face this issue as well, since AI is commonly being used to complete tasks that many entry level jobs may require. For instance, with one quick look on Workday, I found a position asking that students “collect data primarily through internet research,” a job that quickly becomes riddled with AI — specifically Gemini AI — as those using Google can’t avoid the AI-generated summary of several sources, which are often uncredited or fact checked. Not only does this pose a threat to job positions such as this one, but to all students in academia.

This is especially true at a liberal arts college that has made sustainability their mission. It is widely known that the creation and use of artificial intelligence has a negative impact on the environment, discrediting the College’s mission of carbon-neutrality by our bicentennial year of 2037. One does not cancel the other out. In addition to the use of AI being generally contradictory to the College’s mission of carbon neutrality, it is an outright insult to students who have purposely chosen to pursue higher education at a private liberal arts college where learning and curiosity should be our driving factor, uninterrupted by generative AI.

The College has tried to battle these accusations by insisting that “All users should continue to use AI in accordance with college policies and guidance including the MHC Guidelines for the Ethical Use of Generative AI.”

Within these guidelines the College makes an effort to acknowledge how AI is growing rapidly and argues that in academia it is best to get a grasp on it and its errors. They also note their awareness of its negative environmental impact and issues with privacy, security, academic integrity and equity, as AI is often coded with implicit biases against historically marginalized groups. This should be no surprise, as a majority of its creators are wealthy white men. These so-called guidelines then end with the cherry on top: they were created using ChatGPT. “These guidelines were developed by using ChatGPT to draw on best practices observed at peer institutions including Bucknell University, Wellesley College, and Iona University with substantial editing by faculty and staff at Mount Holyoke College,” the webpage states.

How can the College ask students for academic integrity when they can’t even create their own guidelines on AI usage without using AI?

This question of artificial intelligence in class leaves students wondering how Mount Holyoke intends to respect its students and honor the unique work of a gender diverse liberal arts institution. When using em-dashes is a so-called “tell” of AI, will every humanities and English major be flagged, considering how available the College has made AI for students? In published writings such as the newspaper, research papers and theses, will students continue to read beginning to end for information, or summarize with Gemini AI?

As of now there are over 150 signatures collected on a petition titled “Keep AI Out of MHC,” and no response from the administration on students’ concerns about their ChatGPT generated "guidelines." These petitions can be found on most billboards around campus, hoping to collect signatures from like-minded students.

Karishma Ramkarran ’27 provided fact-checking.

Reads of Moho: the summer 2025 round-up

By Cameran Steiger ’26 & Honora Quinn ’27

STAFF WRITERS

For some Mount Holyoke students, the summer of 2025 was the summer of Labubus, “Love Island,” and Lady Gaga. For others, it was all about that other L-obsession: Literature.

As platforms like “BookTok” and “Bookstagram” take off and garner thousands of views, a top-notch reading list is just as much of a summer must-have as L.L. Bean’s classic Boat and Tote. However, an internet search reveals only a fraction of what the real-life literati actually have on their shelves. So, in search of some cool-kid recommendations for what to read and how to read it, we turned to patient zero: The Mount Holyoke student body.

As it turns out, when they are given time away from seminars and the packed lecture halls of campus, MHC students read widely across genres, follow both whims and strict lists of books-to-be-read, and mark their spot with anything from a special bookmark to a crumpled receipt from the depths of their bookbags or totes. Read ahead for a breakdown of how Mount Holyoke students like to read.

The Stats

Our search goes far beyond the more impersonal facts and figures. In addition to crunching the numbers related to their bookish habits, participants in the survey were also asked to recommend their favorite reads from the summer.

For example, Stella Rennard ’27 recommends Edith Wharton’s “House of Mirth,” summing it up simply with, “Beautiful writing, devastating tragedy.” Meanwhile, Sarah West ’26 described Paul Murray’s “Skippy Dies” as “an enthralling read” with “so many twists and turns!”

But the recommendations only start there.

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Dystopia

“Don't Let the Forest In” by C.G. Drews

This young adult horror-fantasy novel follows two teenagers who begin to see real-life monsters pulled straight from the twisted fairy tales they’ve been writing together. Mia Kysia ’27 wrote, “I was so obsessed with this and read it in a matter of days, unable to put it down. I cannot stress how beautiful the writing and characters were!!”

“Sunrise on the Reaping” by Suzanne Collins

Many readers are already familiar with the dystopian “Hunger Games” series, but dedicated followers of the series may be thrilled to explore this recently released prequel. This installment offers a particularly canny perspective on “media and what may be fed [to] or withheld from audiences,” Beka Henderson ’26 wrote. “ I think ‘Sunrise’ really tries to make the audience aware that … what’s happening in these books, what’s happening in the world, is something that can and will happen to us if we aren’t aware and actively working against it.”

“Get in Trouble” by Kelly Link

Jane Prusko ’28 wrote, “It’s a magical realism short story collection. The stories are very thought-provoking and have stuck with me [for] the entire rest of the summer since reading them in June.”

“Annihilation” by Jeff VanderMeer

This sci-fi novel follows a nameless female biologist who, alongside her academic colleagues, traverses into the classified Area X to investigate mysterious creatures. Caitlin Frarie ’28 said, “It is the first in a series, but works very well as a standalone, and is so well written!!”

“Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke

“Piranesi” revolves around an extraordinary house and its inhabitants in a speculative fiction extravaganza. “This book was incredibly beautiful and wonderfully strange,” wrote Ada Morrison ’29. “I fell in love with the main character and all his quirks and flaws, especially as the story unfolded and the mystery progressed. It definitely made me consider more deeply how my perception of the world shapes my identity.”

Contemporary and Literary Fiction

“My Friends” by Fredrik Backman

Translated from Swedish, Backman’s latest novel centers three teenage friends and a summer of rebellion, through the eyes of an aspiring artist twenty-five years later. Kennedy Olivia Bagley-Fortner ’26 recommends it, saying, “Backman is such an amazing writer! He writes as if he is experiencing each moment himself. ‘My Friends’ captures the growing pains, nostalgia and the grief of life.”

“The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver

Yasmeen Miloua ’28 called this read a “really interesting depiction of the experiences of the wife and daughters of an overzealous American Baptist missionary in the Congo, following the nation's independence from Belgium.”

“The Heart's Invisible Furies” by John Boyne

“This book covers the entire life story of a gay man from Ireland. It is absolutely hilarious yet also full of touching scenes and heart-wrenching tragedies. I could not put it down and found myself cackling in public over certain scenes,” said Abigail McKeon ’26.

Romance

“The Seven Year Slip” by Ashley Poston

Romance meets time travel in this spooky and special book. Naomi Biber-Bishop ’27 vouched,“It was a really sweet story that works forwards and backwards in time — including some drama and intensity — but it concludes with the typical rom-com ending in which all is right in the world.”

“The Invisible Life of Addie Larue” by V.E. Schwab

Spanning centuries and yet just one lifetime, “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” follows the journey of one woman who bargains to live forever, but never be remembered. Madeline DiFazio ’29 wrote, “It was just such a good depiction [of] the fear of being forgotten.”

“Just Another Epic Love Poem” by Parisa Akhbari

Lily Mueller ’26 wrote that this book is a “Really beautiful love story told in a mixture of narrative chapters and poems with wonderful representation that doesn't feel like ‘a thing.’”

Poetry

“The Hocus-Pocus of the Universe” by Laura Gilpin

Ella de Beauport ‘’27 found this book after reading Gilpin’s poem “The Two-Headed Calf.” She was so moved by it that she looked into her work and found the collection that the poem was included in. “The Hocus-Pocus of the Universe” won the Walt Whitman award in 1976. Beauport said, “Each poem was better than the last. Many of her descriptions of loss, grief, and the wonder of life will stick with me forever.”

Abigail McKeon ’26 provided fact-checking.

Why ADHD goes underdiagnosed and underrecognized in girls

Graphic by Brianna Stockwell ’28

By Anna Goodman ’28

Staff Writer

Usually, when you sit your parents down and say “I have something to tell you,” it’s one of three things: “I’m dying,” “I’m gay,” or “I have just committed a murder.” But, as I have no intention to die or commit felonies for a while and have already come out to my parents— accidentally and on purpose — more times than I can count, when I FaceTimed my mom and dad on Friday, Feb. 21 at around 10 in the morning, it was none of the above.

Instead, I said, “So, I think I have ADHD.”

Here is the moment where you, dear reader, say, respectfully, “Well, duh.” If you’ve met me for more than fifteen minutes — yes, me, with my eye-watering color schemes and my unending rambling and my unhealthy obsession with my Notes app — then, well, of course I do.

And who could blame you? It’s hilarious. But it’s also, in a way, quietly heart-wrenching. Because the next question to ask is, “How is it that people who have known me for a matter of months were less surprised than me, the person who’s lived in this brain for almost twenty years?”

And it’s not just me.

“Experts believe clinicians often miss ADHD in girls, for a few key reasons,” Healthline says. “They more often have internalized symptoms[,] they’re more likely to use coping strategies [and] parents and teachers are less likely to refer girls for diagnosis and treatment.”

While ADHD is very common — in 2022, the CDC reported that more than 1 in 10 children were diagnosed with it — boys are almost twice as likely to receive said diagnosis.

I interviewed several of my classmates who have ADHD and/or autism regarding this issue to get some other perspectives on the topic.

“There’s a lot of stereotypes shared between autism and ADHD,” Ari Kaufman ’28 said. “It’s just a little white boy with his trains and a little white boy who can’t sit still. And when you’re not that, you just don’t have those things.”

Instead of the aforementioned “boy who can’t sit still,” girls report being perceived as spacey, careless or overly chatty, as well as experiencing long periods of burnout followed by moments of inspiration, cycling between intense emotion and apathy or having difficulty staying organized or managing time, according to the ADHD Centre. Besides that, in girls, it’s likely to present with comorbid conditions, such as anxiety or depression, or even to be misdiagnosed, especially as bipolar disorder.

And there are other things that comorbidity doesn’t take into account either.

“My doctor told me about this phrase,” Ivy Bailey ’28 said. “[It’s] 2E, [or] “twice exceptional”: when you’re developmentally disabled and gifted, and your talents make up for being disabled. In both ways, it’s hard to get help and hard to succeed.”

Writing for newspaper The Hechinger Report, Rachel Blustain said, “[Twice-exceptional students are] believed to make up at least 6[%] of all students who have a disability … [and] often, their intelligence masks their disability, so they are never assessed for special education … [or] they’re placed in special education classes tailored to their disability but grade levels behind the school work they’re capable of.”

For as long as I can remember, my brain has felt like it’s on fire. Ideas whiz by like it’s a choppy 1984 video game, and I’m lucky if I can write a tenth of them down before they leave me again. It’s like there's a dozen leap frogs ribbiting under my skin. I am a spectator in my own mind. But none of that is visible. To the uninformed outside observer, I appear calm, maybe a bit distracted, but usually intelligent once I start speaking.

The issue is that I just never stop speaking.

I talk people’s ears off about things they don’t care about. I circle around what I try to say. I go on fifteen side tangents before I reach the crux of my argument. In the past, I ended up alienating myself from peers and possible friends with the way I expressed myself. And I never realized that I shouldn’t, because my speech was just an outward manifestation of my brain, and nothing was unusual with my brain. Right?

“The fun thing about having your brain,” Kaufman added, speaking on her own autism, “is you think your brain is normal, even when it’s not.”

And when it’s communication with others that you struggle with the most, is it any wonder that millions of girls spend countless years suffering unnoticed and wondering what the hell is going on with them, when they could have been getting support? That they sit in silence when they witness the reactions trusted adults or peers have to people who do fit the more stereotypical symptoms of autism or ADHD? That they then internalize that it’s wrong to be “like that”?

So, in the days before telling my parents I had ADHD, I was nervous. Would they roll their eyes? Would they tell me I was looking for excuses? Would they say that they had understood the autism but this was a step too far? But, when I FaceTimed my mom and dad, it was actually none of the above.

They listened calmly, looked at each other, and then my mom said, “Well, that would make sense. They have a high comorbidity.”

And then my dad added, “You know, you don’t have to justify it. We believe you.”

It would be easy for me to spin this into a feel-good story, but the truth is, I am very lucky to have parents who do grow and who do listen, and to go to a school like this that is committed to bettering the lives of disabled students. I’m also lucky that, as of now, neither of my conditions require medication or that much extra care from other people. As incredibly uncomfortable as it is, I have the ability to mask, to hide. I am also not formally diagnosed at the moment, a decision I made for safety and travel purposes. Millions of people don’t have that safety, and I’m not blind to the fact that all of these things are privileges.

But as with every privilege experienced by someone from a disadvantaged group, the downsides remain.

At Mount Holyoke College we have Disability Services, but, as they themselves say on the College’s website, a student must submit “appropriate documentation of [their] disability from a licensed provider/clinician”, meaning that students who are unaware of their own disabilities, or are unable to, or do not want to get a diagnosis — which includes me — cannot receive help from them.

The decision is a double-edged sword; you cannot be hurt if no one knows, but you also can’t be helped.

But there’s also the Accessibility Justice Club, which, according to their official “About” section on Embark, “facilitates community for students with disabilities and attempts to compensate for the institutional marginalization and isolation that is caused by systemic ableism and, even sometimes, by accommodations.”

They’re an excellent reminder that when all systems fail, oftentimes it falls to the people most affected by them to organize for a better one.

A question that I get asked a lot about autism from people that don’t have it is, “Don’t you hate it?” or “Would you really choose to have it?” like it’s some kind of infectious disease that they can’t comprehend being saddled with. I’ve always answered that I would not be me without it, and over the last few months, I’ve come to the same conclusion about my ADHD.

I'd be lying if I said there weren’t days where I hate it. I’d be lying if I said there aren’t people who spend their lives hating it, which is completely understandable, and not my place to judge. Like any disability, there are undeniable difficulties to living with it. But for me, I think of the things I’ve created because of it, of the interesting topics I’ve become obsessed with due to it, and of the community I’ve found through it. I think of all of the friends I’ve made with ADHD or autism, whose perspectives you’ve heard throughout this piece, and without whom my life would be so much less fun.

“A lot of people with it seem to gravitate towards each other,” Kat Brown ’28 once told me with a grin.

Whether you need medication or not, whether you get assistance from Disability Services or not, whether you curse its existence or not, it’s important that you know you aren’t alone. You aren’t crazy. You have a community that’s here, arms open, waiting for you, to let you know that they understand. You just have to knock on the door.

So, have you realized you have ADHD? I’ve been there. It’s gonna be okay.

Sofia Ramon ’27 contributed fact-checking.

Watched or made? History and what it means to us

Photo courtesy of Anna Goodman ’28

Photos of, from left to right, Anna’s grandparents in 1969, Anna’s grandmother and her mom in 1989, and Anna’s grandmother with Anna herself in 2019.

By Anna Goodman ’28

Staff Writer

It's about 10 p.m. on July 20, 1969, and my grandparents, who had just turned 20, are watching TV. Normally at this time of night they’d be watching the Ed Sullivan Show or listening to Creedence Clearwater on the radio –– if my grandfather had his way –– but not tonight. Instead, they’re watching some very fuzzy footage broadcast from over 200,000 miles away. They’re watching history be made through a screen.

We all know this story, right? “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?” You’re rolling your eyes already. You’re flipping your paper over to the interesting things in the Horoscopes section. You’re wondering: Why am I wasting your time?

So, instead of talking about this, let’s talk about you. What is “history” to you?

“I’d define history as a particular memory ... what people remember to be the past. As a student of history, sometimes I think of it as an academic way to understand the lives we’re living right now,” Asmi Shrestha ’26 says.

Or, as Sophia Baldwin ’26 puts it, “[History is] a collection of events from the past that we remember and pass down from generation to generation.”

For Mila Marinova ’27, history is “all of the past events and people and their actions that have led to where we are now.”

“[It’s] both something very personal and a collective phenomenon. It’s generational too, it depends on what’s shared from grandparents to parents to children. It depends on what’s taught in schools, in science and English and history classes. It depends on personal interpretation too,” Sophia Hoermann ’25 says.

Many of the interviewees talked of their first “historical memory,” ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to the 2008 financial crash to the fall of the monarchy in Nepal.

My grandmother, it seems, had her pick. In 1969, a man walked on the moon, the Vietnam War became more unpopular than ever, the Woodstock music festival drew crowds of thousands, and the Stonewall Uprising birthed the modern queer rights movement. And all of those generation-defining moments happened in the span of less than two months.

And so, after asking how each person would define history, I asked another question: Can you name three people involved in the moon landing? No one could do it. Most could name was Neil Armstrong — or “Neil” or “Armstrong” — but the closest anyone came was one and a half people.

It’s fascinating that here we are, with people who clearly think deeply about history and gave all different yet all detailed and introspective answers to the question of how to define it — who could likely all recite the line, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” from memory — and yet the name of the person whose step it was eluded them.

It’s fascinating that so often, when we think of Big Moments In History, we forget about the people behind them. Things don’t just happen. People make them happen. People made Stonewall and Woodstock happen. And as for the people who made the moon landing happen –– besides thousands of engineers and mathematicians and geologists, not to mention those in mission control or landing crew –– the names of the three astronauts from Apollo 11 were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

So, it’s about 10 p.m. on Nov. 5, 2024, and I, having just turned 18, am watching TV. Normally at this time of night I’d be watching Netflix, or, to be honest, cramming over an assignment, but not tonight. Instead I’m ten years old again, remembering my own first historical memory, feeling just as horrified and just as powerless. I’m watching history through a screen.

Because 77 million people voted for Trump. My grandfather voted for Trump. Buzz Aldrin endorsed him. Because of people like him, we landed on the moon. Because of people like him, all of our lives are in danger.

You all know this story, right? You’re really wishing you turned to the Horoscopes section ten minutes ago. But before you roll your eyes, know that I’m not going to tell this story. I’m going to tell a different one.

My grandmother was three months past 20 when she watched a man walk on the moon. My grandmother was three weeks away from succumbing to Stage 4 lung cancer when she signed her ballot for Joe Biden in 2020 with an “X.” She watched history be made and was determined to make it until the bitter end, determined that she would make a better future even if she couldn’t be part of it.

And maybe you don’t want to make history. You’re exhausted. You’re terrified. You just want to pass chemistry and not think about the looming threats to healthcare or the constant school shootings in the news. And that’s not your fault; it shouldn’t be dependent on a bunch of teenagers and 20-something sleep-deprived college students to try to keep themselves alive when the people in charge of our country seem committed to watching us die.

But we don’t have the luxury of watching any longer. We don’t have the time to deliberate on whether we want to be here. The fact is, the time for deliberation was months ago and the choice has been made. The fact is, here we are.

The question is, what are we going to do about it?

I’ve mentioned many responses to “What is history?” but not my own. So, for the record, I, Anna Cocca Goodman ’28, say that history is change. History is the bridge from the past to the future, and the people who carry it on their shoulders, forgotten or celebrated, from Neil Armstrong, to protestors at Stonewall, to journalists far better than me.

My grandmother did not live to see a world where Trump was not president. But I will. I will survive the men who walked on the moon, I will survive the queer ancestors who fought for me at Stonewall, and I will survive the last vestiges of Donald Trump’s regime, not on a screen, but with my own eyes.

It’s about 10 p.m. on April 16, 2025, what would be my grandmother’s 76th birthday, when I decide to write this article. When I decide to say that I hope you will be there when we land on the moon again. I hope you will be there when we see authoritarianism crumble again. I hope you will be here, now, when we need you, when we have the chance to make both of those things happen.

So, please, don’t go. And, please, whatever history means to you, come and make it with me.

Leah Dutcher ’28 contributed fact-checking.