The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, September 30, 2019 — 3A

ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

I 
used 
this 
print 
for 
a 
collaboration with a local apparel 
brand. I was excited when a 
friend reached out to me asking 
if he could print the design onto 
hoodies to sell, especially because 
it had a message behind it that 
was important to me. He later 

got back to me, saying his boss 
was hesitant about the print, that 
the Arabic was controversial and 
would exclude many customers, 
which I honestly found laughable 
and 
ironic. 
The 
text 
reads 
‘assalam ‘alaykum’ which literally 
means ‘peace be with you’ and 
is used as a formal greeting. 
Still, someone found the fact of 
the Arabic language inherently 
uncomfortable and controversial. 

I’m really grateful that I’m able 
to elevate my voice through art 
but can’t help being disappointed 
and even shocked that this kind of 
mentality persists. 
This design was initially a 
screenprint, created at the height 
of the ongoing Syrian Refugee 
Crisis of 2016. As a Palestinian 
living in the diaspora, and with 
close family ties to Syria, I felt 
compelled to create work that 

speaks to this humanitarian issue.
The text reads, in Arabic, 
‘peace be with you,’ a phrase 
often used when entering a room, 
before beginning a speech, or as a 
formal greeting. In other words, 
welcome.
Coupled with the symbol of 
intertwined arms centered on a 
full circle, this artwork symbolizes 
peace and acceptance of others 
despite perceived differences.

I’m a wolf of the streets, I 
smell your fear.
A bright sun looms over 
me, dressed up in some 
new clothes I had bought 
for the semester, I walk 
to class. Right on time, I 
make my way into Mason 
and lower the volume on 
my headphones. The halls 
are buzzing per usual and 
I sense an ordinary day in 
the making. My lecture hall 
is lively and there are busy, 
moving students all around 
me as the professor prepares 
his notes for the class. The 
projector 
luminates 
the 
wall in front of the room 
with the introductory slide 
to 
his 
PowerPoint. 
What 
seems to be the last group 
of students enter through 
the doors dispersing as they 
please. Almost all the seats 
in the lecture hall were filled 
with different people from 
different places. I may have 
been on campus for years but 
the sight of so many faces 
will always be overwhelming 
to me.
After putting away my 
phone, I began taking out my 
notebook, journal, and pens. 
There’s a growing sense of 
gratefulness within me as 
the class begins. My water 
bottle rolls to the end of my 
row while I lie my backpack 
down. It’s not within arm’s 
reach but there’s nobody who 
offers a hand. I chuckle—
there’s nobody around me 
to chuckle back. My row is 
empty. I forgot— I should’ve 
expected it if it was any 
other day. I wonder, what’s 
so wrong with me? To not be 
worthy enough for a single 
person in this school to 
willfully want to sit next to 
me. I sigh, and as expected, 
a couple of my fellow white 
classmates turn and look 

In the last several years — 
for a multitude of different 
reasons — many prestigious 
education 
institutions 
and 
organizations 
have 
made 
diversity 
a 
higher 
priority 
on their to-do list. This isn’t 
something these institutions 
should receive too much praise 
for, considering their role in 
the lack of diversity in the 
first place. However, the effort 
is 
still 
respectable. 
These 
universities — which have 
historically been a medium 
of separation between white 
people and people of color — 
are now trying to reverse that 
reputation and the societal 
inequities that have resulted 
from it. It almost gives the 
impression that a new era of 
equality is amongst us.
Though 
the 
future 
for 
the treatment of racial and 
ethnic minorities in higher 
education 
seems 
bright, 
elements of the past still rear 
their heads. There have been 
times in which I have walked 
into environments that were 
relatively diverse, yet I still 
saw the same segregation that 
I was told disintegrated with 
the Civil Rights Movement. 
I have been in spaces that 
have claimed to value the 
experiences 
of 
different 
types of people and have still 
encountered people who were 
not willing to consider ideas 
that strayed from their own 
accepted 
narrative. 
Even 
in classes that spend time 

focusing on aspects of the Black 
experience, my perspective as 
a Black woman has still been 
devalued by people who have 
never walked a day in my skin. 
Me being able to walk through 
the door did not guarantee my 
ability to get through to the 
people sitting on the other side 
of them.
This is where the problem 
lies. 
We’ve 
always 
seen 
diversity in terms of numbers 
— specifically, the percentage 
of each racial group in the 
student 
body. 
What 
we’ve 
failed to realize though, is that 
numbers say nothing about 
the experience. One can be 
in a place that is diverse and 
still not receives the benefits 
of being around people with 
different 
backgrounds 
and 
perspectives. This is, quite 
frankly, why diversity will 
never be enough. Another key 
process must be incorporated 
— integration. 
Integration is more than 
just allowing people of color to 
occupy white spaces. It is also 
inviting our cultures and our 
opinions to have a seat at the 
table. Integration is a mixture 
— of what you know and what 
you don’t. It is supposed to 
combine — or integrate — what 
people who look like you have 
to offer, as well as the offerings 
of everyone else who doesn’t. 
Having a healthy ratio of every 
race and ethnicity doesn’t cut 
it.
So 
far, 
in 
this 
current 
progression 
towards 
equal 
access, we’ve turned equality 
into a numbers game. But 
sometimes, that game tends to 
play us.

I spend a lot of time on campus 
wishing that I was anywhere else. 
Too much of this time ends up being 
spent on Instagram, where the world 
on my feed looks pinker, cutesier, 
and dreamier than how most people 
would see it. Instead of being an 
attempt to distort the truth about my 
life for likes, my Instagram feed has 
become a creative outlet for my own 
form of queer worldmaking.
Social media is an artificial view 
of reality, in which individuals post 
only the best of themselves (save for 

the less than flattering and nudes 
on “finstas” that I might show you 
later, if we get that close). Instagram 
is especially centered around sheer 
aesthetic value. Many of its users, 
including yeah, myself, care a great 
deal about their online appearances. 
When I initially began cultivating 
a “theme” for my Instagram feed, 
I sought to pink-wash Michigan 
via an obviously saturated, highly 
edited haze of filters. While it 
brought me slight satisfaction to see 
the collection of pictures that I had 
assembled together, I quickly grew 
bored of both the artificiality and 
superficiality involved within my 
process of picking my posts.

Lone 
Wolf

Diversity isn’t 
enough

ROBERTO SANCHEZ
MiC Columnist

KAYLA THOMAS
MiC Blogger

SEAN TRAN
MiC Blogger

ELIZABETH HO
MiC Blogger

Last year, the singular 
Asian movie in the U.S. 
was Crazy Rich Asians, a 
fact agreed upon by public 
consensus. 
This 
year, 
the choice hasn’t been so 
easy. Always Be My Maybe 
(starring Ali Wong and 
Randall Park) made waves 
in 
the 
Asian 
American 
community as one of the 
first American rom-coms 
to star Asians. Bold and 
with 
appearances 
from 
familiar faces like Keanu 
Reeves, it’s an obvious 
frontrunner. But the film 
that I feel best represents 
my 
Asian 
American 
experience is The Farewell. 
A small film with a budget 
of only $3 million, it may 
not look like much, but it 
has real feeling and soul.
Directed 
by 
Chinese 
director Lulu Wang, The 
Farewell is a sobering story 
about how a grandmother’s 
terminal diagnosis leads 
the entire family to visit 
her from abroad and, out 
of love, hide the terrible 
truth. 
Perhaps 
what 
makes the premise and the 
ensuing drama so magnetic 
is the unpretentious reality 
infused it is infused with. 
The Farewell takes place 

mostly in the industrial 
city of Changchun, China. 
Like many places in China, 
in Changchun, you’ll want 
to boil your water before 
drinking it – something 
we’re reminded of as soon 
as the family arrives at the 
hotel. The hotel rooms are 
decorated 
in 
something 
not 
quite 
as 
cold 
and 
impersonal as an American 
hotel, but there’s still a 
faded grandeur. All told, we 
arrive at an unmistakably 
Chinese setting, with most 
of the movie’s dialogue 
being in Mandarin (with 
English subtitles for a non-
native speaking audience).
And yet we view all of 
this through a distinctly 
Chinese 
American 
perspective. 
Billi, 
the 
granddaughter 
and 
protagonist 
(played 
by 
Awkwafina), occasionally 
fumbles 
with 
her 
Mandarin in a way that I 
can relate to. Like Billi, 
I can scrape by in light 
conversation, but anything 
deeper than that can pose 
some 
major 
translation 
issues. More than simply 
the language barrier, the 
cultural barrier is one that 
proves challenging. When 
her family decides to not 
tell the grandmother about 
her diagnosis, Billi feels 

like the family’s deceit is 
inherently wrong and that 
it won’t bring about true 
closure. However, her more 
Chinese parents and uncle 
and aunt make it clear that 
not saying anything is a 
blessing: the grandmother 
will be able to live out her 
final days peacefully, not 
fearing death.
The 
differences 
and 
similarities 
between 
Chinese 
and 
Chinese 
Americans 
are 
at 
the 
heart of the movie. The 
Farewell 
demonstrates 
how Chinese Americans 
dance that line between 
Chinese 
and 
American, 
landing them in a no-man’s 
land. Moreover, the movie 
answers the hard question 
of which to choose: You 
can 
choose 
both, 
and 
though it can sometimes be 
alienating, being American 
and being Chinese aren’t 
incompatible 
with 
each 
other.
By talking about death, 
The Farewell succeeds in 
being a celebration of life. 
Its authentic presentation 
of the lives of average Asian 
Americans makes it shine 
brightly as one of the best 
Asian American movies of 
2019 and perhaps, as one of 
the best movies in 2019 in 
general.

Vulnerable, authentic 
representation in 
The Farewell

ZOYA ZALATIMO
MiC Featured Artist

ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

at me from top to bottom. 
They’re 
disgusted, 
who 
allowed me to exhale in 
such a manor.
You’re staring… I see the 
side-eye, and the scared 
glances but they bounce 
off me. My rebuttal glares, 
they pierce you however, in 
an instant you look away in 
disbelief. How dare I have 
done the same thing. Keep 

turning if you must, if your 
angst continues, then you’ll 
only notice my attempts to 
look as repulsed as you do.
A diverse school and one 
with tens of thousands of 
students, yet again, I feel 
so alone. Every day. Every 
class. Every bus ride. The 
only progress being made is 
in the velocity I can make 
them shy away from me. 

Finally, mentioning it to my 
brothers, I realize I’m far 
from alone in the abyss of 
solitude. I won’t change the 
way I dress, how I talk, how 
I walk, we don’t care about 
fitting an imposed mold. 
Our brown skin has been 
shunned on what seems to 
be a consensus and we’ve 
unknowingly 
been 
alone 
— together, this whole time.

