“I had the opportunity to 
spend last summer interning 
at 
the 
U.S. 
Embassy 
in 
Mexico City,” Nandkumar 
said. “Learning about other 
cultures, other people and 
the politics of other countries 
has always been something 
that’s 
really 
interesting 
to me. I’m focusing in the 
Ford School in diplomacy 
and international security 

issues, and I hope to go into 
that field.” 
When asked for advice on 
how students interested in 
international affairs can best 
prepare themselves for such 
careers, Former ambassador 
to Qatar Patrick Theros had 
a 
simple 
yet 
meaningful 
answer.
“Succeed at what you’re 
doing right now,” Theros 
said.

This 
resolution 
was 
rejected 
6-5, 
with 
Councilmembers 
Jeff 
Hayner, D-Ward 1; Anne 
Bannister, D-Ward 1; Jane 
Lumm, I-Ward 2; Jack 
Eaton, 
D-Ward 
4; 
and 
Nelson supporting it. 
LSA senior Dim Mang is 
involved with the Climate 
Action 
Movement 
and 
said she worries the city 

council is not supporting 
the climate neutrality plan 
with concrete actions. 
“I think that you can 
support it in theory and 
then 
talk 
as 
much 
as 
you’d like … but if you’re 
not actually going to go 
through on, you know, 
housing plans for things 
like that, their activism 
and their advocacy is not 
enough,” Mang said.

The 
lecture 
began 
with a 15-minute film 
that detailed Rodriguez’s 
immigration to the United 
States, 
his 
upbringing 
in 
the 
United 
States, 
his Cuban heritage and 
how these factors have 
informed and inspired his 
art over the years.
At the age of nine, 
Rodriguez 
immigrated 
to the United States as a 
part of the Mariel boatlift 
— a mass immigration 
in 1980 of Cubans who 
departed 
from 
Mariel 
Harbor for the United 
States — and grew up in 
Miami, Florida. He then 
attended Pratt Institute 
in Brooklyn, 
New 
York. 
Rodriguez 
said 
his 
struggles 
earlier 
on 
in 
his 
life 
defined what 
kind of artist 
he was, and 
that he has 
overcome 
those 
struggles.
“When 
I 
was 
in 
college, I was 
always 
told 
you have to 
pick a focus,” 
Rodriguez 
said. 
“What 
are you? Are 
you a painter? 
Are 
you 
a 
designer? 
Are 
you 
an 
illustrator? 
What 
are 
you? … And 
you’re always pressured 
to choose a decision about 
who you are … and for the 
past 25 years, I’ve done 
everything.”
In 
recent 
years, 
Rodriguez 
has 
gained 
fame and notoriety for 
his 
politically 
charged 
magazine 
covers, 
specifically the covers for 
TIME and Der Spiegel. 
Covers depicting Donald 
Trump’s face melting, or 
Donald Trump holding 
the head of the Statue 
of Liberty in one hand 
and a knife in another 
have drawn widespread 
media 
coverage 
and 
international 
attention. 
He 
spoke 
about 
the 
influence he has seen 
his covers have on the 
general public.
“I’ve 
done 
probably 
about 
150 
magazine 
covers,” Rodriguez said. 
“The first time I noticed 
a magazine cover could 
have a lot of impact was 
when I did this cover for 
Communication Arts. … It 
became a very big cover 
worldwide 
and 
started 
a lot of discussions. … 
People in Cuba used to 

put it in a paper bag and 
pass it around because 
they could not show it in 
public.”
He then talked about 
his controversial covers 
portraying Donald Trump 
and 
why 
he 
decided 
to take such a strong 
political stance in 2016.
“What I saw in Trump 
as a candidate was, from 
what I had experienced 
in Cuba and the type of 
language 
Fidel 
Castro 
had used … these were the 
same things that Trump 
was saying as a candidate, 
and it freaked me out,” 
Rodriguez 
said. 
“Both 
of these covers ended up 
everywhere.” 
The 
depictions 
of 
Trump 
that 
Rodriguez 
created have been seen 
at political rallies and 
protests 
all 
over 
the 
United States, 
from 
New 
York City to 
Denver to San 
Francisco. 
He has been 
covered 
by 
CNN, 
MSNBC, 
and 
was 
even 
dubbed 
“Trump’s 
most 
hated 
artist.” While 
these 
covers 
have 
given 
Rodriguez 
attention, not 
all of it has 
been positive. 
He 
showed 
the audience 
pictures 
of 
hate messages 
he 
had 
received 
on 
Instagram
“This 
guy 
asked me if I was illegal, 
and 
I’ve 
been 
here 
for 
almost 
40 
years,” 
Rodriguez said. “And 
I’ve never been asked this 
question … I get direct 
emails, threats, all sorts 
of things.”
Throughout 
the 
lecture, Rodriguez was 
interrupted by laughter, 
cheering or a mixture of 
both despite the grave 
nature of many of his 
subjects. As it ended, the 
auditorium broke out into 
raucous applause.
Art & Design junior 
Gwen McCartney related 
to 
Rodriguez’s 
relaxed 
approach to his artistic 
endeavors, 
even 
when 
dealing with heavy topics.
“In my art, I don’t 
like to take myself too 
seriously,” 
McCartney 
said. “I think with his 
work, I found that he had 
very serious subjects, but 
I felt like he was kind 
of nonchalant about the 
stuff he did … which I 
really appreciate.”

LSA 
senior 
Ethan 
Szlezinger told The Daily 
Roberts’ 
book 
and 
her 
perspective 
really 
drew 
him in.
“I 
was 
surprised 
by 
the specific details that 
somebody who’s in that 
situation could only know,” 
Szlezinger 
said. 
“For 
example, when she was 
talking about the carpools 
and 
the 
transportation 
to 
get 
to 
the 
prisons 
(for 
visitations), 
that’s 
something that somebody 
outside of the prison system 
doesn’t know about and 
would just never consider.” 
Lucas 
noted 
the 
perspective that Roberts’s 
memoir 
adds 
to 
the 
rhetoric 
around 
fighting 
back against the prison 
industrial complex. 
“You can get a sense 
from reading about her 
that she is a woman of 
remarkable fortitude, and 
resourcefulness — that she 
has strong principles and 
is brave enough to take a 
stand against the prison 
industrial complex, which 
severely diminishes all of 
our lives, whether we know 
it or not,” Lucas said.
While 
Roberts 
accompanied Senghor on 
his tour promoting his book 
“Writing My Wrongs: Life, 
Death, and Redemption in 
an American Prison,” she 
said people kept asking her 
for her side of the story and 
were urging her to write 
about her experience as 
his partner. She said she 
was nervous to write a 
memoir because it was an 
unfamiliar format, as it was 
one that asked for a lot of 
emotional transparency.
“At that point, it was 
almost as if, you know, the 
universe was pushing me 
to tell the story because it 
needed to be told, that there 
were people who needed 
to hear my story and who 
could get something out of 
it,” Roberts said.
Senghor 
and 
Roberts 
began a deeply committed 
relationship that involved 
hundreds 
of 
letters, 
expensive phone calls and 
visitations that required a 
sometimes eight- to 10-hour 
drive. 
Roberts 
said 
she 
found support from online 
forums, and she spoke to 
how this allowed her to 
feel less isolated during 
these years. In terms of 

the letters they exchanged, 
Roberts 
explained 
how 
detailed and eloquent the 
two made their letters and 
how this contributed to 
the way their relationship 
functioned.
“Our 
letters 
were 
extremely long in detail, 
and tight, most of them 
— and I mean eight to 10 
pages, sometimes longer. 
And so, we got to know each 
other in ways that we don’t 

typically get to know each 
other because — especially 
now with social media, 
email, 
text 
messaging, 
really 
anything 
quick,” 
Roberts said. “We’re not 
even on the phone as much 
as we used to be, so the 
letters were an integral 
part of getting to know 
each other and our intimate 
thoughts and being able to 
really share.” 
Roberts said one year 
their calls cost $3,000. 
Lucas shared her personal 
involvement in the carceral 
system, discussing how her 

father 
was 
incarcerated 
during her childhood and 
how engaging with loved 
ones through the carceral 
system can put a strain on 
families. 
Lucas 
asked 
Roberts 
about her own experiences 
in this realm, and Roberts 
admitted not taking very 
good care of herself during 
the years in which she 
focused only on Senghor. 
Within 
this 
dynamic, 

Roberts 
said 
she 
often 
found 
herself 
spending 
all of her time on Sengor’s 
work, which led to a decline 
in her own wellbeing.
“Any relationship, and 
that 
relationship, 
with 
power 
dynamics, 
aren’t 
bound 
because 
he 
was 
solely dependent on me for a 
lot of things,” Roberts said. 
“I took that responsibility 
seriously, and I spent a lot 
of days not taking care of 
myself as well as I needed 
to, but it was because I felt 
like he needed me, needed 
the support to do the things 

that he wants to do. And 
there were times when I 
was so depressed that I 
didn’t leave the house… I 
just kind of built a little 
cocoon around myself.” 
Roberts said she knows 
that he is her soulmate, 
though the two are no 
longer 
in 
a 
romantic 
relationship. 
“I do believe that we are 
soulmates, and soulmates 
come into our lives to shake 
things up, right?” Roberts 
said. “You think of the 
soulmate story as the fairy 
tale, and you’re going to 
ride off into the sunset, 
and you’re going to have 
all this bliss, but in fact, it’s 
the opposite, because your 
soulmate is usually your 
mirror, and in many ways, 
Shaka was my mirror, and 
a lot of his trauma mirrored 
my trauma but in different 
ways.”
Engineering 
junior 
Shimonti Sengupta, event 
coordinator of the Prison 
Birth Project, attended the 
talk. She said she really 
enjoyed hearing about what 
it was like having a loved 
one 
return 
home, 
from 
Roberts’ perspective.
“Listening to her talk 
about what it was like for 
her to prepare, and for 
families to prepare, for 
incarcerated individuals to 
come back, I think is really 
interesting,” Sengupta said.
Roberts said she works 
to combat the stereotype 
of 
being 
the 
“insecure 
woman” that is the perfect 
candidate to fall in love 
with 
a 
person 
who 
is 
incarcerated. Lucas asked 
her to share how she did 
so, and Roberts responded 
that she hopes that readers 
enter the book with an open 
mind.
“There are some people 
who feel like, ‘She had all 
these insecurities, and he 
fed her all these beautiful 
words, and she fell for it, 
hook, line and sinker,’” 
Roberts said. “People are 
going to walk away from 
the book with different 
opinions. 
Sometimes 
people 
walk 
into 
any 
situation already with their 
mind made, so they read 
it, and it only confirms 
what they already believe. 
But then sometimes you 
can read something with 
an open mind, and it can 
actually change your mind 
and makes you think about 
things differently.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, November 22, 2019 — 3

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

MEMOIR
From Page 1

ARTIST
From Page 2

IULIA DOBRIN 
Daily Staff Reporter

Meeting at Ann Arbor District Library seeks to make urban hubs more accessible

DownTown Hall examines issues 
facing pedestrians across city

Ann 
Arbor 
resident 
Jessica A.S. Letaw, a board 
member of the Downtown 
Development 
Authority, 
hosted a “DownTown Hall” at 
the Ann Arbor District Library 
Wednesday night. Letaw said 
she took it upon herself to host 
DownTown 
Hall 
meetings 
to try to make the DDA’s 
technical work in downtown 
Ann Arbor more accessible to 
the general public.
Letaw hosts this event twice a 
month to provide an opportunity 
for city residents to have a 
conversation 
about 
current 
events and changes going on in 
downtown Ann Arbor. 
“A 
healthy 
downtown 
informs a healthy city,” Letaw 
said. “I wanted to make sure 
that anybody who wanted to 
have access to be able to ask 
questions of somebody who is 
doing this work.”
The Ann Arbor DDA, created 
in 1982, strives to “undertake 
public 
improvements 
that 
have the greatest impact in 
strengthening the downtown 
area and attracting new private 
investments.” Letaw kept to 
this theme during the meeting 
by covering the DDA’s 2018 
State of the Downtown report, 
which covered statistics about 
different aspects of downtown 
Ann Arbor such as people-

friendly streets, employment, 
investment and growth.
“A lot of times, when we think 
about downtown, especially as 
a parking authority, we think 
of it as a place for cars,” Letaw 
said. “But in reality, a city is a 
place for people.”
Letaw explained the division 
between responsibilities that 
the city of Ann Arbor and the 
DDA share. While the city of 
Ann Arbor is in charge of road 
right-of-way, such as street 
maintenance 
and 
signals, 
the DDA is responsible for 
pedestrian right-of-way, Letaw 
said. 
In 
maintaining 
this, 
the DDA uses tax-increment 
financing (TIF) to create a 
right-of-way for people that 
is welcoming and easy to use. 
Currently, the DDA is working 
on improving safety in the city 
for bicyclists.
“Nobody is going to take 
their kid on Plymouth (Road),” 
Letaw said. “Nobody is going to 
take their kid on Washtenaw. 
Nobody is going to take their 
kid on Jackson, they’d be 
insane if they did. But what if 
they weren’t?” 
One of the DDA’s most 
recent 
developments 
was 
implementing 
the 
first 
protected two-way bike lane 
installed on William Street. 
Their decision to place it here 
was based on an accident 
review of all collisions and 
conflicts in downtown over the 

last five years, which labeled 
this street as an area of high 
vulnerability.
City Councilmember Kathy 
Griswold, D-Ward 2, who has 
been a longtime advocate of 
pedestrian safety, was also in 
attendance. She stated Ann 
Arbor could begin improving 
pedestrian safety with three 
distinct steps. 
“We need to hire a senior 
engineer with ‘Vision Zero’ 
expertise. Vision Zero is a 
proven process for reducing 
roadway fatalities and serious 
injuries,” 
Griswold 
said. 
Number two, would be the need 
to cap all of our crosswalks 
lit 
with 
positive, 
contrast 
lighting. We’re working on 
that. That’s quite expensive, 
but we’re not there yet. And 
number three, we need a state 
crosswalk law so that everyone 
knows what that law is.”
Ann Arbor resident Rich 
Chang, 
who 
attended 
the 
meeting, 
is 
the 
CEO 
of 
Ann 
Arbor 
tech 
company 
NewFoundry. Chang is also 
a part of seven committees 
around town, including the 
board of directors for United 
Way of Washtenaw County 
and the chair of the executive 
committee for the Ann Arbor/
Ypsilanti Regional Chamber. 
As 
someone 
involved 
in 
multiple committees around 
town, Chang said he hopes 
more residents will take the 

initiative to become informed 
about their city.
“I feel like more and more 
people are not willing to take 
the time to become more 
informed and ask questions,” 
Chang said. “Critical thinking, 
to me, is one of the biggest 
challenges. I think if we all 
did better at critical thinking 
and having dialogue … I think 
people will not have as much of 
a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction.” 
Letaw 
also 
spoke 
about 
her hopes for DDA’s future 
expansion, including taking 
on solid waste management 
problems and implementing 
art projects similar to those 
in downtown Detroit. One 
example she spoke of was The 
Belt, an art alley unveiled in 
Detroit in 2014. She also talked 
about the DDA’s goals for their 
charter renewal in 2033. At 
that time, they hope to become 
leaders in making downtown 
Ann Arbor more equitably 
accessible and available for 
people using all modes of 
transportation.
“It’s hard to know when it 
comes to politics, or even any 
kind of public work. It’s hard 
to know if your work makes a 
difference,” Letaw said. “But 
when work that you do builds 
up to a protected bike lane or 
more bike parking or whatever 
it is, it feels really gratifying.”
Julia Fanzeres contributed 
reporting.

YPSILANTI
From Page 1

DIPLOMACY
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Any relationship, and that 
relationship, with power 
dynamics, aren’t bound 
because he was solely 
dependent on me for a 
lot of things. I took that 
responsibility seriously, 
and I spent a lot of days 
not taking care of myself 
as well as I needed to, but 
it was because I felt like 
he needed me, needed the 
support to do the things 
that he wants to do. And 
there were times when I 
was so depressed that I 
didn’t leave the house… 
I just kind of built a little 
cocoon around myself.

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

“When I was 
in college, I 
was always 
told you have 
to pick a focus,” 
Rodriguez 
said. “What are 
you? Are you 
a painter? Are 
you a designer? 
Are you an 
illustrator?”

