The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
6 — Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Over the past two years, my vibrant 

paintings have engulfed my once unem-
bellished bedroom wall. Each comes with 
a unique color scheme: from a pale orange 
canvas of Lisa Simpson to soulful butter-
flies flying across a lilac sky. To me, paint-
ing is a therapeutic release that I don’t find 
in other spaces I use for comfort. While I 
often use journaling as an outlet to orga-
nize my thoughts and track my personal 
growth, I find that painting gives me the 
ability to express my emotions and leave 
the experience with a souvenir. I can trace 
a memory back to every one of my pieces 
and the emotions I experienced during its 
creation. Adding onto my wall of paint-
ings has become an incentive for me to 
experience a brief moment of euphoria and 
pride for the art that I made with my own 
vision. It quite literally allows me to bring 
my thoughts into reality. When I paint, I 
find freedom in mixing any color to cre-
ate another. My paintbrush is not capable 
of creating anything but beauty, and I have 
the ultimate autonomy of deciding how 
to personalize my canvas. During 2020, 
I used painting as a fluid art form; it was 
the only aspect that I had control of when 
every other part of my life was thrown in 
disarray during the pandemic.

Since 2020, 17 members of my family 

have tested positive for COVID-19, two of 
whom have died, one of them being my 
grandfather. My grandfather had lived in 
the U.S. with my family since I was born, 
and as a first-generation Asian American, 
I saw him as one of my greatest blessings. 
Having a figure like him present through-
out my life, I learned the importance of 
humility, genuinity, strength and compas-
sion simply by observing him. Between his 
conversations with everyone that entered 
our home, the relationships he built with 

my friends or how he said “God bless you” 
every time he answered and ended a phone 
call, my grandfather set the foundation for 
my values that I still live by.

He also served as a bridge connecting 

both of my cultures — American and Indi-
an. Since visiting India was only possible 
every few years, I relied on my grandfather 
to affirm my Indian identity. The universal 
identity crisis that first-generation Ameri-
cans face is humbling and never-ending, 
but having my grandfather around was 
how I felt enough. With the inability to 
grow up with my family in India, I held 
onto my grandfather as a connection to 
my culture. Practicing Telugu with him, 
listening to his stories from his childhood 
or even teaching him about Thanksgiving 
and other American traditions gave me 

a balance that I couldn’t find on my own. 
Losing him meant losing my immediate 
sense of cultural identity. When he passed 
away, I struggled with losing someone so 
sacred to my heart, as well as my under-
standing of who I was. 

Grieving the death of a loved one is hard 

in itself, but grieving someone through 
a pandemic is a slap in the face. Going to 
the grocery store, making plans with my 

best friends or even stepping outside for a 
walk has trapped me in an endless bubble 
of fear. Will I encounter the virus today? 
Will I see someone, who saw someone, 
who tested positive? I hope I don’t expose 
my family. Dealing with anxiety my whole 
life, I’ve leaned on my friends for support 
and surrounded myself with the things I 
love to do when things get rough. But even 
this form of comfort was taken away from 
me. How was I supposed to do that when I 
was in my room trying to do anatomy labs 
over Google Meets and adjust to the pos-
sibility of encountering the virus if I left 
my house? I was trapped in a state of con-
stant movement and change. I needed time 
to stay still for just a moment to process 
my grief, but instead, the pandemic intro-
duced so much disturbance in my life that 

I simply didn’t have the energy to experi-
ence; I just had to get through each day. 

While this was the ugliest time in my 

life, it enabled me to create the most beau-
tiful art. I channeled my grief into paint-
ing as a way to cope with my new reality. 
While painting was not an escape from the 
burden I was bearing, it helped me under-
stand my situation better.

My grandfather’s passing taught me that 

life is a lot like painting on a blank canvas. 
We have an idea of what we want in life, but 
the colors we are given rarely align with 
our wishes. Regardless, we end up finding 
ways to work with our circumstances to 
create a masterpiece. This pandemic will 
eventually come to an end (hopefully). The 
mask mandates will lift (for a final time). 
“Maskfishing” will no longer be an issue 
for Gen Z to consider. Life will go back to 
being somewhat normal. Maybe, even, 
the lingering fear I face when leaving my 
home will disappear as well. But the guilt 
that plagues my mind will forever be a 
part of me. The survivor’s guilt I have had 
throughout this pandemic has been one of 
the biggest roadblocks in my healing pro-
cess. I remember the long-awaited day I 
got my vaccine. Despite my mortal fear 
of needles, I was almost excited to get my 
injection. I remember thinking that finally 
I could hug my friends without having to 
replay and worry about the interaction 
later that night (though later that sense of 
security would prove false). But I found 
myself feeling empty. My first instinct was 
to feel guilty for surviving the pandemic 
while my grandfather wasn’t able to. I con-
stantly question why I’m able to enjoy the 
things that were stripped away from the 
victims of this virus and the families that 
it ran through, and it makes me sick that I 
can’t find an answer.

I write this piece with the newfound 

realization that my survivor’s guilt is unde-
served. Society has failed our communities 
so badly that we’ve convinced ourselves 
that we are deserving of punishment even 
when we are at our most vulnerable states. 
This toxic notion pushes the idea that 
we, as humans, have the duty to continue 
pushing ourselves past awful situations in 
order to prove our worth by being “resil-
ient” in the end. There is no finding beauty 
in this situation, because beauty doesn’t 
exist here. That’s why I found it so incred-
ible when I witnessed the people around 

me create it even amidst the hell we were 
going through.

Before the pandemic, my life was filled 

with familiarity and structure within my 
community at school and my town — from 
my AP Chem lab table, the girl who held 
the door open for me at 7:35 a.m., the Star-
bucks baristas who knew to brew a tall 
salted caramel hot chocolate every time I 
stumbled in with my backpack to my four 
best friends who saw me every day after 
school. The pandemic put my personal 
issues into perspective as I heard stories 
about the 400,000 families who also lost 
a member to COVID-19, friends of mine 
whose parents had lost their jobs and those 
struggling with their mental health. I 
finally grasped the idea that every commu-
nity member of my previously structured 
life, from my favorite Starbucks barista to 
my lab partner, was also forced to work 
with a blank canvas. Social media became 
a new place of unison for these members 
of my community; I witnessed them post 
updates on their health anxiety, how they 
implemented family walks into their daily 
routine or how they experimented with 
new hobbies. It was during this time that 
each of our individually complicated lives 
became the most similar as we all sought 
to “create art” amidst our personal strug-
gles. 

My community showed me that in 

pressing times like this pandemic, humans 
have the same capacity to experience joy 
as we do pain. What surprised me, though, 
was how natural recovery seems to be. 
Watching many of the people around me 
being thrown into a realm of the unknown 
and still making the most of their situation 
showed me that while I am not obligated to 
find the silver lining in all of my losses, it’s 
pretty amazing that somehow I can. And 
discovering this ability is when we begin to 
create each of our own masterpieces.

Te voy a contar una historia…

Una historia de muchas lágrimas

Mis lágrimas y

Las lágrimas de mi familia 

Una historia de mi vida
Una parte de mi vida 


Que me va a tomar años para entender 

Años, años y años

Pero 

Es parte del viaje 

Acompañeme 

For the first time ever in my life, I embarked 

on a trip 20 years in the making: I set foot into 
the country of Mexico.

The country I dreamed of visiting since I 

was a tree-climbing toddler, theater perform-
ing teenager and now an anxious, stressed out 
young adult. Dreams that started in my child-
hood bedroom back in Wyoming, MI, created 
in the twin bed with the Spider-Man sheets. 
During my adulthood, I was still that small 
Mexican boy with caramel skin and shaggy 
hair that dreamt about visiting Mexico, living 
with that childlike wonder and waiting for the 
day I would see Mexico in all its glory…

What does Mexico look like? 
What does Mexico smell like?
What does Mexico feel like?

Since I was a little kid, I always knew I 

was Mexican. I spoke Spanish at home, I ate 
Mom’s spicy enchiladas, I learned that my 
parents were immigrants from Mexico and 
how to navigate life under these circumstanc-

es. I went to quinceañeras, feeling the boom-
ing bass in my heart, and ate all the wonder 
pan dulce. These things were normal to me 
because it was all I knew, but this understand-
ing of my identity had always been something 
in my peripheral mind. 

I remember the day when I discovered how 

much culture I truly held. 

I was in third grade and it was like any other 

day. During our usual snack break, I pulled 
three items out of my lunch box: a banana, 
Tajín y mi concha…

Three of my favorite foods in the entire world!

I peeled the banana, popped the cap off my 

Tajín bottle, sprinkled the seasoning on the 
top of the banana and took one big bite. Once 
I finished eating the banana, I took another 
bite of the chocolate concha. As I finished 
my lunch, my teacher walked up behind me 
to peer over my shoulder and with a curious 
voice, she asked, 

“What’s that?”
I shifted my body to quickly inform her,
“It’s a concha! And this is my Tajín! What, 

you don’t know what this is?”

I was astonished that she didn’t know 

what I was eating. This was my normal, and 
I had to realize that other people didn’t eat 
my “normal.” I remember little Pablo feeling 
a bit perplexed, but also filled with a belly full 
of pride. At an early age, I was proud of my 
Mexican heritage and cherished the food I 
brought to class. All the other kids were eat-
ing their lunchables, peanut butter jelly sand-
wiches and other classic American lunchtime 
favorites, but there I was enjoying my favorite 
foods….

Un platano

Un poquito de Tajín y

Una concha

Eso era mi lonche

There were even times before school where 

I would join my mom in delivering lunch to my 
dad during work… 

Una torta con frijoles, Aguacate y

Una Coca-Cola 
Eso era su lonche 

Even with all this self-admiration I had 

in third grade, growing up in America, there 
were times when my Mexican identity was 
questioned. 

Growing up in the U.S., I thought to myself…

Am I Mexican enough?

What a silly question! But this silly question 

stuck with me — especially when it came to 
my Spanish speaking abilities. 

I spoke Spanish at home with my parents 

and in other settings when visiting our family 
friends, but for the most part I primarily spoke 
English. I’m the youngest out of my siblings, 
and I always knew that my Spanish was not 
the strongest out of the bunch. 

In high school, some kids would tease me 

and my Spanish by calling me a “gringo.” Now 
the word gringo can have multiple meanings, 
and it isn’t always used as an offensive word. 
It can refer to a traveler, a person of foreign 
birth, a person who doesn’t speak Spanish or 
Hispanics that speak very little Spanish or 
aren’t in touch with their Latino roots. Still, 
I never liked being described as a gringo 
because I knew personally that I was tapped 
into my Mexican roots to the best of my abili-

ties. Though it was a surface level comment 
that people would use against me, I would still 
think to myself…

Am I Mexican enough? 

Despite these incessant doubts about my 

identity brought about by living in the U.S., the 
dreams of visiting Mexico that were imagined 
from my Spider-Man bed all those years ago 
never faded. 

And this spring, those childhood dreams 

finally became a reality: I visited Mexico, 
consequently gaining new confidence in my 

native tongue, and more significantly, my 
Mexican identity.

From the moment I entered the Benito 

Juarez International Airport en la Ciudad de 
México, I was in a country that felt so familiar 
yet so different. My brain was trying to make 
sense of where I was because I couldn’t believe 
I had actually arrived. It was only four hours 
earlier that I was back in the cold Chicago 

dawn saying goodbye to my parents. Then in 
the blink of an eye, I was waiting in the immi-
gration line to officially check into Mexico.

My Tío picked us up from the airport and 

took us on a speedy tour of Mexico city in 
his car. He insisted that we had to do a bit of 
sightseeing before we headed to my Abuelita’s 
casa. As we were swerving through traffic and 
dodging the hectic drivers, he talked about the 
history of Mexico City: how it was built on a 
giant lake, the history of the ancient Aztec civ-
ilization and much much more. He was giving 
me a whole history lesson and I was absolutely 
loving it. 

I was listening to every word he was saying 

with the biggest smile across my face. While 
he focused on getting us home in one piece, 
talking as he was making turns and shifting 
into different gears, my face was lit up, staring 
and listening to him talk about Mexico with 
such passion.

Our wall of paintings: healing through art

Bajo El Sol: A trip to Mexico 20 years in the making

Chinese girl eats dirty for 24 hours

 SAHANA NANDIGAMA

MiC Columnist

 JUAN PABLOS ANGEL MARCOS

MiC Columnist 

As a product of the time I spent counting 

my calories, weighing myself twice a day 
and cutting out major food groups from 
my diet, I could tell you a dozen different 
ways to turn a rice cake into a slightly less 
bland “meal” or how to make cauliflower 
rice taste almost like the real deal. I could 
tell you exactly how many calories are in 
a serving of rice and exactly how many 
grams of protein are in a cup of yogurt. 
“Clean eating” dominated my Instagram 
explore page and TikTok feed until I was 
spending hours in the grocery store read-
ing ingredient lists and nutrition labels 
every time I needed to buy something. 

There’s a fixation on cleanliness that 

dominates diet culture today. No longer 
are we in the era of keto diets or fat-free 
chips. Instead, we’re told to cook without 
oil, to cut out dairy and gluten and pro-
cessed foods. To never drink alcohol and 
to live and breathe green smoothies and 
salad bowls. I tried, with great effort, to 
achieve the aura of cleanliness and light 
that seemed to saturate the women I fol-
lowed on social media, an aura that they 
told me came from their diets. Clean eat-
ing told me to focus on protein, but only in 
the form of chicken breast or tofu nuggets. 

It told me that carbs make you fat — unless 
it’s oatmeal or quinoa — and that oils and 
sauces were my worst enemy. Most impor-
tantly, it told me that if I wanted to be like 
the girls I followed, there was a select 
group of food options I had to choose from 
… and Chinese food was certainly not 
included.

For context, my family’s primary love 

language is food. On nights I was up late 
studying in high school, my mother would 
bring a plate of cut-up fresh fruit to my 
room. My Ayi made me a homecooked 
meal everyday after school from grades 
K-12: xucài ròushí mian (pickled mus-
tard greens and pork noodle soup), jiozi 
(dumplings) and yóufàn (savory sticky 
rice), sunlàtng (hot and sour soup) and 
xiobáicài (sauteed baby bok choy). Once 
in ninth grade, I told her that I loved Asian 
pears and now every year when they’re in 
season, she buys me boxes and boxes of 
them (I would never tell her that I don’t 
really love them anymore). My grandmoth-
er has arthritis and can’t stand for too long 
without needing to rest, but she still makes 
me soup when I’m sick and mfn (sauteed 
rice noodles) on the nights before I go back 
to school because she heard that it’s my 
favorite recipe of hers. I grew up on Chi-
nese food from my grandmother’s kitchen, 
the restaurants Ayi’s sister worked at and 
the supermarkets where I had thirty aun-

ties who would give me free mochi and 
Choco-pies. For a family that struggles to 
show affection in a conventional way, I’ve 
never doubted that I am truly and deeply 
loved, a sentiment communicated through 
our sharing of food. 

My family’s cooking has always been a 

source of pride for me. I thought of them 
as artists and musicians in the kitchen, 
creating colorful, intricate dishes from the 
simplest ingredients. When I was in third 
grade, I promised my Ayi that when I grew 
up and had my own money, I would buy 
her her own restaurant so that everyone 
could eat the food I loved so much. How-
ever, I quickly learned that others saw 
my culture’s food not as something to be 
revered, but something to be corrected.

In 2019, Arielle Haspel, a white health 

and nutrition coach, opened her own Chi-
nese restaurant named “Lucky Lee’s” in 
an attempt to do just that. The restaurant’s 
logo was adorned with chopsticks and 
a lotus flower painting decorated a wall 
inside (points for cherry-picking what fits 
her Orientalist aesthetic). When promot-
ing her restaurant, Haspel described her 
vision as a ‘clean’ version of Chinese cui-
sine, one that would be accessible to her 
and her food-sensitive clients. She boasted 
that her lo mein would not make you feel 
“bloated and icky” the next day because 
her food would not be “too oily.” Blog posts 

on Haspel’s page mentioned health-ifying 
Chinese food that is usually “doused in 
brown sauces” and makes your eyes puffy. 
Upon facing backlash, Haspel defended 
herself by asserting that her mantra of 
clean eating is “all about finding a health-
ier alternative to your favorite indulgent 
food,” regardless of what cuisine that food 
was associated with. This pseudo-apology 
for offending the Chinese community 
failed to address how all of her “clean eat-
ing” marketing carried the glaringly obvi-
ous connotation that Chinese food in and 
of itself is dirty and unhealthy. By default, 
this response also failed to address the 
historical association of whiteness with 
cleanliness and Color with uncleanliness.

There’s nothing wrong with the concept 

of a Chinese restaurant tailored to those 
with dietary restrictions. Creating gluten-
free, dairy-free or nut-free options, among 
others, is a great, inclusive idea. But you 
know what? I actually don’t even want to 
give Haspel that one, because my sister’s 
favorite restaurant when we were kids 
was a Chinese-owned, vegan Chinese res-
taurant. So it’s not an innovative idea then, 
because shocker! Chinese food is more 
than orange chicken and chow mein. My 
frustration with this restaurant doesn’t 
stem from a white woman opening a res-
taurant to serve another country’s cuisine, 
either. Fuchsia Dunlop’s Chinese cook-

books are awesome and delicious. Instead, 
my frustration stems from a white woman 
implying that Chinese food has something 
to be cured.

Haspel’s visions of “fixing” Chinese 

food are hardly novel. Chinese food’s orig-
inal bogeyman, MSG, has been demonized 
since the 60s. There is no scientific evi-
dence that MSG has negative health effects 
and yet, the term Chinese Restaurant Syn-
drome was coined in 1969 to describe the 
alleged burning and chest-pain inducing 
effects of MSG. In the 1990s, the FDA con-
cluded that MSG is safe for consumption. 
But still, MSG continues to be vilified in 
the food industry and used to uphold the 
image of Chinese food as unhealthy and 
unclean. Anyway, MSG is in ranch dress-
ing which is like, the most American thing 
I can think of.

To counter Haspel’s assertions about 

Chinese food and its alleged bloating prop-
erties, as well as the xenophobic under-
tones of our society having a term called 
“Chinese Restaurant Syndrome,” allow me 
to walk you through a “what I eat in a day” 
in the life of a K-12 me. While much of Chi-
nese cuisine might fall into whatever fad 
diet is trending at the moment, it already 
has universal health benefits that I’m glad 
to be acquainted with in my everyday life. 

 CLAIRE GALLAGHER

MiC Columnist

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