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:::c 0 oV> V> 8 A JOURNAL OF STUDENT ART AND WRITING s: s: Cz ~ 8r r m G) m c§ E s:m -00 0 m nm s:a, m ::c IV 0 VOLUME 18, DECEMBER 2020 IV 0 EUGENIO MARIA DE HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK December 2020 ESCRIBA! 1 I iESCRIBA!l\'t'J;JOM A JOURNAL OF STUDENT ART AND WRITING VOLUME 18, DECEMBER 2020 EUGENIO MARIA DE HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK December 2020 ESCRIBA! 2 COPYRIGHT © 2020 BY THE AUTHORS EDITED BY: Miriam Laskin PUBLISHED BY: Library Department Hostos Community College The City University of New York 475 Grand Concourse Bronx, NY 10451 A CAT'S MEOW PRODUCTION COVER: Lee Jacob Hilado "Never Give Up" BACK COVER: Lee Jacob Hilado "Black Lives Matter" December 2020 ESCRIBA! 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Miriam Laskin Introduction 6 ESSAYS Amani Cottoy Girl Bewildered 7 Anthony Booth, Jr. Freedom Isn’t Free 9 Assetou Doucoure Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) 13 Speech Christopher Sanchez A Comfort in Silence 14 Daniela Mendoza A Mesmerizing Encounter 15 Gheslaine Gonzalez Why I Grew Up Pro-Feminism 17 J.J. Grindley Freedom of Speech: An Analysis 21 Jonathan Colon Paradise Lost 24 Lorna M. Duran The Statue of Liberty, 25 Immigration & Inequality Nathaly Cedano Monologue: Flatline 28 Sukhmani Jordan Dear Friend 29 Montesino Malik Modern Othello 31 Pellington Othello for Today 36 ARTWORK Front Cover: “Never Give Up” - Lee Jacob Hilado Back Cover: “Black Lives Matter – Lee Jacob Hilado 1. Lee Jacob Hilado “Street Scene Social Distancing” 41 2. Lee Jacob Hilado “Waiting for Hungry People.” 42 3. Lee Jacob Hilado “Skyland” 43 4. Evan J. “Laughing Through My Depression.” 44 5. Ebony “Faerie” 45 6. Lee Jacob Hilado “Fairy Universe” 46 7. Lee Jacob Hilado “Woman on Windowsill" 47 8. Lee Jacob Hilado “Moonlight Ladies” 48 9. Elisa Tang “Model and Muddle” 49 10. Osaratin Charles “WhiteOut” 50 11. Lee Jacob Hilado “Surrealism” 51 12. Tavana Sibgatullah “Live Gently on Earth” 52 December 2020 ESCRIBA! 4 13. Tavana Sibgatullah “Flowers” 53 14. Brian “Cockatoo” 54 15. Lee Jacob Hilado “Star Gazing in NYC” 55 16. Lee Jacob Hilado “Smappy” 56 POEMS Brittany Lanzano For Kings and Queens 57 Camille Rivera The Absence of Foreplay 58 Caroline Nyamu Sankofa 59 Charlotte Copeland Bronx Cycles 60 Darien Rodriguez Dancing with Mami 61 David Reyes There Came a Time 62 Denisse Feliz A Lunatic 63 Gheslaine Gonzalez Loud Love 64 Julissa Campos Dia De Los Muertos 65 Mariam Cisse My Neighborhood 66 Shanalee Rodriguez I’m Finally Free 67 Veronica Alcantara Night In las Flores 68 Evelina Nova Where I'm From 70 Maimuna Jawo A Gothic Poem 71 December 2020 ESCRIBA! 5 MIRIAM LASKIN INTRODUCTION We can finally say “Welcome, dear readers,” to issue 18 of ¡Escriba!/Write!, Hostos Library’s annual student literary and art journal. As we do every year, we remind ALL Hostos students that you can submit your work (in any language) and showcase your creativity in writing, photography and any other kind of art. Writing can include essays you’ve done for a class assignment (and poetry, drama monologues, research); the same goes for your art work done for classes or on your own initiative. This year we are unable to have this issue printed because of the extraordinary times we’ve been living through. But we will publish it on our ¡Escriba!/Write! website: https://commons.hostos.cuny.edu/escriba/. Submit work at any time that you’d like to see published to me, [email protected] . What a year+ this has been! It has presented more challenges than we thought we could possibly experience and handle simultaneously, but we support each other at Hostos, in our communities and in our homes. The work we present in this 18th issue of ¡Escriba!/Write! reflects the positives and the negatives of our lives. We have poems and prose about our neighborhoods, our happy trips to enjoy new experiences, our concerns about social and legal justice, and constitutional rights like freedom of speech. All of this as our country has been engulfed in a pandemic such as we’ve never experienced before, except in 1919 and 1920 when the “Spanish flu” overran the world. The art and photographs presented by our talented students captures the extraordinary year, with photos of what it’s like to travel the city during the pandemic, as well as the Black Lives Matter movement, and artistic works of love, depression, hope and nature. The art in our journal always brings its own perspective of life and ¡Escriba! wouldn’t be the same immersive experience without our students’ art. Without the help of our faculty members who nudge (and sometimes shove) their students to send us their writing and their art, ¡Escriba!/Write! would hardly exist! So, heartfelt thanks to Professors Bernardini, Connelly, Fisher, Hutchins, Kleeman, Lara Bonilla, Scott, Turner, Widney and Yannacañeda. My sincere apologies if I didn’t get the names of everyone who sent their students’ work our way. I want to give special thanks to Jason Sandoval, the library’s Information Systems aide and IT person. And special thanks to our Chief, Madeline Ford for her constant support of our journal. December 2020 ESCRIBA! 6 AMANI COTTOY GIRL BEWILDERED I woke up in a hospital bed. The loss of memory on how I ended up here scared me. The room felt weird. The walls were a bright white color, and there were run down chairs everywhere. The machines and medical supplies helped calm me down but it still didn’t feel right. The hospital rooms in Cross County Hospital surely didn’t look like this. Due to the fact that I’m the world’s clumsiest teenager,I would remember most of the rooms. But it’s not like I’ve been in every last one of them, and this is one big hospital. Was I super, white girl wasted, or was I in a horrible accident. I couldn’t tell because my body felt sore, so I’m guessing it was an accident again. One strong enough to keep me unconscious for a while. The bright lights and needles weren’t helping either. I would feel so much better if a doctor or nurse would just show up, maybe I'd feel so much safer. As soon as Dr. Smith came into the room my heart literally jumped. He was truly the best doctor in the whole of Texas, and I'm not just saying that because he was my doctor. He was also the sexiest man too. He made me feel safe again even though I felt like a potato next to him. My brown legs were barely visible due to the large amounts of ash covering them. I knew that my lips were chapped, and my long brown curly hair was drenched in sweat. Heck my eyes probably lost it’s greenish touch, based on how dry they felt. But he didn’t seem to mind, he just smiled. His long blonde hair and icy blue eyes were in perfect condition, as if he wasn’t running a hospital all day. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here?” No really,I thought to myself . “So, I will go ahead and tell you.” I took my sarcastic thoughts back, how could I think about being sarcastic to that. “Please do, because I don’t remember anything that went down, or how I could’ve ended up here.” I said honestly.“Well Max you were found outside of a club unconscious and bloodied.” What, how could this be? The last thing I remember was eating Frosted Flakes, the crappy customers from work (it’s not my fault that Chad burnt their burgers,I‘m just a cashier), and then walking home from my crappy job on Friday. “I don’t remember going to a club.” I said. “Well that’s what your friend Emily said. Oh, and she was the one that brought you. here.” Well that was weird. When did Emily and I start talking again? Last time I checked we haven't spoken to each other in a year. Yeah she was my best friend but things happened, and people then transform into their fake alter ego’s. So why would I be going with or speaking to her at the club? That seemed weird. Very impossible too knowing how stubborn I am. “What day is it?” I asked. I needed to call my boss and let him know my situation. It’s not like I could call my family, especially when you don’t have any. “It’s Friday.” I better have been in a magical coma, or something that made me unconscious for one day. There was no way that I was unconscious for a whole week. I felt like running out of the room and catching some fresh air, but my dumb body told me no. He saw the look of worry on my face and tried to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. December 2020 ESCRIBA! 7 “Don’t worry Max, everything is going to be okay. You and the baby are going to be just fine.” Baby, what baby? “Baby, what do you mean, I’m so confused, was there a child with me?” I didn’t understand what he meant by the baby’s going to be fine. “I’m so sorry that you had to find out this way but Max you’re pregnant. For about a week. You’ve been here for two weeks now.