in:cite journal volume 3: rhythm 2020 in:cite journal volume 3 Editors Mahalia Dixon Hadiyyah Kuma (Toronto) Daiem Mohammad Ashna Thaya (Western) Shangi Vijenthira (McMaster) Mentoring Editors Leila Angod (Bielefeld) Huda Hassan (Toronto) Dhanela Sivaparan (Toronto) Layout Design Janet Peng Copyediting Kelsey Adams Contact incitejournal.org [email protected] in:cite journal is based in Toronto, Canada, on land that is the traditional territory of nations including the Wendat, Petun First Nation, the Haudenosaunee, and most recently the Mississaugas of the Credit River. This land continues to be a site of Indigenous life and futurity, and a meeting place for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. Cover: Yonder We Sea by Sanaa Bhaidani Table of Contents 2 Editor’s Letter 7 i am a body of buzzing Rochelle Rosales 10 The Student and the Elder SunAMBee/Ann Marie Beals 24 Every Outcome Counts Jeden O. Tolentino 32 Heartbeats&Heartbreaks Hanon Habtemariam Wounds: Commemorative Tattoos, Collective Trauma, and the 34 Afghan-Canadian Identity Mehdia Hassan 52 Sweet Talk Bethel Samson Queer Youth on the Move: Gentrification and the Thomas Elias Siddall 54 International in Beijing 劉夢飛 76 Ephemeral Fluid of Reality Melanie Figueiredo 78 I am a Black Woman Rheanna Rookwood 81 If Looks Could Kill Karen Chan 85 The Ocean’s Waves Cassandra Sukraj Editor’s Letter Rhythm in our lives can mean many different things. Rhythm can be the beat in your chest when you see someone you love. Rhythm can be the heartbeat of a living thing. It can be how you view and handle an issue. “ It can be the rhythm of math or the rhythm of your breath. Rhythm can be the amount of excitement or fear you feel before you find out whether you’ve made the part in your school’ play or not. Rhythm can be the persistency of your schedule. Rhythm is the pulse in the music you listen to. Rhythm is the temptation to dance when your favourite song plays, and although we may not realize it, rhythm is the gleam and glow in our lives. Rhythm creates the feelings we experience and makes life more pleasurable for us even when we are at our lowest. Personally, rhythm means a lot to me. Rhythm is the reason I laugh or cry or feel a certain way about something I cherish. In my opinion, without rhythm in our world we would be partially or almost entirely emotionless. Rhythm is a subject that has excellent significance and value because rhythm is what makes our lives more intriguing and thought-provoking. —Jasmin Kassem, age 14, Mississauga ” On behalf of the Youth Editorial Board, it is with great excitement and pleasure that we present to you the third issue of in:cite, an annual youth-led journal about the lived experiences and interdisciplinary scholarship of racialized and marginalized youth. We invite you to take some time to feel the rhythm of this issue. As racialized youth ourselves, we bring you this issue from a place of movement, in every sense of the word. Movement as growth, as expanding our knowledge, and our capacity for learning. Movement as protest, as resistance, as an understanding that there will be no change if we do not mobilize together. The authors in this issue remind us of this. The words and artwork within this issue represent the ongoing work we are collectively doing to subvert harmful social structures. 2 Editorial in:cite journal is based in T’karonto on land that is the territory of many nations including the Wendat, Petun, Seneca, Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, the Mississaugas of the Credit River, and many more whose histories, both recorded and unrecorded, continue to live on in the land. This land continues to be a site of Indigenous life and futurity, and a meeting place for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. As a settler and (im)migrant run journal with close ties to a major academic institution with its own perpetuation of anti-Indigenous racism, the in:cite Journal Editorial Board recognizes our own complicity in perpetuating exclusionary systems. With each issue, our team actively works towards decolonizing our own internal practices in the editing, hiring, and publishing processes. We encourage our readers, as well as other journals, to think critically about how they can begin, or continue to work with, and for, Indigenous people. Our editors and writers experience the world’s rhythm in various ways. As emotional beings, the energy that emanates from rhythm is present in every facet of our lives. The rhythm of words linking together to create poetry that speaks to the realities of life as 2SLGBTQ+ and Black people, Indigenous people, and people of colour in Canada. Let’s celebrate the way the works in Rhythm challenge society’s harmful norms and inspire us to embrace a critical social justice lens. Our first piece,I Am A Body of Buzzing, is a poem written by Rochelle Rosales. This piece depicts the rhythmic sense of life, with vivid imagery, oozing with a tranquil energy that flows right off of the page. in:cite journal vol. 3 3 Next, we have “The Elder and The Student.” This short story written by SunAMBee, brings to us a dialogue between a young person and an Indigenous elder. The story explores themes of colonization, education, integration, and connection to the Earth. The discussion provides a perspective on what it can mean to navigate fitting into “modern” western society while also honouring our roots and traditions. The narrative follows the rhythm of the world, each line comes after the next like the beat of a drum, as the story builds to a crescendo. Our third piece is an artwork accompanied by a write up from Jeden Tolentino, titled “Every Outcome Counts.” Incorporating aspects of statistical modelling, this piece studies and analyzes the difficult road immigrants face as they come to Canada. The road is arduous, sometimes seemingly leading to dead ends. University-educated or not, the flow of life for immigrants to Canada is often non-linear. The aesthetic of Hanon Habtemariam’s painting Heartbeats & Heartbreaks, evokes a deeply emotional reaction for anyone that lays their eyes on his piece. Utilizing a visually striking contrast of colour, it emanates feelings of love, pain, sadness, and empathy. In her painting and accompanying written piece, “Wounds: Commemorative Tattoos, Collective Trauma, and the Afghan-Canadian Identity,” Mehdia Hassan analyzes the intergenerational trauma left by the horrors of war that has impacted so many Afghan- Canadians. She critiques Eurocentric beauty standards and celebrates her identity as an Afghan-Canadian woman as she navigates generational healing. Sweet Talk is a poem written by Bethel Samson in which she attempts to understand her place in the literary world—a world where so many canonical “classics” tell a homogenized, European story resulting in a singular idea of humanness. She rebels against the idea that academia must remain a white space, and aims to blaze a trail for herself and others that look like her. 4 Editorial Our next piece, “Queer Youth on the Move: Gentrification and the International in Beijing,” written by Thomas Elias Siddall 劉夢飛, is an informative and eloquent essay detailing the decades of gentrification that took place in queer communities in Beijing and the resultant need for ingenuity among queer Chinese youth. Ephemeral Fluid of Reality is an abstract painting by Melanie Figueiredo that struck our editors in an indescribable way. A striking visual piece that could be interpreted in a myriad of ways, it carries a powerful, emotive energy that imprints itself onto the minds of readers. With her poem, I Am a Black Woman, Rheanna Rookwood celebrates her identity and who she is as a Black woman. She points to the intellect, strength, and beauty she sees in her role models while grappling with the constant disrespect and appropriation of Black womanhood throughout mainstream media and the over-infatuation of the bodies of Black women throughout history. All while celebrating the power and grace she feels in herself, and the many Black women she admires. If Looks Could Kill is a piece that embodies the spirit of in:cite perfectly. Addressing the realities of xenophobia towards East-Asian Canadians that was brought to the forefront due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it provides a personal view of the hardships that come from the bigotry and ever present ignorance in our society. The poem flows almost like a song, as the sounds of the city serve as a backdrop to the rhythm of our lives. in:cite journal vol. 3 5 In our final piece, high school senior Cassandra Sukraj writes a poem titled The Oceans Waves. Bringing together the calmness and serenity of life, it provides a laid back atmosphere, a soothing moment where the world seems to slow down, and there is just you and nature. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to everyone that worked on this issue. Our mentoring editors Dhanela Sivaparan, Huda Hassan, and Leila Angod deserve the highest praise for their support and wisdom throughout not only this, but all of our endeavours. Thank you to our copy editor Kelsey Adams for making these pieces shine and to our layout designer Janet Peng for carefully crafting our journal’s aesthetic. Thanks also to Ruben Gaztambide- Fernandez for giving us support and guidance throughout the editorial process. We love you all. We invite you to enjoy, think about and critically engage with entries in the pages ahead. Their novel interdisciplinary approaches may challenge and in:cite your understandings of intersectionality, or inspire you to formulate your own rhythm! In solidarity, in:cite Youth Editors 2019/2020 6 Editorial i am a body of buzzing Rochelle Rosales Keywords McMaster University anxiety, panic, worry Poetry helps Rochelle feel less trapped in her own mind.