Ayesha's Portfolio

I’ve been thinking a lot these past couple of years and especially these past couple of days about the state of our country and my position as a person of color within our institutions. Nightly news has been overflowing with the angry voices of white politicians who seem to constantly be spewing agendas of anti-black, anti-muslim, anti-women, anti-lgbtq, anti-latino rhetoric and so on. In the off chance that politicians do try and relate and appeal to minority groups, it constantly feels as if they are missing the plot.

Are they forgetting that many minorities have to fear institutions that were set up to “serve and protect”? Do they know that people have to try and hide their true identities in order to be accepted in a country that hates them? I truly believe that most politicians forget that they are White and a large majority of us are colored. We live in a country where the core institutions are built for whites, on the backs of African-Americans and Native-Americans. Consequently, we’re constantly reminded of this because of the way our systems work. For example mass-incarceration, being pulled over for no reason, being asked for proof of residency, being kicked off planes for wearing a headscarf, being shot by cops - I feel as if I can go on forever. I can’t go a day without hearing news and being reminded that they fear us and they don’t want us here. I’ve been at a loss of words the past couple of days trying to collect my thoughts about Alton Sterling, Philando Castille, the 5 cops shot in Dallas, and the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole. As a member of the South Asian community I’ve grown frustrated with the way we deal with these things. I’ve noticed so many of us only becoming vocal only after the killings of police officers, but where were we on Aug. 9, 2014 when Michael Brown was killed, or on Aug. 11, 2014 when Ezell Ford was killed, or on July 13, 2015 when Sandra Bland was killed.

Everyone and their mother decided to speak up on how terrible it was to kill those 5 police officers. We were fed loving stories by the news about how wonderful they were as people and yes I completely agree that it was tragic. However why is the South Asian community not talking about the events that led up to this? Why is it only important when white bodies with institutionally given power die but when black and brown bodies die we turn away? We need to realize the power in the placement and timing of our words. I’m frustrated of having to be part of a community that does not understand that the Black Lives Matter movement is not a reason for why the cops were shot. I’m frustrated of being part of a community that has anti-immigrant and anti-muslim rhetoric thrown at them, and they complain of how no one is defending us, when they don’t defend the people that need us most. I’m frustrated of being part of a community that does not know when to back down and stay quiet so that others can grieve and be angry. How are all of us people of color going to expect any change when we’re not willing to put in the effort. These issues aren’t something that one community can solve on their own. These things require allies, they require acceptance, and they require a united front. Please remember even though we are South Asian and automatically are categorized as a minority that doesn’t mean that we don’t also have privileges that we can exercise to assist and uplift the black lives matter movement. You don’t need to be a social justice warrior you just need to know when it’s time to help, and the time is now. Here’s ways you can help/educate yourself as a member of the South Asian community.

/////DONATE//////

‪#‎AltonSterling‬ family scholarship fund:

https://www.gofundme.com/2d3eze7g

‪#‎PhilandoCastile‬ funds for family:

https://www.gofundme.com/2d55v9g

this is set up by his sister:

https://www.gofundme.com/2d5wd5g

Black Lives Matter:

https://donate.idex.org/checkout/donation?eid=66399

Anti-Police Terror Project:

http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/

/////LEARN/////

Mapping Police Violence

http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

How Pseudo-Allies Enable The Killing Of Black Bodies

http://www.theestablishment.co/…/how-pseudo-allies-enable-…/

KING: Stop asking African-Americans to be calm in the face of police brutality and racial terror

http://www.nydailynews.com/…/king-stop-african-americans-ca…

Don’t Blame Black Lives Matter For The Deaths Of Dallas Cops

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/dont-blame-black-lives-matt…

How to Tell the Difference Between Real Solidarity and ‘Ally Theater’

http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/…/the-difference-between…/

I’m not sure I’ll ever completely be able to understand death while I’m still alive, however I do understand pain and grieving. I’ve become fairly familiar with them this year after losing two very  close family members, my mammo (mom’s younger brother), and my dada (dad’s dad).

There are so many different factors you have to deal with when someone passes. It’s not just emotional things like considering other people’s feelings, knowing the right things to say and grieving appropriately. It’s also logistical things such as who flys in when and who performs what task to contribute to a successful funeral. A lot of these logistical things are religious and in sunni interpretations of Islam there’s also a sense of a time crunch since the body needs to be buried the same day the death happens. It seems as if everything moves at light speed during these times.

Instead of letting the death of my grandfather fly past me like my uncles did I decided to take the time today to talk about the most confusing part of my emotions. And I’m not here to talk about how my relatives died or ask for sympathy. I’m here to talk about the loss of culture I feel as a first generation south asian american after the loss of these relatives. I’ve come to the conclusion that losing family that are immigrants or still living in the home country makes me feel disconnected from my culture. Slowly but surely there will be no one left that I can visit in Pakistan and that is difficult for me to digest because I feel so distant from who I am. I lost the fluidity in speaking the first language that my dada and dadi taught me. I lost a place in my family’s culture. Westernization runs so strongly through my blood I feel as if I’ve colonized myself. I was so ashamed for so much time over a culture that raised me and made me who I am today. Growing up around eurocentric beauty standards made me ashamed of the hair on my body and the color of my skin along with the scents of my foods and the traditional clothing I would wear around the house. Westernization also led to a lot of self hate because my culture isn’t “normal” which made me to feel like an unwanted outcast in my own body. There are so many things I think about for the future when I have to start the process of leaving someone in the past where they rest. Things like will my children be able to speak urdu? Will they ever be able to visit Pakistan? Will they consider themselves pakistani? Will they be proud of their brown skin and hairy arms? I wish my elders could live longer so that my kids could see the beauty in our heritage. I want them to be proud of where they’re grandparents and great grandparents are from.

It’s not only the negatives and the unknown I think about when death is present in my life. I also think about how both my grandfather and uncle have taught me so much about cultural standards and traditions along with how to treat my family and even start my own. They were both very strong men in their own rights and I wish to live up to the expectations they have for me. It helps to remember the beauty of knowledge they blessed me with during my time with them.

Growing up in sunday school I was taught to say a prayer which helps me deal with these emotions and was apparently said by Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) to Umm Salamah (RA) at the death of her husband: ‘O Allah, forgive Abi Salamah, elevate his status among the guided people, and look after the family that he left behind. O Lord of the universe, forgive us and him, comfort him in his grave, and lighten his stay.’ Through Islam I have learned that death is a normal process that every living thing must endure it, whether it be our own deaths or a relative’s death. Understanding that a person is no longer in pain when they have passed on is the most vital thing Islam has taught me which has helped me with the coping process. To know that the people I love are in a better place and are happier where they are eases my own grief and pain. Not to say that the mourning process isn’t rough, however having religion on my side during these times reminds me that life is a process and death is just a part of it.

Malala is not your hero. Over the course of a year, Malala Yousafzai has become an internationally recognized symbol for courage. By now it seems that her story has been near-memorized by anyone with access to a reliable news source. For those who are still unaware, according to BBC News profiles Malala Yousafzai, “has been shot in the head by the militants and has become the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.” She first came to public attention through a diary, published on BBC Urdu, which chronicled her desire to remain in school and for girls to have the chance to be educated. Since then, we have assigned Malala as a symbol of global girls' education. What she really is is a symbol of discourse we are unwilling to have. The talk about women’s education on a global level would dig up our own faults, which have added to the struggle faced by millions of children around the world yearning for an education. Instead, we orchestrate the privilege granted by a special honor such as the Nobel Peace Prize so that we can be heroes and create heroes during a time of moral inconvenience. Malala has been morphed into an American hero and thrown into the American hall of fame. As The Washington Post's Max Fisher argued, following the announcement that the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize had gone to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Malala's loss was actually a good thing,“It can sometimes feel as if the entire West is trying to co-opt Malala, as if to tell ourselves: ‘Look, we're with the good guys, we're on the right side. The problem is over there.’ Sometimes the heroes we appoint to solve our problems can say as much about us as about them. Malala's answer is courage. Our answer is celebrity.” Stories about girls' education in Central Asia and Africa have long been exploited by Western governments, politicians, public figures and media in order to create feel-good headlines underscoring who the the force of moral good in the world was, is and and always can be. This isn't about any sort of white savior complex, but a feeling of entitlement towards dictating how certain countries, especially those we like to bomb, are represented and understood in relation to our status, goals and views of our exceptionalism. We're not trying to really “save” anyone. Instead, we're just trying to plaster a facade of “hope” that covers our own involvement economically, politically and militarily in undermining children's education around the world. The truth is that we are not ready to talk at a substantial level about girls' education because that conversation would require a good look in the mirror. That conversation would elicit actual action that may not be entirely in 'our' interest. That conversation might also murk the waters between the good and evil lines we tread. At the end of the day who really talks about the effects of the invasion of Afghanistan on girls' education (in addition to pre-existing Taliban prohibition)? Or the effects of the invasion of Iraq, which, according to BBC news, has left a minimum of a half million dead, on girls' education? According to a study done by reliefweb international on girls’ education, figures for 2007 and 2008 show 5,065,276 children enrolled in primary education, with 44.8 percent being girls. This means that for every 100 boys enrolled in primary schools in Iraq, there are just under 89 girls. What about US drone strikes in Pakistan and in Yemen? According to NBC, the UN recently stated that the strikes have killed more civilians than the US admits. This must have an effect on the lives of children there and their education. What about Israeli targeting of Gazan schools? According to the Human Rights Watch on 29 Dec. 2008, Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, destroying the science laboratory block and destroying or damaging other blocks of buildings, including the library. When was the last time we had a conversation about the effects of PTSD, resulting from our actions and our allies' actions, on young children and their education? What effect does our international economic system have on education funding in developing countries? What are the consequences of our arms deals with military allies on access to education? Although the ways to fix these things aren’t simple, there are ways such as ensuring that general economic sanctions against a country are never used again, as they were used in Iraq as a substitute for war. Children and poor adults are those who suffer most from economic sanctions. The use of economic sanctions during a war should be considered a crime, just as is forming a military strategy to starve a cities population. Over the years it has become quite obvious that war testifies more to the insecurity of our culture than a commitment to moral righteousness. We pick and choose the heroes we use and misuse so that we can have some ambiguous sort of 'hope' for something we can't easily define, while ignoring core issues that undermine the very efforts by young girls we throw onto the center international stage. We ignore our own complicity because we'd rather keep eating up the celebrity, heroism and 'hope' than do anything that may remind us that maybe we're not all that exceptional, that we are, either in a big or small way, a part of the problem. Malala is out there, talking about her story, talking about the importance of education, and we are eagerly listening. Again. And, as per usual, we have celebrated her as a symbol of our own heroism and the exceptionalism of our moral conscience while willfully ignoring the accusatory stares of our reflections.

“If you’re not careful the newspaper will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppression,” said Malcom X. The Palestinian narrative faces the challenge of invisibility in the US. Whether it's in the American media, education, or government, the Palestinian cause is continuously excluded. Living in America and being surrounded by American news sources it begins to seem as if sympathy for Palestine is even an option. People question why American media would have this opinion and depiction of current events if they’re not truthful to what’s going on on the ground. The answer is simple, it’s always a matter of politics. America has strong ties to Israel and Zionism, as do major companies in America like Starbucks, where according to Oxfam and Jerusalem news CEO Howard Schultz has been praised by the Israeli government for sponsoring pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian seminars on college campuses. Zionism is the belief that Jewish people should be able to return to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel as defined by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Edward Said wrote about this bias in his article “Double Standards” posted on the Guardian website, “Worst of all is the US media, completely cowed by the fearsome Israeli lobby, with commentators and anchors spinning distorted reports about “cross fire” and “Palestinian violence” that eliminate the fact that Israel is in military occupation and that Palestinians are fighting it, not ‘laying siege to Israel.’” There is continuous censorship of any Palestinian voice or story that humanizes Palestine. They are often described as "terrorists," bearing its own set of racist stereotypes. A perfect example of this political bias being reflected into media  is Newt Gingrich while debating on ABC during a Republican debate he said, “These people (Palestinians) are terrorists, they teach terrorism in their schools.” In the most recent Israeli offensive on Gaza, Hamas was portrayed by American media as the archenemy in an ideal image of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Then the entirety of conflict the Palestinian population was reduced to Hamas, as if no Palestinian exists beyond this political entity. U.S. headlines from news entities like CNN, Fox, and MSNBC blared, “Hamas launches rockets at Israeli civilians.” These primary news sources for the average American focused only on Hamas rockets attacking Israeli people, but never humanized Palestinians, thus making it seem as though Israel was actually fighting against a viable military power. The media has begun to render Palestinians invisible to the public. Palestinians are muted out of the media, and the monstrous pro-Israel PR campaign guarantees that this status quo is preserved by news organizations such as MSNBC who highlight titles such as “66 Israelis have been killed since July 7th,” claiming that this is what “war looks like,” without giving any statistics as to the Palestinians deaths. This storyline assumes a false symmetry in power structure: Hamas is a political party that has been under military operation, along with the entirety of the Gaza Strip, for the last seven years and under Israeli military occupation since 1967.

News outlets such as CNN continuously puts Israeli concerns at the forefront and completely ignoring the mounting Palestinian death toll. In 2014 alone the violence left 2,218 Palestinians dead, the majority of whom were civilians, and 75 Israelis, 64 of whom were soldiers these statistics were retrieved from the Israeli Center of Human Rights in occupied territories.  Every Palestinian who was killed has a story, yet that seems to be something the US media chooses to ignore and in turn opts to sympathise with Israel’s claim to being victims. Claims such as “Israelis are living every day in fear”- CNN news correspondent. This narrative distorts the facts on the ground and clears the Israeli state of any responsibility for its own war crimes. It’s also time to clear up any misconceptions induced by the media about Palestinians using children as human shields.  There is no evidence of that as concluded by Amnesty International. They also investigated the matter of rocket launches by Israeli forces and the claim that Israeli military fore warns the Palestinians of an attack they found that, “in the cases of (Israeli) precision missiles or tank shells which killed (Palestinian) civilians in their homes, no fighters were present in the houses that were struck and Amnesty International delegates found no indication that there had been any armed confrontations or other military activity in the immediate vicinity at the time of the attack.”  The evidence suggests the fact that Israel, supported with American aid, attacked civilians not Hamas fighters.  Many news organizations and even politicians take it even further by justifying the Israeli cause with nostalgic flashbacks to the Holocaust. Since Israel was established for Jews because of the Holocaust, why no other groups destroyed by genocide were given the same. The Holocaust was absolutely one of the worst crimes in history, but it’s victims weren’t just Jews. There were 5 million victims including Jehovah’s witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, priests, disabled, and blacks. Where is their land?  According to the organization Project Aladin, “The Holocaust hastened the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland in the eyes of the world.” The question is why must the land be taken from Palestine’s and why the need for more than what the United Nations sanctioned back  in 1947. It seems as if defendants of Israel justify its existence with the Holocaust because apparently justice can only be served by even more genocide committed. The Serbians committed genocide against the Bosnians in 1992 in the aftermath of World War Two, they called it the worst in European history since the Holocaust according to the History Channel and yet the Serbs who committed genocide against Bosnians were given land and territory in Bosnia, in the place where they committed the genocide.  Native Americans, African-Americans, so many other groups in this world that had genocide committed against them. Where is their land?  Try as you might, there really isn’t a way to justify Israel’s occupation of Palestine nor the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by mentioning reparations that need to be paid for the occurrence of the holocaust. With all of this in mind as a nation, we need to broaden our mindsets and seek unbiased news sources. If American media can’t do that for us, we need to take the educated steps in doing that for ourselves. Political biases as a country skew a multitude of things but it’s our job not to let it skew our intelligence we must be able to understand the truth from the lies. 

The Junior Statesmen of America (JSA) are the youth of today who strive to be the leaders of tomorrow.

Every Monday during lunch in D-22, the statesmen meet to discuss a broad range of political topics and debate different kinds of issues and bills that are being discussed in American government today.

The room is always lively with discourse as students prepare for different conventions held throughout the year. Last year, the club attended the winter congress and spring state. During the winter congress, statesmen worked on different bills and tried to have them passed in a real congressional setting.

“Traveling to Sacramento and being able to actually work on bills is something I never would’ve thought I’d be able to do in high school. It’s amazing to have this opportunity thanks to JSA,” said senior member Zach Govani.

An interesting aspect about this club, unlike other academic clubs such as debate, model United Nations, or mock trial, is that everything is ran by high school students. The original organization was founded by a high school student, and there isn’t much involvement from adults other than each school being chaperoned to events by a teacher supervisor.

Carlmont’s individual JSA is ran by a constitution where the president is voted into office and can also be impeached by club members with a 2/3rd’s vote and approval from the vice president. This year, Alan Yan, the original founder of Carlmont’s chapter, has been voted up to a senator position in the organization and has appointed Max Ware to take over his presidential position.

“I’m pretty excited for Max to be our president. I think it’s a good move on Alan’s part now that he’s taken on a bigger role in junior statesmen,” said senior club member Mitchell Wright.

If you are ever in need of fresh food delivered from restaurants around the Bay Area without even having to leave the house, the answer has become simple; just Fluc it. “Honestly I love the idea of having someone bring Chipotle or Starbucks to my house. The best part is that I can track them on their way to the restaurant and see when they reach the location,” said junior Neeshae Wain.  

Fluc is short for Food Lovers United Company. This new and upcoming app’s services have just recently become available to Redwood City. The company originally started out delivering in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, allowing people to pick out foods from their favorite local restaurants and have them delivered to their homes for a small fee.

Fluc was  founded by Tim Davis, Adam Ahmad and Pako Magdaleno, who all lived under the same roof and as the story goes none of them wanted to use the kitchen.

“Never again should we have to cook in a poisoned kitchen. Why can’t we just get food delivered to us from any restaurant?” said Davis.

One thing led to the next and they began to create the idea of Fluc, something fast with popular items from restaurants nearby. Some basic necessities that they sought out for the app to include had to do with specifics such as being able to request extra guacamole with a burrito or no dressing on a salad.

So far Fluc is delivering to multiple locations in the Bay Area from Mountain View to Palo Alto, and can deliver in any area requested if a petition is started and gets the required amount of signatures.   “One of our friends, Bryce Nelson, started a petition for Redwood City for us since he works closely with Fluc and they actually started delivering here. I just hope we can do the same for Belmont,” said junior Isabel Zwass.

Unlike similar services in the Bay Area such as Grubhub, Fluc doesn’t work for the restaurants themselves, so the team inputs menu options on the website and app. The idea is basically a delivery guy that the restaurant doesn’t have to pay for but resteraunts still benefit and make a profit from the orders.

Not only is this startup different in the way it works with restaurants, but it also offers the ability to customize the order into extreme specifics even setting dates for when things should be delivered.

“Fluc is a food logistics company, so handling hundreds of scheduled orders gets quite complex,” Ahmad said in an interview with venturebeat. “However, we’ve built algorithms using geo-spatial tracking to see where all the food lovers are and intelligently suggest them on which orders to deliver next. There are also lots of moving parts with restaurants including changing store times, new menu items and new pricing, which we handle.”

People can use multiple cards and access their entire order history and receipts from their account. Fluc charges a $5.95 flat rate for each delivery, and has inflated prices of menu items slightly within the app — about 5-10 percent to make a small margin on those sales.

“The best part of it all is the food is never served cold and my Starbucks is never split. That’s why I always give an extra tip and always will,” said Wain.

Rumors on a high school campus spread like wildfire, so it was no surprise when rumors of classes being cut started to be the topic of conversation in the halls. “The one rumor I can immediately dispel is about a limit on AP classes. The only limit is, are you ready for these AP classes, and do you really have the time?” said principal Lisa Gleaton when asked to address any rumors she has been approached about. In many cases, there are different sources giving out opinions as opposed to having the real story. Junior Alan Yan said, “It’s frustrating when teachers tell you one thing and the principal tells you another, and then changes the previous statement and so on. We need transparency, but that doesn’t mean confusion.” The real issue is the insecurity that arises from heavily different rumors. Students are overly curious as to what everything means, and turn to teachers for information that even teachers may not necessarily have.

“My history teacher got an email, but he wasn’t even really sure what was going on. He told us that AP’s were going to be restricted next year. It just confused everyone,” said junior Mitchell Wright. Rumors spread viciously, and the only way to address them is head-on. “Learning the staff and the Carlmont culture is one of the main things I’m trying to do. After all the rumors had gotten out, I made sure to address the staff and write a lengthy email explaining any confusion they might have,” said Gleaton.

Another issue that students tend to want to hear about is how all these rumors began. “Honestly, rumors like this don’t just pop out of mid-air. Someone in the administration had to have said something that caused the teachers to become frantic enough to tell the students,” said sophomore Kamrin Choye. What students don’t realize is that a lot of the time even the teachers don’t have the complete information on the situations at hand, and to resolve these issues parent’s turn directly to administration.

“I’ve gotten many emails from parents about the confusions, and I’m happy to clear up any questions they might have up. But I also need staff to be careful about what might be said in the classroom so that rumors don’t start up,” said Gleaton For many high schoolers who fear for the future, these rumors are threatening. “It’s not only frustrating but scary thinking about not being able to reach my full capacity at my high school because of some ridiculous limit on how much of an education I can get,” said Choye.

Brash reactions to the spread of rumors is healthy, and shows the dedication students and parents have to getting their ideal education. “Things are tough now a days with college and all, putting limits or even hearing rumors about a possible limit ticks a lot of kids off, these kinds of things shouldn’t get out in the first place,” said senior Marisa Pereira.

“Honestly, at the end of the day the truth sets you free and that’s all any student at this school wants, is the truth,” said Wright.

College flyers filled with people of all skin tones coming together in one institution, creating a hypothetical situation that seems to be embodying a sense of diversity.

“If you’re not able to, and again this is what we’re doing now, to reach out to the most outstanding Latino students in the country...you won’t be educating the future leaders of America,” said Fitzsimmons Dean of Admissions and Financial aid at Harvard to the Harvard Crimson, explaining the importance of reaching out to high-ability students within all minority groups.

But there's a myth to how diversity is really defined. The term, “diversity” is extremely broad and can refer to many things. A diverse candidate can be any student (including white students) who brings diversity to a college campus. A student’s “diversity” may include anything from age, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, and gender to socioeconomic status and geographic background.

The University of Maryland defines diversity as an “otherness, or those human qualities that are different from our own and outside the groups to which we belong, yet are present in other individuals and groups.”