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Rukmini Anantha: Week 1 - The Hyphen: Does K-Pop Count?

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(1) A group photo with all 7 members. BTS, composed of seven Korean superstars, who have brought global attention to Korean culture through their enormous fanbase over the past thirteen years of their career. The group recently released an album after their group hiatus, ARIRANG , a tribute to their Korean heritage by referencing a common children’s song and using more traditional Korean instrumentals.   For some context, despite BTS’s break-out English singles like “Butter,” or “Dynamite,” and multiple Grammy nominations, fans have often found that BTS’s presence is merely used as publicity for the Recording Academy, due to the fact that after nearly five years of nominations, they have still not won a single Grammy. When the Recording Academy announced a new Asian pop category, which Asian artists, like BTS, would likely be nominated for, BTS withdrew their music and publicly announced their stance on the new category by asserting that music shouldn’t be categorized based on orig...
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Jocelyn Thio - Week 1: Underneath the Waves

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A view of the ocean similar to the one I saw (Photo credit: Bay Area Telegraph - Thomas Smith ) The sun barely makes it through the clouds. The breeze blows through my hair. My brother and I carefully walk in the sand, with our sneakers still on, and take in the view of the ocean. We are in Half Moon Bay , our parents stand on the trail with our bikes and take a break. I look towards the horizon where the sky touches the sea. Even though it is a rather chilly day, the ocean is still beautiful. Like the ocean, our identity has a public surface and layers that get much less light the deeper you go. Most of my time I spend in school or in other public spaces. On the surface, I project a version of my identity to teachers and classmates. Personally, this changes frequently depending on my mood, just like the weather changes how the ocean looks on top. Underneath this, there is a deeper layer. This is my identity as it is shown to my close friends and family. Light reaches this layer when I...
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Location: Half Moon Bay, CA 94019, USA
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Palash Week 1 - The Many Voices

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  “What is code switching?” ( ABC News : Emma Machan) I speak differently to almost every person in my life , yet somehow, I never stop being myself. I notice the shift most clearly when I walk through my front door, a dramatic change in tone and even sentence structure. At school, I say, “I don’t really understand what the author is trying to convey.” At home, that sentence becomes, “I don’t get it.” With my friends, it becomes even simpler, “Bro, what is this?” All three sentences mean essentially the same thing, but they don’t sound like the same person. We change the way we speak constantly, often without even realizing it. Around teachers, our vocabulary becomes more selective and careful. Around friends, it often becomes shorter and slangier, and filled with references that would make absolutely no sense to anyone else. Even texting has its own language , full of abbreviations and the occasional “😭” doing the work of an entire sentence. For the longest time, I thought I had...
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Julia Week 1- My Cultural Perspective

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(Credit: Vecteezy Stock Photos) When it comes to the beginning of the school year, a common question gets asked. What did you do during summer? Some of these responses include: “I visited my grandparents in their hometown” or “I flew to see family” and the common complaint of  “It was so hot over there.” When they ask me where I went, I simply just say hesitantly, “Uh, I just stayed at home.” Then they talk about how lucky I was. “There wasn’t any air conditioning over there, you’re so lucky” or “At least you got free time.”  I do have family of course, but they all live in California. All it takes is a car ride. Sure that may be lucky in a way, but I don’t have the experiences of visiting or experiencing a different country full of culture my ancestors were from. My roots.  I call myself a Chinese American; but, I have never before stepped foot in China.  Identity is something that makes up a person. Am I losing part of my identity by not being exposed to my own cul...
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