She went to Sarajevo during the civil war, singing while the bombs fell. She called an album “Where Are You Now, My Son?” after a twenty-minute song filled with confusion, mourning, a mother’s cries, the sound of death. She called it singing, but the lyrics were moans and the music was air raid sirens, parts of … Read more
With the sun making its way over the Ko’olau Mountains and onto the shores of Waikiki, it is a perfect day in tropical paradise. As she leaves behind the local island pidgin dialect of her home, a young girl catches a streetcar to school, where she will learn not only to dress like her American classmates … Read more
North Korean agent Park Mu-young scans the downtown high-rises and bustling crowds of Seoul. His hair is long, his face worn from years of bitterness. In an eerily calm voice, he says into his phone, “Slow down, friend. The first one is on the roof of the Golden Tower. You have exactly thirty minutes.” The … Read more
When North Korea makes international headlines, it is often about Kim Jong Un and his latest threats against South Korea and the United States. When human rights in the country are discussed, it is often in relation to labor camps and food shortages. However, what is often overlooked are humanitarian issues like tuberculosis (TB), a … Read more
I remember a white whale and the name Ahab, both decontextualized. It was at around 9:30pm on a Wednesday when I sat down at my desk, curled up in a blanket, and read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. A chapter in, I set aside my physical book and turned to a free version of the text … Read more
Grendel’s Den, a Harvard Square staple, has a history all its own. Opened in 1971, the restaurant chugged along faithfully at first, under the careful watch of Herbert and Sue Kuezler. Eventually, they got tired of one particularly burdensome Massachusetts state law: under I.XX.138.16c, the Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Church, their next-door neighbor, had veto power over … Read more
This October, Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize. She shared the award with Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi. At 17, Malala is the youngest ever Nobel laureate. Despite surviving an attack on her life and her ongoing activism, there are still those who question Malala’s merits. So what is the controversy? What do Harvard students think of … Read more
President Obama’s executive action on immigration reform has sparked both gratitude and outrage across the country. To supporters, his address is viewed as the partial fulfillment of a long overdue campaign promise. To protesters, it only adds to the list of executive actions that seem to overstep his presidential powers. Regardless of ideological views, Obama’s executive … Read more
Even before President Obama announced his executive action overhauling the nation’s immigration system, the all-too-predictable Republican backlash was already in high gear. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) accused Obama of using “the tactics of a monarch,” soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) compared acting on immigration reform to “waving a red flag in front of … Read more
While President Obama’s latest maneuver is sure to draw much more rhetoric and possibly some action from angered House and Senate Republicans, the true issue at hand is being completely avoided. Our perception of immigrants is fundamentally flawed and not ni line with the tradition of American democracy. President Obama’s executive action will grant legal standing to … Read more