Blog Archive

Check out all blog posts in my blog archive. Click on a headline to read the teaser.

Visions

​​Our screenplay takes its audience on a journey of cyclical uncertainty, regret, and hope, using the Zeitmann lineage as a vehicle to bring the philosophy of agency and morality into question. The screenplay begins with Sebastian, the eldest Zeitmann, setting off a chain of events that transport us into the later events of the tale. Sebastian’s son, Leo, is the second in the lineage, and his life is defined by a mistake his father made when operating on him as a child. This mistake in Sebastian’s brain operation on his son inadvertently gifts and curses Leo with the power to have visions of the future, adding another dimension to our questioning of agency and morality. Read More ›

Un camaleón en el panteón

​​I grew up in Sonora, México, a small, but warm town in the middle of the desert. I decided to use the Sonoran Chamaleon as the driver of my comic because it is endemic to the region, an animal that I used to play with growing up. The cemetery is the comic’s setting because of death's beauty in my country’s culture, but also because of the prominence of unjust death in US-Mexican border communities. Murders at the hands of organized crime and femicides are too common, and I wanted my comic to make readers reflect on these injustices while finding comfort in Alicia and Felipe’s friendship in the afterlife, as my culture so beautifully does. Read More ›

Two Collages

​​The first collage juxtaposes glittering shards of ice pushed into peaks against each other by wind and waves from the frozen surface of Lake Michigan, and the shards of terracotta ceramic vessels in a pile of broken discards saved for mosaic or landfill, highlighting the opposed and shared temporalities between these two materials. The second collage brings together thunderstorm clouds and the reflection of blue sky in a creek, blending two contrasting elements of a summer weather cycle I experienced growing up outside of Chicago to stretch out one breezy afternoon moment. Read More ›

Triolet to Mother [Earth]

​​My poem 'Triolet to Mother [Earth]' explores the nuances of motherhood and maternity, and its relationship with the earth, by delving into the image of and meaning associated with touch in a classical French poetry form. My poem also examines the notion of physical exchange and generational translation through cycles of inherited violence. Read More ›

Three Poems

​​My poetry is about life and nature and it might help that I like to people-watch and meditate. These poems are a form of meditation for me, to reflect and stand still as I try to make sense of the things I see in the world around me. “Billy Baila Bonito” was written in the Spanish Poetry Workshop class taught by Professor Cintia Santana. It was inspired by my salsero friend, Billy, who dances so well, beautifully, and rhythmically that I had to write about it. “Oda a la hoja de palma” is another creation that came from my workshop class when we were assigned to write a poem on something other than paper. My last poem, “Piñata Song” was written in high school and was inspired by my family’s journey across the border. The candy is meant to symbolize my cousins and me, who have benefited from the opportunities of having citizenship in this country. I would not be here without it and I am forever grateful. Thank you. Read More ›

The Poet Tells the Truth

​​Callum Tresnan is a senior studying Comparative Literature with honors in the arts. After graduating in June 2023, he will move to Granada, Spain. Read More ›

The Intern

​​My comic deals with diversity issues in the tech industry. As a Latina woman, I'm a minority in this industry in terms of race and gender. Even though there have been some improvements in recent years, I still feel a little isolated in my classes and my summer internships. Just to give you a statistic that I learned in a class on minorities in Silicon Valley, Latin women constitute less than 2% of the total population of the tech industry. Although many people know about the diversity problem, it can still be very difficult for someone to see this beyond an unfortunate statistic and to understand what it feels to belong to a minority. It wasn't until I had the experience last summer of being the only Latina at an Amazon office that I understood how important it is to have adequate representation. I hope that portraying my real story as a comic will help other people to understand my experience and that of other minorities in technology and other industries. Read More ›

Sí se puede

​​My name is Jessica Pacheco, a Mexican American college student who comes from a beautiful culture and a complicated background. I was born in the United States, a place full of opportunities for people seeking the American Dream whereas, in my comic, I portray the challenges immigrants have not only by risking their lives while crossing but also by leaving their families to come to work. This comic can be personal because it represents some of my family's stories but it’s also more universal as this is just the beginning of many other stories. Through this comic, I hope to represent the people I grew up with and illustrate their hard work and sacrifices. I come from the Coachella Valley, which is surrounded by fields of grapes, lemons, onions, etc. As a freshman in college, I had the opportunity in one of my classes to see and be influenced by David Bacon's photography archive, circa 1985-2019 in the Stanford Library of the farmworkers from the Coachella Valley and other regions. For this comic, I have to acknowledge I use some elements and was influenced by some of Bacon’s, my family’s, and the internet’s images to make my comic based on what I thought I could create to represent farm workers. Read More ›

Pastor

Pastor engages with my own personal experience raised in a Korean Christian environment and my own personal journey away from religion. Read More ›

Paseos por mi mente

My final project entitled “Paseos por mi mente,” which loosely translates to “Strolls through my Mind,” aims to capture the constant mental chatter that fills my mind as I go about my life. While I’ve always sought refuge in my own thoughts and imagination, sometimes it can be overwhelming to spend so much time in my head, often overthinking. Luckily, drawing has proven to be a delightful outlet for me to channel my anxieties and existential thoughts. Read More ›

Nuevos puntos de articulación

My name is David (he/él). I'm a PhD student at the Iberian and Latin America Cultures department at Stanford University. One of my passions is Central American poetry from the 20th century, especially poetry written inside guerrilla movements. However, I also like poets such as Rubén Darío and José Martí. This poem emerged from an exercise in ILAC 242 with Professor Santana. I wanted to use a classical structure, in this case the sonnet, but employ a comical tone. I believe poetry, even when working with rigid classical forms, should be playful and not take itself too seriously. Read More ›

Susanna Newsom, James Fox, Grace Flynna

Our screenplay draws upon John Locke’s An Essay on Human Understanding and Tamir Schapiro’s Childhood and Personhood to wrestle with the following philosophical questions: What is the relationship between identity and memory? More specifically, do people lose their identity as they lose their memories? Do people have a moral obligation to those who no longer have their memories (and thus perhaps no longer have their identity)? Furthermore, what justifies paternalism? Does a decline in age and memory result in a loss of identity so great that another person is morally justified in making decisions for the senile person? Are there any circumstances in which someone has the right to withhold information from a senile adult and make decisions for them like they might for a child? Our screenplay deliberately does not answer these questions but raises them using stylistic techniques. Read More ›

La uni

Eric Benitez is a 4th-year undergraduate at Stanford University majoring in Political Science. The son of two Mexican immigrants, Eric was raised in California and holds his Hispanic heritage near to his academic and creative endeavors. At Stanford, Eric has dedicated most of his time to studying American politics, the rise of political polarization, and the public’s relationship with political institutions more broadly. In writing 'La Uni,' Eric wanted to focus on the tense relationship between college students and their political expression in order to juxtapose the freedom of speech on a university campus with the harshness of modern political discourse. It is his hope that through easy-to-consume mediums like comics, political aggression, and intolerance in today’s society can be better understood, combatted, and reduced. Read More ›

Katia la corajuda

​​This comic is very close to my heart. Although it is not fully inspired by true events, I have used topics related to my life and my personal experiences to create some of the events that Katia, the heroine or main character of this story, is dealing with and the decisions she is making. I wanted to create a different graphic style in each page of my comic, and I wanted to use this variety of styles to express emotions, the passing of time, and different shades that cannot be captured in other media. This story has no clear ending, leaving the reader looking for a plot that gives Katia a final solution or one in which she finds some happiness that lasts even after the end of the comic. I wanted to portray in this comic that life does not have a clear ending, and that sometimes problems don't go away until some time passes by and many other events take place. Read More ›

It's For Your Own Good

The two texts I made contact with in this screenplay were Tamar Shapiro’s “What Is a Child?” and Bernard Williams’ Persons Character and Morality. Read More ›

Four Poems

​​Hello! My name is Paola and this past winter quarter I had the privilege of taking ILAC 242: Poetry Workshop in Spanish, with the marvelous Dr. Cintia Santana. I had not written poetry since my very poor attempts in my high school journals— let alone poetry in Spanish. I must admit, I was slightly intimidated at the prospect of creating poetry once more. I was especially hesitant in my abilities to write formal poetry. However, the sonnet and romance ended up being my favorite exercises and I came to appreciate the limits of their metrics. Thematically, I explored quite the range of topics— being the eldest daughter of Mexican immigrants, questions of spatial displacement, questions of a more philosophical displacement of the self (or rather the many selves that we are), conversations with poets and artworks, conversations with cities faraway, and much more. These three poems are a small peek into this meditative experience! Read More ›

Forbidden Fruit

This screenplay draws influence from Bernard Williams's “The Women of Trachis” and “Utilitarianism and Moral Self-Indulgence”. This work questions the coping mechanisms humanity uses to rationalize and accept seemingly unnecessary pain and poses a new world to the reader in which pain can be reduced and minimized through time travel. Throughout the story, the characters commit premature murders to prevent tragedies. While Williams argues in favor of morally unsavory actions to achieve favorable outcomes, terrible actions are often retrospectively justified as “necessary evils”. In this story, the main character questions this notion through her hesitation to commit murder and her disbelief that her actions impact the future. Read More ›

El fantasma de Brad

Healthism is the belief that one's health is one's own responsibility. Living a healthy life is important for everyone and it is true that one's behavior contributes to health but there are many more factors that influence health. To improve the health of the United States, these problems must be addressed. Much of medicine, however, continues to focus on individual behavior rather than the whole picture. I wanted to express my concerns about healthism in comic form because I recognize that using different mediums to convey messages can be a powerful way to reach a broader audience, and comics can be particularly effective in engaging people who might not otherwise would interact with these important topics. Read More ›

Cruces de arcoíris

​​As a queer person of color, I find it important to tell queer stories. Therefore, Rainbow Crosses is a comic that deals with the treatment of members of the LGBTQ+ community in religious settings. This comic will be based on the Santos family, a conservative and religious family that lives in a small town outside of the city of Valencia. In this family, Ana Lucía Paulina Reyes-Santos, the youngest daughter of the family, is growing up and realizes her sexual orientation as a lesbian. However, from the beginning of the story, it is noticeable that his social environment does not allow him to express himself as such. In fact, through the first comic frames, it is noted that Juan Gabriel García-Santos, the father of Los Santos, dictates the behavior of others. Through the character of Juan, you will see a connection between religion, abuse, and his extremely macho perspective. His restless attitudes make us see the malice of this character. In addition, he will realize that Juan is a hypocrite speaking ill of people from the LGBTQ+ population while, as a university professor, he is being unfaithful to his wife with María Bernarda Paula Reyes de Santos, his children's teacher. The abusive and macho actions of the father do not allow the daughter to feel safe. Of course, at the Catholic school, the lesbian daughter doesn't feel safe until a new father named Padre Esperanza arrives, who comes to the school and talks about the importance of love and his desire to reform the church. Padre Esperanza talks with Ana and the two become friends. At the end of the play, the church father tries to convince the family of the fact that the daughter's sexual orientation is not a sin. Although the conservative father rejects the truth about his daughter, the mother walks away from her cheating husband and accepts her daughter for who she is. In short, this comic makes a social criticism because it shows the hypocrisy of human beings who cling to their religious beliefs without understanding the human perspective like that of members of the LGBTQ+ population. Read More ›

Children's Tales - A Translation

Ask any Salvadoran, and they'll be able to tell you about Menchedita Copalchines, or la Cocolina, or any other favorite character from when they read Cuentos de Cipotes as a child. Cuentos is the most beloved collection of short stories in El Salvador. Rather than writing Cuentos para Cipotes (Tales for Children), its renowned author, Salarrué, wanted to bring out the inner child in everyone by telling these simple, silly, and incredibly imaginative stories as if they were being narrated by children -- an effect I attempted to recreate in my own writing. I hope my humble translation of an unrivaled classic gives you a taste of Salvadoran culture and brings out your inner child. Read More ›

An evening walk along Khaju Bridge in Isfahan

​​This chapter (which I hope will become a part of a larger project) tells the story of a moment I shared with my mother on a trip we took to Iran at the beginning of last summer Read More ›

A los cuys

​​Before this poem, I had never written a sonnet before, or explored poetry that constrained the amount or syllabus and rhyme scheme. In A los cuys, I wanted to explore both figures and imagery from my hometown, Quito, Ecuador, and my queerness, two aspects of my identity I don't often associate with one another. In particular, I wanted to play around with language, and how terms for queerness, in English, are used in Spanish, and further, can be mixed with the emblematic cuy of Ecuador. In this way, this poem is a celebration of queer quiteños, and how queer communities find places for themselves and survive. Read More ›

Psalm

This was our final project for our poetry and mysticism course, in which we explored the limits of language through apophasis, music, and film. Read More ›

A Conversation Between Insomniacs

"A Conversation Between Insomniacs" is a sci-fi screenplay centered around themes of identity and mortality. After an unnamed apocalypse, all remaining humans emigrate from Earth, leaving behind uploaded minds to work on making the Earth's biosphere habitable again. Thousands of years later, the offspring between humans and various alien populations visit Earth to learn about their ancestry. The screenplay follows the encounter between one particular uploaded mind and the part-alien descendants of his original human self, as they comb through the memories of this human and reflect on their respective identities. Read More ›

Mola

My mom’s favorite memories of her childhood in Panama were of molas. Pillow molas, tapestry molas, craft shops selling molas, mini molas, animal molas, and the smell of molas. My mom grew up around molas. Molas were her introduction to the world of art -- her love of art. The molas were also my mom's introduction to Panamanian indigenous culture — a word derived from the indigenous Kuna word for clothing. I decided to use my mother’s memories to make my own interpretation of a mola. I made three molas, each depicting a different artifact that represented my mother’s time spent in Panama — her dog Pablito, a can of Tab soda, and a pill bottle from her local pharmacy. The goal of this art project was to combine my family history with the artistic history of the Kuna indigenous people of Panama. While both my theme and my approach modernized the mola, its roots are firmly planted in the San Blas Islands. Read More ›

The Forest

Collage is a medium that allows you to mix different realities. I’ve always been enchanted by the forest and think that it’s a place where anything can be found. Through this digital collage, I incorporated cutouts from a various array of magazines, with the hope of portraying an ambience that is confusing but enticing at the same time. The forest is magical! There is so much hidden in the spaces of nature we transit through. Read More ›

Endless Repetition

Through this short film, we hope to address specific aspects of the psychology of choice. Read More ›

Norah Lange y Jorge Luis Borges en conversación: No soy tu musa

In this written piece, Norah Lange is in conversation with Jorge Luis Borges. Through dialogue between these two writers, I explored Lange’s relationship with Borges and his fame. Norah reminds Borges and the readers that she is more than just Borges’ muse — she is an accomplished and powerful writer that does not need a man’s approval. Norah Lange reminds Jorge Luis Borges that she is nobody's muse. Read More ›

Migration in the 21st Century

My work is interdisciplinary and is centered around the discernment of class, labor, and consumption of the brown body. I'm a second-generation immigrant from the working-class landscape of Las Vegas, Nevada. My work's visual language and written text reflect the existential and often hallucinatory existence of immigrants with limited familial histories. Read More ›

Una carta a mi perro

This comic is a letter to my dog Tessie, who was very old and sick when I was making this piece in the Spring of 2021 and who has since passed away. I spent many months grieving her while she was still alive and many months after her death struggling to process her loss in a world stricken with death from COVID-19. This comic is everything I wanted to tell her during that time – my worries, regrets, and of course my love for her. Read More ›

Violencia en Colombia

"Violencia en Colombia" is a comic about the recent protests in Colombia. The protests began in April 2021 in response to a tax increase but transformed into a protest against the corruption in government and protesters demanded large reforms in the Colombian government. The comic is centered around the story of Lucas Villa, a young Colombian who was killed protesting. His death inspired others to protest for change in the Colombian government. Read More ›

Autoretrato en flujo

This illustration describes the internal conflict of my Argentine roots while residing in the US, feeling connected to both places but never enough for either. Read More ›

Captain America: My End Game

In this self portrait of Captain America, I wanted to portray his stoic nature while humanizing him, focusing on Steve Rogers rather than Captain America. Read More ›

Longing

This painting was a response to the question that came up for me during this course: How do we talk about “understanding” mysticism, which by its very nature resists reduction or finite definition? Read More ›

Der farbige Junge und der farblose König

This German fairy tale follows the journey of a small boy as he discovers the meaning of color. At first, he lives in a gray world devoid of color. After losing his ball over a massive wall, an angel appears and offers a way into the world of color but warns him that once he starts living life in the world of color, his true colors will show. The boy, not thinking too hardly about the significance of these words, begins helping others in his search for his ball. Eventually, after many acts of service, the boy becomes known as the most colorful boy in the land. This news reaches the king, who wishes to meet this peculiar boy. This meeting allows them both to discover their true colors, which terminates in a death and the coronation of a new ruler. I created this fairy tale as a story that could be told for all ages. Through the boy’s exploration of what it means to be both a good person and colorful individual, this story comments on class, service, and morality. I hope you enjoy! Read More ›

萬水千山總是情

Inspired by DLCL50B's workshop on translation praxis, I translated a beloved song from Hong Kong that I grew up listening to. Released in 1982 and performed by 汪明荃, 萬水千山總是情 translates literally to "Love through tens of thousands of rivers and thousands of mountains". Drawing on elements of classical Chinese poetry, the song paints love as a natural phenomenon, both evolving and persisting through space and time like any river or mountain. Read More ›

Copper Hands

Some memories from well within. Read More ›

Nocturno

The nocturne (“nocturno”) is an inherited genre of poetry set in a night scene. In the tradition of poems like Colombian poet José Asunción Silva’s “Nocturno III” and Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustini’s “Nocturno,” this poem explores similar themes of nostalgia and lost love against the backdrop of a modern-day campus night. Read More ›