6. Harp Seals 2026

Personal Image of my Sister and Mom during a Pooja With my older sister in hand, my parents immigrated to Fremont, California, in 2006. 3 years before I was born. It was my mom’s first time going abroad, leaving her little suburban town in Southern India. As for my dad, he was the first person from his entire village to arrive in the land of the free. My parents understand and speak English daily to a moderate extent; however, my mom’s grammar is mediocre, but it is sufficient nonetheless. The move here proved difficult for them. Beyond the language barrier, they had to pack their entire lives into suitcases filled to just under 50 pounds, bringing only a small piece of the past into the present. My mom and her parents were under the impression that my dad and her would be returning to India after only a year. Spoiler alert: we are still here! My dad moved here because of a job opportunity, and they stayed in an apartment not too far from where we currently live. Although I was not ab...

Source:  The New York Times      In America, news is everywhere. We see it often on television, on social media platforms, and read about it online. There is always something happening from politics and technology to everyday life. But one thing I find interesting is that understanding the news is not only knowing the facts; it is also about understanding the language used to describe a story.      When I read US news, the word choices the writers used can change the way a situation may feel. Words such as freedom, crisis and opportunity can mean many different things. Different news sources may report on the exact same event, but describe it differently. They can focus on the benefits of a decision; while another may emphasize the problem going on. These decisions shape our opinions and influence our emotions all can affect how we see the world.      The United States is home to many diverse cultures with different backgrounds, experien...

A photo my dad took of the sunrise from the inside of a Chinese bullet train, leaving from Beijing to Chengdu, Sichuan.    I’m sick of scrolling onto those cooking videos where the entire thing is a cliche-dense narrative by the author mourning with a possibly AI-generated script about their less-than-ideal childhood and I’m sure I’m not the only one, so bear with me. I remember landing in California, alighting the plane, and seeing new classmates. I still recall crying in the Xi’an International Airport, where my grandpa was practically face-hugged by me, Alien style, as I looked at my ticket in disgust, refusing to leave. I remember my mom had complained United Airlines planes were too cold on the way here, and I remember her frustration being magnified when the flight attendants served ice cream once we landed… while the AC was fully on.       The mandarin word for America directly translates to “Beautiful Country,” but at first, I saw no beauty. In kin...

This Sunday, me and my family will head out on our bi-weekly Costco trip. It is a story as old as time: we came, we conquered, and we bought more than we could consume. On the same day, my sister attending college in Georgia goes with her roommates to Sam’s Club, embarking on a similar mission. If you are not familiar with Sam’s Club , it is essentially a chain of membership-based warehouses that sell a wide range of products in bulk for reduced prices. Sound familiar? The behavior of mass overconsumption is especially prominent in America, building off of patterns first seen in the 1870s during the Gilded Age . The term “gilded” itself means to be coated with gold on the outside, but overall composed of lesser quality of materials. It reflected on the deeper social and political issues that existed at the time.  Sure, now people can buy French perfume and read weekly newspapers, but what about the hundreds of city dwellers that come home to three other families living in their sma...

American flag When people think of a “normal” American accent, they picture a General American one. Smooth, universally known, and often heard in national news broadcasts. However, GA is more of a broadcast ideal than an accepted national reality, and many more accents exist throughout the continental USA. Consider the classic south drawl, characterized by elongated vowels and a melodic cadence and inflection. This evolved from early English settlers mixing with African influences. Compared to the sharp, punchy, New York accent,  with sharp vowel shifts and not pronouncing ‘r’; something that came from centuries of dense urban migration patterns. Accents do a lot more than indicating where someone grew up, they carry someone's personal and cultural identity. When someone speaks with a southern, midwestern, or Boston accent, they echo centuries of their family, their community, and their heritage. For many people, an accent provides a sense of home, and belonging. Though, accents ca...

  Source: Cosmopolitan Magazine          Far and wide, the United States of America has been ascribed the honor of being considered "the" place to be internationally, a melting pot of the entire world that gives anyone with passion The American Dream. My cousins plan their grade school careers around qualifying for American universities; boy bands earn millions of followers to get one man an American visa. They seek the country founded by, for, and run by migrants searching for a better life. But this glorifying title is nothing more than a fake, self-imposed compliment.           Take the image of a melting pot as a source of comfort: one is with their mother in their family home, blending familiar spices into the dish grandmothers and aunts painstakingly taught her to make, the protective weight of ancestors' wisdom in each warmly numbing spoonful.            “Look,” the nation says, “look ...