Reflections on Baldwin and Jamaica: ‘for sinners shall be bound in hell a thousand years’
Editor’s Note: This piece includes language and imagery that some readers may find distressing.
Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Princetonian's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query. You can also try a Basic search
259 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Editor’s Note: This piece includes language and imagery that some readers may find distressing.
In New York’s Chinatown, where the fish outnumber people, I am a foreigner among my own blood. A thousand glassy eyes stare at me, white and hungry. Hunchbacked men gut the silver-scaled spread of hollowed-out salmon, hands calloused like the topography of the Himalayas, knuckles scabbed like borders wrenched apart. No one stops. No one notices. My mom and I walk to the hazy pulse of the city, swaying with this chorus of bodies.
Oct. 11 is National Coming Out Day. The day was first celebrated in 1988 and based on the idea that the personal is political, that the most basic form of activism can be coming out to friends, family, and coworkers, and living openly. The core idea is that homophobia thrives in silence and people are less likely to maintain homophobic beliefs when they discover that a loved one is LGBTQ+.
What surprises me the most about living in a city is how quickly I got used to the noise. The rumbling of the subway, the shouts from the sidewalk, the honking cars — after a few days spent jumping at each sound, they’ve quickly faded into the background music of what has become my everyday life.
As August slipped away and the first day of classes approached, I spent a good deal of time searching for that start-of-the-semester energy that typically imbues everything, even the most mundane activities, with excitement, if also a small apprehension at the academic tasks ahead. A week beforehand, it was quite underwhelming to think that the only thing different about Aug. 31 would be waking up just slightly earlier to log on to Canvas and click on a Zoom link instead of aimlessly switching between my phone’s apps.
Without the beautiful gothic architecture, the lecture spaces, eating clubs, the athletes on motorized scooters zipping down Washington St., what is campus? Without running into people at meals or in class or at the Street late at night, what is student life? Without the campus and the friends, and all the connection that comes with the physicality of it, what is Princeton?
“Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, and white trash. I call them neighbors, friends, and family.” — J.D. Vance, “Hillbilly Elegy”
On a particularly warm July morning, I interviewed Alexander P.G. Sittenfeld ’07 — who is currently running to be Cincinnati’s next mayor — for my summer internship. With Sittenfeld being a Princeton alumnus, our conversation at one point turned to the University’s July announcement of a partially virtual semester. Like many other community members I’ve talked to these past months — especially other alumni — he offered his condolences for the lost time on campus while, of course, acknowledging all of the other, much more terrible losses people have endured this year. I don’t recall my entire response, but I do remember suggesting this year was full of losses on many different levels, all deserving at least some of our attention and care.
I had sung away Monday morning with ABBA’s “Waterloo” on repeat, dancing as I mopped the floor and swept dirt off the porch. After spending over two weeks in even stricter isolation than usual, I was going to visit my grandparents, whom I hadn’t seen for months, and I was cleaning the house before leaving in the afternoon. Then came the email: my SARS-CoV-2 test, which I’d taken as a precaution before seeing my grandparents, and not at all because I was symptomatic, was positive.
Back in mid-March, when I arrived back in Australia, I hadn’t spent longer than two months at home for the last two years. When I left for America in the fall of 2018 to begin my freshman year at Princeton, I left my entire life behind with it — my friends from high school, the club team where I used to train, the part-time jobs I had tutoring local kids or lifeguarding at my school’s 25m indoor pool.
Fall semester classes used to kick off on a Wednesday. A wake-up slap after the four-day fever dream known as Frosh Week.
CINCINNATI, OHIO
This is a peek into my experience dealing with medical and mental health issues in Princeton’s highly competitive environment. The autobiographical narrative form is used to represent my perspective and is an attempt to convey the pressures, emotional struggles, and stresses the situation brought along with it.
Dear incoming first-years,
Toni Morrison called Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me “required reading,” “revelatory,” and “profound.” She also wrote that the book was “visceral.” While I read Between the World and Me with different life experiences and nowhere near the literary talent of Toni Morrison, I concur with her assessment of the truly profound elements of the text.
What’s been happening on campus during the summer of COVID-19? The short answer is: nothing much.
The heat of August finally subsided, replaced by whisperings of the deliciously brisk autumn to come. It was a cool evening as my mom and I strolled around campus, and I took in the Gothic architecture of the University with fresh eyes. I couldn’t contain my excitement when I found the plaque for “CAMPBELL HALL 4,” my new residence for the upcoming year. No longer was I just a townie, or an onlooker who lived nearby — I was about to be a student! I was about to be part of the Princeton experience.
Eight minutes and 46 seconds is a very long time. I realized just how long it is while at a protest in my hometown on June 29. After walking two miles through the center of Wellesley, Mass., and arriving at the town hall, all 400 demonstrators took a knee and raised our fists for an eight minute, 46 second moment of silence.
July 3 was the day I, like many former theater kids across the globe, had been waiting for all summer.
DISPATCH | Carter Gipson