A work in progress — I have thought about writing something like this for years, rather than only posting about it on social media. So here are my thoughts on how I, and those some from the same ethnic background as me, can offer our support to the Black Lives Matter movement, and to Black…

‘Talking Black’ doesn’t make you cool. It makes you racist. — Cultural appropriation is a racist practice that devalues a culture’s history and language and thus disrespects its origins by claiming something to be your own when it’s not. It’s fairly commonplace, with non-Black people appropriating anything from clothes to hairstyles. But the appropriation and theft of African American Vernacular English…

Where do we look for representation? — I grew up on Mean Girls, Clueless, and 10 Things I Hate About You and I have no regrets for knowing all the words to Regina George’s vicious monologues. But I also grew up on Bollywood, and I will always be a fan of 90s superhits with coming of age…

At Pizza Pizza, Starbucks, and the photo store down my street, my name is Sara. It’s not a lie. It’s my middle name. It’s easy to spell. It’s “normal.” As I approach 20, I find myself thinking more about what this word “normal” means. A few months ago, I read…

Gen-Z Needs Suzanne Collins To Answer Some Tough Questions The Hunger Games arrived five years ago on the cusp of social movements sparked by the next generation of young people, and it could be the perfect time for a comeback of the modern revolutionary classic. A lot of weird things…

No one will know about my family’s struggle with mental illness because no one will talk about it. Generations have lost this knowledge and now I have only my mother’s half-hearted attempts at storytelling to help me understand my own mind. A slim recount of my grandmother’s breakdown and other…

The future of menstrual education — My grandmother is one of the greatest women I know, but even she fell into the harmful pitfalls of traditionalism. When my mother first got her period, she was chastised and yelled at for having blossomed at such a young age. Eleven was not old enough to be a woman…