Why translational power feuds with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels matter today — Before Gabriel Garcia Marquez was an internationally acclaimed writer for novels like Cien anos de soledad [100 Years of Solitude] and Love In the Time of Cholera, he was a young adult feuding with his copyeditor. After receiving an award to publish his second novel, La mala hora [The Evil…

A case study of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and minority language shift — My journey with Marquez’s novel, La mala hora [The Evil Hour], was unexpected. I had stumbled upon the archival text during a spontaneous museum excursion and had selected it for a college research project. I love how archival research in the past can shape our understanding of the present and…

The nuances that get lost in translation — I first stumbled upon Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s La mala hora [The Evil Hour] on a sunbathed afternoon at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. The Marquez exhibition chronicled the life of a young boy from a sleepy town in Colombia who claimed his writing inspiration stemmed from his nightmares…

A journey to find my niche in a culture that rendered authenticity unattainable. Two types of judges prevail at speech and debate tournaments: those who scrutinize your entire speech only to give you first place, and those who enthusiastically proclaim, “You’re amazing!” only to end with, “Great job but tough…

If I had the courage, I would be able to say so much. My thank yous, I’m sorrys, I miss yous, and I love yous. I sound like I’m clinging to the past But I know I can’t see you anymore. Cause the walls have been put up already All…

How Charles White’s painting accentuates a power imbalance — Part 1: See Can a Negro Study Law in Texas is a charcoal and ink painting created in 1946 by Charles Whites. It features civil rights activist Heman Sweatt with a book in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other as he is about to charge upon his opponents, seemingly caricatures…

A step by step routine that will help you appreciate the knowledge around you — “So how do you like your dorm?” “How’s dining hall food?” “What did you think of the professor’s two-hour lecture about hypermophic alleles?” I’ve never really been a complainer. Turns out, that’s a problem when you’re trying to bond with fellow classmates who are sleep deprived, ordering too much takeout…

What I learned about myself, colleges, and being in “unprecedented times” — As I said my final farewell to high school, I wondered what I will remember from the last four years. The laughter in the hallways, stress over group projects, conversations that pushed me out of my comfort zone. With the haywire of the past 2 years slowly winding down, the…

Spoiler: We’re not as moral as we’d like to think. — In elementary school, we were taught that there is an evil man named Hitler. In middle school, we read Anne Frank’s memoir about Nazi Germany. In high school, we were introduced to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler. We viewed interviews of Jews who survived the Holocaust and saw…