Writing
Writing was my first passion. In elementary and middle school, I obsessively wrote short stories. In high school, I was editor-in-chief of my newspaper. Through college, I've learned how writing can transcend beyond the bounds of narrative or standard journalism and developed skills in marketing copy, long-form investigations, and critical media analyses.
Media Analyses
TV’s Best Drama You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
When Halt and Catch Fire debuted in 2014, it drew just over 1 million viewers, making it the least-watched premiere in AMC’s modern history. Throughout its running, ratings steadily declined. Despite its lack of popularity, Halt and Catch Fire got better with every season.
Over the next three years across 40 episodes, viewers that stuck around witnessed a show brave enough to dispose of its original design and become something even greater. And that’s what intrigues me most about this show. Not its writing nor its performances (both of which are fantastic), but its evolution. What was conceived as an antihero-centric drama about surviving in the cutthroat tech industry transformed into a deeply empathetic ensemble study about finding connection in the process of creation.
What My Quarantine Binge
Taught Me About Change
Created by Owen Dennis, Infinity Train is an anthology series: each season features new characters, but their stories all take place on the same train in the same universe. What I thought was going to be a fun, easy watch to distract my mind from the impending stress of finals actually turned out to be so much more rewarding.
Articles
Coal ash near Illinois water wells to stay, despite residents’ concerns
Lincoln Stone Quarry holds millions of tons of toxic coal ash. Despite evidence of groundwater contamination, its owner plans to leave the ash in place. But recent signs of federal enforcement may provide a glimmer of hope to residents and environmental groups. This story is part of a six-month long, 12-part investigation by the Chicago Investigative Lab in the graduate program at the Medill School at Northwestern University.
Mukurtu Midwest is on a mission to expand Indigenous data sovereignty throughout the western Great Lakes region
For centuries, data was a tool for control and surveillance, weaponized to justify racist policies that removed Indigenous peoples from their lands. Now, Indigenous-centered organizations are taking back control.
Academic Essays
An Argument for “Principal” Land Management
For centuries, racist policies dictated by a settler colonial U.S. government systematically removed and erased Indigenous peoples from their lands. In this essay, I argue that “principal” land management policies rooted in tribal sovereignty are the most apt systems of National Park land governance for preserving both the sacred identity of tribes and the well-being of the surrounding ecological landscape, as opposed to National Park Service management or joint management plans.
The Future of REDD+
REDD+ or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, is one framework adopted by parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in an attempt to mitigate the climate catastrophe. The purpose of this term paper is to assess the viability of REDD+ as a framework, and put forth prescriptive solutions to strengthen the program’s carbon trading mechanism while ensuring the protection of agency and rights for Indigenous and local peoples.
Transgender Politics: What Got Us Here
Although it is important to highlight the work of transgender activists and activists of color in the building of the liberation movement, it is equally as important to recognize their marginalization from mainstream gay politics and its subsequent impact on how U.S. gay and lesbian history is understood. The failure to include transgender people in mainstream gay politics has left the community vulnerable to recent attacks on transgender rights.
The Function of Ghosts
in Asian American Literature
In the novels, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston and The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen, however, the presence of ghosts in their stories paradoxically illuminates the absence found in characters’ lives and, in the process, often helps these characters come to terms with certain aspects of their identities.Kingston and Nguyen’s ghosts — defined by both their presence and the absences they leave — function to help reconcile conflicting feelings of heritage, trauma and identity.