“What’s your name?” the Starbucks employee asks. “Ann,” I say, as she hastily scribbles it onto a plastic cup.  But my name isn’t Ann, it’s Anwen. Yet I find myself assuming this identity...

I watch as my friend’s eyes grow glazed and distant as I realize that they are no longer listening to me. I hear their empty words as they reassure me that our friendship has not changed. But something...

I was elated. Lynbrook had just announced halfway into fourth period that schools were being shut down to slow the spread of COVID-19. I grinned at my friends, excited we would be taking our classes from...

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character,...

In the summer before tenth grade, I spent two weeks living in Tennessee for a creative writing program. Most of my memories of that time are pleasant: the afternoon sun dimming through the classroom windows,...

I stared at myself in the mirror, ashamed of the ashy-grey tear stains on my cheeks. In the safety of the empty school bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face to erase any evidence of the smudges and...

In the age of social media, teenagers are stereotyped as heads-down, hoods-up, twiddling their thumbs over the screens in their hands. In part, this does stem from the truth — social media has consumed...

Social media is extremely useful in bringing to light serious issues, especially since word of mouth is no longer viable due to the coronavirus shelter-in-place. Recently, the Uyghur genocide in China,...

Lack of meaningful representation of diverse characters is a glaring pitfall in Western media. After years of searching for narratives that reflect my own, I was finally able to live vicariously through...

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s most racist of them all? He’s vanished, hidden, crawled deep within, lost to all who dare not fall. According to the Oxford Dictionary, racism is “prejudice, discrimination...

Slavery. Prejudice. Brutality. Things of the past—supposedly.  They say slavery is a blemish upon the glorious history of America, the land of the free.  Free—what a joke.  In...

The Class of 2020 has lost our prom, our senior game, our graduation, our picnics, our ditch day. We’ve put on a brave face and let it go. As everything around the world has ground to a halt, we are...