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Thursday, November 21, 2024
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Isabel Mehta

4 Articles

Cure Culture: Re-thinking Responsibility for Mental Health

Institutional shortfalls are often blamed for the worsening mental health crisis on college campuses, but the problem cannot be traced to one source only.

Never Have I Ever Season 2 is Representation Done Right

What the second season does, in a slow-burn, warm-glow kind-of-way, is show viewers that an Indian girl, just like any other girl, can learn to love and forgive herself and forgive others. That she can grow, make mistakes, and emerge better and stronger from the mess. That making mistakes and even becoming a bit unhinged are  strengths in and of themselves.

Social Restrictions Make for an Unequal Harvard

In normal times, Harvard, like most elite and diverse institutions, harbors a host of inequalities on its campus. But on a campus with unprecedented social restrictions, the pandemic — as it has everywhere else — exacerbated already existing socioeconomic inequalities amongst its student body.

Minor Feelings are Major Feelings

Lahiri’s characters are complacent, not confrontational. Abiding, not rebellious. And emotionally stable, never unhinged. These characteristics perpetuate the notion that Asian-Americans are meant to blend in, be the “model minority,” not cause trouble, be apologetic, and passive – to sit in both pain and silence. We need to shift the way we tell, praise, and mass produce stories about Asian-Americans. We have to illuminate and give space for minor feelings—the feelings of abandonment and anger and confusion that result from internal and external worlds constantly in conflict.