Generation F

by Molly MacDermot

  And so it came to be, long after the family had been taken away on an emergency boat to some other place, long after the mother had cried and mourned and moaned for her house, for her many things—her home that she’d built and labored over and loved, all those photographs and irreplaceable objects that feel so permanent before you lose them. After the children had stopped crying and the mother had stopped blaming herself for something she could not have stopped, there existed a long night, a still night, a black sky with burning silver stars, and beneath the stars there was a great water, long and expansive, like an ocean, murky and deep. A submarine hung below the surface, examining the sunken row houses, a soft blip-blip coming from the great machine, and there was no light but from the moon and stars, and everything else in the world was silent.

  RAIBENA RAITA

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 1

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Stuyvesant High School

  BORN: Queens, NY

  LIVES: Queens, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Scholastic Art & Writing Awards: Honorable Mention and Silver Key

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: My time with Daryl has been amazing. I love just talking with her; we have talked about everything from Shah Rukh Khan to her job to our families. Over the past few months, she has really helped me grow as a writer as well, through free writes with story dice, taking time editing my pieces, and just talking about my ideas and the projects I want to work on. I always have a bunch of ideas bouncing around my mind and sometimes I don’t know how to put them into words, but bouncing ideas off Daryl always helps me clear things up.

  DARYL CHEN

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 1

  OCCUPATION: Ideas Editor, TED

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: Brooklyn, NY

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: From the first time I met Raibena and she told me what Harry Potter house she would be (Gryffindor is too predictable, so either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff), I knew we were a great match. Like many in Generation F, she is full of fiercely held opinions, and that, combined with her overflowing imagination, has made our writing sessions a joy. I never know what idea she will come up with next, and I cannot wait to find out.

  Lockdown

  RAIBENA RAITA

  Just like how the Vietnam War defined the ’60s and the Cold War defined the ’70s, terrorism defines our generation.

  On October 31, 2017, there was a terror attack in downtown Manhattan, on the West Side Highway bike path. On November 1, 2017, The New York Times published a front-page article by Benjamin Mueller, William K. Rashbaum, and Al Baker, with the subhead “‘Cowardly Act of Terror,’ Mayor Declares.” Mayor de Blasio classified it as an act of terror because of the supposed affiliation that attacker Sayfullo Saipov had with ISIS and, most important, because of the words he yelled out (“Allahu Akbar”) as he carried out the attack.

  I was there when this tragedy occurred, in art class at Stuyvesant High School. When a lockdown was first declared at 3:05 p.m., my classmates and I shrugged it off. We thought it was just a drill, so we continued with class. We were on the tenth floor, the farthest from the chaos occurring below us. We didn’t even realize there was anything wrong until, through the window in front of my desk, we saw the stretch of the West Side Highway covered with bright red and blue lights. My classmates and I immediately took out our phones, frantically surfing the Web to find out what had occurred right under our noses.

  For the next couple of hours, as we were stuck in our classrooms until the lockdown was lifted, my classmates and I looked up article after article and shared them among ourselves. There was a constant stream of new information. We read about how the attacker had slammed into a school bus and then pulled out two guns; later, those guns were found to be fake. The story kept changing and we kept researching, terrified, as the body count increased.

  At 5:00 p.m., the mayor and other city officials held a press conference concerning what had occurred two hours beforehand, and my class silently watched it, still unable to leave the building. I was passively listening, not entirely focused on the screen in front of me. Then a reporter asked, “Do we know if the attacker yelled out ‘Allahu Akbar’ or anything of the sort?” After the mayor confirmed he had, everything—the conversation and its tone, the way people viewed the situation and the perpetrator—shifted. The headlines of every article changed “shooter” or “deranged driver” to “terrorist,” and experts on CNN began exclaiming that this was a confirmed terrorist attack because of the phrase that had passed through the lips of the criminal.

  As I watched CNN after the press conference, the feeling of wanting to go home hit me hard. But I couldn’t. Instead I sat at my desk, silently crying, the Eid salwar kameez that I had worn as a princess costume for Halloween suddenly unbearably heavy. For me, this was a terrorist attack when I first found out about the atrocity. This was a terrorist attack as the death toll kept rising. This was a terrorist attack before I knew about Saipov’s affiliation with ISIS. For the media and the rest of the world, however, this wasn’t a terrorist attack until they knew that he yelled “Allahu Akbar.”

  Nowadays, while most people don’t believe every Muslim is a terrorist, it’s generally accepted that every terrorist is Muslim. That’s why the Las Vegas shooter who killed dozens of people was not called a terrorist and was instead called a “gunman”; he was a white Christian, not a brown Muslim. While both events were atrocities, calling one a “shooting” and the other a “terrorist attack” changes the dynamic of how we see the events. A shooting is tragic, but a terror attack is seen as something more personal—it is seen as an attack on your country.

  When people equate terrorists with Muslims, it allows them to discriminate against Muslims. This is why despicable policies such as the travel ban exist and why people support them. Our belief of who a “terrorist” is needs to change; when we resort to such terrible stereotypes, it separates us from one another.

  The lockdown was finally lifted around 7:00 p.m. Each floor was cleared and dismissed one by one; I was one of the last students to leave the building. I met up with Fariya, a sophomore and a family friend who lives near me, and her two friends, and we all went home together. When we were two-thirds of the way to the City Hall R/W train station, my mother called me back, having missed my three phone calls to her. I explained to her that I was out of the building with Fariya and her friends, and I was on my way to the train station. She asked me if the attacker was Muslim; I hesitated before answering affirmatively. “You three girls stick close and keep your heads down, okay? Be careful,” my mother instructed. This wasn’t the first time my mother had told me to do this, but it was one of the first times I agreed with her.

  How superiority is born

  DARYL CHEN

  My mentee and I have both been profoundly shaped—in different ways, of course—by being the children of immigrant parents. In this piece, I wanted to explore this heritage and touch on how I see Generation F responding to parental influence.

  Perhaps it starts with an offhand remark from your parents about how certain classmates of yours are “ordinary” or, even more damning, “average.” It’s only later that you realize all of those classmates are white.

  Week after week, they make comments about picky Jewish coworkers, lazy black store clerks, fat white diners, and so on. Since your parents speak to each other in Mandarin, these digs go unheard by the people they’re referring to, but you understand them. You don’t detect any prejudice or hate in their voices; instead, “Puerto Ricans are poor and loud” is said in much the same tone as “The sky is blue.” Their remarks are small and offhand, but like a single drop of water that keeps striking a stone, they wear you down.

  It’s not solely about race. “Housewife” is one of the worst words they use about a person—it means terminal idleness and lack of ambition. “Secretary,” you learn, is a few rungs up from “housewife”—it’s above “waitress” and “gossip,” but below “administrator” or “graduate s
tudent.”

  Occasionally you get confused about who’s winning. As your family piles into the station wagon after dinner with your parents’ friends and the seat belts click, your father and mother launch into how ill-behaved their children are and how carelessly the dishes were prepared. The friends are Chinese doctors, just like your parents, so you realize that even among the best people, there are gradations. Our family’s food is better than everyone else’s, you think in the back seat, with a glow of pride.

  As you grow up, you see the ignorance in your parents’ biases. You make friends with people of all kinds—from other races and backgrounds and even ones who didn’t go to college. You are a different person than your parents, you think. You are a better person.

  It takes years before you notice yourself listening to coworkers, friends, family members, with the unamused tolerance of a deity who is stuck living with mortals due to a twist of fate. It’s still more years before you step down from the throne.

  You envy the self-aware girls and women of Generation F—they let the remarks that you absorbed roll off them like water on ducks and they speak up when they need to. And you even start to think, Maybe they’re better than . . . before you stop.

  SARAH RAMIREZ

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 2

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Scholars’ Academy

  BORN: Long Island, NY

  LIVES: Queens, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Meringoff Family Scholarship recipient

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: In my second and final year at Girls Write Now, I’ve learned to savor every moment of mentor meetings and writing workshops. I’m extremely grateful when I think about the dedication of Girls Write Now staff and my mentor, Erica, who has helped me become a better writer and person. Erica is the person I trust most with my writing—writing I used to hide under my mattress. I’m inspired by the girls in various workshops who have shown me the importance of community and lifting one another up, helping me to see what we are capable of.

  ERICA SCHWIEGERSHAUSEN

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 2

  OCCUPATION: Adjunct Lecturer, Hunter College

  BORN: Harvard, MA

  LIVES: Brooklyn, NY

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: In our second year working together, Sarah and I allowed ourselves to loosen up a little. I’ve loved watching her continue to lean in to her strengths as a writer—especially her sense of humor! I’m inspired by her candor and vulnerability, and her willingness to confront challenging topics head-on. And I admire her ability to laugh at herself—which we find ourselves doing just about every week.

  An Anxious Child of God

  SARAH RAMIREZ

  Over the past year, I’ve become more aware of my anxiety and its control over my life. For me, writing about it was the first step to confronting it.

  I spend a lot of time being anxious about my own anxiety. So when my Sunday school teacher, Ruth, announced one day that we were going to talk about anxiety, I thought to myself, Finally.

  “What is everyone worried about?” Ruth asked the class.

  “College . . . where I’m going to end up,” one girl said.

  The person next to her nodded. “My future in general.” I agreed; I often feel nervous about the uncertainty of the future. Sometimes, I feel like I’m entwined with this anxiety, and I let it define my identity, because without it, I wouldn’t know who I am.

  My turn came. “How people perceive me?” I said, feeling unsure if I should be sharing something so personal. Immediately, I felt self-conscious. Ruth came up to me, put her hand on top of my head, and looked into my eyes. “Sarah, you are beautiful and intelligent, and I love you,” she said. My hands were trembling. I was touched, but my initial feelings of self-consciousness lingered.

  All the usual anxious thoughts rushed through my head. I shouldn’t have said that. Why did I say “perceive”? I could’ve just said “see.” Now I look pretentious and they’ll all think that I think I’m smarter than them. I should’ve given the same answer as everyone else, about the future, I mean, it still would’ve been true.

  “Anxiety is holding people in this very room back,” Ruth said, as if she had read my mind. I felt like her words were meant for me. Listening to her, I realized that all my life anxiety has held me back from attaining a full relationship with God—one where I can depend on him completely. My anxious thoughts have also held me back from seizing various opportunities, because fear of embarrassment and failure always overpowered anything else.

  I’ve been in the Christian church my whole life and I am surrounded by faith-filled people, not only in church, but in my family as well. I’ve seen the evidence of having a strong faith in my mother’s life. In 2008, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was supposed to undergo a double mastectomy. But when the surgeons scanned her one last time, the tumor had disappeared. In the face of this scary diagnosis, she put everything in God’s hands and was calm doing so. “My God is bigger than cancer,” she said confidently. Her faith was formidable. My faith is weak in comparison. It wavers when any hint of a problem comes my way. I want to be optimistic, but it’s hard to stop imagining possible worst-case scenarios. People oftentimes use the words “joy” and “optimism” to characterize me, from friends to supervisors and teachers. However, when dwelling on negativity, there is no sight of this beloved joy. It’s stolen from me, and I can’t see myself in this same light. I become unrecognizable.

  But since that day with Ruth in Sunday school, I’ve been working on it. I’ve found refuge and guidance in the Bible. Recently, I was reading the book of Romans when I came across these words: “Do not let sin control the way you live . . . Instead, give yourself completely to God . . . Sin is no longer your master.” I read the verses over and over again, replacing the word “sin” with “anxiety.” Suddenly, I could see the oppressive role of anxiety in my life. I’d made it into my master, too paralyzed by fear to stray away from it.

  These verses remind me that God is my true master who has come to liberate me from my anxiety. It’s comforting to know who I belong to—a sovereign God who has infinite power over anxiety and total authority over my future.

  I’m realizing that as a child of God, I must surrender the things I can’t control over to Him, having faith that He will take care of me. Instead of grounding my identity in anxiety, I’m grounding it in being a precious child under God’s perfect love.

  Be Safe

  ERICA SCHWIEGERSHAUSEN

  I was struck by the line in Sarah’s essay: “Sometimes, I feel like I’m entwined with this anxiety, and I let it define my identity.” Her writing inspired me to explore the roots of my own anxiety.

  After my brother died, I fixated on the fact that I hadn’t told him that I loved him. Had he known? I was five years old, and I convinced myself he was gone because I hadn’t adequately appreciated him.

  After he died, I started taking inventory of everything I was grateful for. At holidays and birthday parties, I counted my blessings in the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I told myself how lucky I was to be so happy, to be having so much fun, to get to eat cake and open presents and play games and have friends. Forcing myself to appreciate what I had felt like a protection against losing it. Even if it didn’t last forever, at least I would know that I hadn’t taken it for granted.

  I can’t hang up the phone with anyone in my family without saying “I love you.” Sometimes, it embarrasses me, but I need to say it. I need to say it in case.

  I am constantly imagining what might happen: car accidents, plane crashes, falling onto the subway tracks, illness. Before I go away for the weekend, I whisper to my boyfriend, “Be safe,” as if these words might allow me to control the uncontrollable.

  A therapist tells me this is an exhausting way to live, in a constant state of agitation and worry. I nod as she says this, imagining all the productive ways I might repurpose the mental energy spent anticipating catastrophe. But I’m oddly attached to my anxiety. I
know it’s not rational, but I imagine it as control—as a protection against the worst. I’m still scared of what might happen if I let go of it.

  PILAR REYES

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 1

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Baruch College Campus High School

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: New York, NY

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: I have lived in New York all my life, but I have never been as reliant on a subway map as I have this year—the subway map that I’ve hidden in my iBooks to avoid embarrassment. I must seek it out weekly; Amy, my mentor, and I meet at different cafés each week. Amy’s laptop always has at least twenty tabs open at any given time. She multitasks: schedules vacations, shops for her friend’s birthday gift, sends emails back and forth to her boss. Somehow, she fits me in to all of that. I couldn’t feel more special.

  AMY ZIMMERMAN

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 1

  OCCUPATION: Entertainment Reporter, The Daily Beast

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: New York, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Runner-up Los Angeles Press Club Award (Arts and Entertainment Feature); upcoming publication in Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction (Lyric Essay)

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: This year, questions of gendered power imbalances have dominated my writing, reading, and mentee meetings. During one particularly illuminating conversation, Pilar told me about instances of everyday sexism and harassment she had experienced, and how she came to terms with these incidents and the boys behind the toxic rhetoric. I’m so inspired by young women like Pilar, who have the intelligence and the framework to analyze these experiences, and the vision to imagine something better. Getting to know Pilar has put a face on the things that I am fighting for and given me a new friend to fight beside.