When news of the college admissions scandal broke earlier this year, with celebrities like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Hoffman at its center, the primary reaction was visceral outrage. When details surrounding its circumstances began spreading like wildfire–half-a-million-dollar bribes, photoshopped pictures, cheating on exams and an essentially methodical conspiracy–people took to media outlets, blogs and social networks to express their feelings of undiluted anger and personal experiences.

The #Collegeadmissionsscandal illuminates the inequities at play in our college admissions system AND in a higher education system that has privileged wealthy and well-connected applicants over low-income and working class families for FAR TOO LONG.

— Michelle Asha Cooper (@MACooperPhD) March 13, 2019

Why are ppl paying $$$ for their kids to go to school? If you have the means to pay $500k in bribes…how about using that to nurture & support their PASSIONS? Help them start a business or teach them CHEATING and BRIBERY are bad. Let’s start there?? #collegeadmissionsscandal

— Arya Forreal (@AryaForreal) March 13, 2019

https://twitter.com/zyzhashi/status/1105701345460281349

Here’s my grandfather’s application to @UHouston. His father was a blacksmith and had little money. Carlos wasn’t allowed into other colleges because he was Mexican American. He was also a WWII vet #collegeadmissionsscandal (1 of 4) pic.twitter.com/F7pbl6f3la

— Russell Contreras (@RussContreras) March 13, 2019

Stop telling us we can do ANYthing if we “work hard.” Systemetic oppression and privilege are REAL. Affirmative action is looked down on while the mediocre yet elite literally buy their way in #collegescam #collegeadmissionsscandal #AdmissionsScam

— Cris (@pastinapickles) March 12, 2019

For me, I was reminded of the seventh grade when my class was selected to take part in an activity called “mock trial.”

It was a welcome break in the monotony of our day-to-day life at the middle school I attended in the Southeast Bronx, at which any day a full class period wasn’t dedicated to punishment for the umpteenth lunchroom fistfight or lecturing us for excessive impudence was a day wasted.

During the mock trial, students received a template of a committed crime. The class was then divided into a prosecution team, witnesses and a full-blown jury. The goal of the experience was to engage students in learning about the process of a real trial, straying from the televised representations depicted in “Law and Order: SVU” reruns or “Judge Judy” episodes.

Over the course of several months, real-life attorneys would visit our classrooms to coach us through the exercise. We were set to compete against another school in a simulated trial at the Bronx County Courthouse. The more we practiced, the more determined and confident my class became in our ability to knock out the competition.

When the day finally rolled around, we were pumped and ready to win. Dressed to the nines and constantly glancing at our transcripts to double-check our memorized lines, I vividly remember screeching to a halt when we came face-to-face with our competitors.

These students hailed from a private Catholic school on the Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York City. They came prepared with a handful of their attorney parents, who sat in the rows of benches behind them, whispering tips and tricks into their ears. They were all white.

[Read Related: Sun Tans and Dark Skin: Unpacking White Privilege]

Who were we? Twenty-something students of color from one of the poorest districts in the Bronx, coming from a public school notorious for being overcrowded and underfunded. And not a single parent could afford to miss work to attend with us.

In spite of all of our preparation, this was an occasion where we simply didn’t stand a chance. We were doomed, and the trial hadn’t even begun.

A Leg Up

A few months ago, Kylie Jenner was named the world’s youngest self-made billionaire by Forbes—much to the chagrin of the internet. Aspersions regarding whether she “deserved” the title aside, the announcement sparked an interesting debate on the concept of merit.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlFtWmIh_1V/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

What constitutes “merit?” How can we decide for ourselves who truly deserves something when the factors that determine the climb towards success are so nuanced? Is it always about money?

My opinion on the matter is that, despite all of Jenner’s advantages and opportunities, she still chose to make something of them rather than ignoring them or throwing them all away. There are plenty of young celebrities who haven’t had the business prowess or vision to create an empire out of their fortunate circumstances, but Jenner saw her chance and leveraged her resources.

[Read Related: Founder of the Just Drive App Neha Husein on Being a College Entrepreneur]

A much more common example, many of us are attempting to work our way towards the most tried-and-true path to success: securing admissions to top tier universities. For those of us who don’t have the benefit of a “leg-up” by way of parental influence and wealth, education is usually the most effective way to gain that coveted success.

For many people like myself, there has only ever been one route to achieve our ambitions. Nobody told us about the backdoor option because it was never meant for us—which is perhaps why the element of surprise was missing from the overwhelming outrage over the recent college admissions scandal.

The scale of the operation was certainly jaw-dropping. Apart from Loughlin and Hoffman, many other well-connected, wealthy parents were found guilty of conspiring to cheat their way into gaining admission into these top-ranking schools for their children.

However, was the fact that such manipulation of the process occurs truly shocking? Not so much. We’ve witnessed it in its many forms, of course–think legacy admissions, donations, networking connections. Make no mistake, the casual “my parent knows someone who knows someone” method was never a secret. It was simply a widely-accepted fact because, somewhere along the way, we all figured that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

How the Other 99 Percent Live

I was fortunate enough to later attend a prestigious high school in New York City. However, dragging my lackluster middle school education over to an institution where many of my fellow peers were alumni of the same kind of schools that I faced against in my seventh-grade mock trial forced me to play catch-up for a long time. It took years to come to terms with the fact that all students start at a level playing field was just a myth.

When I was applying to universities, my resources were limited. I lacked much of the general information that was common knowledge to my peers—which schools to apply to, the best ways to get financial aid, which universities were a “reach.” My strongest proponent was my older sister, five years my senior who had undergone the application process with even less support than I had as my parents were completely unfamiliar with FAFSA, the Common App or the HEOP/EOP programs. Hell, I even qualified for a waiver to dismiss the fee required to take the SATs.

My point here is not to gain sympathy but to juxtapose my middle school education and my senior year of high school with the college admissions scandal and the experiences of the Olivia Jade Giannullis of the world and make it loud and clear, if it wasn’t apparent already, as the famous “Malcolm in the Middle” theme goes, that “life is unfair.”

By Tania Rahman

Bangladeshi born but bred in the Bronx (whoa alliteration), Tania is just another (particularly tasty) lentil in the melting pot … Read more ›

Photo Courtesy of Varsha Panikar

“After so Long” is a poetry film created for Simha’s EP, which is streaming on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. The poem was collaboratively written by Simha, a U.S. native, and Jae, who is based in India, during the 2020 lockdown. “After so Long” was recited by Simha and their parents. In 2022, I directed and produced the film through my studio, Star Hopper. “After so Long” premiered on Nowness Asia in March 2022.

By Varsha Panikar

Varsha Panikar (they/he) is a filmmaker, writer and multi-disciplinary artist from India. They are the co-founder of Star Hopper, a … Read more ›

 I grew up in a household of strong Trinidadian women. I wanted to write about strong Trinidadian women, the roles they play, their histories and their backgrounds. — Sophie Jai  

“Wild Fires” by Sophie Jai is a story about one Trinidadian family’s journey through grief, identity and memory. Jai’s debut novel takes readers on a journey of a past Trinidad and present-day Canada. 

 

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In conversation with Jai, we talk about Caribbean stories, the psychology of a house and what makes a family. The following answers have been abridged and edited for clarity and concision.

[Read Related: Author Kirtie Persaud on Representation for Indo Caribbean Girls, Motherhood and Balance ]

 What inspired you to write “Wild Fires?”

I first started writing it for submission to a competition with the Borough Press. I wasn’t sure what story I wanted to write because I felt obligated to write certain stories or write in a certain style. I pretty much got fed up and started questioning myself. When I put pen to paper and got serious, the story that came out was a story of grief not necessarily specific to my life. I knew I wanted it to be about a family going through grief for decades, and how grief can arrest and impact the family structure.

When you first started writing, which part of the story came out?

It was the very first chapter. The first three chapters of the book came naturally. What you read in the book is untouched from the first draft that I submitted. I knew it was about a family that was going through grief. I knew I wanted it to take place between Trinidad and Toronto because I was born and raised in Trinidad and lived in Toronto. I wanted that sort of cross-generational mixture of family in the book as well – to see how each generation dealt with grief.

Did you always want to be a writer?

I don’t think I knew. It’s just one of those things that you think is impossible, so there’s no point dreaming about it. But when I was a young girl in Trinidad, I imagined myself carrying a leather briefcase and I don’t know why, but I knew I was going somewhere important, and I had something important to do. I always loved writing, but the truth is people get in the way and they dissuade you. It’s all around you – that the arts is not a viable career and if you pursue it, you have a 95% chance of failure. But after working 10 office jobs in three years, I’m like, ‘I’m not happy,’ so this is actually the failure. I knew I needed change.

How do you navigate the space of being told that art is not a viable career, especially in the Indo Caribbean community?

Those challenges were around me all the time. It wasn’t even my family, but it even comes from friends and acquaintances. When you’re young, being an artist is hard, and you’re told there’s no point in doing it. I listened to people who said that, and got office jobs and did what everyone else was doing because apparently, that was the way to be happy. Five years passed by and I realized I wasn’t happy and I should have never listened to those people. I started writing. I started doing something that made me happy and treated it as a serious craft. I did not treat it as a hobby, but as something that was going to pave my path. I really worked in a tunneled vision. So I never told anybody what I was doing – I didn’t want to be dissuaded. I had to be my own champion. I know that doesn’t sound healthy, but back in 2012, I didn’t know about community. 

Cassandra, the main character is a writer, like yourself. How much of Cassandra’s story is your story?

My family is very supportive of my writing and it took some time for them to get there. Like many families, they kind of saw it as a hobby. Once they saw that I got published, they took it more seriously. Now, they are supportive of my writing and I think in the book, Cassandra’s family is not that supportive. They just weren’t interested in her writing, which is why she didn’t talk about it. It is a little bit reflective of my own experience. 

 

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Is the rest of the book based on a true story?

It wasn’t based on a true story. That is something I get asked often – a lot of people say ‘she’s Trinidad and you’re Trinidadian.’ The places I wrote about are from my memory, but the plot itself is fiction. I wanted to challenge myself to write something truly fictional. I grew up in a household of strong Trinidadian women. I wanted to write about strong Trinidadian women, the roles they play, their histories and their backgrounds. The characters aren’t necessarily based on anyone particular in my  life. Overall, it was a joy to imagine and write it because each one of these characters are very different from the other.

The novel has nine major female characters and at most three major male characters. Why did you want to tell a female-driven story?

I grew up in a family of predominantly women, and most of my Caribbean friends also grew up in families of predominantly women. They really are, in my experience, our caretakers. For me, my family and my friends, our mothers are our worlds – we love and admire them. Family is their priority; raising their children is their priority. I wanted to write about Trinidadian women because I wanted to tell each of their stories. I want more Indo Caribbean and Caribbean women in fiction. I think anything that I write will always be about Caribbean women. I want to contribute to that field of literature. I have such enormous respect for them; all the sacrifices that they’ve gone through to bring their kids to new countries – some of them single moms. There’s nothing else I really want to write about, to be honest.

One of the other things I noticed was keen attention to the setting. How many of these precise details came from your own life, if any of them?

For Trinidad, a lot of it is based on my memory of the island and my home there. But I did have to turn to my family for specific details that I thought I may have imagined. Because I grew up mostly in Toronto. I was insecure about writing about Trinidad, so I went back to my mom and my family, who lived there for over 40 years. In terms of the house in Toronto, some of that is from my experience and some from imagination. I’ve written and talked about this book before, “The Poetics of Space” by Gaston Bachelard, which examines the psychology of houses. I tried to construct a house that would accommodate the psychology of the characters. If the house seems very detailed, it’s because I made it so, to accommodate certain secrets and people’s personalities.

Why explore the psychology of a house?

It’s not an original thought, but I think the way space is organized around us, or the way we organize ourselves in a space dictates physical behavior. If you’re in a wide open space and you don’t know anyone, that can seem intimidating. If you’re in a closed space, that can also seem intimidating. I tried to organize the space to give each character privacy from the other, but then once they were in a common room, it really changed the dynamics of their interactions.

What makes a family?

I think people who have been through challenges with you for years make a family. That’s not even a blood thing – I have friends that are like family because we’ve been through things together over decades. It’s people you’ve experienced highs and lows with, but managed to stick with throughout the years. But ‘family’ can also be people who you haven’t talked to for years, who you’ve had a fragmented relationship with. For those sorts of relationships, it can be an unhealthy loyalty or a wondering of what could have been.

The book doesn’t have a happily-ever-after ending. Why?

Not ending the story in a neat little package was very important to me. I think there’s a certain expectation in storytelling by readers that a story needs a conclusion. And, to me, this is not what actually happens in the real world. The reasons people read a book are different – some people are reading for escapism, others are to better understand cultures and other people – so it depends on the reader and what they’re looking for. In literary fiction, readers are more open to an inconclusive ending because literary fiction can take things to a darker, more serious place than other genres. If I wrapped up the story with a nice little bow, it would be untrue to what this family has gone through. I wanted to show how unsolved issues can pan out. I didn’t want to take the story from a sad beginning to a happy ending. Not all stories end happily.

 

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What do you want readers to take away from “Wild Fires?”

I set out to write a story that had a universal theme. I wanted to feature a somewhat normal story with Caribbean characters. It wasn’t centered around race or indentureship because a lot of the Indo Caribbean literature that I’ve read has been – and rightly so. That’s where I learned about our history and our stories. But that was not a story that I wanted to tell first because it was not the story that was closest to my heart. When I started writing, I realized the story was really about grief. I wanted to show Caribbean women and Indo Trinidadian women, in a universal light. We are a result of  these histories yet go through normal things like grief, secrets and family dysfunction.

Following the publication of “Wild Fires,” Jai is pursuing her Master’s at Oxford University as a Kellogg’s Scholar. While attending school, she’s looking to write a short story about Caribbean joy to contrast the dark themes of her debut novel and portray Caribbean women in unrepresented ways.  

“Wild Fires” is available in Canada and the UK and will be available in the U.S. in Spring 2023.

Featured Image Courtesy: Sophie Jai

By Usha Sookai

Usha Sookai is an undergraduate student at New York University, studying Journalism and Social and Cultural Analysis. With a passion … Read more ›

Photo by IndianFaces via Shutterstock.com

I organize play dates for my children. They’re friendships remind me of when I was younger when Fridays were consistently set aside for my friends. Now, it seems play is indeed meant for childhood and work is for aging adults. We often can’t find time for ourselves, let alone our friends, who are busy working mothers like ourselves. Or we moved into unreachable corners of this globe, far away from any means of physical communication. It’s fair to say, it’s hard to stay close to friends like when we were in college. Nowadays, it’s easier to travel, but more difficult to bond with others. “My Friend” asserts that we should not end let our friendships fall by the wayside. Even with physical distance and conflicting schedules, we keep our friendships close with kind words on phone calls, regular FaceTime calls, or even encouraging social media comments. Friendship doesn’t end once we become adults.

[Read Related: Connecting my Stories With Those of my mom and Grandma]

My Friend

The turbulent sea of a ticking clock,
A constant chime of chores
Unfolded laundry, unpaid bills.
For unplanned surprises, Life’s infinite stores

An achy neck, a heavy head,
A forever strong of burdens
Fleeting as they may be
Yet as real as my scribbling pens

In this world of lonely battles
Filled with competing souls
It’s you, my friend
Your comforting words, long strolls

Your phone calls, your laughter,
You listening when I’m remiss,
Your steady support,
The source of all my bliss.

[Read Related: 4 Brown Girls Who Write-U.K. Asian Sisterhood Changing the Dynamics of Poetry]

The opinions expressed by the guest writer/blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any employee thereof. Brown Girl Magazine is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest writer/bloggers. This work is the opinion of the blogger. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.

By Mars D. Gill

Mars D. Gill is the author of "House of Milk and Cheese" and "Letters from the Queen". She writes mainstream … Read more ›