High up in the Ivory Tower
Hi APC! I’m Francesca, and I live on College Confidential. You laugh, but it’s true: the uncharted wilderness of this website is like when the ruthless contributors of Reddit meet a Wikipedia wormhole. Specifically, I find myself drawn to the terrifying, mesmerizing, and strangely addictive world of the Ivy Leagues. I am awed by how videos of Harvard acceptance letters go viral on YouTube, how celebrities pay small fortunes to ensure their childrens’ admission, and how those infamous single-digit acceptance rates haunt thousands of high schoolers every year. Now, let me first make a disclaimer. I neither love nor despise the Ivies; I’m just… fascinated by them. If the college…
Who I Learned to Be
What’s up, APC! My name is Chelsie Nacelus, a rising junior at Kent Place School, and I am thrilled to be a part of this amazingly inclusive family! I have been dancing since I was about nine years old, and despite how annoyed I was that one summer day to have to sign up for dance classes when my mom and I could have been devouring cold sundaes and comparing creamy mustaches, I am forever grateful to her and have loved doing it ever since. I’ll be the first to admit, however, that the road has not always been smooth. The late-night dance studio sessions where I learned to embrace…
The Cycle
Hey APC! I’m Isabella Calix and I am a staff writer for APC; I’m actually responsible for translating all the articles on APC to Spanish! I’m a first-year at Smith College, a women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts and I’m 17 years old. I hope to study public health, biology, sociology, and Latin American Studies in college (I’m undecided on majors). I’m a New Yorker and Latina. My ethnicities, more specifically, is Honduran and Italian. Writing is my favorite hobby. I grew up bilingual and speak both English and Spanish. I spent high school writing and translating my own pieces for my newspaper. Also, I am excited to translate more APC…
Across the Sea
Hi APC! My name is Ariella Delapena. Most of the time I just go by Ari. I’m 17 and Filipino. I’m Christian and I’m a military child, so obviously I move around often. With that being said, it’s kind of hard for me to explain where I’m from. I was born in Bremerton, Washington and soon after my family and I moved to Temecula, California. I stayed there for half of 3rd grade. For the rest of elementary school, I moved to San Diego, California. I spent my middle school years in Guam. Essentially, I really feel like I grew as a person on that island. Even though it was…
Whole
Hey ladies! It’s Brooke Solomon! Intersectionality is defined as the “complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect, especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups” (Merriam-Webster). It is a term recently coined by activist and lawyer Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw but its meaning and history are not new.The ideas surrounding intersectionality have existed for as long as social constructs have; however, I was first introduced to the term my freshman year of high school when my English class was reading Octavia Butler’s book Kindred and I was assigned to explore the elements of Black Feminism…
Melanin Mystique
Hi APC, my name is Dulanda Saintcyr! Although “Melanin Mystique” is a poem I wrote in the seventh grade, it is a piece that holds true to me today. It has taken me years to love, accept, and cherish my melanin. With this piece, I hope to inspire and encourage other Black women and girls to do the same. I am a melanin mystique. I live in my skin without fear of critique, for my skin glistens in the sun like an autumn leaf. I love my skin beyond belief. I am a melanin mystique. My skin can be as light as graham cracker crust to as dark as the…
Brown-skinned Girl
My name is Victoria Martinez, and I am a Mexican, female, pansexual, 21-year-old multidisciplinary artist. This piece titled “Cafe: El Color de la Tierra” is centered on the beauty of brown skin and femininity. It has become so important to me to show the world how beautiful brown skin is and how magical women are. For the majority of my youth, I struggled with self-hatred. The media and everyone around me made me believe that beauty was defined by white, European features. I hated my brown skin, my round nose, my puffy hair. Even within my own Mexican culture there was racism. Mexican’s themselves favored the “weritos”. (blonde/light-skinned person) There…
Rise
Hi! My name is Anna Miramontes. I’m a 21-year-old Afro Filipina, and a 4th-year college student at the University of California, Berkeley— go bears! My story and my identity are intricate and complicated, but that makes for a good story, right? My father was a black veteran in the marines that suffered from PTSD and my mother was a differently-abled Filipina woman that migrated to the United States in pursuit of the American dream like many others. I grew up in an abusive environment. My father was constantly letting out his frustrations on my mother through physical and verbal abuse. We never had a stable living situation because neither of…
Wordsmith
Hi APC! My name is Linda Sol and I am a 20-year-old rapper/poet, from Chicago. From the inner city to Stanford University, I have found a safe haven in the world of poetry. I’ve competed in many spoken poetry competitions such as Louder than a Bomb, where I was a finalist and CUPSI, where I made it to the finals twice. My art has always been inspired by my Puerto Rican identity, my family’s resilience, and my understanding of self-love and self-preservation. Naturally, my love for poetry and music birthed who I am today: a lyricist. In my short time as an emcee, I’ve had the blessing to open for…
Shredded
Hey APC! Today, we’ll be doing a little something different. Instead of an article, we are featuring an interview that Tyler Newman had with teen entrepreneur, Kacey Gleaton about her jeans business, Kacey Jordan Jeans. Read below for more! 1) What inspired you to create Kacey Jordan Jeans? I used to walk around school and get compliments on an old pair of thrifted jeans that I’d ripped up myself. Every time I walked around the halls in them, people would ask me where I got them. Once they‘d find out that I made the jeans, they would ask me to make them a pair. I’d always smile and laugh in…
Artistic Connection
Hey APC! I’m Christine Lee, and I am an incoming freshman at Harvard College. You may know me from my popular Youtube channel, Christine Lee! (Scroll down for Spanish Version) I’ve always been one to grab a pencil and paper and sketch whenever I felt the sudden urge to do so. I take after my grandmother in this sense, who had taken up painting and sketching after her retirement. One summer night in 2015, when my sister and I went camping with my grandparents in their RV, I woke up around midnight because I could not sleep and found my grandmother sketching under the dim lights of the cramped kitchen…
Brush Strokes
Hello APC! My name is Andrea Gonzales and I am a sophomore at the University of San Francisco, studying Business Marketing and Design. As a first-generation Filipina with strict (but loving) parents in the medical field, I’ve been told that art will always be “just a hobby.” Since my family members consistently reduced the importance of art to merely a “pastime,” I forced myself to believe that the medical field was meant for me and neglected my passion for art. Plagued by the idea that medicine was the only opportunity to be successful, I initially enrolled at the University of San Francisco as a nursing major. But as I finished…
