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Is Christo's Latest Masterpiece A Major Waste Of Money?

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Christo's latest piece, called "The Floating Piers," invites visitors to walk on water -- or at least on 200,000 polyethylene cubes covered in 100,000 square meters of shimmering, saffron-colored fabric floating on said water.


At no cost, the public can traverse Italy's Lake Iseo on foot via a glimmering, golden quilt, walking between the Italian mainland to two small islands, Monte Isola and San Paolo. The work, 40 years in the making, is a triumph of the creative imagination, offering viewers an admittedly useless but utterly enchanting aesthetic experience for free. 


Some, however, are wondering just how much a magical experience is worth these days. According to Art Daily, Italian consumer group Codacons announced it would file a complaint today with the Lombardy region's spending watchdog to investigate the cost of the installation.


Part of Christo's mission as an artist is to make all of his large-scale installation work free and accessible to all, with "The Floating Piers" open at no cost, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Codacons takes issue less with the $16.8 million budget of the work itself, which Christo funded through selling his own original works, but the more unexpected costs resulting from the piece's wild popularity. 



Last week, for example, over 3,000 people were left stranded at a train station in the nearby Italian city of Brescia while attempting to visit the massively overcrowded piece. Codacons claims the costs resulting from evacuating the tourists, cleaning up after the visitors and ensuring the safety of everyone involved are unsustainable. The group questions, furthermore, how such a project was greenlighted in the first place. 


"We want to know how much taxpayers' money has been spent on a project which, until now, seems to have generated enormous publicity for the artist without bringing direct benefits to local entities and citizens," Codacons said in a statement.


Of course, this complaint is only heightening the already overwhelming attention "The Floating Piers" will receive, as thousands continue to flock to the destination that promises to let you experience magic for a single day. You may also experience extreme overcrowding, long lines, pushing, frustration, and potential abandonment at your local train station, but that's the price you pay when the actual price is free.


The piece opened to the public on Saturday, June 18, and will exist until July 3, 2016.


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Nigerian In China: Why Are People Here So Racist Towards Black People?

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Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden are the duo behind the China Africa Project and hosts of the popular China in Africa Podcast. We're here to answer your most pressing, puzzling, even politically incorrect questions, about all things related to the Chinese in Africa and Africans in China.


China's engagement in Africa is a distinctly 21st century phenomenon and, as such, is still poorly understood by most people, most notably among Chinese and Africans themselves who are still getting to know one another. In that spirit, we've started this new column as a way to help spark dialogue and cross-cultural communication in order to explore this fascinating, complex relationship.


In many instances, people are either too shy or embarrassed to publicly ask that question that could be misconstrued as insensitive or politically incorrect. In an issue like this that touches on questions of race, power and culture, things can get messy real fast. Instead, we'll take each question seriously, and with the benefit of our backgrounds in China-Africa journalism and academic scholarship, we'll do our best to give you a thoughtful, well-reasoned response.


So let's get started...



Hey Guys: why are Chinese people so racist towards black people? I mean really. I am from Nigeria and I have lived in Guangzhou for 6 months already and I can tell you that a lot of people here really don’t like black people. What %$^&#* me off so much is that there are so many more Chinese people who live in my country and yet they don’t get hassled anywhere near as much as we do in China! Why?



-- Sent from Guangzhou via email


 * * *        


Yeah, you’re totally right to be upset because it sucks big time to be on the receiving end of any kind of discrimination, racism or prejudice. So we get that. Before I go any further, though, I also want to point out that none of my explanations here are intended to justify people being jerks and their bad behavior. However, there is a context here that may be helpful to shed some light on why some Chinese people seemingly respond negatively to blacks, whites and people of other ethnicities (yes, it’s not just a black thing).



The Chinese will take every opportunity they can find to talk about their 5,000 years of history and that theirs is the longest continuous civilization on Earth (which is pretty impressive). For all of that history, including the present, China has been almost exclusively a mono-ethnic culture that is basically ethnic Han Chinese. Moreover, throughout Chinese history there has been a strong belief that they are superior to all other countries and people. As you may already know, the word "China" in Chinese is pronounced "zhong guo," which literally means “Middle Kingdom, or in plain English, "The Center of the Universe."


So combine the fact that there has long been a sense of cultural superiority that is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture mixed with the fact that the vast majority of Chinese people you meet on the streets of Guangzhou have probably never interacted with someone of another race or ethnicity and, well, you have all you need for a lot of cultural misunderstanding.








But wait, there’s more…


When I worked at a radio station in Hong Kong way back in the day (really really way back in the day in 1990), a young student intern in the company would often quiz me about life in the U.S.. Not surprisingly, it didn't take long for our discussions to turn to the issue of race. For someone who's grown up largely around Chinese people, she was particularly intrigued about what it was like to live in a more racially diverse country. Interestingly, though, when I turned the question around and asked about her views on black people in particular, she became much more animated.


She told me straight up that when she sees a black person on the street she crosses the street in fear. Wait what?!


Curious about what in the world could provoke such mortal fear, I had to find out what she was so afraid of:
 
“Have you ever met a black person?” I asked. "No," she answered without hesitation.
 
“Have you ever even spoken to a black person?” Again, without any reservation, she said, “no.”




The vast majority of Chinese people you meet on the streets of Guangzhou have probably never interacted with someone of another race or ethnicity.




“So let me get this straight,” I followed up feeling a bit agitated over the stunning level of ignorance, “you’ve never met or even talked with a black person but yet you are so afraid that they might hurt you that you cross the street to get away? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
 
She then went on to explain that the only black people she has ever seen are in Hollywood movies and in almost every movie the black person is the violent, bloodthirsty bad guy who hurts people. “So I know what I see from the movies and I just don’t want to take any chances,” she explained with that “duh” look at me as if I was the idiot!
 
That night I went to a movie theater to try and see the world not as an American who grew up in a multicultural environment but someone who is ethnic Chinese. I saw the Sylvester Stallone movie “Cliffhanger” (totally dating myself here, I know) and sure enough guess who was the bad guy who tried to kill the white movie superstar? Yup, the main black character! Not only that, he had blood dripping from his teeth and depicted to be not only violent but immoral, and since that was the ONLY black character in the film, it highlights just how racist American films have been and continue to be today in their depictions of black and brown people.






So to wrap this all up, sure, there are racist jerks in China just as there are everywhere. However, a lot of these people are struggling themselves to live in a suddenly new multicultural environment that challenges a lot of what they have learned from their own culture on top of the fact that a lot of the messaging about black people they consume from Hollywood and elsewhere contributes to their ignorant attitudes.
 
As China engages the world and more of the world comes to China, a lot of these views will likely begin to change. It will take time… so in the meantime, the best thing I can tell you is hang in there and good luck!


-- Eric


Ask Eric & Cobus at questions@chinaafricaproject.com. Subscribe to their weekly email newsletter at www.chinaafricaproject.com and subscribe to their weekly audio podcast at www.itunes.com/ChinaAfricaProject or from your favorite podcast app.


Also on WorldPost:






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12 LGBTQ Artists Reflect On What Pride Means To Them

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As the month of June comes to a close, it's a better time than ever to ask: What does Pride mean to you? 


In honor of the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, which took place almost five decades ago, parades and gatherings across the U.S. celebrated the importance of Pride this month. To continue the commemoration, we asked 12 artists who've explored LGBTQ issues in their work to reflect on what Pride means to them. From South African photographer Zanele Muholi to Canadian performance artist Cassils to First Nations artist Kent Monkman, each submitted a statement and a piece of art that represents what it means to be proud. 


In the wake of the Orlando tragedy -- the largest mass shooting in American history -- these words are meant to inspire, educate and spread love. Because as Vivek Shraya wrote, "Queerness is a gift."


Vivek Shraya




As a trans bisexual person of color, Pride has historically been a complicated time for me, navigating various identities that are often invisibilized by gay spaces.


Since the Orlando shooting, I have been thinking about how Pride for queer and trans people must be tied to vigilance -- we must hold fast to each other and to the work of continuing to push against misogyny, racism and homophobia. 


Queerness is a gift.



See more from Vivek Shraya here.


Zanele Muholi




Pride means being emancipated with all one's senses without fear of being persecuted, executed or violated because of your gender expression or sexuality.



See more from Zanele Muholi here.


Caroline Chandler




When one lives in a society in which the cultural mythology does not include them, it is extremely important to create a safe space for one to exist, commune, celebrate and thrive especially in the face of stigmatization and systemic erasure. Pride is one of the many platforms that exists to foster community, celebration, and historical legacy in the LGBTQ community. However, we have a long way to go. Aside from stricter gun laws to protect everyone and continuing to fight for LGBTQ rights legally, love, acceptance, and visibility is the agency we all need to live happy and fulfilled lives. 



See more from Caroline Chandler here.


Alma Lopez and Alicia Gaspar de Alba




Orlando: A Haiku Trilogy
(for the victims, with love)


No towers collapsed
that night, but hate cut
cold the dance, their lives.


No crime, no gun, no
tragedy can still our pride --
the rainbow rises.


We know they dance still
among stars and memories,
the moon gives them wings.


Alicia Gaspar de Alba © 2016



See more from Alma Lopez here.


Xandra Ibarra aka La Chica Boom




Pride es el orgullo that you walk around with in the face of violence, surveillance and invisibility ... not just during the month of June but always. It’s an exhausting effort, but we nonetheless live in this place of work even when change is not evident. 


[Ibarra noted that "orgullo" is "pride translated into Spanish. It has a bit of a different connotation ... meaning valorization, courage."]



See more from Xandra Ibarra here.


Brendan Fernandes




In the aftermath of Orlando, we celebrate our Queer desires and claim and reclaim our Queer lives. As we embark on Pride celebrations, I think hard on what these events have meant to me in the past, and what they mean to me now.


Pride is and always will be proof of and insistence on Queer freedom. Pride is a collaborative and generous space, where one can be who one wants and needs to be, and live out one’s Queer desires. It is also a form of loving recognition of the past, an acknowledgment of the pioneers who fought for our civil rights so that we can live openly today, and an affirmation of the value of those we love who have died. Pride means being different and loving rather than fearing that difference.  



See more from Brendan Fernandes here.


Gabriel Garcia Román




When people hate, point and stare but you stare back with your head held high. Pride shouldn't be just once a year, it should be your way of life.



 See more from Gabriel Garcia Román here.

Kent Monkman




Pride to me is about celebrating our diversity, and as a Cree person, I’m proud of the fact that North American indigenous communities traditionally had acceptance of sexual diversity. I created my alter ego Miss Chief to bring awareness of this to the widest audience possible through my art.


European settler cultures did not understand or respect the third gender -- a male or female who lived in the opposite gender in our communities. Native American sexuality stood apart from the European binary of two genders, male and female, so the colonial powers of church and state took efforts to repress alternate sexualities. Our cultures as a whole suffered tremendously through these policies of cultural genocide. I’m proud that we are finding respect and acceptance for two spirit people in our own communities as we heal from generations of these devastating colonial policies. As LGBT communities like Orlando are still targets of hate and violence, I hope that this message of acceptance and respect will reach every part of North American society as it continues to struggle for acceptance of LGBT people.  



See more of Kent Monkman here.


Cassils and Julia Steinmetz






The Sound of Everynight Life by Julia Steinmetz (above video by Cassils)


“Magnificent against the monotonous repetition of everyday oppressions, dance incites rebellions of everynight life.” -Celeste Fraser Delgado and José Esteban Muñoz, Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America


Every time there is a mass shooting, it upends our sense of safety and danger. It is disorienting; we can no longer trust our senses. We depend on our brains to make sense of sound, to interpret it instantaneously and tell us what it is indexing. In a nightclub pulsing with music and sweat and heart beats, elevated by dancing to match the beats per minute of the music, we are listening for desire and sociality and escape.


The sound of gunshots can’t be heard in this space -- they register instead as the popping of balloons, opening champagne bottles, or setting off fireworks. In an inversion of the hyper-vigilance characteristic of PTSD, in which ordinary sights and sounds are falsely interpreted as a threat, the queer of color nightclub invites a welcome illusion of protection from racism, gay bashing, transphobia, and police violence.


The pulse of 49 Latinx queers was stopped short; the hearts of extended brown and queer families have skipped a collective beat. In the wake of this horrific event, it is crucial to remember that the intrusion of terror and danger into zones of presumed or hoped-for safety is not exceptional. For many queer and trans people, the presence of trauma, violence, and loss in familiar sites is nothing new. For queer and trans people of color, this inversion of the terms of safety and danger permeates the everyday: in quotidian homophobia and racism, in encounters with the police, in the far-reaching legacies of colonialism and slavery. Nightlife has always been precarious, whether from the threat of police raids or gay bashers or of HIV/AIDS. On top of that, add the ordinary scenes of violence that all of us are susceptible to: intimate partner violence, sexual assault. Queers aren't exempt from finding precarity in our most intimate relationships: sometimes home is the most dangerous place of all.


In the face of all this vulnerability, we have become accustomed to performances of security: guards posted at the entrance to schools, the hyper-securitized space of the airport, the bouncer gatekeeping at the club. Unsurprisingly, the events in Orlando were met immediately with performances of national security from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump alike, both poised to drum up Islamophobia and blame ISIS while bulldozing over the complex issues of racism, homophobia, and precarious masculinity that motivated the shooting. San Francisco ramped up police presence at Pride, prompting Black Lives Matter to drop out as Grand Marshall of the event in protest. The NYPD issued new police vehicles emblazoned with rainbows just as President Obama declares Stonewall a national monument. The U.S. Military announced its acceptance of trans soldiers in the week following the shooting, deploying a mediatized connection between trans embodiment and militarization. In moments of instability and perceived threat, there is a powerful impulse to clarify the boundaries between friend and enemy, us and them, but who exactly is the “we” that is invoked when speaking of the LGBTQ community? How do we make sense of our relationship to Omar Mateen, the shooter who may or may not have been a regular at Pulse and hooked up with men he met on Jack’d? The Orlando massacre and the politics at play in its aftermath lay bare a number of complex formations of identity, exclusion, and belonging: communities of Latinx queers and, in particular, Puerto Rican queers are suddenly the face of LGBT struggle. This in stark contrast to the usual evacuation of brownness from LGBTQ representation that even managed to displace legendary Puerto Rican trans activist Sylvia Rivera from her rightful place at the center of the Stonewall rebellion alongside Marsha P. Johnson.


The dance hall has always been a site of resistance forged through sweat, bodies and souls entangled for the night by a shared rhythm, glistening in the temporary suspension of the everyday. Delgado and Muñoz recount the history of el Palacio de la Alegría, the Palace of Happiness, a popular Latin dance club in 1950s Brooklyn that later became the home of the Puerto Rican Voters Association. The Latin nightclub literally becomes the space of Rican political affiliation; political movement is staged on the dance floor. What politics will emerge from the bloodied floors and punctured walls of Pulse, from the dreams and desires of Latin night at the gay bar? How will bodily endurance through intensity and duration, what scholar Sandra Ruiz posits as the core of Ricanness, give way to “apprehension, longing, love, and pleasure”? In the glow of utopian leanings, senses tilted toward the horizon of the not-yet- queer, another possible world is superimposed on the present. This attunement toward the potential of a better world has the power to create another reality, to become the scene of a passionate and complex politics.



See more from Cassils here.


Nicki Green




To me, pride means visibility. It means seeing my communities out in the world and celebrating our visible, beautiful queer bodies. This time of year, I try to remind myself more than ever of the bricks and molotov cocktails and cups thrown in the name of gay liberation. The queer elders, the trans women of color who fought so hard for their lives and for ours. I was talking to a friend the other day who told me he was at the first SF Pride March ("a march, not a parade” he said.) We stand of some fierce queer shoulders. Let’s not forget how we got here! 



See more from Nicki Green here.

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Making A Book Terrarium Is Easier Than You Think

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Bloody Mural Depicting Refugees' Plight Upsets Berliners

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This article originally appeared on artnet News.




A mural by Spanish artist Gonzalo Borondo on display in the Tegel neighborhood of north Berlin, Germany, is raising concern amongst Berliners, especially ones involved in the life and politics of this area.


The mural is painted on the side of a large building as a diptych. One side depicts a young girl in a blood-stained nightgown leaning against a wall that connects to a bloody floor. The other side shows a man pierced by multiple arrows standing in snow-covered forest. According to a spokesman for Gewobag, the housing association that commissioned the work, the mural is supposed to be a commentary on the refugee crisis.


Every year hundreds of tourists flock the city on tours designed to experience Berlin's walls teeming with artwork and political statements. However, this particular mural has hit a sour note, as various Berliners have criticized the larger-than-life painting for being too gruesome.




Mothers around the Tegel neighborhood have expressed concern that the mural is upsetting for younger children and the mural's relationship with death has raised anxieties that it might be inappropriately placed, since several people have committed suicide from the neighboring building.


In addition, a refugee home will open shortly in this area, and there is fear that these images may force the people moving into the home to recall the very events they are trying to escape.


Though Berliners in the Tegel neighborhood are creating petitions to have Borondo's mural removed, the Gewobag spokesman sustains that the mural offers hope, as the man pierced by arrows continues to stand strong despite his injuries, the Local reports.

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Lena Dunham Slams Kanye West's 'Disturbing' 'Famous' Video

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Lena Dunham is not impressed with Kanye West's "Famous" music video, which features a likeness of Taylor Swift lying in a bed with other celebrities. 


In a post on her Facebook page, Dunham expressed how -- despite her interest in Kanye West and appreciation of Kim Kardashian -- West's latest artistic endeavor is not OK in her book.


"I know that there's a hipper or cooler reaction to have than the one I'm currently having," she wrote. "But guess what? I don't have a hip cool reaction, because seeing a woman I love like Taylor Swift (fuck that one hurt to look at, I couldn't look), a woman I admire like Rihanna or Anna, reduced to a pair of waxy breasts made by some special effects guy in the Valley."


The video, which is inspired by realist painter Vincent Desiderio’s 2012 mural “Sleep,” premiered Friday and starred the nude (maybe real, maybe wax) President George W. Bush, Anna Wintour, Donald Trump, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlyn Jenner, Bill Cosby and Swift. (Of course, Swift's name also appears in the lyrics of the song when he raps, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that bitch famous.")  



Dunham, a friend of Swift, described how the short film was "disturbing" to her. 



... It makes me feel sad and unsafe and worried for the teenage girls who watch this and may not understand that grainy roving camera as the stuff of snuff films. I hesitated a lot about saying anything cuz I figured the think pieces would come pouring in. But I didn't see this angle being explored as much as I had hoped. It's weird to feel like you're watching alone. I bet I'm not.



Read the message in its entirety below.




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New York's Stonewall Inn Becomes National Monument To LGBT Rights

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History was made once again at New York's Stonewall Inn on Monday, when the popular gay bar was officially designated as a national monument to LGBT rights. 


The June 27 ceremony drew New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, among others, to the iconic tavern, which is considered the symbolic birthplace of the modern-day LGBT rights movement, CBS New York reports


President Barack Obama made the designation June 24 ahead of New York's annual LGBT Pride Parade. Included in the honor was Christopher Park, a small park located across the street from Stonewall in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood, as well as streets near the bar. 


National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said he "could not be more proud" to include Stonewall in the family of “America’s most important places,” which includes the Grand Canyon and Yosemite.


Jewell echoed those sentiments, noting the designation "ensures that the story of the courageous individuals who stood up for basic rights for LGBT Americans will be forever told, honoring their sacrifice and inspiring our Nation towards greater tolerance and understanding," according to LGBT Weekly


The dedication took place 47 years after Stonewall patrons fought back against a police raid in the wee hours of June 28, 1969. At the time, homosexuality was illegal. 

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Stoya Refuses To Be Defined By Victimhood

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In November 2015, adult film star Stoya sent out two tweets that launched a nationwide discussion about sexual assault, intimate partner violence and consent in the porn industry. The actress and writer said that her ex-boyfriend (and porn industry darling) James Deen had raped her while they were dating, and in the wake of those tweets, 12 other women came forward with allegations against Deen.










In a new interview with The Cut, the first high-profile on she has given in months, Stoya publicly discussed the alleged assault, and her refusal to be defined by it. 


"What I don’t want is for my entire career and therefore entire life to be all about James and what he did to me," she told writer Lizzy Goodman. "Has my life not been all about James and what he did to me for long enough?"


So, Stoya is moving on in the best way she knows how: by working to change the flawed industry she's a part of from the inside.


She began to perform again in April -- though she won't do any BDSM scenes because she finds them triggering. And she told Goodman that she went back to work for one important reason: “Because right now the only things standing out about porn are the garbage. And I know you don’t fix something by walking away from it.


Rather than walking away from the industry, she is using her role as the co-creator of TRENCHCOATx to produce and act in more progressive pornography. TRENCHCOATx is an inclusive "curated smut" site that adheres to her brand of "alt-porn." By producing and acting in the kind of pornography that includes diverse body types, gender identities and sexualities, she told Goodman that she is able to create the kind of adult entertainment that "isn’t total shit." 



From that @babeland_toys/@mathmagazine event earlier this week

A photo posted by Stoya (@stoya) on




The NYMag profile also drives home Stoya's adamant belief in affirmative consent -- even in the industry of sex work, kink and BDSM. Being a porn star -- or a sex worker of any kind -- does not mean that a woman has no ownership of her own body.


Characterized by her refusal to adhere to stereotypical pornographic standards that supposedly appeal first and foremost to the male viewer (blond hair, fake breasts, fake orgasms), the profile highlights Stoya's position as a body-positive porn star who values showing "real pleasure" on camera.


Stoya has been a vocal critic of a culture in which it is unbelievably easy to access sexualized images of women's bodies, while things that come naturally to women's bodies -- like periods or armpit hair -- are still seen as gross. After posting on social media about periods and receiving a resounding "Ewww" from her followers, she responded to them with: "You can find on a Tube site, HD video showing the interior of my rectum. But periods? How disgusting." 



Do I look like a boss? I'm kind of starting to feel like a boss.

A photo posted by Stoya (@stoya) on




Stoya -- who recently turned 30 -- told Goodman that as she continues to recover from the assault and regain her footing in the porn industry, she knows exactly what she wants to do in her 30s: "I want to show a sexualized aging body," she said. "And I’m really the best person positioned to do this."


Head over to New York Magazine to read the full profile

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The Artist Of Skid Row

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This Talented Bride Embroidered Her Love Story Onto Her Wedding Lehenga

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Long before she became a bride-to-be, Kresha Bajaj had dreamt of designing her own wedding clothes one day.



Leading up to her February 28 nuptials to Vanraj Zaver at The Leela Palace in Udaipur, India, Bajaj finally got the chance. One of the most striking pieces she created for the occasion was a wedding lehenga -- or long skirt -- which she embroidered with their love story. 




"There's a pattern in the middle of the lehenga which looks like chevron, but is actually a repeat of our names written in zari thread," the bride explained to The Huffington Post. "Each kali (or panel) has a frame which depicts milestone moments from our life. So as you go around the lehenga from left to right, you can see our entire story unfold."


For instance, she embroidered the bottom hem with jumping dolphins because the couple's love story began at a protest against the captivity of marine mammals. 




Because Bajaj knew she wouldn't have a chance to wear the garment again, she decided to have it framed and hung in her home in Mumbai after the wedding was over.


"If I was going to frame it, I had to make it like a piece of art," Bajaj wrote in a blog post on Miss Malini. "In order to have a piece of artwork up on our wall, it had be something meaningful, something we wouldn’t get sick of looking at. And the one thing I knew we wouldn’t get sick of looking at was our love story."



The idea to frame the garment came to her one night while watching an episode of the reality show "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." 


"I saw Adrienne Maloof's framed wedding dress and decided I wanted to frame my wedding lehenga," the bride told HuffPost. 



Bajaj owns her own fashion brand called Koecsh, which specializes in edgy western and Indian clothing. 


"I mostly work on customized and one-off pieces as my clients, like me, have a love for expressing themselves through the way they dress," she said. 


See more of her stunning designs in the wedding photos below:






H/T Vogue India

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Poets Break Down Why They Won't Let You Mispronounce Their Names

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If you can't pronounce Yesika Salgado and Aman Batra's names correctly, don't bother saying their names at all.  


In a powerful spoken word performance posted by All Def Poetry on June 21, the poetic duo recounted what it was like for them growing up with names that were constantly being mangled and mispronounced by others. 


"When you’re American brown girl, with two languages growing inside of you, you ask yourself how your name fits into a world that doesn’t call you what your dead father used to you call you," they explained in unison. 


In the poem, Batra recalled a time when a classmate disregarded a speech she made about how to properly pronounce her name. She apologized to him.


“My name is now a full-on apology," she told the audience. 


Salgado admitted she was once tempted to lie to a boy who assumed she was white because she introduced herself as Jessica. 


Nowadays, both women say they’ve come to not only embrace their names, but to insist that everyone else embrace them, as well. They explained: 



“I get accused of being too complicated when I ask for someone to say my whole name, every syllable of it, as if I should apologize for the work that it takes. But why, when my name is the only thing that’s been given to me without the expectation of something in return. If we can’t go into every conversation speaking Spanish -- or Punjabi -- we can go into it demanding our names sound like the language we first learned to love.”









If anyone has a problem with that, tough! 

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Holy Rainbow Unicorn Eating An Ice Cream Cone, A Lisa Frank Coloring Book Is Coming

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Attention, stressed out millennial women of the world: Do you want more than anything to time travel back to a simpler time? Specifically, the totally rad 1990s, when you no longer believed in the tooth fairy (duh) but did most definitely believe in a rainbow universe of painting pandas, ballerina bunnies, bears trying to make it in Hollywood, and dolphins who love to collaborate with other dolphins to create a heart-shaped formation? 


Well then, great news. Like, super spectacular, magical, make-your-eyes-cry-uncontrollable-multicolored-tears news. Her majesty Lisa Frank is coming out with an adult coloring book. 




Yes, according to Instagram, the notoriously mysterious Madame Frank of Tuscon, Arizona, is sharing her creative gifts with grown ass women everywhere, via the therapeutic magic of an adult coloring book. Oh, Lisa, how we've missed you! 


As we've reported on time and time (and time) again, coloring is a magical process, one that has the power to transport an anxious and frazzled adult back to the days when coloring was an established part of the day's curriculum, along with nap time, snack time, and other very important young person responsibilities. The healing power of creative expression, combined with the nostalgia factor and meditative awareness, makes adult coloring books a wildly popular way to destress, whether or not you consider yourself a gifted artist or a talentless waste of space.


There are already a handful of Frank-tastic coloring books for a younger set available for purchase online, but this is the first time Lisa Frank has catered to the adult set -- i.e., her original, true fans. It's about time Ms. Frank jumped on the bandwagon, bringing her much-beloved crop of anthropomorphized critters into black-and-white illustrations, just begging to be dressed up in the aquamarine, shocking pink and neon green hues they so adore. 


We're still not sure exactly when the coloring books will be released, but according to Instagram, they're coming soon. Perhaps we can use our handy Lisa Frank tarot cards for some guidance. Until then, we'll have to soothe our unconscious minds by staring at Photoshopped pictures of *NSYNC in Lisa Frank gear. Or something.



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J.K. Rowling Gives Her North American School A Backstory And A Sorting Quiz

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Earlier this year, J.K. Rowling served her ever-hungry fans new stories to feast on with her Pottermore series "History of Magic in North America." The stories touched on a wizarding school much like Hogwarts but with a more mysterious and slightly less satisfying name: Ilvermorny.


There’d been scant information about the school and its students until today, when Rowling released a video, a brief history and a sorting hat quiz on Pottermore.






“Its enchanted stone walls have stood strong through the ages, surviving fearsome battles and weathering powerful storms to become one of the wizarding world’s greatest schools,” the video dictates. “If these walls could talk, they would tell you a tale of loyalty, revenge and a love that gave it life.”


That's still pretty vague, albeit intriguing.


We then learn towards the end of the video that Ilvermorny was founded by a young Irish girl named Isolt Sayre, who’s in possession of a “unique stolen wand." A more detailed story of Sayre’s upbringing -- which is reminiscent of a certain other famous wizard’s -- is detailed on Pottermore.


“At 5 years old, an attack upon the family home resulted in the death of both of her parents,” the story reads. “Isolt was ‘rescued’ from the fire by her mother’s estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt, who took her to the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or ‘Hag’s Glen,’ and raised her there.”


Sayre then travelled to America on the Mayflower, settling there among a crew of No-Majs, the overseas word for Muggles. After run-ins with a few magical creatures and fellow Plymouth settlers, she goes on to found Ilvermorny, growing the school enough by 1634 to allow for inter-house sports -- which is where the handy sorting hat comes in.






The story of Ilvermorny was first announced to promote the upcoming film “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander. The additional, richly described wizarding worlds have polarized fans, most of whom can’t get enough of Rowling’s legends, and some of whom take issue with her relentless updating, well after Harry Potter’s saga has ended.


On occasion, Rowling will use her powers for good, noting on Twitter that she fully supports casting a black Hermione, who would be totally canon. But she’s also made a few missteps with her appendages; in a four-part Pottermore series on North American magic, Rowling lumped separate Native American communities into a single, monolithic group with shared traditions. Needless to say, she messed up.


Once again, in revealing the Ilvermorny houses, each named after a magical creature -- Thunderbird, Wampus, Serpent and Pukwudgie -- she's plucked disparate components of Native American culture, corralling them together into one mashed-up house, one that was founded and run by a white, Irish settler. 


This simplistic rewrite of a rich history is dangerous -- in today's story on Ilvermorny, she dashes off the school's houses as "light-heartedly named." 


It’s clear that Rowling’s habit of revealing tantalizing tidbits won’t let up anytime soon -- here's hoping that future installments are better informed, and more respectful, of the cultures that inspired them. 

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This Footage Of Disney's 'Hercules' Shows Why We Need It On Broadway ASAP

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"Who put the 'glad' in gladiator?"


A new behind-the-scenes video has been released from everyone's favorite Grecian-flavored Disney flick, "Hercules." 


"Hercules," if you haven't seen it, follows the mythical demigod as he grapples with being a celebrity, gets in trouble with Hades and falls in love with a woman named Meg.


The video, released by Oh My Disney, lets fans get a look into the process of how the song-and-dance-number "Zero to Hero" came to be. We see sketches from the storyboard art and the developmental process of each scene, but the coolest aspect of the video is the live-action performance that inspired the animation.



Choreographed as a model for the final animation, the video shows real people enacting the Greek chorus' routine alongside the animated film's iteration.



Looking at the elaborate costumes, hairstyles, and facial expressions on the live performers, the musical number takes on a whole new appreciation when you realize how much the animators paid attention to detail.


We would totally pay serious bucks to see these performers doing their thing on the big Broadway stage. 



"Hercules" celebrates its 19th anniversary this week, and it's clear: We love it just as much now as we did in the '90s.

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You'll Definitely Want To Eat These Foods Rescued From Dumpsters

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Every year, about one-third of the world’s food gets lost or discarded. And quite a bit of it is perfectly intact, healthful and something you’d want to sink your teeth into. 


To demonstrate just how delectable thrown out food can be, photographer Aliza Eliazarov set out to take pictures of fruits, vegetables and other items in dumpsters around Brooklyn and Harlem, New York.


Often, edible foods are discarded because there’s confusion surrounding the expiration dates or they don’t meet the industry’s “beauty standards.”


Take action now: Sign this petition urging Walmart to sell “ugly” fruit and vegetables to reduce food waste. 


Eliazarov photographed the foods and modeled the shoots after 17th-century food art. 


“I used food headed for the trash and made it art,” Eliazarov told The Huffington Post. “My goal for the project was to show the beauty in the food that was being wasted."


All of the food was consumed after.


Eliazarov’s “Waste Not” series will be on display through July 4 at theFOVEA Exhibitions in Beacon, New York.



Sign the petition below and join thousands of Americans calling on Walmart to sell “ugly” fruit and vegetables to help reduce food waste. 





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Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ta-Nehisi Coates Discuss Art And Social Justice

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Prolific poet Sonia Sanchez invited two literary greats -- iconic author Toni Morrison and acclaimed journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates -- to have a conversation about art and social justice at the Ambassador Theatre in New York on Wednesday, June 15.


In front of a sold-out audience, Sanchez led an insightful discussion on how the writers use their craft to voice their truths and tell stories untold. Addressing modern-day tragedies like the Orlando shooting and instances of police brutality, the three explained why they felt their occupations weren't optional; they considered it their duty. 


"I want to remind us all that art is dangerous," Morrison warned the audience. "Somebody’s out to get you. You have to know it before you start, and do it under those circumstances, because it is one of the most important things that human beings do."


Following the discussion, all three of the panelists received the Marlon Brando Award for excellence in the arts and commitment to social engagement from The Stella Adler Studio of Acting. As one would expect, the 90-minute conversation was full of gems -- including what they each learned from the late Muhammad Ali. Here are a few key quotes from Sanchez, Morrison and Coates, respectively, on some of the topics they discussed that night.



On writing:


Sanchez:


"When I began to write, I wanted to tell how I became the woman with razor blades between her teeth. What made me want to power others through my bloodstream, what made me want to rise up to tell my story and… all our stories, I guess it must’ve been something underneath our skirts, girls… Something accented, unaccented in my and your walk and talk. Jimmy Baldwin wrote, 'For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new. It must always be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell. It’s the only light we’ve got in all of this darkness.'”


Morrison: 


"I began, not because I wanted to write, but because I wanted very, very much to read...  I wanted to read that book that I did not think anybody had written. I read all the time, and I was never in those books. So I decided that I would write the book that I really and truly wanted to read. I called it The Bluest Eye. And it was the result of a convo I had with my friend, at 8 or 9 years old. She and I were having a very serious discussion about whether there is a God or not. I said there was. She said there wasn’t and she had proof. And I said, 'what is the proof?' She said, 'I have prayed for blue eyes for two years and hadn’t gotten them. He hasn’t delivered them to me.'


And I remember turning around and looking at her and thinking two things at the same time. One, thank God He had not given her blue eyes because she would look awful. That was when I realized that what I was thinking was, as she was, she’s a very, very dark-skinned girl with these beautiful cheekbones, high cheekbones, these great almond eyes, but I had never said or thought 'beautiful.' That’s not a word we would use as kids… For the first time, I looked at her… she was beautiful."


Coates:  


"I guess I never knew of it as a means to a choice. I grew up in a household surrounded by books, there were books everywhere. My dad published books. My mother was a teacher. My mother taught me how to read and taught me how to write… I was interested in doing all that outside the classroom. So if you’d put a teacher in front of me and sat me at a desk… I would almost immediately cease to be interested in reading and writing. Reading and writing was something that belonged to me. It didn’t really belong to the classroom. But the flip side of that is that it meant that there weren’t too many other options besides writing in my life. This is the thing that brought me the most joy. This is the thing that no matter, when it wasn’t being published, when it no longer made money… I’ll still be doing it. It’s just a thing that’s here." 



On fighting injustice:


Sanchez: 


"All of these people who were [in Orlando], let’s take a minute of silence…. because we know if you work, not just at some point saying something like ‘I have a good friend who’s gay,’ not that… but you go to your church and people talk against your brother and your sister and your mother and your father and your uncle and your aunt. You’ve got to say something. You’ve got to say something... Because when we let that happen, then we produce people who think they have a right to kill. And so we have to come up against that at some point."


Morrison:


"I want to remind us all that art is dangerous. I want to remind you of the history of artist who have been murdered, slaughtered, imprisoned, chopped up, refused entrance. The history of art, whether it’s in music or written or what have you, has always been bloody because dictators and people in office and people who want to control and deceive know exactly the people who will disturb their plans… And it’s something that society has to protect. When you enter that field, no matter where you enter, whether it’s Sonia’s poetry or Toshi’s music or Ta-Nehisi’s rather starkly clear prose, it’s a dangerous pursuit. Somebody’s out to get you. You have to know it before you start, and do it under those circumstances, because it is one of the most important things that human beings do. That’s what we do."


Coates:


"When something catastrophic happens, we like to analyze it at the point of conflict. Take Orlando right now, and so where we are is 'OK, assault weapons are banned, that’s what we need right now.' And so things that really are insufficient measures seem like radical steps. Like assault weapons bans, which would not be adopted, we wouldn’t even be close to adopting... And so, where that goes into a situation like Ferguson, you get bogged down into this place: What happened between the officer and Mike Brown? All of the analysis happens right there. And none of the analysis goes to the sort of broader question, ‘OK, what is the relationship between the police department in general, historically, between this community and the cops.'


I think part of that is we’re just scared of the work. It’s gonna be a lot of work. It’s gonna be a lot of really, really hard work. And we might not win. And yet we have to commit ourselves to the struggle, because it’s nothing else besides struggle. There is no laying down and giving up. And so one thing about this moment right now, and I am seeing more of this in the journalism and the activism, we have to get past a place of how can we get these officers convicted in a court of law, and get to a place of why did this happen in the first place."


On Muhammad Ali:


Sanchez:


"Along comes Muhammad Ali, and I said, I made this great production, ‘I don’t watch boxing, it’s cruel.' My father said, 'He is this dancer. He is this poet. He is clever. He’s a clever boxer.' And so I watched him and fell in love with him. Not only was he boxing for himself, he was boxing for all of us. I said to someone recently, he loved [black people] more than we loved ourselves. And more than he loved himself...



I remember, with my twins, going up to [Deer Lake]… and he got in the ring, he said to everybody, 'Come on, come on, come on, come on. I’m here. Come on.' And they were put in the ring with him and they start boxing him. He fell out on the ground and the kids put their feet on him. ‘We won, we won, we won.’ And then they put me up there. I said, 'I ain’t gonna box you, man.' He picked me up and throw me up in the air. His timing was so perfect. I was so scared. He was saying something like, ‘Are we getting ready to go?’  and he caught [me]. That was my one and only time in the ring, people."


Morrison (who was Ali's book editor):


"That was one smart dude. I have to tell you, and he understood instantly what other people needed in him, what other people wanted in him. He complained to me [that] he couldn’t go to some book signing in New Jersey, and I said, 'what do you mean you can’t go, it’s already set up.' 'No, no, no, it costs too much,' [he said]. I said, 'It doesn’t cost anything, what are you talking about? We pay, you just go and sign books.' He said, 'It costs because people ask me for money.' And I said, 'you don’t have to give it to ‘em.' He said, ‘I’m the champ. They hit me on the shoulder, they say 'hey, champ, give me a dollar. Give me five dollars.' I can’t say I don’t have it. I can’t say no.' So everybody who asked him for money, he always gives it and it costs. And I insisted that that was not a good enough reason for him to refuse to go to this signing... But he was correct in what the limitations were and it was less about the money, I think, than the fact that everybody who came in the line and who he spoke to hit him on his shoulder and said 'Hey champ.' A thousand of those hurt. And he’s not gonna say it. So you had to have some mechanism so you could stop it. [Laughs.] And make everybody happy, including him. But I have to say that working with him, it was strategic, that’s all I mean. You had to think like him... and use his best resources and his own personality, and then it was successful and the book was successful."


Coates: 


"I think we are always, as African Americans, under some sort of pressure to sort of conform ourselves in ways that won’t either bring bodily harm to ourselves or to our children, and so there’s a lot of pressure revolving on talks about this: Make sure your skin isn’t ashy, everything’s straight, your hair looks right. And there’s a whole sort of performance that we do to put on our best face for folks. And to see somebody so profoundly reject that, I mean it’s just the most powerful thing... To see somebody out there like, ‘My Image is my own. I don’t have to conform to any of these… If I’m gonna say I’m the greatest, I’m gonna say I’m the greatest.’ Just be mad about it." 

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Dick Van Dyke Leads Magical Sing-Along At Walt Disney's Childhood Home

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Now this just lifts our hearts up to the highest heights! 


Legendary actor Dick Van Dyke made every Disney fan's wildest dreams come true when he led a sing-along of "Let's Go Fly A Kite" from "Mary Poppins," in front of Walt Disney's childhood home in Chicago, this past Sunday. 





Watch as the 90-year-old and others join in song, inducing a flood of "Mary Poppins" memories.  


The actor, who visited the home for the Creativity Days festival, really put on a show. Nicolas DeGrazia, who was lucky enough to witness the star in action, said Van Dyke's big personality was clear the minute he introduced himself. 





"He marches out on steps of Walt Disney's birthplace on N. Tripp in Chicago and says 'Hi! I'm what's left of Dick Van Dyke!'" DeGrazia recalled in a Facebook post. "Then he busts out laughing. The guy is 90 years old and running around and skipping with a huge smile on his face. :)" 


If this didn't send you soaring, we're really not sure what will! 

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So, About That Whole Roseanne-Running-For-President Thing

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Roseanne Barr regularly makes headlines for her politics. Case in point: her latest rants against Hillary Clinton's campaign financing. In 2012, money was one of Barr's signature talking points when she ran for president, first as a Green Party candidate and ultimately as the Peace and Freedom Party's nominee. Barr's bid for the White House is the subject of a new documentary, "Roseanne for President!," which premieres on video on-demand and opens theatrically in New York and Los Angeles this Friday.


The Huffington Post has an exclusive clip from the movie, directed by Michael Moore collaborator Eric Weinrib. (Barr and Moore are also friends. He is the person who encouraged her to film her campaign endeavor.) In the scene, Barr explains her motivations for seeking office -- the same motivations she's had since her boundary-breaking eponymous sitcom: never stop fighting for the less-privileged class.




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'Big Bully' Donald Trump Gets A Swirly In This 1989 Comic (NSFW)

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Have you ever wondered what Donald Trump -- that human cheese puff of hate, insecurity and intimidation -- was like back in the day? Did the presumptive Republican presidential nominee take a turn for the worse somewhere on the rough road we call life? Or was he always the same lopsided combo of an oversized ego and undersized hands? 


Well, if this Robert Crumb comic "Point the Finger," featured in the first edition of Hup! in 1989, is any indication, Trump was always very ... well, Trump-like. 


The comic features a showdown between R. Crumb and D. Trump; the self-deprecating and tortured artist versus the smug and superior business mogul. It's not so surprising that many of Crumb's descriptions of Trump are resoundingly relevant today.


"This crass and venal character is so arrogant he seeks out the spotlight and publicly boasts of his disgusting exploits!" Crumb writes, calling him a "big bully." The fraught relationship between the two ends in a somewhat fantastical and NSFW scenario, in which Trump gets the ultimate karmic retribution -- a big swirly for a big bully. In all fairness, the popular mode of juvenile harassment could only do good things for Trump's hair. 


The comic concludes with Crumb commenting on the importance of free speech in this country. He writes: "And isn’t this a nutty kinda country were you can draw any irreverent degrading thing you want about the most powerful people and nobody cares! You don’t get jailed, you’re not persecuted. They just ice you out of the market place!" 


The message is both ironic and chilling considering the lengths Trump and his supporters have gone to limit free speech in his country. (Just ask The Washington Post.) A man chanting "Trump 2016!" reportedly attacked artist Illma Gore after her drawing of the presidential candidate with a small penis went viral. And the FBI allegedly visited artist Brian Andrew Whiteley after he installed a Donald Trump gravestone in Central Park. 


Although not much about Trump has changed since 1989, the world around him is in danger of losing the ability to say so. Thankfully, we still have Robert Crumb's work, which you can see in full below:







Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liarrampant xenophoberacistmisogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.

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Comic Captures What It’s Like To Spend A Decade In Immigration Limbo

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For more than a decade Juana Medina spent countless hours, money and tears trying to remain in the United States. The Colombian-born cartoonist's journey to acquire a green card was an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least, and the subject of her recent comic, "I Juana Live In America." 


Medina, who left Bogotá, Colombia, in 2002 to reunite with her parents in Washington, D.C., drew upon her personal immigration woes for the comic. Her illustrations show everything from how one immigration lawyer ran off with her money to the emotional despair of having a visa application rejected after living in the country for nine years. 


"[People] don’t realize it’s such a strenuous, long process," the 35-year-old told The Huffington Post. "So in telling this story, I tried to simplify it as much as possible... I wanted to stay away from necessarily telling all those [paperwork] steps that we get to be so familiar with when dealing with the immigration process and focus on the feelings and how long it takes and how many pieces to the puzzle there are."


And for Medina, who is openly gay, what was at stake during the process went beyond job opportunities and financial stability. Being able to live in the United States permanently meant living in a country where she was less afraid to be herself and love whomever she wants to love.



"As much as I miss being in Colombia and as homesick as I get, I cannot find the freedoms that I have here in my day-to-day life there," she said. "It’s just the simple things. The being able to rent an apartment without anybody rolling their eyes at you, being able to walk hand in hand with my partner... it’s having the possibility of thinking of having and raising a family. It’s the possibility of getting married."


But her immigration process came with some heartbreaking sacrifices. During her more than 10 years in immigration limbo, Medina said she wasn't able to leave the country, not even to visit her ailing grandparents. 


"Throughout that time I lost my grandparents, who were essential in my upbringing, and I wasn’t able to go be with them for their last days or even their funerals because of waiting for this visa," Medina said. "And to me, that’s inhumane.... I mean I lost them, I’ll never see them again and I wasn’t able to be with them, and all because I wanted to remain here legally and make my life in a place that would offer me freedoms and qualities I couldn’t be granted in my home country. So I find that incredibly frustrating, if not heartbreaking, because I know I’m not the only one who has been in that situation."


But the award-winning cartoonist and children's book illustrator stopped short of condemning the immigration system, saying, "I’m not going to replicate the resounding 'the immigration system is broken.'" However, she did stress that the process is a lot more complicated than many immigration hard-liners make it out to be. 


"I think people more than anything don’t know how the process works until they go through it," she said. "So I can’t really blame them for saying 'Oh, just go and stand in line and ask for the paperwork' and it’s not that way. For example, I’m still a resident and very eager to become a citizen, but I still have to wait two more years to apply. So it’s not like I can stand in a line at an office and decide whether I can get a visa or become a resident or become a citizen. I still have to comply to the process, it’s very long and it takes a lot of time, and it’s such a huge [financial] investment."


And Medina's story and comic is proof of just how complicated and tedious the immigration process can be for some, even for a person who considers herself "one of the lucky ones."


Take a look at her full story in the comic below. 



Comic edited by Jen Sorensen.

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