I will be interviewing “Fox” for this project. Fox is a female 20 year old. She is a 5’5 Dominican-American with curly hair and a slightly tan complexion. She studies Civil Engineering at the City College of New York, working in the school’s Student Life office and as a cabinet member for the Undergraduate Student Government. She is well known in the school, has a large number of friends across the academic departments, and is well connected with the campus administration from the work that she does. She often participates in local celebrations of the Dominican Republic’s culture, is well connected with the Dominican community in Harlem, and goes to the Dominican Republic once every few years to meet with her family. 

Fox was one of the first few people that I met during my first semester at City College. We originally met online from a public Freshman group chat and found ourselves in the same social group. Fox and I began to work together professionally the following semester. As Student Government President, I commonly have worked with Fox and have a keen understanding and interest in her cultural background. 

Through this project, I hope to learn much about Fox’s perspective as a Dominican American, of which is distinct from my Bengali-American heritage. I hope to learn more about her perspectives on subjects that we may perceive differently, and most importantly hope to see where intersection and overlap exist through our joint experience as City College students.

Decolonizing Beauty: Dominican Beauty Standards

Bragye Payano is a 20 year old Dominican woman who studies Civil Engineering at the City College of New York. I originally met Bragye during our first semester in Fall 2021, and came to be acquainted with her cultural background, professional aspirations and fondness towards sociological conversations over time. I later came to work with Bragye through Undergraduate Student Government and the Department of Student Life at The City College of New York. After discussing with Bragye the general concept of the interview, she agreed to speak with me early on September 20th at the Student Government offices. My goal for the interview was to have a stronger understanding of what beauty standards meant both through a dominican and female lens. I wanted to understand its socio-political implications and hoped to strengthen my understanding of the existence of beauty standards within American culture and abroad.

Bragye defines beauty standards as a societal expectation on the accepted ways people should look like. Her shared identity as a Dominican-American shines through as she immediately places an emphasis on American beauty standards and “of course Dominican beauty standards”, which she understands as “very different, but… somewhat similar in a sense.” When asked to elaborate, she pauses. Tapping at the desk, she first speaks generally: most of what encompasses beauty standards globally surrounds the idea of “what they define as ‘beautiful’”, she points out, which creates a lot of self hate across cultures. Bragye narrows it down further, speaking towards the colorism that touches upon many aspects of American and Dominican beauty standards. Colorism exists as a “global cultural practice”, according to David Knight, a “Learning for Justice” magazine writer from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Emerging from colonial legacies, it continues to prevail in many parts of the world, creating a distinction between a so-called desirable “light-skin” appearance as opposed to darker skin tones. Bragye points out that ranging from ante to post colonial status, “a lot of Spaniards came in, and as they were white, they started to join the country…” This process primarily took place through interracial marriages, with much of the native population dying off during the colonial era due to smallpox and other diseases being brought onto the island. Through the colonial process and African slaves later being brought onto the island to fill a steeply declining population, more “white” features began to become attached to how attractive one was perceived. Bragye brings attention to a lighter skin tone, straight hair, and a “European style” nose and eyes. Placing emphasis on her own experience with these concepts, she brings up pelo malo, “bad hair”, or hair that isn’t straight. Afro-dominican features were largely frowned upon by her family and other Dominicans, with Bragye experiencing this dissent first-hand when she was younger. She would receive comments on her hair and nose shape which would make her self-conscious of her self image, although coming to terms with it now. Bragye points this out as a common experience amongst Dominican families, with people “of this generation” having experiencing (specifically women) with curly hair in particular being addressed. She has now seen changes in thought within her community and particularly people in her generation: people more commonly keep their hair curly and present body positivity towards their shared features. Bragye presents the rise of technology as an outlet for women to be able to speak towards a need for a body positivity culture, helping foster a more accepting “beauty standard” culture.

Are beauty standards a necessary facet of society? Bragye immediately responds with a stern “no.” To her, beauty standards have caused extended insecurities for many women regarding how they look and how they present themselves, with instagram’s beauty standard (as Bragye defines, a “skinny fit looking woman”) and impossible beauty standards (with many pictures being purposefully edited and not actually being real with filters and software) leading to many individuals to seek surgery and dangerous lifestyle changes to meet said impossible standard. In the chase to “look perfect”, they find it impossible to “love themselves” and begin “loving the person they cannot become.”

Beauty standards are a concept within society that is tinged with standards of race, gender and general acceptable presentation. It places limits on what individuals are allowed for their own identity, and removes agency from what can and cannot be considered beautiful. Through fundamentally understanding where our current bias towards beauty standards stem from and working from there, we can as a generation better equip ourselves with a standard that is healthy and considerate for all individuals.

Serenes Forest is a fan-run wikipedia dedicated to Intelligent Systems and Nintendo’s “Fire Emblem” franchise, providing an interesting window into the dynamics of a long-standing gaming community. With a franchise history that starts in 1990, the Serenes Forest Forum (attached to the wiki) serves as one of many hubs for fans to discuss, share and explore their gaming interests. This field observation aims to better understand this virtual space to provide insight on insular gaming communities and their commonalities, specifically focusing upon the underlying social dynamics that tie the Serenes Forest Forums community together.

[ Background information ]

Serenes Forest Forums is a forum split into various tabs. Topics are separated between categories such as “Popular Now”, “General Forums” and “Fire Emblem Forums”, with topics organizing the specific forum posts of the user base. Users are provided a Code of Conduct with a chain of moderators and staff to enforce rules. The forum in summary has requirements to be respectful of peer attributes (race, sexual orientation, etc.) and to utilize proper “grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation when posting” [1]. This distinguishes Serenes Forest Forums from a great deal of other communities, with many similar online communities having few restrictions on formatting and posting material. Posts can differ widely between topics, but a post in the General Forums category “So what were the early to mid 2000’s like?” acts as an example of many. Although some responses can be a few sentences, a few notable posts are several paragraphs. In one example in the General Forums example, user “Hrothgar777” responded with a 1,022 word response to the 139 word post. Posts are often respectful and kind to others, although a common trend of self deprecation and insular attitudes persist. Replies such as “I didn’t think I was a failure” and similar levels of open depressive attitudes persist throughout the forums. Many posts can often spark lengthy debates between users, with posts sometimes being deliberately written to begin a debate or discussion. An example may be “Worst Fire Emblem Game”, a Fire Emblem Forums category post from 2013 that sparked a significant amount of discussion and debate. Conversations regardless seem respectful and earnest most often. The number of detail oriented, lengthy responses provide evidence for a sincerity in attitude that is not necessarily seen in other forums, which may be the main niche for the group of people that are still active.

This group of active individuals, however, is particularly low. Only a small handful of users are online with accounts at any one time, and conversation, although pleasant, is scattered and is continued between hours or even days. The vast majority of users opt to remain unregistered or logged out. In an observation on October 24th at 2:16 AM, there were 290 users online. Out of that amount, only 13 members were actually logged in with an account on the forum. Another Fire Emblem centric community is the Fire Emblem Subreddit on Reddit.com, which as of 2:16 AM had 505 users online. The Fire Emblem Discord had 2,080 members online and live discussions occurring in multiple channels.

[Conclusion]

Comparative Analysis of Populist Political Movements

In what ways are left-wing and right-wing populist movements similarly structured in the American political system? What distinct differences exist between these populist movements? How can we better understand the social dynamics of modern American politics through the lens of populism?

American politics are broken. According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of Americans express “express not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the U.S. political system.”^[1] Congress is often gridlocked and presently is on the verge of a government shutdown in the near future. There exists a distinct lack of bi-partistan cooperation, with necessary change being nearly impossible to see through on the federal level. In scenarios where the present status quo is fundamentally not working for the disaffected ordinary citizen, people often turn to populist candidates and political movements. Primary modern examples are President Donald Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders, but examples exist throughout history and with a wide array of political views: President Andrew Jackson, State Representative Eugene Debs, Governor George Wallace, Business mogul Ross Perot and many others. This research paper hopes to understand the underlying social dynamics that turn people to populist movements, the similars methods that populists use to gain and retain supporters, and commentary on commonly seen faults with successful populist movements in America and abroad.

I chose this research topic as I find it an incredibly important concept to understand and flesh out. Populism functions for some instances but can quickly backslide into authoritarianism: see Huey Long for an American example, see Xi Jinping for a modern example abroad.

^[1] “Americans’ Dismal Views of the Nation’s Politics.” Pew Research Center – U.S. Politics & Policy, Pew Research Center, 19 Sept. 2023, www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-dismal-views-of-the-nations-politics/.