Student Blogger: Alyssa Silver

I didn’t know that Soft Power would become one of my favorite musicals. 

I didn’t expect too much when I first began watching Over the Moon on Netflix. So when a big fluffy dog bit a chunk out of the moon in the first few minutes, I deduced it would be some light entertainment...

Over the past few days, I’ve begun watching two new shows with normalized Hapa characters–one being Dash & Lily, a Christmas rom-com series in NYC, and the other being Grand Army, a series about a diverse group of kids at a school in Brooklyn.

There have been many ups and downs for me while being home. 

Being Jewish is a part of myself that Ia??ve known since I was little and started as a wee toddler attending Jewish preschool. All my life, Ia??ve been celebrating the holidays and customs, and saying the prayersa?? And yet, all my life, there have been people who refuse to see me as what I am. 

When I first saw the trailer for the new Mulan movie, I cried, because her story was so important to me as a child, and even now. When I watched the new movie, I did cry. I cried a lot. But they werena??t happy tears. They were tears of disappointment and anger. 

I am sitting in my living room, glancing from my computer to the windows. I look out the window, admiring the green pine needles draping from their branches and the green leaves with tints of an orange blaze, hinting at the New England autumn to come... 

Growth isna??t just one arrow pointing up. Ita??s going up, then slightly down, then up, then down, then really high.

A few weeks ago, I was facing identity imposter syndrome. This, which I have discovered, can be common among mixed race people, used to happen to me when I was younger but hadna??t resurfaced much since.

I think this is the semester where I truly grew into my Hapa (half Asian) identity, talking about it with more pride than ever.

As a result of the unlearning I have been doing, my own identity has been on the forefront of my mind. 

The groundedness I felt after voice class, my entire body tingling with sensory awareness and of every acting impulse I had. The freedom of jumping into an impulse at 100%. I realized I had a voice and that I could take up space.