How Water Taught Us to Laugh

Allie Richmond
TCCS ’19

A color photograph of sunset over a still body of water with trees on the horizon line

Water laughs. It giggles and gurgles in streams and brooks, and whispers amusement in creeks and springs that quietly trickle through dense forests and down rocks with moss. Water delivers unexpected bursts of joy on the drops of light rain that mysteriously wash over the earth as the sun shines on. It creates a patchwork of glittering diamonds in the sky. It cackles, as the rain turns heavy and pitted, as the wind carries it down faster in a deceivingly loud breath of life. Then it coos in contentment as smooth, crystalline water. Sweet and soft like the giggle of a child, revealing tender enthusiasm for bright days and warm dives below the surface.

Beguiling laughs lap the shoreline of the great coasts, the water tantalizingly immense and mysterious. Familiar up close, but further out and deep below, it continually shocks and startles – pulling one in closer to see more. Waterfalls pour over cliffs and outcroppings delivering hearty, bellowing larks that can be heard long before and long after they are seen up close. Water laughs in joy and sadness. It sarcastically scoffs at our meekness, leaving us cold as ice, sharp and judgmental – or, clear and concise. Water speaks of its amusement in many tones. It carries the echoes of ages, the most beautiful face to ever laugh without wrinkling up in the way humans do. We are unable to experience joy as profoundly as it does. But yet, it still shares with us, and encourages us to try.

I grew up next to a lake. It laughs a lot. In the wind it has short and clipped laughs, but these deepen into rolling gasps when the rain begins to tickle it. I use to listen to this laughter and join in as a child. I grew up and began to recognize each melody, when the water wanted company in its joy and remained still or playfully rambunctious, or when it had a private laugh, with rough bursts in high rises, and cutting falls in the sound waves, leaving it too difficult to join. So, in times of shared companionship, I would sail out on the still morning waters when the lake remained sleepy enough to only ripple in thoughtful acknowledgement, and interpret my own quiet laughter; the little inklings of dreams and thoughts that produce hidden smiles that dance at the corners of my lips.

I learned that people should be treated with the same observance and sincerity that the waves demand in their wake.

In times of reckless joy, the waters swelled up in waves curling like daring smirks, and I would swim deep and strong with a fiery soul or ride the waves at outrageous speeds to feel the bubble of nervous and excited laughter rise from my chest with each goal gained. I learned that all people take after water in this way. We exert certain tides to fit our moods. I learned that people should be treated with the same observance and sincerity that the waves demand in their wake. Water taught me to laugh, and how to laugh with others. It taught me to experience joy in many forms and to appreciate the ways in which life and feelings are expressed.

A hand-drawn image of a goddess-like human with an orb, clouds and plant-life surrounding her.
Allie Richmond 2018

The waves on the lake are where I found my playful spirit. The waves were also the ones of my warmest childhood memories of home. I still hear the lapping of the ripples along the peaceful evening shoreline, the sound similar to the sound of a puppy contently licking up water from her bowl. I still see the last glitters of sunlight fracture and dissipate along the rolling surface allowing slivers of clarity that reveal the swimming fish below. I still overhear the tingling laughter of my sisters as they splash in the shallows. Where the water is a warm with a welcoming smile after a long day in the hot sun. We were so young and charmed by life; the water reflected our soft naivety.

Read Zainab Zalawala’s article, “Using a Faucet is a Privilege” on the Flint water crisis and human rights in America (3/1/18)…

As I grew a little older, my parents brought us to the cabin – a little two room shack nearly indistinguishable from the trees around it. Here, I encountered the babbling creeks that brought the girlish laughter of teenage years. The excited and bubbling laughs that also flow in a nervous and shy manner. The creeks lead to a large muddled marshland full of unsure twists and moody pools of mucky waters. Here I realized that not all laughs are playfully shared, some are exerted in fear and trepidation. Laughter in the face of uncertainty, learning to compromise softness for tough determination not to let the sludge soaked bogs, ambiguous and changing, slow down my travels to a complete halt.

In the river waters I learned to create my own laughter and enjoy the movement of aging.

The low and slow laugh of the swamps, the kind that make one shudder, often give way to more level currents. The clogs of mud shift and become open rivers where laughter flows with strength and self-assurance. In the river near the cabin, my sisters and I would float along with the loud and boisterous laughter that makes all that touch it join on the rush of energy. We played in the rapids and waded into the deeper pools that swirled in determined delight. Life for the laughing river is fast-paced and constantly looking forward. The belting amusement of river rapids is consuming, direct, and incredibly influential. In the river waters I learned to create my own laughter and enjoy the movement of aging.

The year I moved to college, the tides changed completely. Luring laughs guided me to the coasts where laughs were different. Salty, with an undertow of ancient knowledge. The tidal pools swelled around me, teeming with lively giggles of deeper intuition that bespoke of the depths hidden from the shallow interest of curious eyes. New life, mixed with old experience, the ever-changing tides that mysteriously transform the landscape and renew the shores all the while dependable in its coming and going.

In these enticing grins left on the wet sand, I found my passion for life. Laughter became deep and rich, shared with the hopeful intellectuals and vibrant minds.

In these enticing grins left on the wet sand, I found my passion for life. Laughter became deep and rich, shared with the hopeful intellectuals and vibrant minds. The memories of many lives washed into our collective bay of understanding, just as the deep trenches of the ocean collect the remnants of old empires and ages, and I learned to share laughs to collect experience. I came to entertain the idea of temporary chuckles of immense understanding with temporary moments in time, and to extend my smiles curiously with passion and power.

Water collects our laughs. It categorizes each tone into natural music so that the earth can laugh and play as we do. We, in turn, learn to laugh again from the babbling brooks and whistling white waters. It is a cycle of happiness and joy that brings life to that which is empty. Just as water feeds the land and makes it grow lush and green, we grow up with laughter guiding us through the dark and the light. It feeds our souls and allows us to flow with the tides and currents of our lives.

A hand-drawn and painted image of an ethereal woman of the clouds being blown to the shoreline
Allie Richmond 2018

Navigating through the red tape for workforce development

Fernanda Macedo
TCCS ’19

Students learn hair cutting techniques at a cosmetology school.
Cosmetology students practice hair styling techniques. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/codnewsroom/15580904957

Have you ever wanted to help your community and been slapped in the face with bureaucracy when you attempted to do so? I have, to the point that I am getting a Master’s degree to help me research about the government red tape in my industry as well as to shed light on whom this bureaucracy is marginalizing in my community.

I am a cosmetologist by profession and would like to teach cosmetology to others who could benefit from learning this trade. I am also a Brazilian immigrant who understands the lack of workforce development that the Brazilian community faces in Massachusetts. I can make a difference and close the gap that my profession has provided me by teaching the profession to other Brazilian immigrants, some of the people in most need of workforce development. Along the process, I am finding out how and why the Brazilian community specifically is being marginalized by the current difficult access to enter the cosmetology industry in this state.

Along the process, I am finding out how and why the Brazilian community specifically is being marginalized by the current difficult access to enter the cosmetology industry in this state.

The beauty industry, much like any other field to which someone dedicates fully over many years, has the ability to provide financial stability for its professionals, benefiting that individual, their household, and also community. Therefore, I am using the TCCS program to best research the needs of my community with a long term goal of using that research to open a low-cost cosmetology school that meets those specific needs.

However, I have spent the first third of my master’s research facing the board of cosmetology’s bureaucratic and unresponsive structure. Many of the requirements to open a new cosmetology school in the state of Massachusetts, like square footage per student and minimum station numbers, are excessive and add to large overhead costs, making student tuition unnecessarily high. I am using all the tools I am learning in TCCS to put together my research findings to the board of cosmetology, to reveal to their policymakers that these excessively-high costs serve to marginalize the most at risk in the community, including those with the lowest opportunities for workforce development, like Brazilian immigrants, in Massachusetts.

I am using all the tools I am learning in TCCS to put together my research findings to the board of cosmetology, to reveal to their policymakers that these excessively-high costs serve to marginalize the most at risk in the community…

Since the Division of Professional Licensure of Massachusetts requires that anyone interested in becoming a cosmetologist must obtain a minimum of 1,000 cosmetology school hours and pass a written and practical state board exam, and also that no individual licensed cosmetologists can teach students outside of an accredited cosmetology school, I argue that access to affordable cosmetology schools is an important first step in improving workforce development for vulnerable members of the community, like Brazilian immigrants, who reside in this state.

Lastly, I hope to use my TCCS research to learn about policy change and how legislation is approved as well as changed. It was not until the early 2000s that the written Massachusetts state board exam required to obtain a cosmetology license became offered in Vietnamese and Spanish. Prior to that, cosmetologists like my grandmother paid and took the board exam every 6 months to maintain a legal permit to work at a beauty salon until her next attempt at an exam in a language she did not know, regardless of being the best cosmetologist I know.

Sometimes the need for change is obvious, but the red tape to make change happen is long and tangled. TCCS is helping me take it apart to improve Massachusetts’s cosmetology workforce development and to decrease institutionalized marginalization of vulnerable communities like my own Brazilian immigrant population residing all around the state.

Brain Drain: Undermining economic and social rights through neocolonialism

Matt Annunziato (GISD Student ’18)

A map of the world showing the country of origin of immigrants of the United States
A map showing the country of origin of immigrants of the United States in 2000 by country of birth (Wikimedia Commons)

“Brain drain” is a popular concept in the modern international neoliberal economy. It occurs when skilled workers are lost from one country to another. Examples include doctors leaving sub-Saharan Africa and tech-professionals leaving south and east Asia.

It is rooted in the international labor market and in skilled workers’ ability to take their talents anywhere they please. On the bright side, it enables workers to find higher wages and employers to pay less for international employees. Unfortunately, this practice can also be exploitative. But what many people don’t realize is that it often affects human rights. Immigration policies in high labor-demand economies that actively attract skilled workers impose huge training costs on source countries. These costs undermine social services and therefore many economic and social rights.

In 2014, The Nation published an article called “Brain Drain and the Politics of Immigration.” The authors of the article call attention to the inverse relationship between US immigration policies, which lure the most talented and qualified candidates from least-developed countries (LDCs) and USAID programs, which (unsuccessfully) try to foster better social conditions and retain talent in the same LDCs.

The policies undermine one another and ultimately encourage conditions in which professionals can make more money by moving abroad.

The policies undermine one another and ultimately encourage conditions in which professionals can make more money by moving abroad.

My sticking point with the article is its assertion that push factors in LDCs are the sole responsibility of the countries themselves.

“Ensuring that skilled workers have opportunities to flourish at home is ultimately a challenge for source countries, not the richer countries that absorb them when they leave,” Natalie Baptiste and Foreign Policy in Focus.

Time after time, we hear discourse on the failings of countries in the global south. Lack of opportunity, low pay for skilled professionals, horrid social and financial situations, and other colonialist views inappropriately tinge our perceptions of these vibrant and diverse spaces. Reality is often different from this colonial mindset. Rwanda, for example, has a Universal Healthcare System even in a context where the GDP per capita is only $702.84 (compared to nearly $57,500 in the US). Cuba’s life expectancy is higher than the US while it spends less than one-tenth as much per person on healthcare. It also manages to send tens of thousands of doctors a year abroad while retaining one of the highest doctor to patient ratios in the world.

We constantly hear information about cash-strapped LDCs, even as their governments and residents innovate and they develop at a much more rapid pace than either the US or Western Europe has developed in the past. The difference between my views and those of Baptiste and Foreign Policy in Focus can be attributed to human rights.

All rights – including economic and social rights – are universal and inalienable. All countries have a responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfill these rights both at home and abroad.

All rights – including economic and social rights – are universal and inalienable. All countries have a responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfill these rights both at home and abroad.

For example, Switzerland’s financial secrecy laws have repeatedly been cited as illegal by the UN Committee that oversees compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. When money is hidden in Swiss accounts, it escapes domestic taxation. This escape directly undermines realization of economic and social rights in those countries. Universal healthcare, equitable education, decent work, and all other economic and social rights depend on public policy that is funded by a robust tax base. Why is luring away taxpayers treated any differently than Switzerland luring away money? Both instances deprive source countries of income.

Even in 2006, the lifetime cost (education paid for by the state and lost returns on investment by the state) of a doctor leaving Kenya was $517,931 – this figure doesn’t even take into account the lost tax revenue that would have been paid by the doctor over the course of their career. As many doctors leave source countries every year, the losses add up and actively undermine the health, education, and work programs in those countries: Health systems lose doctors whose education was paid for as a right by the state, education systems are overburdened by doctors who have no plans to work in their home country, and work initiatives suffer from the lack of an adequate tax base. As the US and other states in the global north draw migrants from source countries, they actively undermine the economic and social rights of remaining citizens.

Although there is a clear connection between the so-called brain drain as a tax burden and violations of international law, there are several other rights at play. Outward migration cannot be restricted, because everyone has a right to the unrestrained freedom of movement (ICCPR article 12). It is also clearly not a negative thing for professionals to seek out higher salaries. But the question remains: Whose responsibility is it to ensure better conditions in source countries?

While duty to reduce push factors ultimately falls on governments in LDCs, they cannot provide for their citizens while they are being actively undermined by foreign governments. Host countries should be held accountable for the way they undermine rights.

For example, when the US lures a doctor away from Kenya, it should repay Kenya for the doctor’s education and for the state’s lost return on their investment.

For example, when the US lures a doctor away from Kenya, it should repay Kenya for the doctor’s education and for the state’s lost return on their investment.

Better yet, USAID funding should follow a more rights-based formula than the current model. USAID vaccinations only go so far when it refuses to pay for a right-to-health based system. In other words, when the US increases pull factors here, it also needs to help reduce push factors abroad. Continued neo-colonial exploitation of southern labor should not continue.

When paying attention to rights it is clear that developed countries have a duty to fund economic and social rights everywhere. We need to shift our discourse from one of “aid” and “immigration” to one of rights.

Regardless of one’s location, everyone deserves a life of dignity. All US policies should reflect these values.

How to make it in a global city (chances are you can’t…)

Jack Carolan
PhD student in Urban Planning

An image of a renovated home in East Austin, Texas.
A renovated home in a gentrifying neighborhood of East Austin, Texas (Wikimedia Commons)

“If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” said someone once about the prospect of making a living in New York City.  Whom exactly they were referring to is becoming more and more unclear as the dynamics of not just New York, but other global cities continue to evolve and change.  

I used to hear that statement and assume it was referring to young adults, just out of college, and living on their own for the first time. What I failed to acknowledge though in my initial interpretation is the fact that New York City isn’t just made up of young adults fresh out of college trying to make it on their own for the first time. On the contrary, New York City and other global cities are made up of an extremely diverse group of people of varying backgrounds and income levels. However, the concept of “making it” in NYC or other global cities is becoming more and more unlikely given the rise of the global elite and increasing rates of gentrification.

…the concept of “making it” in NYC or other global cities is becoming more and more unlikely given the rise of the global elite and increasing rates of gentrification.

The term gentrification originally appeared in 1964 when sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term to describe the process she witnessed in East London wherein a number of middle class people began to move into older, low income, working class districts, and began renovating the buildings in the neighborhood which led to the displacement of the original occupants (Hamnett, 2003). While the essence of that definition still holds true to this day, it is no longer the middle class who are doing the displacing but instead the emerging global elite class.  

It can be argued that the driving force behind urbanization and city growth is profit (Busa, 2017). Therefore, from a bottom-line perspective, it makes sense why those in power push for the redevelopment of “underperforming” areas and neighborhoods into high end luxury living spaces for those with the most capital. This process is magnified in global cities such as New York City, London, and Paris. In these global financial capitals where there is an immense concentration of wealth, gentrification is occurring at an alarming rate. Many large areas of these cities are turning into playgrounds that only the ultra-wealthy can afford. Is this what we want our cities to look like?

This new class of global elites is not just reshaping our cities physically but socially and culturally.  This new form of immigration is having a major impact on not just low and middle-income residents but even upper-middle and upper-class residents are finding it harder and harder to make it in the cities they used to thrive in.

Gentrification has been historically-viewed as a more localized issue where existing middle-class residents displace existing low-income residents. This is no longer the case. It is no longer an issue of being displaced to a different part of the city but being displaced out of the city all together.

As a PhD student in the Urban Planning program, I find this issue to be extremely interesting as well as important. I love cities and the unique character and “feel” each city has.  That “feel” and character is predominantly a reflection of the people and cultures who inhabit each city. With the new trend of global elites taking over large areas of our cities, it is going to be near impossible for 99% of the population to feel anything other than I don’t belong here.

With the new trend of global elites taking over large areas of our cities, it is going to be near impossible for 99% of the population to feel anything other than I don’t belong here.

The idea of being able to “make it” in the city is becoming less and less of a reality for not only more and more people but also people of different racial, ethnic and social groups. However, there are steps that can be taken to try and stave off this new wave of gentrification. It is imperative to become an active community member and to make your voice heard when it comes to planning and development issues in and around your communities. Groups such as Right to the City are advocates for social justice and fair housing and have chapters here in Boston as well as across the United States.  I also believe that it is important to strike a balance: I don’t believe that redevelopment is bad, but it needs to be done with community engagement and in a way that is fair and equitable for all.   

References

Busa, A. (2017, September 19). The trouble with elite cities [Web log post]. Retrieved March 28, 2018, from https://blog.oup.com/2017/09/the-trouble-with-elite-cities/

Hamnett, C. (2003). Gentrification and the Middle-class Remaking of Inner London, 1961-2001. Urban Studies, 40(12), 2401-2426. doi:10.1080/0042098032000136138

Isolated in the city: The precarious position of migrant workers in Singapore

Taina Teravainen, TCCS ’19 Student

A picture of the Singapore skyline

Singapore is small in size, only 279 mi², but it is densely populated with approximately 5.6 million people living in this space. Over 245,000 people in this figure are “foreign domestic workers:” women who live in their employer’s homes, cook their meals, wash their clothes, and care for their children and elderly. “Foreign migrant workers,” on the other hand, make up the over 296,000 men who migrate to Singapore to labor in the booming construction industry.

As a Singaporean, I have often seen men squat by the side of the road with yellow hardhats waiting to be ferried back to their dormitories in the open-air back of lorries. In the evenings, they can be spotted playing cricket or having a beer in pockets of unused grassy spaces. The women gather en-masse on Sundays in public spaces that they rarely get to visit, except on their single day off. They have picnics with friends, attend religious services, and send remittances to their families in their home countries. This day off isn’t a certainty though.

Due to the precarious situation foreign domestic workers live in, the exploitation they face includes denial of time off, forced work without sufficient rest, and docked or withheld pay for months on end.

Due to the precarious situation foreign domestic workers live in, the exploitation they face includes denial of time off, forced work without sufficient rest, and docked or withheld pay for months on end.

When I asked my mother about how much time off the domestic worker of our extended family hired received, she said that the worker had chosen to forfeit her day off for increased pay. This is more than just industriousness, I know, but rather a necessity. She has her own children and parents in her home country who depend on the money.

Following independence from British colonial rule in 1965, Singapore’s rapid industrialization has firmly cemented its spot as a global financial centre and, in turn, created a segmented labor market that is filled by cheap and disposable labor from peripheral countries such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, China, The Philippines, and Myanmar.

While these workers provide essential labor and services for increasing production and economic growth in Singapore, they are also denied pathways toward citizenship and are viewed as unable to integrate to Singaporean society. This seems at odds with the Singapore government’s party line that the Singaporeans live in multiracial harmony and raises the question: Who gets to be included in this vision? The racial language used in anti-migrant sentiments raised by local Singaporeans, who themselves are mostly only a few generations removed from their immigrant ancestors, certainly does not support it.

Who gets to be included in this vision? The racial language used in anti-migrant sentiments raised by local Singaporeans, who themselves are mostly only a few generations removed from their immigrant ancestors, certainly does not support it.

Of course, similar migration structures exist in the U.S. and other countries worldwide, but because of land size, Singapore seems to exist as a microcosm of the larger problem of exploitation of migrant workers and a racial hierarchy that stems from it. While living in the small citystate ensures that locals are never too far from encountering a foreign worker, it remains easy enough to avert one’s gaze and one’s thoughts from the abuses that go on within boarded-up construction sites or other people’s private homes, especially if societal rhetoric is that migrant workers are to remain outsiders and less-than, always. More needs to be done by the government, the employers and local Singaporeans to confront the neoliberal ideologies that reduce migrant workers to their labor and erases their personhood.