Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ‘28 is back with her weekly poetry column. In this edition, she reflects on her weekend trip to Howard University. Almeida-Warwin spent time at the HBCU during homecoming, also known as “the mecca” by students.
Author: Zena Almeida-Warwin
Stuck in the margins: “Baboon on East Bonita”
Zena Almerida-Warwin continues her poetry column with another original piece: “Baboon on East Bonita.” She recounts a few jarring interactions with a local Claremont resident, prompting her to reflect on the comfortability some feel to criticize strangers, especially young women.
Stuck in the margins: “He Will Sink”
Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 reflects on a tumultuous summer, where poetry and journaling helped her escape –– partially –– from the clutches of overthinking and melancholy. Over the course of the summer, Almeida-Warwin harbored feelings for someone emotionally unavailable, in a foreign city which they shared only for a brief time. Consequently, in an effort to move on, she forbade herself from even imagining him.
OPINION: Pomona should reconsider its approach to its troubled musical legacy
Pomona College quietly retired two of most popular songs — “Hail, Pomona, Hail!” in 2008 and “Torchbearers” in 2015 — due to their roots in Blackface minstrelsy and cultural appropriation. While Pomona’s website acknowledges these histories, Zena Ameida-Warwin PO ’28 critiques the College’s choice to remove the songs without engaging the community in any meaningful public dialogue.
OPINION: Accessibility at the 5Cs requires more than just good intentions
Although the 5Cs promote values of equity and diversity, students with physical disabilities face broken elevators, apathetic and unreliable emergency support and inaccessible dorms. Jackie Kostyuchenko PZ ’28, who uses a mobility device, has experienced these failures firsthand. Alongside Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28, the two document how institutional negligence affects the daily lives of students with disabilities. They call for concrete reforms: improved infrastructure, better emergency protocols and a 5C-wide reporting system.
OPINION: Whatever we think rap is, Ceechynaa is expanding it
Rapping “I’m peggin’ that man at the back of the bus,” UK drill rapper Ceechynaa flips the script on rap’s history of female objectification by placing men in the hypersexualized roles women have traditionally occupied in the genre, Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 argues.
Male rappers have long objectified and degraded women in their lyrics without it defining their credibility or artistry. Yet, when a female artist like Ceechynaa mirrors that same energy, it’s met with outrage.
OPINION: The new cosmetic dystopia
The pursuit of an aesthetic ideal is driving many to alter themselves in irreversible ways. Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 and Anna Yost PO ’28 examine the growing popularity of keratopigmentation, a procedure that permanently changes eye color. With most patients having naturally dark-brown eyes and a majority being Black or Hispanic, this trend reveals how deeply Western standards distort self-perception, turning cosmetic procedures into tools of self-erasure.
OPINION: When Looks Kill: The issue with attractive depictions of murderers on screen
When murderers become attractive do we lose sight of the horrifying realities of murder? With the recent release of the steamy and sexy Netflix true crime series, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,”Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 questions society’s obsession with romanticizing murderers. Arguing that our fixation on human attractiveness when it comes to these types of movies and shows, Almeida-Warwin warns readers of desensitization to murder and that we may be distorting real trauma into our own pleasure.