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The issues that really resonate with me have to do with intersectionality. Growing up in Southern California in such a diverse environment, I have learned that I have an immense amount of privilege that can be put to use. I want to create a local zine. My plan is to allow anyone to submit articles or writings that speak to issues of identity, marginalization, and overall tiredness with the culture in the US. I feel like giving people an outlet and a platform to speak will take a lot of stress out of daily life and allow people to voice their opinions in a public forum without fear of reprisal. Sometimes it feels like we are all screaming into an echo chamber that has no end, so focusing in and creating a place for self expression is what I would love to create. We see on social media how creators of color are much more likely to be “shadow banned” or have their access restricted due to how content is cultivated and the value put on certain creators. We see time and time again a lack of POC creators not because they aren’t there but because they aren’t promoted, especially if they speak about activism, social, or cultural issues. I feel like this zine could be a place where people can be seen and heard, as well as a place to grow and build on ideas. 

I want to execute this online. I don’t want to allow free posting so I will need to cultivate the content, or pay someone else to. Luckily, my sister is a software engineer so I can have her help me with the technological and logistical side of this project. But the overall plan is to have a few friends contribute to the zine and maybe advertise on our social media so that we can get people writing in. Once we have works to choose from we can start matching works that have similar themes and cultivate different zines. It will probably be on a quarterly system so four a year but we can have as many writers and contributors as we want. I hope to not only accept writing but artwork and poetry as well, as long as it fits with the themes of identity, marginalization, and oppression by the US culture. I personally have a piece I have been writing for a few weeks about Food Deserts in the US and how 19 million Americans currently live in a Food Desert.  

My plan is to give a platform. I want people to be able to write in or send in their work and be heard, I want them to see their work online on this platform and feel like they were able to reach an audience. So many people have amazing ideas and commentary on popular culture and cultural issues that I want them to be heard. As a student I have so many ideas and I have been working on them for a few years now but there aren’t many spaces where I am heard due to my inexperience. I recently attended the OAH (Organization of American Historians) conference in LA and so many of the topics that were disguised were topics I have thought long and hard about. It was a vindicating experience to see them describe 4th wave feminism seen through social media and these cultural movements like Me Too and BLM are mainly held on social media platforms. I have been saying this since 2015 that this is the direction for feminism and I have been told many times that I was wrong. I WASN’T WRONG!! But it wasn’t until more educated women and women further along in their careers said it that it was a reality. I want my zine to be a place where people can share their ideas and don’t have to show their credentials to be heard or validated.