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T h e I n d e p e n d e n t S t u d e n t N e w s p a p e r o f B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9 Volume LXXVI, Number 19
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
FERNALD CENTER
Screening of “Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story” ■ To conclude AAPI
celebrations, BAASA hosted a talk about the work and legacy of Corky Lee. By LIN LIN HUTCHINSON JUSTICE EDITOR
On March 31, the Brandeis Asian American Student Association held its second event to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. This year's theme of “Reflection” aims to “celebrate the efforts by our predecessors to create an hospitable and safe environment for AAPI,” an Instagram caption from BAASA’s account states. Sunday’s event included a screening of “Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story,” followed by a question and answer session with director Jennifer Takaki. The documentary examines the work and effort made by Chinese American photographer Corky Lee, who began documenting the struggles, success and everyday lives of the Asian American Pacific Islander communities in the early 1950s, primarily in New York City. Lee strived to get the AAPI community into American history and through his photography drew attention to the xenophobic attitudes throughout American history, with the most recent rise in anti-Asian attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic. “You believe what you see,” Lee said in the documentary’s early moments. “In junior high school they showed a photograph of the completion of the railroad. I didn't see any Chinese. The audacity. They didn't want the Chinese to be photographed as part of the celebration.” In the documentary, Lee is referencing a well known photograph from the 1869 “Golden Spike” ceremony. The photo depicts the celebration of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, connecting the eastern and western sections of the railroad with a golden spike. However, the photo does not show the thou-
sands of Chinese immigrants who came to the United States and risked their lives constructing the majority of the western part of the Transcontinental Railroad from 1863 to 1869. It is estimated that between 150 to 2,000 Chinese laborers were killed from tasks like dynamiting mountains for tunnels. “That sort of set my course,” said Lee. “I think my contribution was for me to use photography as an organizing tool for social change.” What began as a response to the erasure of Asian American in American history, became a 50-year endeavor to capture moments in Asian American history that many large publications failed to cover. Some of Lee’s work included photographing protests held in 1974, by leaders of Asian Americans for Equality, in response to a private firm, the DeMatteis Corporation, refusing to hire Asian construction workers for the construction of Confucius Plaza in NYC’s Chinatown. In 1983, Lee chronicled the uproar and protest by the Asian American community after the Vincent Chen murder trial. Chen, a Chinese-American who was falsely suspected of being Japanese, was accused of having stolen jobs from two laid-off auto workers and was beaten to death. The perpetrators face no jail time. Most recently, Lee photographed the Asian American experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and during the height of anti-Asian hate. In January of 2021, Lee passed away at the age of 73 to COVID-19. “I don't think people need to remember who I am,” Lee said in the documentary. “It's more important that they remember the images.” Director Jennifer Takaki, joined the event via Zoom, and shared that she was initially interested in producing five minute vignettes of people in NYC “who had a singular vision.” Takaki elaborated, explaining that the subjects “live life to the beat of their own drum …. In some ways they sacrificed so much for whatever they believed in.” In pursuing the
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BRIEF
Student Union Constitutional Review On Friday, March 29, the Student Union sent an email revealing that their proposed constitutional amendments, including consolidating several seats, removing several identity-based seats, such as racial minority and midyear, and reducing elections was rejected by the undergraduate student body. The changes would have required a two-thirds majority vote to pass, but only 64% of voters were in favor of the changes. In response, the Student Union has adapted both their proposed constitutional amendments and their voting process. First, the Student Union is no longer considering removing the racial minority seats in the Senate. Instead, their email reads that they will “share concerns [they received] with the University and work collaboratively with students and other stakeholders to identify solutions.” Second, students now have the opportunity to vote for each change individually rather than as an all-or-nothing package. The Student Union encouraged students to vote over March break using the link provided in their email. Additionally, readers were encouraged to seek out the Student Union Instagram or email studentunion@brandeis. edu with any questions. - Zoe Zachary
Waltham, Mass.
WALTER E. FERNALD DEVELOPMENTAL CENTER
Photo courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS
FERNALD CENTER: The Walter E. Fernald Center, though permanently closed, remains a part of Waltham's history.
“They Haven’t Done Their Homework.” ■ How the city of Waltham is failing to
preserve the legacy of the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center. By LIN LIN HUTCHINSON JUSTICE EDITOR
A little over four miles away from Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts, sits the 180+ acre campus of the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center. Originally established in 1848 as the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded by Samuel Gridley Howe in South Boston, the center’s inception marked a pivotal moment in the history of disability care in the United States. What was once a beacon of hope and a place of refuge for countless individuals and families is now marred by instances of neglect and abuse — a reflection of the darker chapters in the history of intellectual and developmental disabilities care. The federally funded institution was the oldest institution that served people with developmental disabilities in the Western Hemisphere. Since Waltham acquired the center from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2014, many Waltham residents, advocacy groups and former Fernald residents have expressed discontent and anger about the city’s management and preservation plans of the historical site. Howe, Fernald’s founder, was known as an abolitionist during the Civil War era and as the first director of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Massachusetts. According to a City of Waltham written history of Fernald, Howe and the second superintendent, Edward Jarvis, had a “primarily moral / religious mission” of making “clean, productive, responsible citizens of high-functioning disabled youths.” This mission included classroom training, manual training like shoe repair and sewing, music therapy and physical activities like dancing and athletics. As the care and education gained traction, there was an increasing push for the school to accept adults with more chronic disabilities that needed additional care. As a result, in 1887 the legislature appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of land in Waltham for the expansion of Fernald. Land purchases continued into the 20th century, eventually totaling more than 180 acres of land. According to the city, the institution witnessed sig-
Creative changemaking
Television talks
Photographer Shelley Polanco ’24 shares how she centers her art on her AfroLatina heritage.
A critical review of the new Percy Jackson television series, as told by a die-hard Percy Jackson fan.
By MINA ROWLAND
Photo courtesy of SHELLY POLANCO
By ISABEL ROSETH
FEATURES 8
Photo courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS
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Waltham, Mass.
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ARTS 19
nificant growth, expanding from 142 residents in 1889 to 494 by 1911, further growing to 1,330 in 1926 and reaching 1,890 by 1945. Its peak came in the 1960s, boasting a peak population of 2,600 residents. The care and education as it was under superintendents Howe and Jarvis changed as Walter E. Fernald became the third superintendent in the institution's history. Under superintendent Fernald, the school became more scientifically driven, especially when pseudoscience, notably eugenics, gained in popularity in the 20th century. In the United States, the eugenics related atrocities committed in concentration camps during the Holocaust inspired segregation of individuals with disabilities and fostered the growth of institutions like the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center. This ideology manifested through widespread Intelligence Quotient testing, which led to the separation of children, whose IQ tests were not considered sufficient, from their families — institutionalizing them and not allowing them to reintegrate into society with the intention of keeping the genetic pool “clean.” Many of Fernald’s ideas like the segregation of intellectually disabled children from society, caused a lot of damage despite his efforts in walking back on some of the ideas during the later parts of his career. Conditions at the school were often brutal where residents were deprived of food and forced into manual labor. “His work bears a significant responsibility for the mistreatment and segregation that hundreds of American mental institutions practice during and after his lifetime,” said Oliver Egger, the great great grandson of Fernald, at a March 24 People’s Fernald meeting. Fernald’s scientific inquiry continued under Dr. Ransom Greene, who became the next superintendent in 1925. During Greene’s leadership, the increase in the institution's population in combination with decreasing funding per capita, caused a heavy reliance on the unpaid manual labor of non-disabled residents in order to keep the state school in operation. In the previously mentioned city’s recording of the center's history, “people who did not have developmental disabilities were virtually incarcerated at the Fernald and institutions like it. These included people who tested below average on IQ tests (termed ‘morons’), children from broken or disordered, poor families and orphans in state foster care.
HBI seminar series By DIANE MEYER
Class of 2028 By THE JUSTICE EDITORIAL BOARD
Interview with Maggie Shealy By RANI BALAKRISHNA
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NEWS 3 FORUM 10 SPORTS 16