My Voice is Yours

 

Photo Taken By: Moraima Capellan Pichardo

Sing Kiana! Dance Kiana! Step Kiana! Play Kiana!

Write Kiana…

Write because when the music stops, the only beat worth listening to is that of the keys dipping beneath your finger tips as you pour all that your are into black and white that reflect your thought.

Write Kiana…

Write because when speech isn’t enough, you allow the pen or pencil to dance to the lyrical tempo known as your most deepest fears, your hearts greatest desires and knowledge you’re just itching to tell.

It’s because of my voice that I write. I write because if I don’t, I don’t know when I will have another chance to do so. My voice is powerful and my voice is unique. My voice is filled with passion, drive, ambition, faith and a hint of sass. My voice allows me to be the person I am today. I am who I am because I have voice that announces that.

What is My Voice?

 

Photo Taken By: Moraima Capellan Pichardo

While looking back on the articles I’ve written for this magazine, I would have to say that my voice is that of facts, reason, and logic. I use my voice to bring awareness to various issues that arise in our world that people may not know about. My thirst for knowledge helps drive my voice in relaying accurate facts. I have faith in my generation that it will be the effective leaders of tomorrow, but in order to do so, they need to be armed with accurate knowledge and I like to think the my voice helps serve that purpose.

My voice is the vehicle of progression and passion. The main goal of raising my voice is so that others may have the same passion for the truth. I want our readers to feel something when they read our magazine, whether it is anger, happiness, frustration, or sadness. These passionate emotions that come from our readers is the reason why I write and the reason that I attempt to keep my voice as pure and truthful as possible. I leave no room for fallacy and lies for I believe our readers deserve better. They deserve the bare truth, and with my voice, I am more than willing to do my best and give it to them.

Written by: Adriana Batista

The Voice of Reason

 

Photo Taken By: Moraima Capellan Pichardo

To define my voice in words would be impossible, but it’s always worth a try. As I pour words onto a page, I allow my readers to define me. Whether you are intrigued or bored with my writing, I still appreciate the fact that I have evoked some sort of emotion from you. Or maybe I am the voice of reason. I never want to choose a side but as a human I am forced to. However, I can consider myself the voice of reason because although I may choose a side on a particular topic or issue I always understand the opposing argument. It is difficult to take a stance in the middle because as I try to present reasoning from all aspects with my writing somehow me, as the messenger, always gets killed. As an African-American, it is often difficult to face the realities of the world. But with a pen and paper in front of me, or as my fingers click on a keyboard, I feel like I can face anything. There is no face to my writing, which leaves no room for me to feel offended or hurt by your judgments. That’s where the power has developed behind my voice.

My Voice Needs to Be Heard

Photo Taken By: Moraima Capellan Pichardo

My voice is LOUD! ‘Cause you know I’m Puerto Rican.  Us Spanish people have a tendency to get loud, especially when we’re all together.  But I think it’s good that I’m loud because that means I am being heard. Unfortunately that does that mean I am necessarily being listened to. Living and growing up in the city and dealing with different people has taught me to speak up for what I believe in.  I’m not going to lie, when I was younger, I was a little mouse because I was intimidated by people who were boisterous.  I had to find an outlet that could help me speak up.  So I started writing at the age of ten.  I wrote stories, that were based on real life events and I would put myself in the position of the character.  I thought I was an author back then.  I would always read, to learn more about how to write, how to put the quotations when a character is speaking, or how to be descriptive.  It has helped me a lot.  I even attempted to write a book after my teacher gave me 100% as my grade for a short story project.  I never finished the book though.  While going through my first love experience, I started writing poetry mainly about love, and heartbreak.  It was the basic, cat in the hat type poetry.  My poetry has gotten waaaay better since then, thankfully.  I then realized I LOVE to write. I began to feel as if I can tell my story better through a pen and paper rather than by speaking.

My Voice is Change

 

Photo Taken By: Moraima Capellan Pichardo

My voice is the representation of change. The change that started from the shackles of discrimination through slavery, to the accomplished vision Martin Luther King Jr. left reflected on his “I Have A Dream Speech.” In this speech the significant figure, Dr. King draws us an image of the progress that stands before us today. We have risen from the dark and now light is shed upon us, African Americans. My choice of words that are jotted down inflicts on our right to freedom of speech. Each letter, each word, and each paragraph that I write reminds us that we no longer have to sit in the back on the bus, our homeland, Africa, is no longer severally invaded by the corrupted world of racism and we are no longer forced to be kept under bondage. The knowledge that is engraved in my articles informs my audience about our black community, which includes our improvement and our faults as a race. The voices of many civil rights activists were left in silence, but the voices of their future generation have finally been heard. My voice is change!

 Written by: Chantelle Paguandas 

The Voice of Anti-Violence

My voice is loud. My voice is strong. My voice makes me the Jasmine I am today. My voice has been through a lot, trials and tribulations, to being recognized for my accomplishments. My voice stands against domestic violence and sexual assault. My power of speech acknowledges the problems that other countries face because of lack of medicine and proper care. The death rates in other countries are ridiculously high and more needs to be done to fix them. My power of speech knows that without consent intercourse should not take place. My knowledge knows that even though consent is not always given intercourse does still take place. And my knowledge knows that people are affected by this every two minutes in the United States.

Let This Voice Be Ours

The voice…

When paper meets pen and drags along the lines creating loops and lines unfurled into letters transformed into words. When nails click clack away on keyboards typing away thoughts and screams or even the hushed secrets in between. This voice raised in the silence of minds too creative to sometimes think itself worthy or bright, a voice unmatched by microphones and speakers. Brave enough to seek truth through the lies and seek knowledge in the dark and even the light.

The voice. My voice… Our voice.

Finding My Voice

 

Photo Taken By: Moraima Capellan Pichardo

As a 19-year-old second semester freshman with a major in Political Science, I find myself being constantly inspired by the experiences I go through on a day to day basis. I remember writing my first article for The Voice. My article was entitled, “Natural Hair Movement.” In that article I documented the new movement that has started with natural hair and the science of Black natural hair care. That story, alongside many others gave me the opportunity to voice my opinions, my thoughts, and allowed me to share a little bit of who I am, being that I myself am a natural hair girl.

I love to read, play the piano, sing, dance, and act. But most of all, I love to write. Writing I would have to say, is my number one passion. I express myself through my writing, and my creativity spills out the most through my pen and paper. When I find that I cannot literally voice my opinion, I will most likely write it. I also find joy in writing about experiences I have seen many people go through. From relationships, to successes and failures, life is like a movie to me. I feel as if everything is staged and I am a character, reading off of her script. And the people who I come in contact with from a day-to-day basis are co-stars. Now that may sound like a funny way to view life, but that’s how life appears to me.

With me studying Political Science, I would like to take it a step further and someday go to law school, in the end becoming a lawyer. I am a person who fights for justice and is constantly seeing the deprivation of justice in this world. I tattooed “Justice for Africa” on my forearm a couple of months ago because I wanted to show my strong belief in justice and bringing justice to those who need it most in my opinion.

The Voice has given me a voice and to those who have chosen to listen to it, thank you.

Written by: Araba Aidoo-Apau

Decisions

Whether it’s something as small as deciding what to eat for lunch or choosing what college to attend, life is all about the decisions people make. From the moment as a child when we’re able to process information, there is some role model in our lives who constantly stresses the importance of making the right decisions. It is impossible for anyone to lead a life of only making good decisions. It may be society’s influence or personal curiosity that forces us to sometimes make the wrong decisions. It becomes an individual’s internal task to decide whether they use these mistakes as a learning experience or simply continue on a downward spiral of bad decisions. However, the issue of clarification arises of exactly what is right rather than wrong. A decision that may appear ethically wrong to one person can be something right to another. Therefore, people have to be able to adapt or transition into certain communities they become new members of in order to not make right or wrong decisions, but smart ones. Particularly, when a person becomes a student of a college or university, their decisions no longer affect only themselves, but more importantly the people around them.

30 Day What??

  

I like big butts and I cannot lie! Sir Mix-a-lot isn’t the only one who gets excited when he sees a ton of junk in the trunk. Lately there’s been much talk about this new “30 Day Squat Challenge.” In the photo of the calendar which is shown above, there is a female showing her voluptuous backside. To the sides of her are the days of a month which is usually 30 days. Next to the days is the number of squats the individual performing the work out should do for that day.  Now you would think the person who invented this workout would go easy on the average Joe and start off with 10 or so squats. NOPE! The challenge starts off with 50! That has to be hard on the knees. Now if I’m going to be doing all these squats, it better be for a good reason and I better see some stellar results right? Not so much.

While this challenge can promote exercise and help build and tone the legs and butt, the challenge can also cause many to have self-conscious issues as well. Many girls, and older women are not doing this exercise for fitness reasons, but more-so for aesthetic reasons.