How to Choose a Guitar
My first guitar was a random acoustic my dad’s roommate left in his house after he moved out. I peeled an AAA sticker off the bottom, and had no idea what scale length or body type was, but I learned my first chords and songs…
Love Beyond Distance and Time: Checking in with My Grandparents
When I was in the third grade, my grandparents and I shared the master bedroom in my family’s apartment. I went to bed and woke up to the sound of my grandmother’s snores. These days, one of the things I think about the most is…
Homesick Man Talks about Congee
Welcome back everybody, my name is Ryan, and I’m here again to share another one of my favorite childhood recipes! This time, I’ll be walking you through how to make classic congee. Every weekend when I was younger, I would wake up to the sound…
The Ways We Can Still Say ‘I Love You’
As cities and states begin to reopen public places, I think about the ways we’ve learned to be there for each other in the past few months. And I worry about what will happen if we let ourselves forget how we supported each other even…
Home Cooking for the Heart: Eggs, Rice and Ketchup
Pleasure to meet you, my name is Ryan and I really like making comfort food! This recipe is a take on a ketchup fried rice dish my friend’s mom used to make for us whenever we went over after school. She always invited us into…
Through Our Lens: Gallery Wall
The cracked finishes and curled edges of my childhood
Growing up, I could stare at my parents’ bedroom wall for hours. Stapled to the unfinished plywood was a collection of photographs from their lives in the U.S., and the ones they had left behind across la frontera many years before. These memories and reminders…
Through Our Lens: Humans of Santa Cruz
Humans of New York is a photoblog that includes a collection of street portraits and interviews of the people of New York City. Photographer Brandon Stanton started the series in November 2010. The blog now has over 17 million followers on Facebook and approximately 8.7…
Through Our Lens: ‘South Central Love’
Long after most students have gone home for the night, Edgar Cruz is hard at work in the art department darkroom, listening to good music and making even better prints. Cruz is a fourth-year art and environmental studies major at UC Santa Cruz who specializes…
