Happy Monday, U-FLi friends – This week, we’re featuring Lenika Rivas (she/hers), a sophomore concentrating in Environmental Studies & Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Lenika is currently in Providence, RI. Read our interview below:

How are you doing? How have you been during this transition period?

It’s been kind of difficult going to online classes just because it’s hard to be engaged when you’re just looking at a screen. I find myself getting bored or feeling kind of drained after classes because I’m looking at a screen for so long. 

Since I’m staying in Providence, it hasn’t been a huge transition in terms of having to go home and work around my parents and my family, which is sometimes hard because it’s kind of chaotic at home. I guess one thing that has been keeping me kind of grounded and focused is that I still meet with my therapist over Zoom. That’s been nice because I’m able to still work on certain anxieties and things like that. It’s nice to be able to have my therapist. 

The hardest thing is just dealing with isolation, being in quarantine, and struggling to stay connected with friends. I’ve been trying to do study sessions over Zoom so I’m going to try to start that with some of my friends and my roommates.

What’s giving you joy at the moment?

Well since I just moved into my new dorm, I’ve been redecorating and organizing things and putting up nice wall decorations to feel like I’m doing something. Even if it’s stuff inside my home, I feel somewhat productive. I just put up these lights today so it feels nice, like I’m doing something. It’s also something good for me because then I feel more comfortable in my space. It’s been fun working on that. For people at home, if they can decorate or reorganize, it can be kind of helpful to clear your space and your mind. That has been something I’ve been enjoying the past few days. Sometimes too much because I’ll want to decorate instead of doing my work. 

Can you describe a time this past semester where you felt connected to the folks around you?

Me and my roommates have pasta nights every Thursday at Andrew’s. Every week, we’re just there. It was the last Thursday that we were going to have pasta night because that was when we got the email that everyone had to leave. I have a triple, so me and my two other roommates went to get pasta. We were just realizing that it was going to be our last pasta night for the school year. 

We ended up having a really deep conversation about our relationships with other people and our relationships with each other and feeling like we can trust each other and have each other and be there for each other. The three of us are Latinas and come from a similar background. So we were eating pasta at Andrew’s and our conversation got really deep. We went back to our room and started talking at our place. 

I remember feeling really grateful that I have them. I’m part of Machado House, so I guess it’s my community within the Machado community. I felt like we were really connecting and feeling safe, like we can trust and talk about things together. We ended up crying because our conversation was really deep. It was nice to be able to vent to each other and relate or not relate and be there for one another.

Hi U-FLi friends! We’re restarting our U-FLi Community Narratives with an interview from early March. We met with Bright Tsagli (he/his), a RUE (Resumed Undergraduate Education) student ’23 from Ghana. Bright is concentrating in Economics & Public Policy.

How are you doing?

I’m doing okay. I’m taking humanities this semester so it’s a lot of papers, a lot of reading. I’m taking an Ethnic Studies class, Academic Writing, Foundations of Development, and Healthcare in the US.

How has it been adjusting to Brown?

That’s a good question. Honestly, it’s been rough academically because I took some time off. I haven’t been in that academic setting and Brown is very rigorous. I was struggling last semester with classes. I think almost every first year student struggles. 

I was at Germany. I enrolled at a university over there, dropped out, and went to pursue soccer semi-professionally. I got injured at one point and that took like 9 months to recover. My mother always wanted me to go to school. I had to find a new place to start over so I came here with no family and enrolled at a community college. I was also international so paying for it was tough. I did community college for two years, put a hold on my transcript, and had to take multiple jobs to raise money to get that bill off. During that time I was thinking of going back to school so I was working on applying to a couple of scholarships. 

I was working a full-time job last year before Brown. I was working in digital marketing for a year. I did all the paid content that went on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat for T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods. I was with an agency in New York so when I was working there, I got the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship. With the scholarship you have to go back to school. I applied to a few scholarships but I had some immigration issues so I had to withdraw some applications. Brown was the only one that would work with me, so now I’m here for my second semester.

Social wise, it’s a different scene in terms of the age group. Sometimes it plays a bigger path especially if you’re an older student. Trying to find that social group and integration has been rough. RUE has its own community but even within there’s people in their 40s or 50s with family who just go to class and go home. It’s rough in that kind of setting, but I think it’s been good this semester. Last semester was pretty rough. 

Who are you away from Brown?

If I’m not here, I’m really helping my sisters in Germany with their homework and checking on them.

Reflecting on the Community Narrative Series

It’s been a year and a half since I proposed this series. Drawing from Humans of New York, I wanted the Community Narrative Project to serve as a similar digital space to affirm shared experiences, provide intergenerational advice, and encourage vulnerability with community members. In my own experiences at Brown, my connections with other community members are without a doubt the reason I have come this far. 

I remember feeling particularly lonely my freshman year as I struggled to find community in Providence. I had high expectations for my time at Brown, and was discouraged and embarrassed when I felt unhappy with my college experience. I found solace in stories from graduating U-FLi seniors, who listed off the buildings they had cried in on campus or talked about the times they considered transferring. They mentioned how time and time again, their support networks came through to pick them up when they were down.

When proposing this digital project, I hoped to recreate the sense of community I felt during those U-FLi events. I wanted to acknowledge the weight of those moments when our individual realities feel especially salient and isolating, while also highlighting and affirming everything we bring to the table — our strengths, our pastimes, our passions.

I like to end interviews for this project by asking folks who they are away from Brown, as the pressures of academia can quickly feel overwhelming. It feels grounding to remind ourselves that our worth is not tied to our productivity, to our academic performance, to our student identities. We are friends, family members, poets, dancers, artists, Hot Cheetos consumers (and/or distributors).

I’m grateful to have shared moments of vulnerability and reflection with the folks I was lucky enough to interview, to witness how this community always shows up to affirm and celebrate each other. I’m excited to share we will be posting a few more highlights to finish out the semester. These times are difficult in more ways than one, but I hope we can continue to find joy in our stories, in our friends, and in our community.

If you’d like to view past highlights, please visit http://blogs.brown.edu/uflidigitalarchive/.

-Jasmine Ruiz ’20.5 (she/hers)