To commemorate its 50th year on Duke’s campus, the Center for Multicultural Affairs is hosting three zine-making workshops, with the first workshop hosted Tuesday.
The zines made in the workshops will be scanned and put together into a booklet to be presented in a CMA 50th anniversary celebration on Mar. 21. The celebration is also tied into the CMA’s Unity through Diversity event, which is coming back for the first time since the pandemic began.
The 50th anniversary celebration is under the theme “we were there, and now we’re here,” a phrase CMA Director Linda Capers often said to refer to the CMA's move from the Bryan Center’s bottom floor to the top level.
The theme echoes the CMA’s efforts to redefine the center, said CMA Assistant Director Maij Vu Mai at the first workshop.
Zines are “self-published, non-commercial print-work that is typically produced in small, limited batches.” In their presentation, Mai emphasized the deep ties marginalized groups have with zines, with groups often turning to zines to make their voices heard. They encouraged students to make the zines their own.
The first workshop, revolving around the theme of “leading with love,” takes inspiration from author and activist Gloria Jean Watkins, known by her pen name “bell hooks,” and her book, “All About Love: New Visions.” Mai explained how the book changed their life and the power behind the ingredients of love Watkins describes.
Mai outlined the ingredients of love to participants — including care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust communication — along with a journaling reflection activity to have students engage with their perceptions of love.
Students were then encouraged to create a zine that represented what love meant to them. They were provided with an abundance of supplies — paint brushes, colored paper, magazines, markers — in order to make their love come alive in their zines.
When reflecting on choosing love as a theme, Mai pointed out how focusing on love felt right coming out of the pandemic, as “people are relearning what love means to them.”
“I want people to expand their definitions of love, and I want people to root themselves in love, because there are a lot of times and moments — especially as marginalized communities who go through a lot of stress, trauma, pain and grief — where it's really easy to not move from a space of love,” they said.
Sophomores Celcie Tetteh and Yovana Lopez Valentín took part in the zine-making workshop.
Valentín focused her zine on the stages of life and each stage’s impact on one’s view of love. She seized the opportunity to highlight education, family, safety, schools and body positivity and mentioned how the workshop made her think about representations of love.
“I learned how even though there's some things that I didn't consider to be love, aspects of love are really incorporated into our everyday lives,” Valentín said.
Tetteh shared a similar sentiment to Valentín, expressing how there are many dimensions of love. To convey this, Tetteh expressed her zine in the form of a booklet, with each page representing respect, communication and affection — three intentionally included from the ingredients of love.
“When people think about love, they really think about care and affection, but it's more than that,” Tettah said.
The CMA will host two more zine-making workshops on Feb. 13 and March 2, each taking place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Bryan Center.
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Michael Ramos is a Trinity first-year and a staff reporter of The Chronicle's 118th volume.