steph and i wanted to let our readers know we are not putting out an issue this year.
starting in 2020, we produced our five existing issues with students when they were experiencing the impacts of: covid / the global protests following the police murder of george floyd / the crackdowns on campus protests against palestinian genocide / the big tech takeover that will result in the ai-ification of public education / and the betrayal of immigrant communities, so many of whom learn and work at the university.
this publication was also born out of my experiences as a unit 18 lecturer and administrator in composition at the university of california, irvine. as a teacher and someone who trained teachers, i felt a great sense of responsibility to know the students and try to understand where they were coming from. what i learned was how quickly that effort will reveal what sort of institution you teach in and for.
my students are immigrants and the children of immigrants, and they make up pretty much the entirety of this publication. which is why we cannot produce it anymore as affiliates of uci, one of the many institutions that has remained shamefully silent about the government sponsored kidnappings happening throughout california. first generation students—palestinian; latin american; southeast asian; black; undocumented; system-impacted; all of who breathe so much life into this place—deserve better. when i think of the 25 years of my life spent in service to the mission of public university education and where we are today, i am disgusted to my core.
i don’t know what comes next, but lucid will always be about art, writing and education as a practice of freedom.
i also want to extend a special thanks to those key contributors whose work has inspired and affirmed all the students i have taught for the last four years—both online at irvine valley college and in person at uc irvine. in an education environment that constantly reminds first generation students of their imposter syndrome, your powerful narratives help us understand what it takes to get an education when the game is rigged.
and finally i want to apologize directly to the students i’ve worked with who might be wondering what took me so long. all i can say is that i’m just really exhausted, after five years of working on this project while teaching an unholy number of courses in an environment that not only grows increasingly hostile to the humanities, but also willingly, even willfully exploits human vitality in the service of bureaucratic efficiency. it’s gutting.
respectfully,
rachael and steph