State Press podcast transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. The official record for State Press podcasts is the audio. Please listen to the audio as this transcript may only contain summary forms of the given episode.
Connor Greenwall:
Welcome back to the podcast!
Joahan Lopez:
The contrast issue is here, and there are various topics to discuss!
Ava Peguese:
We go ahead and talk with three of the contrast issue reporters!
Connor Greenwall:
I’m Connor Greenwall.
Joahan Lopez:
I’m Joahan Lopez.
Ava Peguese:
I’m Ava Peguese, and this is State Press Play.
Connor Greenwall:
I'm here with Evan Silverberg. He is a magazine reporter here today to talk about his article, you can't innovate on an empty stomach. Evan, to start out, could you tell me a bit about your inspiration for this article?
Evan Silverberg:
Yeah, I… listen. I've been going to ASU for two years now I'm a sophomore here. I'm just about to finish my sophomore year, and through my time here, I've noticed a lot of issues that the school faces that I didn't necessarily know were as bad as they were, and one of those is food insecurity. 26% I believe, of students at ASU suffer from food insecurity, which is a really, really alarming number, and this is an issue on all colleges throughout the country, but ASU, has been kind of fighting back against attempts to limit food insecurity on campus, particularly in the case of Pitchfork pantry, which is an on campus food pantry that aims to distribute food and other like hygiene supplies to students, and the school has kind of refused them funding, refused them the space that they that they need, and they just claim that they don't really want to help them. And I found this out a few months ago, and considering the level of food insecurity on campus. I thought that ASU how much they didn't want to help the pantry was kind of alarming.
Connor Greenwall:
Why do you think the topic of food insecurity is such a hard conversation for so many people to have?
Evan Silverberg:
A lot of people don't want to admit they're food insecure, and I think it has a lot to do with just the stigma around it. It's it's pretty normal in the grand scheme of things, as a college student, to be in food insecure, but I don't think people know that, and I think people are very scared to kind of admit their food insecure and admit when they need help.
Connor Greenwall:
Have you even faced food insecurity before?
Evan Silverberg:
Yeah, I mean, there are certainly times where I didn't know where my next meal was going to come from, where I wasn't getting the nutrition that I needed to properly function throughout the day. And I'm one of many ASU students who has gone through that before. I think a lot of students have, and it's kind of remarkable how common of an issue this is.
To hear more from Evan, please tune in to State Press Play and read The Contrast Issue.
Joahan Lopez:
All right, so I got one of the authors and one of the stories and that this week's mag Gokul Achaththekoot. How are we doing today?
Gokul Achaththekoot:
I'm doing great. How are you?
Joahan Lopez:
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. So, um, I read your story. I loved it. It was super, you know, amazing as an immigrant child myself, you calculated like, you know everything that we you know, immigrants, kids, go through what we feel, and all that. But I loved your story. I feel like the way I would describe your story, it was a love letter to your heritage, your parents, your family, your language. So tell me like, when you pitched the story and it was approved, what was your writing process like?
Gokul Achaththekoot:
Yeah, for sure. I think for a while that I've been wanting to talk about this topic, just because it's something that I feel like is something I really don't talk about with my friends here, because as an out of state student, I really don't have a lot of friends that are like the same culture as me, and so for me, like I knew I wanted to kind of figure out a way to encapsulate what it means to, you know, to come from my heritage, to talk about my journey with that. And I've been working on State Press for a while, but I was like, I think I want to do this through the magazine. So when I pitch a story, I think the writing process going into it was like, I know what I want to talk about. I kind of just made, like, different segments of my culture, my heritage, that I really want to encapsulate in the piece, and then kind of just went into it, just talking. It was pretty easy to write, because I felt like it was coming from a place, like, really within me and like, wasn't nothing that I had to, like, really think about, because it just came straight off the tongue.
Joahan Lopez:
Yeah, of course. So, um, just in case, our, one of our viewers or listeners, I guess this is the pod didn't read it give us, like, a director's commentaries. What's it about?
Gokul Achaththekoot:
Yeah, for sure. Um, I would really just say that at the end of the day, I came from India. I was three when I moved to Kentucky. I grew up in Kentucky, and growing up, I was able to speak Malayalam, my native tongue. So often me and my parents communicated in that, and that was one of the things that kept me close to my culture. But growing up in America, it was kind of hard to, you know, keep it with me, especially because a lot of other Indian American immigrants or Indian American children don't necessarily speak their language, and especially within my community of other Malayalis in Kentucky where I grew up, they also didn't understand or speak Malayalam very well. And so growing up, I kind of trucks tried to transition into speaking more English, and I sort of lost, you know, the love for my mother tongue only when I realized, like when I met other Indian Americans, that do actually speak their mother tongue. I realized at the end of the day, I don't need to fit into this mold, and that I can speak my native tongue and learn it again. And so just growing up, how I love to learn my language, and how I learned to write it, how I learned to read it, and just learning the beauty of what it means to be from a different part of the world, and just kind of talking about how, like, I really love my language, and I just wanted to share that with everyone out there.
To hear more from Gokul, please tune in to State Press Play and read The Contrast Issue.
Ava Peguese:
Hello there! I'm here with Abby Wilt, our full-time magazine reporter here at the state press. She is getting serious here people!! Abby published not one but two magazine articles in this issue. The first one titled “trans lives, liberties and the pursuit of happiness” and the second one a short story titled “black white and gray” Abby, What was it like writing two articles at the same time?
Abigail Wilt:
It was a lot of work, for sure, but I think just the nature of the two articles separately, it was easier to write the short story because I wasn't sourcing for that- So my source was myself, so I feel like that was easier. But the other one, the transgender affirming healthcare story, that one was a bit harder, especially for sourcing, but somehow it manages to come all- or somehow it manages to come together in the end. So I feel like it was okay.
Ava Peguese:
Yeah, and they both turned out great. Since magazine stories are usually more long form, Did you feel like you were able to dive as deep as you wanted into each topic while still splitting your attention between the two?
Abigail Wilt:
I think so. I think for the first article, I summed up everything that I was finding when I was doing my research and everything. So obviously you can dive deeper on both topics. But I feel like, for the purpose of these articles, that it was the length was perfect.
Ava Peguese:
Reading these and listening to them, I also think that they're perfect. I'm such a huge fan of Abby. She is such a great magazine reporter, so being now a full-time reporter, do you see yourself creating more double features in our future issues?
Abigail Wilt:
I hope so. I really like just the ability to write more and to kind of expand my creativity with writing short stories, satires and all of the things. So hopefully, yeah.
To hear more from Abigail, please tune in to State Press Play and read The Contrast Issue.
Connor Greenwall:
And that’s all for this week’s State Press Play. I’m Connor Greenwall.
Joahan Lopez:
I’m Joahan Lopez.
Ava Peguese:
And I’m Ava Peguese. State Press Play is produced by our podcast desk editor, Kylie Saba. Our original music is by Ellie Willard and Jake LaRoux.
Joahan Lopez:
Special thanks to our managing team, Morgan Kubasko and Matthew Marengo.
Connor Greenwall:
Thank you to all of our listeners and donors. With your support, we’re able to continue to provide you with weekly episodes of State Press Play. You can donate at collegemediamadness.com!
Ava Peguese:
You can check out all these stories and more on statepress.com. See you next week!
