Category Archives: Multicultural

Augusta’s Final Dance

By Avi Sogani, age 12, California.

I sat glued to our TV on a cool California April morning beside my dad.
Almost hundred years of traditions live at Augusta National, where the Masters first began.
The aroma of freshly cut grass wafts on the gentle breeze,
as the fairways and the undulating greens shine under the perfect morning light of this splendid day.

He steps onto the final tee, holding onto his lead,
just a few swings away from winning the legendary green jacket.
His tee shot flies past the spectators,
before diving sharply into a steep bunker.

Golf is unpredictable like that, with frustration looming at every turn,
but this golfer just breathes, returns to his process, and refuses to give up.
Even in the toughest situations, he can find a way out.
He requires patience, determination, and a deep belief that he can do this.

He hits his shot over the deceiving water hazard, landing it five feet from the pin,
as the audience applauds feverishly.

His putt drips into the cup as he hoists his clenched fist in the air.
The crowd erupts like a volcano,
and he wins the tournament.

Moments like this make this aggravating game something unforgettable.

He shakes hands with the dejected runner-up,
whose quiet eyes ask the question
every golfer knows:
what could have been?

I know that feeling very well.
Next time I am out on the course, I will remind myself to be more like Rory.

By Avi Sogani, age 12, California. He writes: “I am sharing my poem that reflects my passion for the game of golf… I spend most of my weekends either playing golf in local tournaments, reading golf books, or following it on television. Watching the Masters tournament with my dad is a yearly tradition I cherish very much. This poem tries to capture the emotions I experience both on and off the course.

“I am hoping the readers walk away remembering that even the best players in the world may make mistakes in big moments. What matters is to continue to believe in yourself, stay focused and disciplined to reach your goals in life.”

From Gauls to Gummies: The International History Olympiad in Paris

From Gauls to Gummies:
A Week of History, Friendship, and Growth
at the International History Olympiad in Paris

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
—William Butler Yeats.

By Sahil Prasad, grade 10, Maryland.

More Than Buzzers and Scoreboards
When you hear the words “Quiz Olympiad”, most people imagine fierce competition, flashing buzzers, and rooms filled with the silence of anticipation. And they wouldn’t be wrong. A lot of that happened at the 2025 International History Olympiad (IHO) held in Paris, France, from July 20th to 26th. The amount of time and studying that goes into preparing for the Olympiad is unparalleled. I dove into the timelines of French history, art, and literature from the Gauls living in Roman-era France to the quirks surrounding the policies of the current President Macron, not to mention the enormously confusing list of kings sharing the name “Louis.” I studied the paintings of Jacques-Louis David and the classics of stellar novelists like Flaubert and Sartre. The International History Olympiad was unlike any competition I had ever taken part in.

I started academic competitions all the way back in third grade when I played at my local History Bee and joined my school’s It’s Academic Quizbowl Club run by Dr. and Mrs. Seifter who started the club as an avenue for young kids in my area to get into Quizbowl, a sport that, as you can imagine, is quite a jump from the history we were learning at school (it wasn’t even called history until Middle School).

Preparing for Paris
The Olympiad is run by International Academic Competitions (IAC), a company founded by David Madden (who was a Jeopardy! champion with a 19-day winning streak).

Moi and IHO Director and Former Jeopardy Champion David Madden awarded me my plaque; the top 20 players at the 2025 International History Olympiad received one.

IAC has held many Olympiads in the past. In fact, the 2025 Olympiad was my third time in the ring. This time, they had selected Paris, France as the host city for the competition. The event was held at the École Jeannine Manuel, a large school campus in Paris that could fit all the 400 plus students from many nations that came for the Olympiad. The school is right in the middle of the bustling heap that is Paris with falafel shops, pizza parlors, Thai restaurants, and Indian restaurants—a truly international setting that perfectly complemented this global Olympiad.

When Rivals Became Friends
The 2025 International History Olympiad certainly had all the stressful aspects: tense moments, tight scores, and many incredibly sharp competitors from all over the world. But over the years, for me, it has become something far more meaningful: it was an avenue where I could connect with my friends from all over the world and have fun as much with knowledge exchanges as playing games, while also competing at a prestigious and international level. It’s where I made some of the best friendships of my life.

The Olympiad brought together students from over 30 countries. For a week, we competed in a variety of events from the International History Bee World Championships (an individual buzzer-based history quiz competition) and the Art History Bee to Table Combined (an event dividing half the available points between table tennis games and history questions). Some of my most memorable moments included buzzing in on the Mask of Nefertiti, an Egyptian artwork I ignorantly perceived as “not famous enough” until it won me a crucial round in the Ancient History Bee and my buzz that earned me a silver medal in the Art History Bee, namely, answering with the correct answer of “Ophelia” (thanks Taylor), that I recognized from her position in the water from the famous John Millais painting.

The competition was fierce, but most of the time, the environment was far from tense. Between rounds, laughter echoed in the halls of École Jeannine Manuel. Students from different continents swapped stories about their schools, their countries, and their favorite historical figures. In one instance, we’d be debating who would win the overall championship and immediately switch to debating whether Haribo sour gummies were better plain or in the mix-and-match bags with marshmallows. It was in these moments that I realized the true essence of the Olympiad: it wasn’t about defeating others, but discovering what connects us all, our shared love of history and what matters most, the fact that we are all young adults!

My competitors quickly became my friends. We shared strategies before events, encouraged one another during tough rounds, and celebrated together when the medals were announced. I still remember standing with players from Canada, the Philippines, and Singapore as we compared scores after a particularly close History Bee, the sense of mutual respect was clear, even in the face of competition.

With my friends/competitors from the Philippines

I distinctly remember the French History Bee held under the gaze of the Eiffel Tower, we were running around, playing tag, and simultaneously discussing our favorite figures in French History before the soon to be competitive match. This drastic contrast between a game of tag and an international-level academic competition event separated by mere minutes can only be found at the International History Olympiad.

Finalists of the French History Bee waiting to buzz to win under the Eiffel Tower

When I won two silver medals and one bronze for Maryland, it was certainly a proud moment, but what I remember most vividly is the sense of belonging. The Olympiad taught me that true success isn’t measured solely in rankings or medals but in the experiences that stay with you. Competing against some of the brightest young minds in the world challenged me to think more deeply and work harder. The knowledge I gained while preparing—and the opportunity to compete on that stage—felt like a gold medal in itself.

One of my favorite parts of the Olympiad was how it blended fun with intellectual challenge. Each day, after intense competition, we got to participate in cultural excursions and light-hearted events that let us unwind and connect beyond the game. I particularly remember my visit to the Père Lachaise cemetery on the outskirts of the city with my mother and fellow competitors. I felt a sense of gratitude toward figures like Honoré de Balzac and Félix Faure, and many of the other historical figures about whom I was knowledgeable about and hence got me to Paris in the first place to compete and won me many of the medals I returned home with.

A Community I’ll Carry Forward
The International History Olympiad wasn’t just a competition; it was a reminder that knowledge can bridge cultures and unite people from across the globe. It showed me that while history may be made up of countless conflicts and divisions, studying it together and competing can bring out the best human connections. And as I returned home from Paris, with memories of laughter and moments of triumph, I realized that the real victory was not in winning medals, but in finding a community that celebrates curiosity, fun, and knowledge.

I can’t wait to return to the next International History Olympiad in 2027. It will be my last one as a high school student. I know these memories will last me a lifetime!

###

The International History Olympiad is held every two years, and will next take place in Summer 2027, likely in Berlin (Germany), London (UK), or Lisbon (Portugal). To learn more about the Olympiad as well as the annual National History Bee, please visit www.historyolympiad.com and www.iacompetitions.com/our-competitions. For questions about the Olympiad or any other IAC events, please contact International Academic Competitions’ Executive Director David Madden at david@iacompetitions.com.

Sahil Prasad, grade 10, Maryland, has published a number of articles in Skipping Stones.

In Defense of Dirt: Rewilding Our Children

In Defense of Dirt: Rewilding Our Children
Before their Bodies Forget

From Finnish forest floors to Michigan creek beds, the science is clear:
real dirt is medicine, memory, and the immune system’s original teacher

By Thom Hartmann, author, speaker, activist, and educator

I grew up on the edge of Lansing, Michigan, with a stream just down the road and woods that felt like a secret frontier. We all did: the neighborhood kids, barefoot in the damp grass after rain, boots mucked up with creek-silt, hands scrubbed raw from climbing fallen logs and digging in the undergrowth. Getting in the dirt was part of childhood. We didn’t ask permission from microbes.

So when I read the recent report in The Guardian about Finnish nursery experiments transforming children’s health by simply letting them play in real soil, sand, leaves and forest-floor, I felt the past crash into the present and I knew again that the story of our species and our health lies in that innocent, messy contact.

In Finland, at a daycare center in Lahti (north of Helsinki), the researchers from the Natural Resources Institute of Finland adopted a radical experiment: rip out the asphalt, dig into the soil, roll out a live carpet of forest-floor moss and blueberry bushes, build compost heaps for children to feed, invite the kids to play, dig, muddle, get their hands in it.

The result, in a two-year study of three- to five-year-olds, was striking: children in the “rewilded” yards had fewer disease-causing skin bacteria (like Streptococcus) and showed stronger immune regulation (increased T-regulatory cells) within weeks. Gut microbiomes were healthier, inflammatory-associated Clostridium levels dropped.

This is the antithesis of today’s “modern” societal perspective on childhood and nature.

On the one hand, we have the modern obsession with pristine, sanitized lives: rubber-surfaced playgrounds, plastic mats, antibacterial everything. On the other, there’s the simple fact that our inner biology, our immune systems, our gut and skin microbiomes, were forged in the wild: the wild of forest floors, streams, soils, plants, bugs.

As I argued in my earlier essay “It’s All One Thing – The Story of the Worms” here in Wisdom School, our estrangement from that substrate is the seed of auto-immune disorders, of chronic inflammation, and a body that’s forgotten it’s actually part of nature.

In Michigan I was lucky: the woods and stream were mine for the exploring. I remember fingers crawling over moist logs, the smell of leaves turning, the damp cold run-off water slipping under my boots. I didn’t know at the time that those experiences were more than play: they were calibration.

They were training my immune system, teaching my skin and gut to know what nature looked like and smelled like and felt like. To know that dirt is not an enemy. And those childhood experiences are probably why I’ve never been troubled by autoimmune disorders or asthma.

So let’s call this what it is: a radical restoration. Not of some exotic wilderness, but of our lost contact with the natural microbial terrains that co-evolved with our species. The Finnish results are more than a Kindergarten trend; they’re a signal of what our children—and we all—are missing.

Here are some of the stakes:

When kids play in dirt rich with soil microbes, their immune system steps into a healthier balance: fewer disease-causing bacteria on the skin surface, greater regulation of internal immune responses.
The “outer layer” of biodiversity—soil, plants, forest floor—directly influences the “inner layer” of biodiversity in our bodies, our skin, gut, and airways. This is co-evolved, not incidental.
The modern shift away from exposure—to “sterile” play surfaces, indoor confinement, sanitized surfaces—may appear benign, but it’s been quietly shaping the epidemic rise of allergies, auto-immune disorders, and inflammatory diseases that both disturb the quality of life and can shorten lifespan itself.
This is not just personal wellness: it’s ecological and societal. The health of children, the immune burdens we carry, the resilience of future generations: all of this ties back to whether we let the next generation touch the living earth.
In the Finnish classroom yard they said: “We’re moving the action from inside to outside. We want to show the children nature so they learn about it.”

That sentence is packed. Show the children nature. Let them learn through contact, through play, through mess. Not as a museum piece, not as a “nature corridor” behind a fence, but as the ground they run on, dig in, climb across, whose bugs and fungus mix with theirs.

So, I want to issue a personal call to you—if you have children, nieces, nephews—or if you’re planning for grandchildren—or if you’re simply human, who used to feel the dirt under your fingernails and the creek cold on your shins—do this: Let the next generation get messy.

Plant a compost heap. Bring real soil into the sandbox. Create a border of moss and stones. Let the rain puddle, let the bugs crawl, let the children burrow. Let the forest floor not be exotic but ordinary.

I remember that stream down the road from the house I grew up in, the woods on the edge of Lansing, the sticky Michigan clay, the little fish, frogs, and crawdads under rocks, the mud mixing into water. I remember coming home with smudged socks, grass stains and a face kissed by sap.

I didn’t know at the time that I was feeding my immune system. I simply knew I was alive and it was a thrill.

We’ve forgotten that aliveness. Our culture has prized immaculateness, separation from the “dirty” wild, the exclusion of microbes like we exclude strangers. Yet the wildness is in us. The soil is in us. We’re made of the same living matrix as the tree roots and the beetles and the moss. Broken contact with that matrix isn’t harmless: it’s a literal loss.

In the wise old words I referenced in “It’s All One Thing”: “When we remove ourselves from that web of life, we do so at our own peril.”

The Finnish story is not just cute or scientific: it’s urgent. Rebuild our contact with the living earth. Let children scoop sand and soil, let them bury their hands, let them build mud-cakes like Aurora in Finland’s day-care. Laugh as they smear soil on their faces. It’s not chaos: it’s calibration.

Yes, modernization has brought us many gifts. Clean water. Sanitation. Vaccines. But modernization taken too far, with too much separation from our biological roots, leaves us with immune systems that misfire, bodies that mistake harmless soil microbes for threats, children who never taste actual dirt. The Finnish experiment is clear: get back to the soil, get back to the forest floor, get back to the messy, ordinary earth.

And the earth—our living earth—benefits too. More forest-floor carpets. More compost heaps. More kids playing outside, fewer rubber mats, fewer sterile boxes. We begin to treat biodiversity as not just glamorous (rainforests, coral reefs) but local (yard patches, old tree stumps, rain puddles). We begin to remember that our health is tied to the health of that biodiversity.

So my invitation to you: On your next weekend, find a patch of ground the kids (or you!) can mess with. Dig into it. Feel the soil. Let a leaf rot into the compost. Let worms do their work. Let the world pull you back. Because we’re not apart from nature: we are nature. And when we pretend otherwise, we hurt ourselves and the world around us.

It’s time to stop treating microbes as abstract threats or invisible villains. They are—and have always been—our companions, our allies, our ancestral family. The Finnish children’s laughter in the sandy forest-floor yard is our ancient laughter too.

Let’s dig in.

—Thom Hartmann, educator and commentator, is the author of many respected books. Reprinted with permission. To receive new Wisdom School posts you can become a free or paid subscriber of this reader-supported digital publication, The Wisdom School: What It Means To Be Human. All Wisdom School articles are free and available to everyone. Copyright by Thom Hartmann, 2025.

Who Am I?

I may not have eyes to hide
or hair to care
or ears to face my fears
or a nose to smell a rose
or a mouth to shout
or arms to work a farm
or legs to walk
or hands to till the land
or feet to make my shoes tweet

Who am I?

I am a personality!

—Tara Sadeghi, age 8, California.

The Humane Hoax

The Humane Hoax: Animal Industry’s Labels and Lies

By Hope Bohanec, author and activist, Oregon

As consumers become aware of the animal agriculture industry’s cruelty and environmental impact, clever industry marketers adapt with “humane” labels, small-scale tall tales, and other feel-good falsehoods. The term “humane hoax” is defined as new language and labels in animal product marketing that convey a false narrative of humane treatment and sustainable management of farmed animal operations. The marketing language and euphemistic labels tell a story of a supposed distinction from conventional animal products. But the reality on the ground, in the manure pits, during the mechanical milking, and inside the terrifying slaughterhouse, is fundamentally unchanged, despite promises to consumers of something new. Humanewashing and greenwashing are becoming more prevalent and pervasive than ever.

Also encompassed in the concept of the humane hoax is the new trend of people attempting to “do-it-yourself” with backyard farmed animal raising and slaughtering, generally with good intentions, but all too often, with cruel consequences. It has never been more important to educate people on the truth behind the industry lies, and people are hungry for the truth.

Overview:

In the time since I wrote the first book on the subject of the humane hoax, called The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?, consumer awareness of the suffering of farmed animals has grown exponentially and so has the “alternative” animal product industry. “Cage-free,” “Certified Humane,” and other comforting labels are no longer elusive—dusty items only seen in the back corners of health food stores. They are now as common and numerous as cattle on a feedlot, spotted in common places like Walmart and your local coffee shop. In 2010, eggs labeled cage-free were a mere four percent of the market; that had risen to sixteen percent by 2017. The industry predicts that to meet consumer demand, cage-free production will be seventy-five percent of the market by 2026.

It is a hopeful sign that consumers are demanding better treatment for animals, but the actual difference in the life and death experience for a cow or a chicken with humane labeling is sadly minimal. I have done extensive research on this issue, interviewed numerous stakeholders, and personally visited multiple animal operations, and concluded that these unregulated labels mean very little, if anything at all, for the animal’s experience. I have examined this particular area of farmed animal advocacy, having written the first, and one of the only books on the topic, and having been professionally involved in the field for over two decades. I found, for example, that comparing hens confined in battery cages to those in cage-free barns bodes only slight improvements and those differences can vary widely from farm to farm.

Animal activists have time and again exposed the horrors of egg-laying hens crammed tightly in battery cages, with only the space comparable to a crowded elevator to live in. In response, the shrewd marketers representing the egg industry have distorted the story, altered the labels, and changed consumers’ conceptions. Instead of rejecting the inherent cruelty of commercial egg production, shoppers have been deceived by the fictitious choice of a seemingly “humane” alternative of “cage-free”—but the reality for the birds, however, is bleak.

The difference in the experience of a bird in a conventionally managed operation versus a cage-free one is negligible. Despite the optimistic label, most chickens in cage-free egg facilities still live in miserable overcrowded conditions in massive windowless buildings. Their eyes and throats burn from the ammonia gas released from their accumulated waste. They never feel the sun on their wings or experience a simple satisfying dust bath. Irrespective of any label, all the chickens still go to a brutal slaughter at a very young age. We must not let the deception of “new” marketing eclipse the fundamental cruelty of animal agriculture. The perception invoked by the “cage-free” label—that the birds are now living a good life—is a decidedly false one, a mirage created by the interaction of euphemisms and consumer hopes in the absence of accurate information.

As animal agribusiness attempts to wash the blood off its hands with a new fabrication of fresh farming methods, consumers, activists, and other caring people must educate themselves about the new narratives that the industry continues to weave. This anthology features a range of knowledgeable authors who are at the forefront of this marketing shift, chronicling every aspect with in-depth analyses and intellectual rigor. Among other topics, the book explores how so-called alternative animal agriculture intersects with feminism, affects the environment, is represented in the media, and impacts human and non-human communities alike.

On Contributors to the Anthology:

This anthology has an impressive list of contributing writers who are a diverse assortment of activists, academics, authors, and campaigners. They range from radical protesters to educating advocates to professional scholars in the academy. Of the seventeen expert contributors, eight are published authors, five leaders of advocacy organizations, eight have Ph.D. degrees, and three have masters. What they all share is a forward-thinking vision and common concerns with animal agriculture’s marketing shift from big to small, from industrial to local.

The Humane Hoax contains essays by noted animal rights and environmentalism figures like Carol Adams, Robert Grillo, Sailesh Rao, Karen Davis, and Christopher “Soul” Eubanks. Some of the contributors have done extensive peer-reviewed research on the subject while others have been working with farmed animal advocacy for decades thinking deeply about this issue. Still others are rescuing farmed animals directly from local and small-scale farms, witnessing first-hand the undeniable suffering that is commonplace in animal farming.

The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs; edited by Hope Bohanec. The book is available as a paperback and also as an e-book from Lantern Publishing & Media; lanternpm.org.

Hong Yen Chang

Hong Yen Chang: The First Chinese Lawyer in the U.S.

By Fanny Wong, New York

In 1872, thirteen-year-old Hong Yen Chang was sad and excited when he boarded a ship on a twenty-five days journey to the United States. Born in either 1859 or 1860, he had seldom left his village in Heungshan in South China.

He was an exceptional student and was chosen to be one of the first of 30 boys to study in the United States. The plan of the Chinese government was to educate 120 young Chinese boys, all expenses paid, to acquire technical knowledge from the West. They were known as the Chinese Educational Mission students.

When Hong Yen Chang arrived in bustling San Francisco, he marveled at the six-storied buildings. Heat came out of radiators in the hotel that was not made of mud with paper windows. Water came out of the faucet. Riding the elevator up and down was fun.

Yen Chang noted that the men in San Francisco wore tight pants and form-fitting jackets. He wore maroon robes with blue silk coats and round, small hats. His footwear was a plain padded slipper, whereas the western footwear was laced shoes.

He and the other boys were amazed at the hundreds of people in and out of the San Francisco train depot. They called the trains “fire-cars.” They would eventually ride a train from Sacramento, California, all the way across America, to New England.

The Chinese Education Mission found foster families for the boys, and made arrangements with schools. The curiosity of the town citizens was not always comfortable for Yen Cheng. At first, he laughed it off, but then he was chased by American kids/youth. And the ogling by adults made him conscious of his queue.

The Mission moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where the Chinese had a supportive community. Foster families made great efforts in teaching the youngsters language and customs. The Mission allowed the boys to wear Western clothes, and to tuck their queues beneath their jackets. (During the Qing Dynasty from 1644 to 1911, by decree Chinese men grew their hair long and braided it into a queue.) In their new outfits, the boys looked less like foreigners.

Yen Chang picked up English at a fast pace. He soon learned that speed, strength and dexterity were desirable in America, whereas these qualities were deemed inappropriate for scholars in China.

Exercise, and a rich diet of protein and carbohydrates did wonders for the boys’ health. (In China, most of them ate mainly rice, with an occasional piece of chicken, if they were lucky). Soon, they were strong enough to play team sports with American youth. They had uniforms and tucked their queues underneath their caps when they played baseball. They took to football as well.

Studying hard was the boys’ primary duty. Yen Chang, like the others, ranked at the top of his classes. Although he was encouraged to fit in, the Mission was against Americanization of the boys. He was required to study Chinese for at least an hour each day. Every three months, the boys spent two weeks at the Mission’s headquarters to receive instruction in their native language and literature.

The boys adjusted socially as well. They attended dances and receptions and were sought out by girls to be their dancing partner. But they were constantly reminded they were to be standard bearers of a new China. Their purpose in life was to bring technical skills to their country.

Meanwhile, there was concern in the Chinese Royal Court that these boys were susceptible to foreign influences, and were immersed in the Western culture. So the mission was closed even when there were over 60 Chinese students still enrolled at Yale, M.I.T, Columbia, Harvard and other technical schools. Of these, only two received their degrees before the Mission was recalled. The others were just beginning their technical training.

In August 1881, Yen Chang was among the first group of 22 boys to leave Hartford. A train took them to San Francisco, and he boarded a ship back to China. He was now 22 years old, and he was determined that he’d return to America as soon as possible to resume his studies.

Upon his return to China, after a brief reunion with his mother, the government enrolled him in the naval school in Tientsin. He was not happy with the monotony of the school. He was used to Western training and attitude and he found the old style of the officers stifling. He obtained a release and was free to plan his future.

His brother was a merchant in Honolulu, Hawaii. With his small savings and the help of friends, he departed from the port city of Shanghai for Hawaii in 1882. There, he worked in a law office for a year. But his ambition was to become better educated in law.

In 1883, he managed to enroll at the Columbia Law School and received a law degree three years later at the age of 27. A newspaper reported that his “abilities in legal investigation” were among the finest in his class. By then had cut off his queue, having decided that he’d not be going back to China.

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act dashed his ambition and hope of being admitted to the New York Bar along with his classmates. Citizenship was required, and he was not a citizen. So, in 1887, he reapplied to the bar after a New York judge issued him a naturalization certificate that granted him citizenship. He became the only Chinese lawyer in the United States.

Still, he faced more barriers when he applied for admission to the bar in California. He presented his New York law license along with his certificate of naturalization to the California State Bar. But it rejected his application based on the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, a law passed by Congress that prohibited the naturalization of Chinese persons. The California Constitutional Convention in 1879, in the midst of anti-Chinese sentiment, had further restricted the rights of Chinese residents.

Chang Hon Yen. Photo by unknown. Ah Tye Family Website, Retrieved on 2012-02-21, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

With diligence and persistence, Yen Chang decided against appealing the decision and went on to become an advisor at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco and later became a banker. He married Charlotte Ah Tye in 1897.

He eventually served as the Chinese consul in Vancouver and first secretary at the Chinese Delegation in Washington. His last position, before his death from a heart attack in 1926, was the director of Chinese naval students in Berkeley, California.

The denial of admission to Yen Chang remained as a published opinion of the California Supreme Court. But notable changes have been made since then. In 1972, it held that exclusion of non-citizens violated the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit.

In 2015, the California Supreme Court, posthumously and unanimously, granted Yen Chang as an attorney and counselor at law in all courts in the state of California. It also acknowledged that the discriminatory exclusion Yen Chang suffered was wrongful.

When Yen Chang left China at age thirteen, he could not have foreseen that he’d become a pioneer for a more inclusive legal profession in the United States.

Author’s Note:
I learned about the boys who went to Yale from the book, “My Life in China and America” by Yung Wing, one of the Yale boys. Further research found the book, “Bury My Bones in America” by Lani Ah Tye Parkas. I read an excerpt about Yen Chang and saw the historical photos of his. I have always been fascinated by faces and I found his face as a young and middle-aged man impressive. A calm face exuding intelligence and competence. I would like to know him as a friend.

Art by Makayla Liu, age 12, Vancouver, Canada. She adds: “I’ve loved drawing since I was a child, and in the future I hope to work in a field related to drawing or character design.”

Elegy for the Fragile Universe

By William Pan, grade 7, Washington.

How will the world end?
Will it end with alien settlers
from another galaxy?

Or will it be our own
war-torn fault, the world’s
sparkling Hawaiian sunsets

and buzzing Chinese streets
melting and emptying
any number of ways? Now

that Earth has warmed
like sand condensing
into a fragile universe

of glass, we are sturdy
yet fragile. We scowl before
we embrace. We pray

between arguments while saving
the world. Will we have to
flee this green haven? Will we

have to ribbon our faith
into the carbonated air? Or
shall we fit another

planet more to our liking?
Is any of this needed
to save us? Will this stop us

from existing, or can we stop
ourselves? Whether the world dies
or not, we must

cherish what we have—
whether the world succumbs
to bots or we continue

to laugh at movies
and jokes with each day

—William Pan, grade 7, Washington. He writes: “I wrote (this poem) because I realized that we need to unite to stop climate change from ruining our world… I have written many poems and short memoirs that explore culture and family. I am drawn to poetry because I can play with language and build imaginative worlds that enable me to explore things I can’t explore in the real world.” William has recently joined us as one of our student interns.”

Scrambled Lessons

By Yimeng (Nicole) Wang Yu, age 17, P. R. China

I have an estranged relationship with eggs. We aren’t completely cut off from each other—we still cross paths on occasion—but our encounters are awkward, fleeting, and never quite right. At most, I’m allowed to see them once every couple of weeks, and when I do, they always insist on showing up in some strange outfit. Sometimes they’re draped in a heavy coat of soy sauce, other times they’re wrapped in a knitted avocado-green sweater of their own making, smugly nestled against toast. But bare? Never. On the rare occasions they appear unadorned, it feels less like a gift and more like a threat. My stomach churns, my throat tightens, and my face knots itself into lines I don’t consciously form. I try to be polite, because it isn’t every day I get to share a meal with eggs, but honestly—they make me deeply uncomfortable.

And yet, as repulsed as I am now, I’ve probably consumed entire dynasties of chickens in the form of eggs over the past sixteen years. I grew up in a household where protein was fuel, and eggs were regarded as the most reliable gas station. My parents, convinced that my athleticism required a steady supply of scrambled yellow, believed they were doing me a favor. So, for sixteen years, they placed eggs before me every morning. Scrambled, boiled, fried, buried in fried rice, floating in soup—eggs became the guest at all of my meals.

For years, I wished this unwelcome visitor would finally excuse itself from my breakfasts. I told my parents that eggs made my stomach feel as if it were gnawing on itself from within. My complaints, however, were dismissed as excuses and childish exaggerations. “You’ll get used to it,” my mom would say. “It’s good for you,” my dad would add. And so I swallowed my objections along with the eggs, because, after all, parents must know best. Didn’t they always?

Until last year.

After a lifetime of groans, gags, and grimaces, my mom finally relented and scheduled a food intolerance test. We waited one long week. When the results arrived, it felt as though the SAT scores of my digestive system had been released. My mom and I huddled around the phone, tense with anticipation. Then the screen flashed with numbers, and chaos erupted. There was screaming, crying (mostly mine), leaping, refreshing the page again and again as if the result might shift if stared long enough. The report confirmed what my body had been insisting all along: I was intolerant to eggs. Not just mildly intolerant, either—I had obliterated the intolerance scale. The threshold for high sensitivity was 200. I scored 900. Four and a half times the limit. Eggs and I weren’t simply mismatched; we were sworn enemies, cosmically opposed.

In that moment, years of swallowed frustration finally poured out of me. My intuition had been right, and science had finally corroborated it. Turns out I wasn’t a dramatic complainer. At last, my mom believed me. I was vindicated.

But looking back, I realize those mornings of forced eggs were not acts of cruelty but of love—misguided, perhaps, but love nonetheless. My parents weren’t trying to torture me; they were trying to keep me healthy in the way they knew best. Only now, with hindsight, can I see how much care went into those breakfasts. At the time, I couldn’t imagine it. I just assumed that because my parents insisted, they must be right, and because I was a child, I must be wrong.

It reminds me of the way I thought about growing up in general. As a child, I carried this foreign but persistent belief that everything would improve as I got older. I thought the world itself would change with me—that kindness and fairness were waiting just beyond the next birthday. My greatest problem then was the cafeteria bully, and even that seemed temporary, destined to dissolve once we were all old enough to know better. In my imagination, adulthood was a yet-to-be-discovered place where everyone made good decisions, where people were kinder, wiser, gentler—because they were grown.

Of course, the reality was never that simple. Growing older didn’t fix the world; it merely sharpened my vision to see it more clearly. Eggs did not suddenly stop making me sick when I turned sixteen—it took years of paying attention to myself, of insisting on what I felt, before anyone else would listen. Adulthood did not sanctify those around me—it simply gave me the ability to recognize their complexity, their contradictions, and, sometimes, their well-intentioned mistakes.

In that sense, perhaps I was not entirely wrong as a child. The world did get better—not because it grew kinder, but because I learned how to navigate it. I learned to trust my body when it screamed at me. I learned that being believed is not automatic, even by those who love you most, but that persistence matters. And I learned that the very things that cause you pain can, years later, soften into strangely tender memories.

So yes, eggs and I remain estranged. I avoid them, and I live a happier life because of it. But I can’t quite bring myself to hate eggs. They’re a part of my story, a relic of mornings at the kitchen table with my parents, who—despite their misplaced faith in scrambled yolks—were only ever trying to love me in the way they knew how. And maybe that’s what growing up really is: not escaping discomfort, but learning to hold it alongside love, until the bitterness—or the grossness—tastes almost sweet.

—Yimeng (Nicole) Wang Yu is a 17-year-old junior at Shanghai American School, P.R. China. She grew up in Spain and now lives in China, and she speaks, reads, and writes in English, Chinese, Spanish, and French. When she isn’t writing, she can be found on the basketball court, blasting music through her AirPods, or noticing the small, everyday details that might inspire her next piece—sometimes all at once.

The Little Princess and the Colorful Butterflies

By Diponkar Chanda, Ontario, Canada

No one remembered the name of the kingdom anymore, but it did exist, a long ago!

Far, far away, nestled close to a forest, there was a tiny village, and it was the seat of this kingdom. There was a palace as well; but not like the ones in our big cities.

This palace was very different. Its walls were made of straw and clay, it had a thatched roof, and it stood gently beneath the sky, like a well-kept secret.

In this palace lived a little princess with her ancient grandmother.

One sunny morning in spring, when a sweet breeze was blowing, birds were chirping joyfully, and flowers bloomed in every corner of the yard, the little princess woke up.

She rubbed her eyes, looked out the window, and noticed something—their little walls didn’t seem as colorful as the world outside.

The trees wore fresh green dresses. The flowers in the meadows sparkled with red, yellow, pink, and purple. Even the butterflies danced in colors—too bright and too many to name them here!

Pale Swallowtail Butterfly. Photo by Herb Everett, Oregon.

Monarch Butterfly. Photo by Ted Rose, Indiana.

The princess longed to bring those colors into their home, their palace.

And she knew, like everyone else in the kingdom, that the true owners of all the colors were those beautiful butterflies.

So, the little princess wanted to catch one. But she was far too little.

Art by Makayla Liu, age 12, Vancouver, Canada.

No one else was home, so she turned to her granny. Now, her granny was like eighty or a hundred years old, or maybe even more. Nobody really knew how old she was. She was the oldest person in the whole kingdom. And, she was certainly far too old to run after those butterflies!

What could they do?

The old woman thought for a moment. Then she searched the hut carefully—every corner, every pouch, every pot.

Finally, she found something she was searching for, a little fistful of sunflower seeds. She smiled.

Granny stepped outside into the wide, sleepy yard. With her slow, gentle feet, she planted the seeds in tidy rows and began to care for them. She watered them every day, with all the love in her heart.

Days passed. Little by little, green shoots appeared. Then leaves. Then came tall, strong stems.

And then one morning, a thousand sunflowers bloomed across the yard—each one like a small sun, shining with golden joy.

Granny didn’t need to chase butterflies anymore.

The butterflies came to them—fluttering, dancing, and painting the air with their beautiful colors.

And you know what?

They shared their colors generously. And from then, true beauty arouse on the boundless canvas of nature—born from careful sharing.

And the little palace also sparkled with butterfly colors—reds, oranges, blues, and purples that no brush could ever copy.

Not just the tiny palace, but also the little princess herself sparkled with those attractive colors.

Her smile shone with every color of the butterflies.

And from that day on, little princess learned that true beauty grows many-fold when we share it with everyone, with profound care.

Diponkar Chanda is an emerging writer based in greater Toronto area of Canada. Originally from Bangladesh, he writes stories and poetry that bridge cultures, languages, and imagination. English is not his first language, and he brings the rhythm and depth of his native Bangla (also known as the Bengali) language into his storytelling.

Art by Makayla Liu, age 12, Vancouver, Canada. She adds: “I’ve loved drawing since I was a child, and in the future I hope to work in a field related to drawing or character design.”

Stuffed

By Claire Chen, age 11, New Jersey.

Stuffed, stuffed, the house is stuffed
With stuffed toys that need to be thrown out
A waste of space
I am told to get rid of them!

But when I look around
Memories abound
First, the dozens of stuffed Pokemon
Evoke memories of family trips to Japan
I cradle an Eevee, a treasured prize won
With bated breath at a claw machine in Tokyo
I squeeze Lapras, the comforting pillow I hugged
On the 18-hour flight to visit family
I can almost still hear my brother’s high-pitched shrieks
During our made-up game of Pokemon Dodgeball
Can I let them go?

Next, the stuffed shaved ice from Singapore
Its name—Ice Kachang* —reminds me
Of Singlish and its foreign yet endearing sounds
English, Mandarin, Hokkien**, and Malay smashed
Into one bizarre hodgepodge
Intelligible only to insiders
Like Singlish, I am a mash
Of American and Asian
Do others understand me?

Then, a stuffed chocolate bar
A souvenir from Hershey
During my grandmother’s first and last visit
Before the chemotherapy failed
The only stuffed toy she ever bought for me
Mum says Grandma never bought her stuffed toys
But that time, she got one for me
Isn’t it a souvenir of her?

Stuffed, stuffed, my mind is stuffed
Stuffed with memories I want to keep in
Precious treasures
That only I hold in my heart

Notes:
*Kachang is the Malay word for nuts
**Hokkien is a Southern Chinese dialect

By Claire Chen, age 11, New Jersey. She adds: “My parents were born in Singapore but I was born in America. My family visits Singapore or Japan nearly every year because we have family in those countries. I speak and write both English and Mandarin, but it takes a lot of time and effort to learn Mandarin in America and I find it very difficult. My mother wanted me to learn Mandarin so I could understand her culture better. However, when we visit Singapore, they do not often speak Mandarin. They speak a version of English that they call “Singlish.” It is a mixture of several local languages, mainly Mandarin, Hokkien (a Southern Chinese dialect), Malay, and English. Singlish can be quite confusing for me—something I mention in my poem.”
“I was inspired to write this poem, titled Stuffed, because I have a lot of stuffed toys and my mum often talks about getting rid of them to reduce clutter in the house. But these items all have histories and meaning to me.”