By Sophie Girard
Over the course of a year, Ash Phommasa created a zine full of infographics, poetry, writing, and art. Her project, “A Life Worth Living,” is a how-to guide on healing from trauma that tells her and others’ stories about surviving depression, health challenges, sexual assault and more.
“I wanted to provide a resource, a zine, that carried the message that everyone has the ability to cultivate a life worth living,” she said.
Phommasa is one of 18 UC Santa Barbara students who presented personal projects exploring themes of identity, global perspectives, storytelling, and reflection at the 2023 Raab Writing Fellows Showcase.
The 2023 UCSB Raab Writing Fellows with program director Ljiljana Coklin, far right, holding their certificates at the end of the showcase.
The showcase capped the Raab Writing Fellows Program, a year-long program where selected students were given a $750 stipend to carry out their own research or creative writing project and work closely with faculty mentors from the Writing Program.
Ljiljana Coklin, the Raab program director, says the fellowship is open to any student at UCSB interested in developing a writing project, whether it is academic, creative, or personal. The program is made possible through Diana Raab, a former UCSB Foundation Trustee and a generous donor, writer, and poet who supports young writers.
“This program is dear to my heart,” wrote Diana Raab in a letter to the 2023 Raab fellows. “I hope that you have had a good learning experience and have been transformed as writers and researchers.”
The students were also encouraged to present their projects outside of the program and attend local and national conferences. Four students participated in the Conference of College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in Chicago and most of the class participated in the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities conference (URCA) at UC Santa Barbara in May.
This year, the Raab projects fell under four themed categories: ideologies of identity, global perspectives, understanding ourselves through storytelling, and reflection and resilience.
Hannah Meyers and Sydney Fry presenting during the Raab Writing Fellows Showcase for the Global Perspectives group.
Several students explored how ideologies feed into narratives. Phoebe Pineda’s project, “The Embattled Feminine Gaze: A Study in Reylo Discourse” examined fan discourse over the romantic pairing of Kylo Ren and Rey from Star Wars, and the psychology behind female romanticization of toxic characters like Kylo Ren. Robbin May Balagtas conducted a study on how UCSB administrators approach diversity and inclusion in her project, “The Rhetoric of Belonging,” turning student interviews and data she collected into a zine and research paper.
Another student, Minyi Jiang examined how Maoism, a communist theory first established in China, influenced revolutionary Iranian students in the 1960s and 70s. “As a Chinese student who studies the history and politics of the Middle East, especially Iran, I felt that I should add something to the scholarship of Iran-China modern history,” Jiang said. “I was able to find the meaning of my identity through my academic research.”
Several students created interactive websites, where the information and topics they researched could be easily explored.
In “Fandom Lore: Finding Identity in Fiction,” Viviana Bustamante examines how fan culture gives a voice to marginalized communities. Her multimedia website features interviews and profiles from artists and writers in the fandom community, and explains how a lack of minority representation in young adult literary works has prompted artists of color and LGBTQ+ artists to adapt characters and stories in the fandom realm.
“In these fictions that they have read, the readers gravitate towards aspects that they relate to, aspects that they do not see often in the media,” Bustamante said. “And through illustrations or creating their own original works, they uplift their marginalized voices for a wider audience.”
Estefania Zaragoza Gonzalez created an interactive website called “Language Left Behind,” which raises awareness about the southern Mexican indigenous Mixteco language and shares her own parents' stories about their vanishing language. “I feel like this project really helped me tie back to Mixteco, I feel like it’s a really big part of our culture, my family history in general,” Zaragoza Gonzalez said.
In her presentation, she said that interviewing her own parents opened the door to some sentimental and tough conversations. “They are very proud of their language, but it did come with difficult topics in the sense that we did have a talk about sensitive topics that my parents can get emotional about,” she said.
Several works created by the 2023 Raab Writing Fellows.
Several students explored how diversity can be integrated into storytelling.
Reed Gaynor’s novella, Pura Vida, is a dramatic retelling of the story of his neighbor Carlos who immigrated from Costa Rica to the US when he was 18. As an author taking into account another person’s life, Reed described how he merged both Carlos’s experiences and his own perspectives into the novella.
“When I’m writing about Carlos and I'm writing about his life, the events in the story are his, but the emotions, those are all mine,” Gaynor said. “I feel everything that he feels.”
The reflection and resilience group incorporated their personal experiences into their works.
Sierra Vakili’s project, “To Get to the Other Side,” is a comedic creative nonfiction piece which tackles how comedy can help in healing from sexual trauma. As part of her project, she put on a stand-up comedy event for survivors, where she opened the floor for them to share their stories and joke around in a safe place.
“Survivors are not broken people, survivors are not just doomed to sadness forever,” Vakili said. “There is a space in comedy for people who have experienced trauma, and I think that joking about it is something that we should not be scared to do, it's something that can really bring people together and help people grow in meaningful ways.”
Writing Program continuing lecturer Ljiljana Coklin was effusive in her praise of this year’s fellows, the seventh cohort to have this opportunity.
“I want to thank the Raab fellows for their curiosity and creativity and hard work that was at the heart of this program,” Coklin said.
Please click on this video, produced by Katie Posey, for more.
Sophie Girard is a UC Santa Barbara student majoring in Communications and pursuing a minor in Professional Writing. She is a Web and Social Media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.