Dear readers,

I’ve never considered myself to be especially fashionable. I don’t think I was ever even conscious of what I chose to wear every day. Prior to starting college, I would typically get up, throw on a red polo shirt and some jeans, slide into my now-disposed-of black Air Forces and call it a day. To put it simply, my taste in fashion is more or less nonexistent. 

For most people, however — especially college students — fashion is more than just the clothes they wear. It is considered a tool by which they channel their identity in a powerful, expressive way. And despite not being particularly fashionable myself, I’ve come to realize I also use clothes as a form of self-expression. Upon writing this letter, one of the overarching themes I’ve come to notice in my day-to-day dress was my culture — my clothes are a way to express my pride and heritage no matter how minimal or subdued.

I am a Palestinian American Muslim, so it goes without saying that I grew up in a very culturally rich and expressive household. From my mother wearing her meticulously woven thobe at gatherings to my father waving his keffiyeh while performing dabke, I was exposed to fabrics with prominent historical and traditional significance at a very early age. As a 20-year-old undergraduate student, I proudly carry my olive-green keffiyeh, brightly embroidered T-shirts and sweaters displaying Arabic phrases as a means of proudly representing who I am and where I’m from. For my family, what we wear is just as important to our identity as the language we speak, the food we eat and the music we listen to. 

By the same token, my identity and spirituality as a Muslim have played a huge role in my daily fashion. In 2018, my mother visited Konya, Turkey for a Sufi Muslim retreat where she was gifted authentic, unique and hand-crafted “misbahas” — a collection of 99 brown wooden beads all strung along an elastic band with an additional three beads attached to its tail-end — that she eventually gave to me and my two older brothers. I’ve been wearing mine every day since. I wouldn’t say my family is terribly religious, but we are Muslim in a very spiritual sense. Not to sound sappy or dramatic, but my misbaha effectively became a part of me, and I love it dearly. Having material that essentially encapsulated my spiritual identity elevated my pride in who I was and encouraged me to show it off for all others to see.

I could go on and on, but I think it’s time we hear from our wonderful writers and editors, each of whom contributed to the second edition of the Under the Arch Magazine of the semester with insights and reflections that are in parts thoughtful, emotionally charged and quite hilarious. A huge thanks to our UTA Editors Mikaylah Du and Karina Rower, who spearheaded this issue and its content, alongside our Beauty & Style Editor Annie Emans. More gratitude to our esteemed Multimedia Editor Alisia Houghtaling for visualizing the issue’s content and our Copy Chiefs Katherine Welander, Anjali Mehta, Isabella D’Erasmo and Lauren Donnelly for helping edit the articles. And a much-warranted thank you to the WSN management team — Emily Genova, Adrianna Nehme, Anna Baird-Hassell, Tina Nejand and Krish Dev — who helped oversee the production of this issue. Finally, to our readers: Please enjoy!

— Yezen Saadah, Editor-in-Chief