Meet Mira Rosenblatt. She is a mother, grandmother, and a great-grandmother. She is a New Yorker, and a Polish native. She is also a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Mira Rosenblatt’s childhood was like any other Jewish child. She was raised by a Polish mother and father, and had three brothers and two sisters. She was taught how to help her parents work in a store, how to speak Yiddish, Polish, Hebrew, and German, and that being Jewish was a birthright, not a lifestyle. The Rosenblatt family lived in a 39 brick-tenant building, built by Mira’s grandfather, in a densely populated Jewish neighborhood. Every day Mira would get up at 5 o’clock…
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A Victory for U.S. International Students
Earlier this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Trump administration announced that degree-seeking international students must attend in-person classes in the fall or they may face deportation from the U.S. In these unprecedented times of uncertainty, many colleges and universities have resorted to online classes for the fall semester, leaving many students in limbo. However, recent developments indicate a reversal in this policy. To recap the situation, on Monday, July 7, 2020, the Trump administration declared a policy barring international students with certain visas from receiving classes in a completely online format while residing in the U.S. As a result, these students would have to enroll in an…
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Kanye West enters, exits, and re-enters race for POTUS
When Kanye West jokingly announced at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards that he planned on entering the presidential race for 2020, nobody saw any validity to those claims. After all, he has no experience in politics, has undergone several public scandals and is associated with the Kardashian clan, otherwise known as the reality TV divas. Shockingly enough, West took to Twitter on July 4th to announce his candidacy for President of the United States. “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision, and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION”, said West via social media platform Twitter.…
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Trans Health Care Protections Under Attack by Trump Administration
On June 12th, 2020, the Trump administration issued an executive decision to reverse Obama-era transgender protections in the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also commonly known as “Obamacare”, was enacted in March of 2010 under President Barack Obama’s administration. It is a comprehensive health care reform law, meaning it encompasses a vast array of services necessary to maintain both physical and mental health. The main goal of the ACA was to provide these various health services to millions of uninsured U.S. citizens under affordable health insurance. It did so with a set of regulations, which included expanding Medicaid eligibility and ensuring that insurance companies would not be…
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Our Country’s Long History of Voter Suppression Plagues the 2020 Primaries
Voter suppression is a phenomenon that should seem incomprehensible in the proud, democratic United States of America, but is something that still occurs during each and every election cycle. It has yet again become a topic of conversation due to the 2020 primaries, an event that was not exempt from its fair share of voter suppression. Voter suppression is the insidious effort taken to make the voting process more difficult for disenfranchised groups of people. The intention behind voter deterrence is grounded in the attempt to control the political outcomes of an election. Although the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to outlaw the overtly racist tactics used to shut…
