Jasmine Rice

written by Natasha Huynh. Natasha (she/her) is an emerging writer originally from a charming town in the south of Vermont, United States. Since then, her horizons have expanded to include Ireland. Huynh’s writing frequently explores themes of identity, mental health, and the immigrant experience, inspired by her father’s journey as one of the Vietnamese boat people. Natasha’s work has appeared in several literary magazines, including Postscript Magazine and Quail Bell Magazine. When she’s not writing, you can find her in the studio doing voice-over work or binge-watching her newest Netflix obsession.

Jasmine steam
curls round almond eyes
on the face of my cousin.
She is slender like
the bean sprouts
that live and
die in Saigon,
a forgotten memory
of Vietnam.

The taste of
homemade phở
does not ease
the vagrant feeling
of shifting skins:
I am white-
too white
to speak the
tongue of my father;
And Asian-
too Asian 
to light fires in
the July sky,
or dare think of 
America as my home.

I am neither one thing nor the other;
I am the white grains of
jasmine in the fields,
but I too am the farmer
whose brown hands
burn alongside the earthen sun.

Image: Sanjongo, South Korea 2/7/3 by Sean McKervey

Seán McKervey (he/him), is a 3rd year college student studying Geography in UCD. One of his favourite hobbies he had recently gotten into is film photography. This summer, Sean had the chance to visit South Korea, in which he had many opportunities to take film photos.