Who We Are

What is Letto?

Letto is a blog formed by five students/alums of Hamphire College in Amherst, MA. Now scattered across cities, coasts, or residential areas, this is a place to keep in contact with each other, and post on things that run through our heads.

Joyce Choi Won Li, contributor/administrator

Everyone thinks Joyce is a nerd. She reads blogs until the sun comes up, and delivers hand-drawn power maps to her friends. As a proud and defensive lifelong Brooklynite, the easiest way to her heart is the phrase “anti-gentrification.” She was not a nerd while at Stuyvesant High School in NYC, but her peers there made AP Physics look like Solitaire. Now, she is close to graduating from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where she studies Urban Sociology/History & Cultural Studies. In her off-time, she likes to kiss her girlfriend, take photos with old cameras, mend people’s clothes, and dream of pan-ethnic solidarity to affect radical change. Joyce may be a nerd, but she’ll fuck you up. Send her a holler @ joycecli at gmail dot com.

Cihan Tekay, contributor

(prounounced JI-hahn; “Gigi” for short) is from Istanbul, Turkey. She recently graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA where she completed her Division III [senior-year thesis] on representations of Turkish women in art during Turkish nation-state building. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York City where she is looking for jobs day and night. She uses her nights to think about organizing sustainable anti-racist student actions, intersectional identities, building communities that are supportive and safe for everybody, and thinking about issues of Turkish women/womanhood especially in relation to Muslim women and other women of color in the US and worldwide. She is rethinking her excessive cigarette-smoking habit since she moved to the city. She also paints in her sleep, and listens to Suheir Hammad in the shower. Interrupt her job search by e-mailing her @ cihantekay at gmail dot com.

Aryenish Vegan Birdie, contributor

Aryenish, a Kansas native, has her heart in many places…While she craves the beauty of New England and the utter uniqueness that is New York City, she has found herself most recently committed to the San Francisco/Bay Area after slowly falling deeply in love with it. She fights for all kinds of liberations, with nonhuman animals holding a particular importance in her framework of anti-oppression struggles. When she’s not gawking at hot bikes or hot dykes she’s probably talking about the connection between language and power or not answering the question “where are you from?”. She can also do 1.5 chin-ups. Contact Aryenish @ avbirdie at gmail dot com.

Emerson Des Brisbon, contributor

Emerson Des is a faggy stud who often takes herself too seriously. On a random night, you may catch her hanging out in her room in full makeup, stripper shoes and minimum clothing. She believes in being open to what life throws her way, and finds her current job search to be the antithesis of “going with the flow.” She holds tight to the vision of her people creating their own media images and is a staunch advocate of the freedom of sexual self-expression. Her dream is to one day produce documentaries as well as sex-positive porn; both of which would feature queer people of color. While her usual shouts for revolution have proven to need renaming, she knows in the back of her mind that she would still look fabulous with a gold-plated gun strapped snugly to her hip and would not be afraid to use it if necessary. Shout her out at des.emerson @ gmail dot com.

Ana: Polaroid Superstar, otherwise known as Boo