Articles by Saliha Bayrak

News

Incident sparks racial equity measures and further discourse in Malden

February 15, 2022 Saliha Bayrak 0
By Saliha Bayrak   A series of recent events in Malden have deepened the city’s ongoing social discourse about racial equity, particularly as it relates to the Asian-American community, and have led to new initiatives by the City Council. On Dec. 11, 2021, roughly 100 Malden residents gathered outside the Malden City Hall Plaza, in a city home to over 13,000 Asian residents, for what they called a standout. The demonstrators held up signs reading “Stop Asian Hate,” led chants and created noise with drums and cymbals. The standout was part of an ongoing effort to address issues of race and representation in Malden, this time sparked by a social media post. In November 2021, images of City Councilor Jadeane Sica wearing a Halloween costume, which were deemed racist by organizations such as the Greater Malden Asian American Community Coalition (GMAACC), were re-surfaced after being first posted on Facebook in 2019. Sica and her husband were portraying an Asian sex worker and Patriots owner Bob Kraft, a reference to Kraft’s arrest for soliciting prostitution at the […]
Events

Campaign season over: A look at the 2021 municipal election in Malden

November 11, 2021 Saliha Bayrak 0
By Saliha Bayrak. Photos by Keren He. On Nov 2, residents of Malden headed to the polls to vote for councilors-at-large, city councilors, and school committee members. Excitement was high as candidates and Malden residents stood outside voting locations with signs in support. Incumbent Craig Spadafora and two newcomers, Karen Colón Hayes and Carey McDonald, won seats for councilor-at-large.  “We ran a very serious, competitive campaign from the beginning, and that was a campaign built on reaching out to all parts of the community,” said McDonald on an Urban Media Arts livestream during election night. His campaign focused on knocking on doors, working across neighborhoods, and ensuring that citizens had access to information in their own language, McDonald said.  Peg Crowe (Ward 1), Amanda Linehan (Ward 3), Ryan O’Malley (Ward 4), Barbara Murphy (Ward 5), and Jadeane Sica (Ward 8) were re-elected for city council in their respective wards. Chris Simonelli joined Ward 7’s city council after a hiatus from city government, while Stephen Winslow, formerly councilor-at-large, was elected to the Ward 6 seat. The […]
Education

Ligia Noriega-Murphy begins her first school year as superintendent of Malden Public Schools

September 14, 2021 Saliha Bayrak 2
By Saliha Bayrak Equipped with 26 years of experience working in urban schools and a life-long pursuit of immersing herself in different cultures, Ligia Noriega-Murphy is starting her first year as the superintendent of Malden Public Schools.  Malden is a new environment for Ligia Noriega-Murphy. Malden has a much smaller student population than Boston, where she previously worked in public education. Originally from Guatemala, Noriega-Murphy also graduated high school from Boston public schools. Yet, Malden is “so diverse with small communities that are so rich in different languages, different cultures,” she said.  “There’s a lot of people that are so invested in making this district powerful and so unique and different. And that’s my job now, to make sure that we are going to be the best district in the nation,” Noriega-Murphy said. “I am already embracing how people just love the city.” Throughout her job interview process, Noriega-Murphy had a few opportunities to interact with the community that she would soon become a part of. A few of the things that struck Noriega-Murphy during […]
Arts

Malden aims to purchase District Court Building to transform into the Malden Center for Arts and Culture.

April 13, 2021 Saliha Bayrak 0
By Saliha Bayrak  An imposing but empty brick building stands on the western side of Malden — abandoned after being deemed unfit to serve its original purpose as a courthouse. Now, city officials hope to turn the nearly 100-year-old building into a center that would house Malden’s lively arts and culture scene. The city of Malden is aiming to purchase the former Malden District Court building and transform it into what would be known as the Malden Center for Arts & Culture. Members of local government and Malden artists say that a center dedicated to arts and culture would be a much-needed benefit to the city. “We knew that there was this kind of nebulous cluster of artists that just needed a point to coalesce around. And that’s why we’ve been looking for an art center,” said Kevin Duffy, Malden strategy and business development officer. The idea was initiated by Mayor Gary Christenson; Duffy is playing a critical role in the first stages of this initiative — acquiring the building. Duffy worked with Christenson to […]
Education

Malden High School students reflect on a year of remote learning

March 28, 2021 Saliha Bayrak 0
By Saliha Bayrak Having a conversation over the lunch table, waving to your friends between classes, sharing excitement over college admission letters — these are some of the things that Malden High School teenagers yearned for as they attended their classes virtually.  As Malden High School (MHS) transitions to hybrid learning with a phased process that started the week of March 15, nearly one year after schools switched to fully remote, students look back on all the ways that online learning has impacted their life. Remote learning uprooted the life of teens around the city and forced them to reimagine what their high school experience will look like. Now they ponder on how they will move forward.  Sheilly Patel, a senior at MHS, worries that she may miss some of the big milestones of high school such as senior prom and graduation. But she also misses the small activities that accompanied going to school in-person.  Patel says that she often finds herself “missing that kind of little social things that happen in between classes,” and […]
Education

Uncomfortable Conversations: Staff and board at UMA take on race and social justice through internal dialogue

March 2, 2021 Saliha Bayrak 0
By Saliha Bayrak As the nation rose to voice their indignation and call for an end to racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd, Urban Media Arts (UMA), joined thousands of organizations across the country and made a statement of solidarity to champion the Black Lives Matter movement. The staff at UMA (formerly MATV) did not want this statement to be a momentary and hollow expression of support without any actions to succeed it. In the months that followed, staff members began to have periodic meetings and discussions to address issues of race, injustice, and inclusivity, guided by the belief that every course of action begins with a conversation. Terlonzo Amos, the Director of Operations at UMA, believes there is an urgency to have these conversations now due to the recent blatantly unjust events that occurred throughout the nation. “These problems have always been in the Black and brown community…since 1619,” said Amos. “For those that may not have believed that these things were happening…a light was shown on it.” Amos often leads these […]