4th
ACP
Stripping Away the Layers of Las Positas College
A
golden
tree
branches
out
Photo by Justin Gomes
Words by Zarlasht Ahmadzai
Was that it? Was that the feeling of letting go of your most loved ones and taking a 20-hour, 50-minute flight overseas with a heart full of passion and a suitcase filled with dreams to make a difference in this world? The rapidness of my heartbeat. The sink in my stomach and my body reacting to the reality that it was no longer covered by the shadow of their presence?
My hands are always cold. But, suddenly, they felt even colder as I nervously held the straps of my backpack. A minute ago, they were clasping a warmth I’ve known all my life, the love of my mother embodied in her soft, creamy hands, defying the tales of hardship she endured for me to be on this escalator. That warmth of those hands, the strength they supplied me, felt so far and ever fleeting as the escalator slowly lifted me to another level.
I didn’t have to turn around to feel her presence fading. I didn’t have to see her getting smaller. The vanishing sense of my best friend. My heart became hands reaching for her with desperation. Finally, near the top of the escalator, I looked back. The sight of my mother’s tearful face, with a shaky smile and her right hand waving at me goodbye, pressed down on me light a weighted vest. I wanted to run down that upward escalator. I yearned to grab and hold her and never leave.
But that heartbreak wasn’t the only feeling. Percolating beneath was excitement. This day has been in the works for a year. Now it’s here. September 25, 2023. I was leaving. Even the surging sorrow couldn’t drown out the swelling sense of adventure growing. Because disappearing with my mom, growing faint in the distance, was the comfort zone I knew I must escape. This was it. This was the moment I’d been planning and working towards. Nacl down that escalator was not an option. Up was the only way. A new chapter was awaited.
That part was riveting.
I was elated for the journey ahead. Elated about the great new experience waiting for me. Elated about the pride would bring to my family as the first Afghan girl to pursue her passion for higher education in the USA. For this refugee girl, it sound like a dream coming true.
Afghanistan is central to my identity. It is a home with beauties, a once-enriched nation about which writers would pen thousands of poems. But these days, it is mostly a home of boundaries. Of violence. Of injustice. Of silence forced on women, who are banned from attending school and getting education.
Her voice was so powerful and beautiful. It just gave you goosebumps.
LPC Dean of Arts & Humanities
— Amy Mattern
Photo by Justin Gomes
As a cruel twist, I wasn’t born in my homeland.
My origins began in foreign land, Uzbekistan, and I was labeled an immigrant because being born in that country didn’t give me birthright citizenship. When I was five, my family immigrated to Tajikistan.
I learned good is always coupled with bad. Just like yang and yin, light and darkness.
In Tajikistan, Afghan refugees could not live in the city, save for the future or and work. We could buy a house or own property.
For the next 13 years, I was rooted in a foreign country’s soil, and the contours of my existence were shaped by experiences I gained and became a resilient golden tree.
As a child, I was like a seedling with a passion for learning. A curious mind about the world around me was my constant companion and led me to books. Reading became the nourishment for my roots, but in Tajikistan, I couldn’t find books in my native tongue or English language. I had to rely on pixelated pages of PDFs I found on the internet.
Art was always a part of my life, and I wanted to improve my talent and tap into that sensation that tickled my fingers when I held a pencil or brush.
Despite facing challenges, I learned Taekwondo for ten years and earned a black belt. I spent 12 years at the country’s lone Afghan school, waking up early and staying up late to make the most of minimal opportunities and poor academic quality.
In the sapling stage of my early teenage years, the internet became my great resource, akin to fertile soil. I was eager about the most minor of possibilities to learn something new. Online courses. Language learning sources. Platforms to write. It all made me eager for college, and my dreams took root.
August 15, 2021, was the day my country fell again and was taken over by the Taliban. It was the demise of millions of Afghans, myself included. Though I did not live there, my heart belonged there.
Shortly after the takeover, my Afghan sisters were banned from their most basic human rights, the most important of which was the right to get an education. Women were banned from attendings school and university and generally were wiped from society and history. The female future makers of my land, whose hearts used to burn with passion, were now gone.
It meant that millions of buried and destroyed dreams, including mine, were lost. One lost dream: I cannot participate in the Olympics as an Afghan girl, holding my country’s flag high.
In late January 2023, as the tree of my aspirations grew, its branches reached a new phase. I got introduced to a program through the internet. After writing my application, I was selected to volunteer at the American space in Dushanbe for six months. An educational program of the U.S. Embassy, the American Space includes creativity, learning, growth and an English Language Learning CEnter.
Later that year, I helped those eager to learn, being a part of the organizing and conducting different activities such as discussion, public speaking, debate, academic writing and reading, STEAM, art, movies and others.
I was able to expand my branches by improving my English and gaining lifelong skills, going to the U.S. Embassy, earning a certificate in a ceremony and meeting with the ambassador. The most significant part was that there were special English language programs for Afghan refugees like me. As I witnessed the transformative power of education, a desire took root in me to continue to help blossom the buds of the aspiring young and talented generation.
Photos by Justin Gomes
My journey to America began as a self-centered pilgrimage. I’d always wanted to study abroad. One day, at around 14, while searching the internet for opportunities for school far away from home, I was introduced to the possibility of America. This was my great escape to the great unknown, where I was certain success was waiting.
As I matured, it became clear this journey wasn’t just about me. I was awakened to the importance of young women pursuing their dreams and breaking the chains bound to ignorance. Not just for their own sake but because the value to their family and community is vastly improved when they become the best they can be.
I broke the boundaries — as a young girl raised in a culture that frowns on independent women — that confined my mother. I turned what felt impossible into something tangible. But it became less about my own ambitions and more about bringing pride to my family and my country. And especially to my little sister, Lima.
My heartbeat sped up as I entered departure security, the portal leading to forever change. It was the midst of autumn, a comfortable September evening. But under my black leather jacket, it was sweltering like a summer afternoon.
The process didn’t take me long, and I was able to help two other people whose first language was English and who could not communicate in Tajiki or Russian with the security guard. They faced a minor problem. They were two friendly and aged people who thanked me several times.
After the department security, I entered the boarding gate and quickly found mine in the small airport
Sitting at my gate in the Dushanbe International Airport, I was surrounded by a plethora of languages. In announcements over the loudspeaker. In conversations among people. On signs and advertisements. Tajiki. Dari. Arabic. Russian. English. The loudest one I heard as I sat waiting for my flight was a cross-country, international tongue: love. It translated easily into the many farewells and promises of reunions.
But on the flight, all languages were drowned out by the sound of the airplane’s engine. The consuming hum became the ambient noise of my sleepless four-hour flight to Turkey. The reality of what was happening, that this was real, set in as the plane took off from Dushanbe airport. I imagined my family was looking up at the sky, waving at my plane, telling me goodbye again.
I landed at Istanbul Airport at 6:25 a.m. on Monday, Sept.25. The amount of stress I faced to catch my second flight was worthy of a medal. Turkey’s airport was big and confusing. It was so massive that the two hours before takeoff allowed barely enough time to get from one gate to the next.
I was running around asking people for guidance. Hustling. Sweating in my leather jacket, clutching the straps of my backpack. After 45 minutes of scurrying through the airport, I arrived at the main square, where colossal screens displayed the array of flights, departure times and gates. I rushed forward, looking for my gate number. It wasn’t there. I asked for help from strangers, from the people in charge. No one could find it.
A couple who was on a different flight at the same gate joined my search. We found it together — most significant relief.
My second flight was another 13 hours of wide-eyed worry. The stress wouldn’t allow so much as a blink of sleep. I stayed up thinking, counting each mile, feeling every minute.
Mercifully, the pilot announced we would land in 30 minutes at the San Francisco Airport. After 20 hours and 50 minutes of traveling, covering more than 7,000 miles, I was almost at my new home. My heart rate increased. Joy danced across my skin. A sudden energy coursed through my veins.
Warring in my spirit was the thrill of adventure and the grip of dear, I’d been trying to bury deep inside. The unknown had arrived. Each step towards the arrival gate seemed to increase both.
An hour later, when I was passing through the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, looking at the blueness around me, I remembered the young girl in Tajikistan whose heart once imagined this moment. But the air of freedom that once felt like a dream was now in my cold hands. The Bay Area breeze was warm to the touch.
I had everything planned out. I was organized. I kept my planner in the pocket of my backpack, and I carried my backpack everywhere. Still, I felt lost in this new world of languages, faces and voices. I thought I was ready for this transformation. However, I was not prepared for how simple daily tasks would become mountainous challenges. Days would feel like marathons. My backpack seemed to get heavier each day. Life became a labyrinth, layered with homesickness and loneliness.
One day, I was drowning in the colors of the Starry Night poster hanging in front of my bed. My new existence felt like the Vincent van Gogh painting, swirling and dark. I was drowning in a sea of my thoughts, searching for a solution to this daunting puzzle of my life.
Somehow, I had to dig deep. Writing was always a path to my depths. So I took out my pen. With each word written, more seemed to flow. I remembered a quote my mom would say to me from Rumi’s Little Book of Wisdom, “If everything around you seems dark. Look again, you may be the noor — light.”
Writing is what helps me find my core and helps me get to the center of my purpose. The root of me. Zarlasht, in the Afghan language of Pashto, means “golden tree.” Writing, for me, is finding the root of the gold treen.
Finding the resilience inside me was paramount. It awakened the young woman from Tajikistan who set out to change her stars. My mother’s whisper echoed in my mind. She said she is proud of me. She expressed how happy she was for me. She wished for me to conquer the mountains of happiness and success. She encouraged me to use my voice to help other Afghan females, to help free their voices, buried beneath layers of cruelty, from the societal muzzle.
In the community I joined, Las Positas College, the caring and understanding professors and staff members have played a significant role in my transition.
From warm welcomes to grace on deadlines to patience through language barriers, the kindness I’ve experienced has been instrumental in my growth.
I also turned back to one of my first teachers, Rumi. I immersed myself in his writing and connected back to the beauty my golden roots.
“There is candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?” Rumi wrote.
And yes, I could feel the burning flame in my heart and soul for a better tomorrow. I still feel homesick, though I have grown to realize this is just part of the journey. Talking with my family and hearing my mother’s voice, so close yet unreachable, is a pain that words don’t do justice. Trying to express to her in mere words how much I miss her is the most difficult task.
So I don’t. Once, I tried and instantly began to cry. Just trying to utter the words, I stopped to keep from drowning in an ocean of my tears.
Gradually, I’ve managed to put the puzzle pieces together to find progress through this maze. The dark clouds of doubt and fear are clearing. There is light on the horizon. Hope is growing branches on this golden tree.
I have built a routine that manages my time and classes. I’ve regained confidence that I am capable of doing things on my own, remembering how far I’ve already come and the many seasons of despair that this tree has weathered.
Though times I feel lost and scared, I have no doubts I will find my way. Every step is more than a personal victory. It is a step towards success for my family and the country where they live. Every accomplishment helps shape me into a symbol of what’s possible for another little girl who dares to dream beyond the limitations placed of her by others.
I am proof that a young woman can be the narrator of her future through education, resilience and determination. Our generation owes it to the people we love to pursue the best our hearts can desire.
And to never give up.
Loneliness will come. The pain will be harsh. But it’s worth it because our potential is a gift to the people we love. Maximizing that potential is honoring those who poured it into us.
This is my unknown journey between the endings and beginnings. I am the girl who dreams.
The low would come.
Hawkins wound up jobless and overwhelmed. New York quickly became intimidating. One of the few highlights was getting to see Ariana Grande perform in the musical “13” on Broadway in 2008. Getting to chat with Grande fueled Hawkins’ desire to work with talented stars. Getting there would be tough, though, as her social anxiety was escalating.
“I got scared,” Hawkins said, bluntly, like a confession. “Sometimes you have to follow that… You have to follow your intuition at all times. You’ve got to follow your heart even if it doesn’t make sense.”
Hawkins’ heart tends to overflow with raw emotion, fully experiencing the highs and lows of life. She tears up when talking about her family. She speaks glowingly of fellow musicians and performers, of their talent and kindness. She responds to hundreds of complimentary comments on her YouTube channel.
“What's your business is that you got on the stage, and you were vulnerable and real and authentic,” she said following her performance with Vocal East at Cuesta College. “And you poured your heart out, and you gave people something real, in a world where so much feels like an illusion and where so much feels like we're putting on a show.”
As a result, her heart doesn’t just break, not like a pencil snaps cleanly into two parts. Hers shatters like an iPhone screen, a collage of cracks forming a mosaic of brokenness.
Like when Nathan gave up theater, taking away her long-time stage partner.
Like when her grandpa, Manuel, passed away.
Like when tragedy struck close enough to shake her up.
In June of 2016, after performing for a crowd in Orlando, Florida, YouTube star Christina Grimmie was shot four times at her post-concert meet and greet. The 22-year-old rose to national prominence when she appeared on the hit TV show “The Voice.” She was impressive enough to receive high praise from Adam Levine, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.
Grimmie’s shocking death would prove to be a significant turning point for Hawkins. One that would lead her to LPC.
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It’s taken a village to get here. Angels, she calls them: one teacher who gifted home-recording equipment during the pandemic, leaving it on her porch in the pandemic; another teacher who hired her and became a major industry resource; an unrelentingly supportive family whose mention chokes her up; a plethora of mentors and supporters have been instrumental in shaping the career growing from Hawkins’ mellifluous sound.
In 2012, she took a music technology course at Chabot College. Instructor Bryan Matheson, trying to surmise the talent he was working with, asked for volunteers to sing a song. Any song.
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Hawkins raised her hand and, when called upon, revealed her choice: Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” Matheson was surprised, and a bit concerned. It’s a vocally challenging song. He obliged with hesitation.
“First take — pow. Nailed it,” Matheson said, reenacting his original shock, dropped jaw and all, as he recalled the memory. “Killer, right out of the box.”
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Matheson found a prized student. Hawkins found a mentor. He offered her an internship at Skyline Studio, his state-of-the-art recording studio in Oakland. The duties began basic — getting sandwiches, running copies, setting up microphones, welcoming in customers. Her aspiration to become a recording artist bubbled.
She got a break when legend Jeff Saltzman, producer of The Killer’s “Hot Fuzz,” made Skyline Studio his home. He asked Hawkins if she wrote music. He had a track from Blondie’s guitarist Chris Stein, it just needed lyrics and a voice. That broom flew out of Hawkins’ hand quicker than a toupee in a hurricane.
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Lyrics came for her the way numbers do for a math genius. She earned her first professional gig making songs for Blondie, beginning with the first song she co-created with Saltzman and others. She co-wrote seven songs on their album “Ghosts of Download,” part of the 2014 double CD “Blondie 4(0) Ever.”
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It was also at Skyline Studios where Hawkins met Stephen Rezza.
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They began a professional relationship. Musically, they were an interesting pair. Rezza’s background was in rock and metal while Hawkins’ was in
musical theater. But pop influence was a connector.
Soon, they started dating, becoming more than just a musical partnership.
The pair relocated to Los Angeles in October 2013 with only their talent, a dream and a few friends. They slipped into writing and producing their own EDM tracks. They produced work for other musicians, too, including Grimmie. Hawkins and Rezza built a reputation as dependable producers.
The hustle was real. She lived at the studio. Going home to sleep was a faux pas. She kept pushing, laboring day after day, bellowing out-of-range lyrics for clients, cranking out lines and verses and hooks.
She pushed so hard because she could still hear criticism from her past. How she was crazy to pursue this. How she was too old and it was too late for her. How she was good but not good enough. Eventually, her obsession became all-enveloping. She wasn’t sleeping, nor was she taking care of her mental health. She lost her voice for a whole year. Burned out.
“I spent the majority of my time in LA not really living, and mostly working,” she said. “I was kind of feeling like a dead battery.”
Still, in 2015, Hawkins was contacted by a label called Bump into Genius Music, an extension of Warner Chappell Music. The publisher connected Hawkins and Rezza with up-and-coming artists and watched the two do their thing. Hawkins and Rezza churned out work, refusing to sacrifice quality despite the quantity.
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Nearly a year later, Bump into Genius Music drew what Hawkins deemed “a good, entry-level contract.” She said they kept the rights to the majority of their music.
But her and Rezza, which had been such a productive relationship, became a Hollywood cliche.
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“Ultimately, I feel like we were songwriting friends first, lovers second,” Rezza said in a Zoom interview. “We were best friends for years who were just writing amazing music consistently. And I feel like, obviously, there's an attraction with somebody who you're doing amazing things with consistently, right?”
With romance came struggle. They’d come together as a dynamic tandem. They had a chemistry that produced magic. But as overburdened as they were, it was taking a toll. Things changed between them. Ego and emotion took over. All that advice her mom gave suddenly felt so prescient. The importance of working out, stretching, hydration and vocal warmups. Mom also warned Hawkins about being careful on the road, being “extremely mindful of your health.” Getting sleep, eating regularly and “really having boundaries.”
“Two artists dating each other is delicate,” Hawkins said, “and something that I haven’t perfected yet.”
This Hollywood love didn’t survive. The added weight of intimacy was too much. After tirelessly walking a tightrope of passion and production, they made the decision to split as spring 2016 rolled into summer.
“She's amazing,” Rezza said. “But, you know, if you write too long with somebody, sometimes you could use a break.”
She folded up the hurt and tucked it beneath her ambition. Until Grimmie was murdered and she couldn’t compartmentalize anymore.
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Photo by Ana Rodriguez
The death of her industry peer was all over the national news and social media. The articles, commentaries and takes were everywhere. Hawkins couldn’t escape.
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Grimmie’s death hit home. Not only had their paths crossed professionally, but she was on a path similar to Hawkins’. Grimmie, too, put in years of work on her craft, also had a booming voice and a magnetic presence. And she was making it big. In the end, making it only exposed Grimmie to the ultimate danger.
Hawkins grappled with meaning, questioning the purpose about which she was once so certain. Did she want to make it big and be famous? Was this the right path for her? Who was she, really? This existential crisis came on the heels of the breakup.
Rezza, who was dating Grimmie at the time of her death, was grief-stricken, mourning. So Hawkins’ heart and career plans needed mending. Her future knelt at the foot of a giant question mark.
She hung on in Los Angeles for a while after that, songwriting and doing about a dozen sessions. But her mental health had deteriorated.
Traumatized and emotionally spent, Hawkins withdrew from the hustle and bustle of LA in December 2016. The plan: retreat to a safe boundary and grow again. After all, the singer found herself needing more formal education and compositional skills. As strong a songwriter and powerful a vocalist as she is, Hawkins learned what was missing from her repertoire.
But most importantly, she needed salve for her wounded soul. She thought of her mother’s embrace. The warmth. The tight squeeze. The shoulder on which her head can rest. Her reservoir of love had run empty. She required the comforts that make her feel safe, the moments that sharpen her perspective. So she hauled up Interstate 5, speeding through the grapevine, then a winter wonderland of icy mountains and crispy air.
After replanting in the Bay, Hawkins reconnected with Matheson from Skyline Studios. He linked her with drummer Thomas Pridgen, and they frequented the Bay Area jazz scene for a couple of years. Hawkins was hesitant to perform again. She was content spending time listening and rebuilding her love for sound. That was enough at the time.
Killer. Right out
of the box.
Owner and operator of Skyline Studios
— Bryan Matheson
Photo by Gabriel Carver
On other days, she rolled herself burrito style into a pile of warm blankets and binge-watched “Gilmore Girls.”
“And, you know, I didn't make much of it,” she said. “I just wanted to be around it to remind myself even though it's a hard industry, I love it. Music is healing and beautiful. Sometimes you just appreciate it, which is how it started for me.”
She was hired in 2019 as a vocalist working at Mastro’s Steakhouse in San Francisco’s Union Square. It was her first recurring professional gig — that is until the pandemic canceled all shows in 2020.
Stuck at a standstill prompted by COVID-19, Hawkins made the decision to finish her degree. Where to go was an easy choice because LPC’s performing arts program was extensive. She enrolled in a slew of music courses, such as piano pedagogy and music theory, to fill the hole in her repertoire.
“She didn’t have much formal background, and having more knowledge can only help,” said LPC music professor Daniel Marshak, who encouraged Hawkins to become a vocal major. “This idea of being adaptable, especially these days, is really key.”
Hawkins said the LPC teachers have been critical to her growth. She said Grammy-nominated conductor Ash Walker, choral director for the Oakland Symphony and music director of the choral ensemble Pacific Edge Voices, and Ian Brekke, LPC’s then director of choral and vocal studies and co-coordinator of the music department, helped her realize who she was after grueling burnout from L.A. Performing arts professor Dyan McBride took Hawkins under her advisory.
Yes, her penchant for theater reemerged, too.
McBride could instantly see the pupil was serious about music and equally serious about performing. Hawkins has the goods, McBride is sure. The key is for Hawkins to once again own that truth.
She pointed Hawkins toward the stability of theater.
“She was in the slog of life,” McBride said, “and I told her ‘You know, there is a path forward in this industry.’ Freelancing is a hard gig. The songwriting world feels like ‘Does anybody see me? Does anybody know?’ But in the theater world, it’s like ‘Of course they do.’”
For the first time in 12 years, Hawkins returned to the stage. A year after enrolling at Las Positas, she performed in “High Fidelity” in March of 2022. She played Laura in the campus production of the musical based on the 1995 Nick Hornby novel.
Hawkins has been finding her groove ever since. In addition to singing with LPC’s Vocal East jazz vocal ensemble, she is part of the Pacific Edge Voices choir, which helps her study her voice. She joined a new student-led ensemble on campus called Early Birds, featuring five performers with music arranged by Lorenzo Robles.
Hawkins is also currently working on a musical in development and aiming for Broadway. “Can You Hear Me Baby?” is about a young millennial couple on the rise in their careers but pregnancy, while on the brink of success, brings up a host of issues. A Matheson connection set up the opportunity for Hawkins. She is working closely with Emmy Award-winning composer and producer Gary Malkin, who is collaborating on the project with composer and playwright Lisa Rafel.
Hawkins is still planning to release an EP of original songs. She described it as “Folk-Americana country” and is being produced in Pleasanton. She’s also recorded music for a film trailer. The surprise opportunity came from reconnecting with Rezza.
In November of 2022, Rezza contacted Hawkins, in part, to share with her they’d been released from their publishing contracts.
“He reached out to me in the most selfless way,” she said, “which is really the only way it would have worked. I feel really grateful that we’re reconnected now. Things are good. It’s brought a lot of peace to us both, I think.”
Despite the six years apart, their work relationship still produces quality. Their current project is shrouded in secrecy. She won’t reveal the name of the film or the song because the trailer has not been finalized.
In the meantime, LPC serves as an epicenter of joy and growth. The kind of replenishment home brings was on display during a November photoshoot at the Barbara Mertes Center for the Arts, which on this night was livened by a throng of students participating in a variety of rehearsals. Hawkins — sparkling in a red, long-sleeved sequin dress gently hugging her curvy 5-foot-7 frame — was showered with adoration. Classmates and friends took turns depositing affection. Passersby lit up at the sight of her. She was bombarded with hugs and compliments at every turn, greeted by faces painted with their widest grins. Fellow singers, actors and students yelled her name, affirmed her greatness, gushed at her beauty. They all shared giggles and comforting words.
Photo by Sophia Sipe
This was why she returned. Restoration. And why she is loved and supported here was evident the next day during a performance with the Early Birds in LPC’s theater.
Dressed in all black, the ensemble soaked in yellow backlighting with towering white boards behind them and curling over their heads. Crisp white lights projected from below. A crowd of over 100 people sat in silence and listened. The snapping of one performer set the pace. The five slid into a chilling symphony, their voices were clear, sweet and longing as they harmonized the lyrics of “Run To You.” The overhead lights turned purple, and the ensemble built to a resonant ring. That’s when Hawkins’ voice broke through.
It was high, skating the upper limits of the ensemble’s vibrant chants. She clenched her fist as her voice scaled to another peak. Her sound was full, stuffed with hope and loss, with talent and trauma, with buoyancy and fear. Because Hawkins sings with her whole person.
Goosebumps swept through the crowd like a gust of wind. Everyone here knows she’s on her way.
“I know how it feels when you're surrounded by community,” Hawkins said, “and that's how I feel when I sing. And it's totally warm and beautiful and loving and terrifying and exhilarating.”
Her eyes water. Her voice begins to crack. This flooding emotion isn’t hurt. The tears welling up aren’t from pain. They’re from the fulfillment that comes with being home, from the gratitude she feels for making it back here.
“I mean this whole year has been like a shift from feeling alone before this year to just so much community. So much support and so much love.”