A "Roaches" Profile

Arianna Williams was leaving a gender studies course in her freshman year at AUP (2022) when her professor stopped her. “She was like 'Hey, have you heard of this thing called Roaches?” Williams recalls fondly. “She stopped me based on interests I’d expressed in class, things I’d written. She said, ‘Here are two booklets, take a read, and if you’re interested and want more, come back to me.’ And I read them and was like…wow. This is fire.”

From then on, Williams was hooked into the Roaches world. Born and raised in New York City between the Bronx and Yonkers, she had always had a passion for film and photography. Beginning her work while attending Frank Sinatra performing arts school in Queens, NY, Williams focuses mainly on spotlighting art and performance from marginalized communities, especially black and queer communities from her native NYC. After arriving at AUP, she committed to a double major in film studies and gender, sexuality & society.

Now filling the role of Editor-In-Chief, Williams describes Roaches as AUP's militant feminist magazine. “What that basically means is that we take a militant stance when it comes to just amplifying marginalized voices, and what that looks like through writing and art,” she says. “In terms of a writing platform, I suppose it’s a kind of journal.”

Since its conception, Roaches has published exceptional essays, articles, and photography from a range of AUP students who want to share their experiences and need a platform where they can take radical stances on their environment. Williams encourages students to send in personal projects, as well as work from their courses. “We look for people who may have papers that they've written in classes, or poems that they've written; anything, really…What do you wanna say about being a black woman? Come on, say it in Roaches. What do I need to have said? Say it in Roaches.”

The publication’s namesake is an Audre Lorde poem titled "The Brown Menace, or Poem to the Survival of Roaches." "The poem is basically just about the survival of marginalized people and roaches being the oldest surviving creatures. The idea of survival is very prevalent in Roaches. And I think the idea of survival and legacy can go hand in hand, and that's one of the things we explore."

“That first semester, I was just one of the deputy editors in terms of reading over submissions and contributing ideas, etc etc. The following year, my sophomore year, I was promoted to co-editor-in-chief. That was a really interesting role to be in because being in that leadership position when just the year prior, I was making tiny decisions,” Williams reflects. “And now stepping into an editor-in-chief position, really thinking about what I want Roaches to be as a platform... Stepping into this new age, what do we want?” She aims to use Roaches to continue to make a space for those who previously felt they did not have one; the topic of visibility in the art world is one that is especially important to her.

“The people who are praised for breaking boundaries and don't receive consequences for living outside of the traditional, the people who get praised for sort of this idea of rule-breaking are white people. White men, you know?” It’s an unbelievably important role to take on: with most of the AUP student body being white, the need for a specific platform for students of color to speak cannot be understated. Williams wants Roaches to be where these students can assert their opinions about subject matter that they’ve been directly affected by.

Sharing these stories is what Williams loves about Roaches; but she wants to clarify that the militant stance Roaches takes concerning feminism, racism, and gender is just as much about establishing that these experiences serve the purpose of re-education as much as is it about giving the AUP student body something to learn from. “The stance we take is not, ‘Let me give you the history of traditional hegemonic knowledge of gender.’ No, we take a stance that it is what it is. Unapologetic,” Williams asserts.

“If people get educated or pursue education through Roaches, by all means, please do so because we have beautiful, educated writers who've taken time to write, who've submitted these papers, a lot of them to their classes already and have had extensive conversations outside of Roaches.” By setting this precedent for the magazine, she makes the important point that works by and about people from marginalized communities do not serve the purpose of educating their oppressors, nor does it exist to work to change people’s minds about radical subject matter. This makes the magazine doubly impactful because the work you submit will stand as a testament to your pride in your background without the pressures of ‘educating’ white people about it, which is an essential aspect of creating these spaces for marginalized writers. This is a burden that many women and creatives of color accidentally take on when they make work that involves topics that are relatively misunderstood in white communities.

Williams is proud to announce her latest work is going to drop in the newest issue: “This most recent edition is coming out soon, so stay tuned! We teamed up with myself, as a photographer, and somebody else on our editorial team, wanting to do a photo piece exploring what it meant to be a young Latin American person. Whether it be in Paris, or wherever, we show what it looks like to cherish that history.”

Williams is excited about what this next semester, as well as her senior year next year, will bring for the magazine. Coming with her unwavering passion for writing, art, and uplifting the voices of others, we can only assume the next issue of Roaches will hail.

“When it comes to like, amplifying marginalized voices, why I wanna do that, what it looks like, simply giving visibility to actual, I'm gonna say actually groundbreaking people. And also it is groundbreaking to build a legacy. It's groundbreaking to, I feel like, honor ancestors, and honor culture.” 

The newest Roaches issue launched on December 5th.