Jessica Mei ’22 received the First-Year Award as part of the Claremont Colleges Library’s sixth annual Library Undergraduate Research Awards, which honor students who demonstrate exemplary original research and scholarship. Mei’s project, “Through the Looking Glass: Donald Trump’s Rhetoric, Heteronormativity, and Homosociality,” examines how society reacts to Trump’s behaviors, and how that reaction is often demeaning to the queer community.
“As a queer woman of color, this research paper has meant so much to me,” Mei says. “[It] has allowed space for me to reflect on how society creates the distinctions between the ‘normative’ and the queer, as well as how I personally perform my own gender and sexuality. I hope to continue this research in the future as I strive to gain further understanding of myself.”