The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

tuesday, november 12 , 2019. the washington post ez re B5

parents who fled war in their 20s

and 30s — we have a voice.”

Jenna freedman, the zine li-

brarian at New York’s Barnard

College, oversees an 11,000-

volume collection she says is “pre-

dominantly women, default

queer and intentionally of-color.”

She said physical publications,

produced in small runs and infor-

mally distributed, remain rele-

vant because “Instagram doesn’t

give you quite the same room to

tell a story.”

“People who write zines are a

different set of people than the

people who write books and nov-

els. They’re not the same people

who get published,” she said.

“These are self-publishers. They

may have radical viewpoints.

They may not have access.”

Bending over the scraps of

paper that will become La Hor-

chata’s next issue, melendez said

it is important for Central Ameri-

can artists to take their physical

place on gallery walls and library

shelves — not just in bits and

bytes.

“We are doing a form of activ-

ism just by existing,” s he said. “It

is important for us to make space

for ourselves.”

[email protected]

carrying flags and wielding AK-

47s. Though he never thought of

submitting work to a printed

publication, he reached out to La

Horchata after hearing about it

from his girlfriend.

Where communities were once

destroyed, he said a new one is

being forged.

“I thought La Horchata was

perfect,” Gonzalez said. “I think

now we’re at an age where a lot of

the children born in the U.S. from

Galileo Gonzalez, a California-

born artist with Salvadoran roots

who paints scenes from the civil

war in the nation his parents fled

decades ago.

“I see that’s where my history

started,” s aid Gonzalez, 30. “If not

for that war, I wouldn’t have been

born here in the United States.”

Gonzalez’s sketches in the zine,

called “Vivir Eso Es Una Angus-

tia” — “to live is anguish” —

feature macabre figures fleeing,

Benavides calls the publication

“a tiny chunk of beauty.”

“We have such a love and

appreciation for the book in its

physical format,” s he said. “There

is something special about hold-

ing something like that in your

hand.”

To fill La Horchata’s pages,

melendez and Benavides have

recruited collaborators from

around the country. The zine’s

inaugural issue featured work by

Benavides want to honor the

physical object, they say, while

acknowledging it is expensive to

create.

They print up to 700 copies of

each issue, selling at venues such

as D.C. Zinefest and to institu-

tions that have zine libraries,

then put profits back into the

business. The target audience is

not only the District, but also the

Central American community

worldwide.

BY KEVIN AMBROSE

The call for help was posted
on the Clifton community face-
book page oct. 29. A 1-year-old
boy was stung multiple times in
his front yard by yellow jackets,
and his father wanted the near-
by nest exterminated.
mark Khosravi, an Advanced
Placement environmental sci-
ence teacher at Lake Braddock
Secondary School in Burke, Va.,
answered the call. He frequently
helps Clifton-area residents re-
locate snakes and exterminate
wasp nests near their homes.
Khosravi doesn’t use chemi-
cals to exterminate nests. In-
stead, he dumps ice down the
entrance hole of a ground nest
and then covers the hole with a
net to prevent the yellow jackets
from exiting. They slowly freeze
to death.
The yellow jackets that stung
the boy were successfully exter-
minated, and Khosravi dug the
nest out of the ground several
days later.
Yellow jackets are a type of
wasp with yellow and black
markings. most yellow jackets
build their nests underground
but a few species build them in
trees or buildings. They are
scavengers and hunters that tar-
get protein for food and are
beneficial for eating insects,
both dead and alive.
But why do yellow jackets
become a problem in the fall? I
contacted Scott famous, bee-
keeper, executive board member
of the montgomery County Bee-
keepers’ Association of Pennsyl-
vania and a queen breeder, to
learn more about the trouble-
some wasp and its aggressive
behavior in the fall. famous
explained how changes in
weather set these wasps off:
Yellow jackets are hand-to-
mouth feeders for existence,
particularly in the fall after the
queen stops laying eggs and
there’s no young to feed. When
the weather turns colder, food
sources disappear and they be-
gin to starve. Starvation makes
them angry and aggressive as

they work hard to seek food.

Yellow jacket colonies grow

largest in late summer and early

fall just when their food sources

begin to diminish, providing

plenty of frustrated, hungry

wasps. In the spring, there are

fewer yellow jackets and they’re

well-fed.

Also, yellow jackets can stay

active in temperatures that are

colder than what many other

bees and insects can tolerate,

which is why we often see them

in late fall.

Ultimately, all of the yellow

jackets die at the end of fall

except for a new queen, which

remains underground during

winter, to start a new colony in

the spring. Then the process

begins over again.

Hungry yellow jackets often

target honeybee hives for food,

eating the bees and their larvae,

and then finishing the meal with

some sweet honey for dessert.

Honeybees tend to be more

sluggish in cool weather com-

pared with yellow jackets, so

attacks in the fall are more

successful than those in the

summer.

Unfortunately, yellow jackets

have been known to massacre

entire beehives. The Canadian

Broadcasting Corp. reported a

sad account from 2018 in which

the wasps destroyed a third of a

commercial beekeeper’s hives.

In a warming climate, yellow

jackets will survive longer in

greater numbers and may cause

more damage to honeybee hives.

Conversely, very cold winters

have been found to kill the

wintering yellow jacket queens,

preventing new colonies.

Yellow jackets can sting mul-

tiple times, unlike most bees,

which sting only once. Bees have

a barb on their stingers that

becomes stuck in a victim’s f lesh,

producing a single sting, while

yellow jackets have stingers

without barbs that can puncture

flesh multiple times while in-

jecting venom.

The yellow jacket’s food sup-

ply may increase in the near

future, which has the potential

to increase their populations.

The culprit is the spotted lan-

ternfly, an invasive species na-

tive to China, Bangladesh and

Vietnam, which has been

spreading through the mid-At-

lantic states and is now in

Virginia and maryland.

The lanternfly excretes a sug-

ary substance called honeydew

after feeding on tree sap that is

consumed by both bees and

wasps. The abundant supply of

lanternflies and honeydew feeds

yellow jackets.

As with all invasive species,

including stink bugs and snake-

heads, only time will tell if the

lanternfly becomes truly disrup-

tive on a large scale.

on a side note, after honey-

bees ingest honeydew from the

lanternfly, they produce honey

with a smoky bacon flavor,

which is very undesirable for

human consumption.

A common team name

many teams and schools have

chosen Yellow Jackets as a nick-

name because of the wasp’s

aggressive nature and powerful

sting. Georgia Te ch is probably

the most recognized school for

calling its teams the Yellow

Jackets. But did you know a

National football League team

was called the Yellow Jackets,

later becoming the Philadelphia

Eagles?

from 1924 to 1931, the frank-

ford Yellow Jackets played in the

NfL. frankford is in northeast

Philadelphia, and the Yellow

Jackets won the NfL champion-

ship in 1926. But financial pres-

sures during the Great Depres-

sion combined with stadium

fires ended the team i n 1931. The

NfL sold the franchise rights to

Lud Wray and Bert Bell, who

formed the Philadelphia Eagles

in 1933.

Yellow jacket stories

many of us have received

painful stings from yellow jack-

ets and have stories to tell, so I

decided to poll my friends for

some of their more interesting

and horrific ones. Here are a

few:

l rhonda richardson: I was

running with my running group

through the woods near fairfax,

Va., and some of the faster

runners must have unsettled a

yellow jacket nest. When I came

through they just attacked me.

They stick to you and don’t let

go! Welts galore! I stopped

counting at 27 stings and ended

up in Er that night. Not fun.

l Angela Brown: five years

ago, I was visiting my mother,

who lives in North myrtle Beach.

We were sitting outside on her

deck enjoying a glass of wine

when I was stung by a yellow

jacket for no reason. Within

minutes, I was being rushed to

the hospital as I had an allergic

reaction and my family couldn’t

keep me awake. Very scary!

l Jean fera: I used to enjoy

mowing my small lawn. But that

changed one toasty summer day

as I was mowing and was literal-

ly attacked from all directions by

an army of yellow jackets. I’m

screaming and my arms going in

all directions. I’m running into

the house as they followed me.

They liked me! I’ve had a few

good lawn services since that

day and my mower is collecting

dust.

l Donna Parker: Several years

ago, I decided to start using

Styrofoam packing peanuts in

the bottom of large planting pots

to make them lighter to move.

Unfortunately, I discovered that

I had designed the perfect yel-

low jacket nesting site; they

used the drainage holes as door-

ways. one day, I moved a pot and

was swarmed by yellow jackets. I

was stung on my foot and leg,

and it took weeks for the pain to

subside. I don’t use packing

peanuts anymore and now use

cloth at t he bottom of all my p ots

to cover the drainage holes.

l Belinda Baker: Long ago, my

husband and I moved into an old

farmhouse in the country. Soon

after we moved, I noticed yellow

jackets were buzzing around in

the bathroom so I quickly closed

the door. Then, yellow jackets

began emerging through a small

hole in the ceiling above me. The

room quickly filled with flying

yellow jackets. Lots of them! The

room didn’t have a door so I

used a sheet and staple gun to

close off the room. An extermi-

nator was called and he claimed

he killed over 10,000 jackets that

were in a large nest above the

ceiling. We didn’t live in that old

farmhouse too much longer.

l Harry foxwell: I can’t give

you too much detail, but years

ago a Boy Scout from Troop 1347

in Burke, Va., learned not to pee

on a yellow jacket nest. As you

might have guessed, he was

stung.

[email protected]

Capital Weather gang

Yellow jackets are angry, aggressive and nasty in fall — and for good reason

scott meadows

Yellow jackets raid a beehive for honey. Beekeeper Scott Famous says that when the weather turns

colder, food sources disappear and yellow jackets begin to starve, causing more aggressive behavior.

of the border aren’t the same.
La Horchata got its name from
the sweet, milky drink found in
Latin America — and in mount
Pleasant, for that matter — but
made with different ingredients
in each nation.
“It’s a good metaphor,” me-
lendez said. “It binds us all, but
the recipe is what makes it differ-
ent.”
melendez and Benavides, who
grew up in suburban maryland
but have family roots in El Salva-
dor and Guatemala, created the
publication to amplify Central
American voices. The artists say
the Central American diaspora in
the United States risks being ig-
nored or lumped in with other
Spanish-speaking countries.
“There was never anything for
Central Americans,” Benavides
said. “Because we grew up around
here, we knew how big of a
community it was... H ow do we
not know more people — immi-
grants or children of immigrants
— making artwork informed by
migration?”
The pages of La Horchata re-
flect that experience. The first
issue, from october 2017, features
the work of Elizabeth fernanda
rodriguez, an Arlington, Va., art-
ist who transfers old family pho-
tographs to cloth and then em-
broiders them. “I am thankful but
I miss my country,” one caption
reads. Another reads: “It was
hard to learn to love your brown-
ness in North Arlington.”
rodriguez, who grew up in
Arlington after her mother fled El
Salvador’s c ivil war, said the work
attempts to crystallize the “small
memories” her family shares
about their migration. She said
she wants her audience to under-
stand that leaving one’s home-
land is not an easy decision.
“It’s emotional, and it’s a lot of
work,” she said. “I think it’s im-
portant for people to see those
stories.”
La Horchata, released three or
four times a year, offers more
than what melendez and Bena-
vides call “trauma porn.” The zine
can be as playful as it is hard-hit-
ting. An issue planned for release
this month will print work by a
Baltimore painter alongside a
Salvadoran journalist’s tweets
and a Qr code to guide readers to
an electropop song by a Brooklyn
artist.
The print experiments nod at
the Internet, but La Horchata’s
creators are committed to putting
out their product on old-fash-
ioned paper. Even as La Horchata
lives on Instagram, melendez and

zine from B1

Art zine’s creators worried Central American community had been overlooked

z oeann murphy/the washington post

Kimberly Benavides, left, and Veronica Melendez, co-founders of the D.C. art zine La Horchata, work together Sept. 17 in Mount Pleasant

to assemble the fall issue of their publication. They created the seasonal publication to amplify Central American voices.

“There was never

anything for Central

Americans. Because

we grew up around

here, we knew how

big of a community it

was.... How do we

not know more people

— immigrants or

children of

immigrants — making

artwork informed by

migration?”

Kimberly Benavides,

co-founder of La horchata

La Horchata prints up to 700 copies of each issue, selling at venues such as D.C. zinefest and to institutions that have zine libraries. The

profits then get put back into the business. The first issue was released in October 20 17 ; a new one comes out three or four times a year.

La horchata zoeann murphy/the washington post