Jessica Silvester
Crystal Martin and Jessica Silvester met as editorial assistants in 2009 and eventually got to talking about their moms: Martin's, a black woman from Detroit who was always calling Crystal at work with questions about technology, and Silvester's, an Italian-American woman from the Bronx who had passed away a few years earlier. A decade passed; they remained friends, and Silvester became a mom herself. Both women began thinking more deeply about how they were raised--specifically about how issues of race bubbled up in their nineties-era young lives. In a series of joint essays, they write dueling accounts of the same general experiences, whether it be a holiday like Christmas or a pop-culture moment like the NCAA basketball final they explore here.