Campus Cutie: Lily Wallace

HC UMass Amherst: What are you involved with on campus?

HC UMass Amherst: Absolutely. Now to switch gears a bit, what is your favorite restaurant in Amherst?

LW: Oh that is hard! There are so many phenomenal restaurants, but I am going to have to go with Baku’s African Restaurant. The woman who runs it is the sweetest human being in the entire world, and sometimes if it is just her and I in there she will just come sit with me and we’ll talk. Her homemade sauce is like…the most amazing thing in the entire world. I can’t even tell you what is in it, but I just love it! 

HC UMass Amherst: What would your ideal date be like?

LW: It really comes down to the person involved. You could be in any situation and whether or not you have a good time can depend on the person you are with. It doesn’t have to be anything super special; for me it is about people being thoughtful. Including something more personal into a date makes a big difference. I went on a really great coffee date the other day, it was just a typical coffee date but it was so much fun. You can tell when someone takes the extra step and takes initiative to make something special according to what you like. You know that they care or that they are listening.

HC UMass Amherst: If you could go abroad on a trip anywhere tomorrow, where would you go?

LW: I am Lithuanian, so I would love to go toward the Eastern European countries. I’d love to see Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine. I am very interested in nationalism and identity politics, so I have a desire to see somewhere like Bosnia too. Knowing that a major genocide happened there, I would want to study why something like that occurred, how the people interact and what forces drive humans to behave like that.

Photo by Patricia Camerota.

HC UMass Amherst: Are you working on any big projects for this upcoming semester?

LW: Myself and another student are currently working to start a group on campus to support students who have chronic illnesses, because the campus doesn’t necessarily have something to provide that type of support. We recently got space at the Stonewall center and are looking to start holding meetings soon!

He and I both have very different chronic illnesses, but can identify with different aspects of each other’s experience. It is really unreal to try and navigate a university with an invisible disability. It is something that I am very passionate about at the moment. I was re-diagnosed with lymphoma, a type of blood cancer that affects the immune system, this past summer and I was really upset about it I wanted channel my emotions more constructively.

It is so weird being in our age group and living with this kind of illness that people would never know about. Because it is uncommon there are very few spaces to talk about it. However I knew that statistically on a campus of over 20,000 undergraduates I could not be the only one looking for a space to express my complex feelings and emotions surrounding ableism.

In our group we want to provide a resource for people to talk about the things weighing on them without feeling like they are burdening others. There are so many little things you would not think about being a challenge but that are tricky spaces to navigate. For example, when you asked me about what my ideal date is like, I’m often more concerned about when a good time to tell someone that I have cancer is than what kind of coffee to get. Like is that a third date thing?!

But we would like to provide a safe space for people who wonder those same things. It would be so helpful to talk about this with other people and to feel that comfort. A big thing for me is having open, safe places for dialogue.

I don’t want people labeling me as the girl with cancer, and telling me that I am so inspiring. I just deal with the cards I’ve been dealt. Yes I have cancer, but that disability is only a part of my identity, it is not my identity as a whole. I’m just a person walking down the street, with many complex and intersecting identities.

I was really afraid about talking about it for a while, society teaches us to be silent about our disabilities, but everyone is going through something in their life and I will keep going.

Photo courtesy of Lily Wallace.