Bradford Nguyen
Death by Tweezers
My sophomore year, I spent a quarter in Monterey Bay. I spent a lot of time studying population genetics in corral. The corrals to me were very rock like and lifeless. And I received them packaged and dead. It was my job to remove little bits of tissue and extract DNA.
My junior fall I took Bio 44x, which required me to work with sea urchins and flies. I had to inject the sea urchins with chemicals, which caused them to shed their gametes. The flies required us to gas them with CO2 and then dispose of them in the fly morgue. I’ve killed many flies before with a fly swatter, so putting passed out flies into a container was—as gently as I can put it—easy.
The next quarter I joined a lab that worked with butterflies. And for that quarter my only job was to work with pre-extracted DNA, and sort through caterpillars. Simple enough. The next quarter I was sent to Tracy, CA to collect butterflies from alfalfa fields. Awesome. The next day, I had to kill them. Ouch. Gross and ouch. That sucked.
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Fall quarter of my Senior I decided to take Bio 196A on a whim. A friend encouraged me to shop it, and I did. It was interesting…not exactly my thing… but still interesting. I considered for a while whether or not I would do it. And encouragement from a few of my other friends I decided to return to the first week of small group section. I was the first one there and I waited patiently for others to arrive. The first to arrive was Sue McConnell (2 c’s, 2 n’s, and 2 l’s—how cool is that?). The first thing she said was “Oh I didn’t think you would end up sticking to the class.” Or something like that.
I just remembered thinking that she had a valid point. I didn’t seem at all enthusiastic about the class, and again, it was something I was hesitant about doing. I never liked someone thinking I wouldn’t do something. I rarely start something I don’t finish. Even when I dislike it. Many of my friends know that—it’s apparent in virtually all aspects of my life (although there are times I need that little push to keep going). So I decided to continue taking the class. I had already known many of the students in my class from having had other bio classes with them and decided that working with them for the next quarter was worth it.
And I’m glad that I did that. For the next year I took on a project that taught me a lot about myself and gave me the skills to form a creative project from scratch. And so the first quarter was all about creating a proposal and working it out so that I could finish the project in the following months. I went through so many ideas. There was the “interpretive dance—exploring muscle diseases.” And there was “Spoken Sign: A Spoken Word Performance in ASL About Cochlear Implants.” And there was “Musical DNA: The Beauty of Genetic Code.” All failed ideas. And I thought to myself—how do I come up with something that is both interesting, and relevant to my Stanford career.
As I struggled with my honors research project, I realized I should reflect on this. It had consumed so much of my time that I had to incorporate it somehow. I thought—what was the hardest thing I’ve had to do as a scientist. And it hit me—it was the time I had to spend all afternoon killing beautifully interesting butterflies. I realized that I wasn’t alone, and that many of my friends have been in lab too—yet no one I knew ever talked about it. I’m a bio major, surrounded by dozens of people who experiment on animals and no one has ever talked about the difficulties associated with killing them. And that’s when I figured out my project. I would do a documentary on scientists’ experiences with killing lab animals.
The proposal came relatively easy to me. Much easier than the proposals I began writing for my other potential project ideas. I recalled various experiences of my childhood that I remembered bugs being killed by human hands. Many of my memories were so engrained in my mind simply because I was so confused as to why they needed to be killed—and that feeling of confusion had remained with me for so many years.
Although the proposal came easy, I still wasn’t set on the form of media I hoped to pursue. I wanted to do a documentary, but I knew that if I filmed my interviewees, I would lose something—because I know I wouldn’t want to talk to a camera about having to kill anything. Because of this, I decided that I would only do an audio recording, in hopes of making the respondents as anonymous as I could make them —and instead record animals for people to get a visual of what the animals were like.
This proved to be harder than I thought. The videos I had of animals weren’t all that interesting. And when I tried putting videos of animals with my audio, it didn’t quite fit right. It was distracting to the project’s purpose, and it didn’t add much to what the audience was listening to. I cut the visual aspect altogether. You’d think that would make my job easier. It didn’t.
Having an audio documentary is actually still very difficult. I’ve had some experience with this style of media—one of my other research projects involves telling stories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender patients regarding their difficulties in receiving health care. This had been a powerful project—and so was this new bio project I was working on. I knew that audio could be powerful and that added a certain level of difficulties. There are no visual distractions for the listener. I really needed to focus on sound. External sounds could easily be much more distracting. Something as simple as a person tapping their hand on the table is so much more different when you do not have the visual. For the listener it is confusing and distracting. It is missing context. Because of this, I had to be very careful during my interviews—sometimes doing them over just to make it sound better.
After my first four interviews, my piece started to come together. My experience is one that I shared with so many of my peers. I had so many intriguing conversations about this shared experience, and I was inspired to have captured the feelings and emotions people felt when killing animals. I also began questioning the ethics and morality of scientific experimentation. I’ve always been told life is fragile. So why should taking a life seem so mechanical and so easy? It’s dilemma that scientists must face. How can we justify killing animals in the name of science?
I was satisfied with where my project was going and I had gotten so many valuable sound clips. The stories I was hearing were so sincere and aside from getting the actual recordings —having these conversations with people was extremely enlightening in and of itself. I was finally having the conversations I felt I was missing. It filled a void in my curiosity, and made me feel less alone in terms of feeling the things that I felt about having to kill. It put a lot of my work in perspective. I was shocked, horrified, and relieved all at the same time. Shock and horror for what people had been through, and relieved for having to only deal with something as simple as a butterfly.
The stories I got included ones about pigs, fish, monkeys, and rats. They were stories that involved mistakes in lab, successes in research, and everything in between. I was able to get to the heart of how people felt and how they dealt with those feelings. It was all so interesting. I was so excited to interview more people. And the stories kept coming. Not a single person had a boring story. Not a single person had a callous personality. Everyone had something to share. That made me happy—none of my friends were monsters who could kill with no feelings involved. Not only that, but it helped me make a more interesting collection of stories.
The further I got into this project, the more I truly enjoyed working on it—and the more I enjoyed the class. I worked with so many different people. And the students in my class were more than helpful. They provided guidance, advice, and suggestions the entire way. Much of what they told me I took to heart, and it really helped to shape my project to be what it eventually became. This was the first time in my life that I work shopped a project repetitively until it was ready. And the feedback I received from my professors, and my peers really helped me and pushed me to continue what I was doing.
So the project continued. With new ideas coming from the workshops all the time, I interviewed more and more people. With the many interviews I had, I was almost done. What I had left was to tell my own story. And that was actually more difficult than finding someone else’s story. I wasn’t talking to anyone like other people were talking to me. I was talking to myself. I felt vulnerable and unsure of how I should do it. And so what I did was I prompted myself with a question, and answered it. Spoke my thoughts. My mind. I collected these sound bits just like I did any other person. I recorded my sincere, honest, and conscious thoughts. With these, I began editing the audio clips just as I did with everyone else’s—piecing together the most powerful things I had to say with what everyone else had to say.
The moment came where I had to present what I had to my section of six people. I felt anxious. I wasn’t sure what people would think. I once again was put in a vulnerable position, because people would be hearing what I had to say about my topic—and for many of them, it was the first time they heard any of it at all. So I was nervous. But after playing it for them, I was welcomed with praise, which led to self-confidence—something I surely could use more of. People, as requested, offered suggestions for changes in my piece. And much of it made sense. With these offerings I could make what I had even better. I worked the audio over and over—listening to it dozens of times to make sure I liked it, and that it sounded sincere.
The week finally came where I would present it in front of an audience. It was at Gallery 160 that people gathered for an exhibition of artwork. And it eventually became my turn to present. I stood up to the welcome of an entire room, friends and classmates at my side, and my professor pressed play.
That was a rather unnerving experience. I had to sit in the middle of an audience as people listened to my project, possibly judging it. I heard my voice on the speakers, louder than I had ever heard it previously. My voice sounded disgusting. But I could get over that—I’d always thought my own voice sounded weird to me. I cringed every time I heard something I missed during my edits: Small taps or background noises, long pauses between clips, and tiny overlaps of people talking. But that cringe went away every time I heard someone laugh at a joke said—or every time someone perked up to listen intently. And when it was over everyone applauded. A friend sitting in front of me gave me a high five. I was done. That was almost as hard as public speaking, and all that needed to be done was press play.
Once again, my level of self-confidence grew as people told me how much they appreciated my project. I got handshakes and high fives on my way out. And various “congratulations on being done!” I finished a yearlong, senior, capstone project. It certainly was something to be proud of. Later that night, I received an e-mail from someone saying how much they admired my project for the topic it addressed—a topic she too felt that few others would ever talk about. I also ran into someone on the street that told me how much she could relate to my project. I was happy.
The next day was an interesting one. I received a message from my professor Sue McConnell, saying that there were some issues with my project. A professor had complained that my subject matter was inappropriate and that the University could be held liable for some of the things said in my interviews. I hardly felt like I could be to blame—after all I was just collecting genuine stories from people who clearly had something to talk about. Some of the students admitted to improper protocol occurring in their labs. That could result in liability issues, and apparently that professor was not having any of that. My project was reported to the Dean of Research, and some things needed to be changed. Additionally I needed to talk to some of my interviewees to see if they were okay with their names being released.
How could I do that!? Especially when the premise of my project was that I could get some honest voices about a very fragile subject matter. Especially when I promised each of them that they would remain anonymous. This was probably the most difficult thing for me—to have to go to my friends and talk to them about how something happened, and they might not remain anonymous after all. It seemed irritating to know that in a way, to see these things happen, because my goal was to open up the conversation—to have people talk about these things. And the message seemed like—talk about it and something bad might happen.
But this was eventually resolved. I later received messages saying that there would be no repercussions for the students involved. And that all that was left was for labs to be talked to in order to assure proper animal welfare. And that made things a lot better—I really do hope to promote animal welfare! All that was left were requests for me to change my story just a little bit. To make sure that things that were out of protocol were edited out, as well as any identifying information. And while this wasn’t so much censorship as it was a request, I felt like something was still being left out. Some of the honesty was removed from the story, and that’s not what I intended. But it was necessary, to protect the people I interviewed—who I knew have such genuine hearts when dealing with these animals—and to prevent potential backlash from animal rights groups. Because of these reasons, I did followed through. Fortunately, even with these changes, my project still has a powerful meaning for myself and I can rest easy on that.
My project has left me with a sense of satisfaction. That I was able to embark on this journey so long ago, and see it to completion. It taught me a lot about perseverance and strength. It helped me to ask a question and tackle it from all directions. It helped me in the pursuit of knowledge. And most of all, it helped me by opening up a conversation about lab animals that I had needed for so long.