Hello! I’m Chloe, an 11th grader from Claremont, CA. 

I’ve been interested in flags since middle school. I did not understand why I liked flags or history. I just thought it was cool, and that was it. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered the real reason why I like flags and history.

National flags are used to describe a country; it’s the symbol the country goes by. Sometimes, flags fail to represent everyone, or are created without the interests of the people or the country’s history. Yet, they still help unify a community. Something about that is so beautiful to me. Flags are so complicated in their symbolism and appropriation, and how their meanings differ based on where in the world you are. In that complexity, a unifying power arises. We recognize flags like we have an intimate connection to them. Flags are a universal language.

My passion for flags branched out to heraldry, coats of arms, and seals. When my school combined our two seals, I felt like so much was lost. Our culture, our traditions, I felt, were carried through our two previous seals. This erasure of history, erasure of culture, blossomed into my passion project. My school’s drastic change resembles a present-day issue on the suppression of culture. Our culture is slowly being dictated by technology, as mainstream culture has more reach than local communities. I think it is really important to understand the evolution of symbols in something like flags, and how they resonate with our identities.