I am among the students who remember when Pura Vida first came to the Mary Graydon Center. I also remember the fight to bring it to campus over another Starbucks. Pura Vida embodied the AU student body and arguably the vision of our university. It not only espoused values of fair trade and fair wages in an increasingly neo-liberal world that favored cheaper labor in a race to the bottom. It was also unique and allowed AU to not only stand out, but also stand up against the creeping monopoly that is Starbucks.
Yes, we thought Pura Vida and AU were a perfect match. Now, I get the news that AU is shutting down Pura Vida due to abysmal sales. Four years have passed since the fight was won, and most of the students who were freshmen then have graduated. Apparently, there is no one to remember the many hurdles that AU students had to jump over in order to make Pura Vida at AU a reality. Pura Vida, in the eyes of today's students, is just another coffee shop: a fixture that has always been there, either offering the occasional cup or being ignored outright. Without a strong sense of campus history among AU students, it was only natural that Pura Vida would fade away.
It is a shame that students of today and the future are going to lose the gifts that previous classes fought for, among them a fair-trade cup of bubble tea that cannot be found in the area.
Barnaby Yeh Senior, School of Public Affairs
