My final project was a zine that was based on my family history. I focused on the last four generations of women in my family because I felt that their experiences would connect most with the things we have learned in class. My project comprised four journal entries, one entry per each generation. The entry reflected the thoughts, fears, and feelings of the women of each generation. All of the entries are set in the younger years, where we are all between the ages of 18-23. The entries were written in a period of their lives where a pivotal moment was happening and they were expressing their thoughts. For my great-grandmother, it was at the time she was deciding what she wanted to do with her life and ended up going against her family. For my grandmother, it was a tricky time in her life when she was pregnant and didn’t want to be a housewife and instead pursue a nursing career. For my mother, it was when she immigrated to the United States and was struggling to get by and figure out what her next steps were. For me, it was the time when I had just gotten accepted into Cornell and was moving away. Thus, all of the entries were set in periods where we were vulnerable and uncertainty was high for the reader to really understand the circumstances of the time.
My project relates to the concepts we covered in class when it comes to thinking about immigration from generation to generation and assimilation. In a lot of the content we went over in class, we explored the experience of immigrants when they first got to the United States and the struggles they faced when assimilating to the culture. Whether it be language barriers or socioeconomic status, immigrants and foreigners were not openly accepted and welcomed into society. My mother’s experience was a perfect example of that, which is why I chose to highlight that in her piece. She had to come to the US and assimilate to a place that she didn’t know all on her own without being able to communicate. She didn’t have any guidance, resources, or mentorship and she found a way to make a life for herself and her children. It was interesting in her interview to see how far she has come and evolved as an individual since living in the United States. It was also an emotional process to reflect on the struggles and the mental fortitude it took her to arrive and survive in the US, let alone in the South Bronx.
Then looking at me, the product of her immigration, and comparing it to how I’ve had to assimilate into the world even though I’m a native New Yorker is interesting as well. The world expands and gets bigger through each generation, and the troubles one generation endures pushes the next one to be better and reach new heights which is also a topic we’ve touched on in class. Taking all of these experiences and talking points from my interviews and breaking them down into different entries was my favorite part about working on this. I got to learn about my family history and see them as people outside of their relation to me. There is so much that I have taken away from their teachings. The characters of these women were beyond their time, and I credit them for the strength that I have as an individual.
Published by