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Showing posts with label displacement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label displacement. Show all posts

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The best we could do is Thi Bui’s beautifully rendered investigation into her heritage when the birth of her own child raises emotional questions of displacement, identity and parental responsibility. She seeks to understand as an adult her own parent’s lives and the personal and political histories that led to their fleeing South Vietnam in 1976 with children in tow. The struggle to adapt to this new way of life, the painful loss of their homeland and the intergenerational effects of displacement are stunningly illuminated by the author/artist in this touching personal tale of identity, family and home.
Bui, Thi. The Best We Could Do : An illustrated memoir,  New York : Abrams Comicarts, 2017.

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Turning Japanese is the third instalment in the graphic memoirs of MariNaomi, an American Japanese woman seeking to understand her Asian cultural heritage. Growing up in small town Mill Valley California, in 1995 she moves to San Jose to work in hostess bars for Japanese expats thinking that this will assist in her language skills and inform her sense of cultural heritage which takes her on to Tokyo. MariNaomi uses sparse brush drawn cartoon style images to economically communicate her sense of otherness and to illustrate her journey to seek an understanding of the cultural limbo which she inhabits.
MariNaomi, Turning Japanese : A graphic memoir,  Minneapolis, MN. : 2dcloud, 2016.



http://marinaomi.com/turningjapanese.html
http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/turning-japanese-MariNaomi