happy finals!!

hello friends, I have done a few digital collages for the final! the process involved a spreadsheet of all the times a given word was used in each book and/or pdf, a doc compiling all of the fragments/phrases/sentences, and a search through creative commons imagery for photographs and paintings that fit the piece! I will cite all of the images used in my collages (bc in this house we Show Artists Respect), and I will leave a guide at the end for the source of each quote.

#1: Instead
Chin: Instead of giving anything up, they add on
Kingston: Instead of letting them start separate new lives
Yoon: instead imagined that all his years were in constant motion
Vuong: instead, let it be the echo to every footstep
Okada: a long way off instead
Kingston: my mother’s spirit followed them instead of the old footprints
Yoon: instead of the sea
Hagedorn: choose to love you instead
Ghosh: instead of finding their way out
Ghosh: instead, spaced between the weights
Ghosh: What she had decided to do instead was to make a log of the routes they followed

#2: Instead
Ghosh: But what I found instead
Ghosh: what happened instead was something unforeseen
Okada: instead of disintegrating impatiently
Yoon: Without a body. A photograph instead.
le: Instead of the powder that usually comes off of butterfly wings, my fingers brushed against cold glass
Kingston: should have understood about us, but instead left us behind
Kingston: instead of returning
Okada: instead of two years in prison
Okada: their sojourns were spanning decades instead of years
Vuong: instead, the year begins
Ghosh: instead he found his fist

#3: Living
Hagedorn: You live in America?
Ghosh: living in America, in captivity
Ghosh: living through it over and over again
le: living here alone
Okada: stopped living
Kingston: I’m living like an American.

Kingston: I’m living like an American
Kingston: living among one’s own
Okada: by living only among their own kind
Japanese Internment Poetry: living in alien (enemy) land
Kingston: getting out of here. I can’t stand living here anymore. It’s your fault
Angel Island Poetry: come to America to earn a living

Kingston: I’m living like an American
le: I would come to see running as inseparable from living
Okada: into the living quarters
Okada: working hard and living hard
Okada: obligations of the living
Vuong: the body’s crime of living
Hagedorn: forced to earn his living
Yoon: to earn his living
Hagedorn: the prospects of living
le: he suspected each and every one of those living
Angel Island Poetry: come to America to earn a living.

Kingston: I’m living like an American
Okada: What penalty is it that I must pay to justify my living as I so fervently desire to?
Angel Island Poetry: come to America to earn a living.

Yoon: Death perhaps was less important in that space because it remained inseparable from the living.

Kingston: I’m living like an American
Otsuka: who would be living in their house
Okada: living in the land of the happily-ever-after
Yoon: no longer living but had, in life, formed their own happiness, over time
Angel Island Poetry: come to America to earn a living.

Otsuka: I’ve been living here, quietly, beside you, for years, just waiting for Tojo to flash me the high sign.
Choi: and what do you do; for the living
Kingston: I’m living like an American.

#4: Too/Unable
[horizontal]
Okada: I am unable to convince myself that I am no different [from any other American]
Hagedorn: I too begin to cry

Otsuka: If you’re too friendly [they’ll think you think you’re better than they are]
Okada: too young
Okada: too drunk to move
Kingston: too damned shy
Otsuka: too old
Kingston: too mischievous
Yoon: too distant
Okada: too cowardly
Hagedorn: too loud and deranged
Ghosh: too poor to matter
Chin: too fragile not to destroy
Otsuka: Too short, too dark, too ugly, too proud.
Otsuka: [If you’re too friendly] they’ll think you think you’re better than they are

Ghosh: frozen, unable to respond except in words
Kingston: our voices were too soft or nonexistent
Vuong: no man ever drowned from too much

Hagedorn: unable to break free
Okada: [I am unable to convince myself that I am no different] from any other American

[vertical]
Kingston: unable to sleep for facing my death
Kingston: unable to leave
Okada: unable to speak
Okada: unable to suppress
Otsuka: unable to move
Yoon: unable to give further information
Yoon: unable to accept

Yoon: unable to remember
Yoon: unable to calm
Hagedorn: unable to erase
Yoon: unable to distinguish
Hagedorn: desperate, half-crazy, unable
Ghosh: unable to unravel
Ghosh: unable to return home

Sources for #1:

Renault, Antoine. “Ocean Painting 2014.” Creative Commons. 2 Nov. 2014. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/485a02d8-ce5e-4006-91bd-f5f14b9bf016.

Takitani, Tony. “Footprints 2.” Creative Commons. 8 May 2010.
https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/3ac5c496-16e1-48e6-ad72-b9ee69ca2318.

Vukoslavovic, Vuk. “black lines.” Creative Commons. 11 Mar. 2014. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/c470a4a8-ebc9-4fa5-aed3-c1196d870eab.

Sources for #2:

Althouse, Ann. “Butterfly.” Creative Commons. 25 Feb. 2018. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/6212fffe-7b7b-4d2b-9596-758fd6900600.

Corell, Per. “My hand !” Creative Commons. 15 Jun. 2013. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/742025c0-6c3f-4e30-9963-379024172cee.

“Glass.” Creative Commons. 2 Mar. 2007. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/bc617916-c5b0-421f-8ca5-c7deed2cf087.

Sources for #3:

Allen, Huw. “Fantasy Work.” Creative Commons. 2014. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/6a543899-f3b5-4888-a326-2eb5b5b16252.

C100 Studio. “The Art of Rebellion III.” Creative Commons. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/47fe9321-1183-4619-b131-8dde8b16df28.

Rao, Varun N. “Palette Knife Acrylic Painting – Thailand.” Creative Commons. 27 May 2019. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/0c817cac-2e9a-4133-9ef0-388287bcfb65.

Source for #4:

Laakso, Tero. “Winter Sunset (Digital painting).” Creative Commons, 17 Feb. 2016. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/5e76a9c9-fd35-49d3-9d9b-8ecdb913602b.