Overview

"""I am a man."" ""Yo existo."" #BlackLivesMatter. If you've never felt your humanity denied, you might not understand why some people have to declare their right to exist. We are all just ""cells and bodies,"" after all. And that is a connection the Ohio Migration Anthology, in all of its volumes, is trying to highlight. The stories, artwork, poems, and interviews in Volume Two, ""(Everything Is) Cells and Bodies,"" grapple with belonging, identity, and dignity-from Maya McOmie and Betsy Rose Uvagi's poetry, to Saidu Sow and Mory Keita's interviews about life after deportation, to Varsha Prabu's ""Immigrant of Extraordinary Ability"" and Gloria Kellon's narrative quilts. Marina Manoukian writes, in her sophisticated Foreword to Volume Two: What is thought to be two distinct entities-cells and bodies, others and ourselves, here and there-is created through an imagined division between entities that couldn't exist without the other. Our stories remain bound to one another and it is up to us to decide what we want our connections to look like as we break down these imagined borders. Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Volume Two includes representation from the United States (African Americans;) Indonesia, India, Singapore, China, Hungary, Slovakia, Mauritania, Guinea-Conakry, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Uganda, and parts of Latin America-and simultaneously Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Cincinnati, Parma, and more. The Illustrated Memoirs Project is also represented with three stories written by young immigrants who matriculated through the Cincinnati Public Schools. From Enock Sadiki's story about disappointing his father, to Henry Arriaga's walk through the desert and Shirley Betzaida Lopez Sanchez' brave decision, readers will find something to connect with and something to learn from these new Ohioans. Also for the first time, we are publishing a trilingual story (Lopez Sanchez), written in Spanish, English, and Mam. All of our contributors, all of the people whose stories they share, and all of our readers have one thing in common. We may come from different lands, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions, and ""races""-whatever that means-but we are all just people: cells and bodies."

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"Marina Manoukian, ""A Series of Movements,"" August 2023 In my review of Volume One of the Ohio Migration Anthology, I asked what comes out of reading such a variety of experiences centered around movement, writing that ""To read about the movement of others isn't about preparing for the inevitable-it's about finding the intersections that inevitably remake us all."" While our intersections inevitably do remake us, it's just as important to remember that we aren't as disconnected as we may think. In this volume of the Ohio Migration Anthology series, stories of movement are once again highlighted against the backdrop of a mutual destination. And this time, there's an additional overarching theme of how movement seeps through the generations. Every encounter in this anthology series is the story of a life inseparable from movement and ultimately about survival. Not because survival is guaranteed, but because if someone's writing, it means that something has survived. Even the search for stories is a story of survival and remembrance. Meanwhile, forced migration is often a forced forgetting. Maretha Dellarosa's pieces about raising her children while trying to maintain a connection to Indonesian culture and Javanese language echoes the ancestral connection sought after in Ray Danner's story ""Ανατολία (Anatolia)."" Betsy Rose Uvagi's poem ""I Was Raised by Refugees"" similarly reflects on how movements and migration lingers through the generations. Whether in the form of a poem, fabric, interview, illustration, or something else entirely, this anthology brings together multitudes of expression."

Author Information

Lynn Tramonte move words like fingers move crochet thread. Loop, hook, pull. Tension and slack, creating something new, useful-and beautiful-from simple string. After twenty years working for national immigration advocacy organizations, Tramonte launched a communications consulting practice, Anacaona. Anacaona helps clients tell stories that compel people to see and feel our shared humanity, and act to make social change.Anacaona specializes in advocacy communications strategy and planning; editing and writing; coaching and training in writing, media relations, and narrative. Tramonte also directs the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, and serves on the boards of Justice Action Center and Babel Box Theatre-claiming her progressive values, midwestern roots, and the power of art as pleasure, connector, and teacher. Tramonte's work has appeared in publications as diverse as the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Univision, Guardian, Columbus Dispatch, and Ideastream Public Media. She is a 2018 Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund. Marina Manoukian is a writer of the Armenian diaspora. Gloria Allen Kellon is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and grew up in a close knit community there called Beltzhoover. The Allen family had migrated there from Danville, Virginia, two generations earlier. Mrs. Kellon attended Clarion State Teachers College in Clarion, Pennsylvania and received her B.S. in Elementary Education and Masters from Ohio University. Migrating from Pennsylvania, Gloria went to Cleveland in 1961 just as the Civil Rights Movement was growing. She taught in the Gifted and Talented Program in Cleveland Public Schools for forty years. At retirement, quilting and doll-making became her main interest. Along with a friend, Sandra Noble, Gloria started the African American Quilt Makers and Doll Guild, which is now seventeen years old. This group teaches quilting and doll making and has exhibits to teach African American history and African art. The guild traveled to South Africa in 2014 in honor of Nelson Mandela. Gloria continues to make narrative quilts as a means to teach African American history and today's current events. She is a member of the Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers.

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