"Painting my Dreams: Help Fund my Art Journey to Japan!" By Tina Vuong

David's Note: Tina was a wonderful student in our year-long Freshman Inquiry class during the "year of Co-vid," when the entire class was online. I remember her as shy and very bright, and that she was really struggling to find the money and the time to pursue her education. Three years later, she's a confident and, as you can see, accomplished artist on the edge of realizing a life-long dream of studying in Japan! She returned to our class last year and was one of our most popular guest speakers. Please support her trip if you are able and inclined to, and please help spread the word. Tina is one of those people who will pull many other people along as she succeeds.

Tina's Fund My Travel Page: https://www.fundmytravel.com/campaign/4WUFKilnOH

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As a graphic design student, I am applying for the PSU Exchange Program at Japan: Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka. Growing up, I found much of my inspiration in Japanese culture, especially through reading manga and watching anime. As a child, when things were difficult at home, I would immerse myself in Japanese comic books to escape from my surroundings. The stories transported me to another world and helped me through my childhood. I daydreamed about being rescued by a prince or traveling through time with a talking blue cat. Today, I aim to bring the same comfort and joy to others through my art. This personal connection to Japanese media has been a driving force behind my artistic journey, shaping both my passion and career goals.

When I chose to attend PSU, it was a practical decision to save money while pursuing my degree. At the time, I thought I had to leave behind my love for 2D art. As technology advanced, many people told me that majoring in Art Practice wouldn’t lead to a successful career after graduation. Because of that, I decided to switch to Graphic Design, where I could still use my artistic skills while learning how to apply them in a more modern, digital context. 

Although I no longer take studio art classes, I have continued to evolve my craft through graphic design studies at PSU. I have had the opportunity to learn how to critique and create short animations, infographics, movie posters, and various other projects. I’ve used these skills to create and sell my work, taking on freelance projects such as tattoo and poster designs, along with many smaller projects.

One of my goals is to create my own webcomic series and work in an animation or art studio, turning my imagination into reality. During the spring semester of 2023, I took a course on “The History of Animation”, which reignited my passion for the subject. The class showed me how Japanese and American animation have influenced one another, but I especially appreciated Japan’s dedication to 2D animation, which has largely been replaced by 3D in the United States. This exploration gave me valuable insights into the evolution of techniques and visual storytelling across cultures.

Now, I hope to learn directly from the source that has shaped my artistic vision. I’m particularly eager to gain a deeper understanding of Japanese aesthetics, culture, and society through design. Having already completed three terms of Japanese at PSU, I look forward to using the language in real-life situations to improve my communication skills and gain fluency.

"Beyond Intergenerational Trauma," By Brenda Rodriquez-Garcia

 

This powerful account is taken from Sharing Stories of Hope and Transformation in U.S. Higher Education: An eReader by Portland State University Students, edited by Óscar Fernández and myself. You can read more stories by clicking on this link. By the way, Brenda graduated last June, less than four years after entering PSU, despite innumerable challenges and while serving as a much beloved peer mentor for sixty first-year students.

Our childhood experiences and parents have influenced us to be the person we are today. For some people, this influence gave them many incredible outcomes in their adult/teenage life but for others, this influence could be very damaging, hurtful, and traumatic. I hold the belief that every baby is born innocently, and their parents, society, or community influence the person they’ll grow up to be.

At a young age, I constantly witnessed my parents always fighting verbally and physically and never getting along. My mother, brother, and I were always moving into different homes and ended up in a domestic abuse shelter. We’d always leave my father behind, and I never understood why. Being young and naive, I often made my own conclusions that my parents simply didn’t love each other enough and that’s why they’d always leave one another and get back together all the time. I found myself resenting my mother when my dad would come to look for us, and she’d refuse to be with him and force him to leave.

When I was eight, I remember my parents arguing for the whole car ride back to our house. As we arrived home, my mom stormed out of the car into the fall night, and my brother and I quickly followed behind her and left my dad behind. I don’t think my mom knew where she was intending to go because all she was doing was crying as she walked—which provoked us to cry along with her. After she noticed we were very cold, we headed back home but my dad didn’t open the door for us after the countless times she knocked. We had no choice but to sleep at a park as we shivered in the cold. The next thing I recall was being carried inside back into the house by my mom as she angrily continued to argue with my dad about not opening the door and having us in the cold. After this night, there was no more fighting or arguments, my parent’s relationship was healthier, and everything changed for the better.

By the time I reached middle school, I overheard a heated argument between my parents which I wasn’t necessarily new to, but this time I wasn’t naive and understood what they were arguing about. My mom realized this and took me out of the house to a random parking lot. I don’t know what I was expecting but little did I know this conversation would have a great impact on my life. She revealed why we used to leave my dad so much in my early life which sadly turned out to be for my dad’s struggle with a crystal meth addiction. When my mother would get domestically abused by my father, it was because my dad would be drugged and have hallucinations of my mom cheating on him. To protect my brother and me, my mom would get us away from the violence. For the past five years, he was attending a rehab group and was sober which explained why our lives had changed for the better. Unfortunately, the reason why she was revealing all this was due to my dad relapsing back into his addiction.

From there, my life changed forever and I felt as if I had lost my father by witnessing him lose, destroy, and consume himself by his drug addiction. He’d be sober for a month or two and then relapse again and make endless promises of changing, but his drug addiction always seemed to overpower him. It was truly hard to have to go to school and act as if nothing was going on at home and to come home from school not knowing if my dad would be sober or drugged. When he’d be drugged, he wouldn’t sleep or eat for days, destroy the house, ignore us, and would have constant hallucinations about incidents that weren’t happening. Commonly, those hallucinations would be my mother cheating, someone trying to kidnap me, people breaking in, and awfully more.

I’d feel very devastated and depressed, because I felt as if my father preferred his drugs over me and my family. I witnessed my household turn into a living hell, and I couldn’t do anything about it due to being young and lacking the resources to help my father’s addiction. Many times I felt as if I was the adult at home because my mom would be depressed, even suicidal, and I had to be supporting her in a way I could. She would have mood swings where she’d take her frustration out on me and even though it hurt a lot, I’d still have compassion for her because it was hell at home. My mother had her flaws but she also never abandoned us. SHE made us feel loved and cared for, and provided for us. My dad never abandoned us either, his weakness was his meth addiction, so when he was absent or a horrible person it was when he was on that but when he wasn’t he was the best dad in the world.

The hardest years of my life would have to be my high school years due to the fact that I was sadly living with a drug addict and somehow still pursuing school. My life at home couldn’t be changed from the lack of control I held, but I viewed my education as my only salvation to save my family as it would guide me to more opportunities that would benefit me in my life to pursue my dreams and help my father. By my sophomore year, things were just getting so out of hand, and it just kept making everything more and more difficult to be at home. Sometimes I would either stay after school or go to my friend’s house just to avoid having to go home. It was hard to focus on school with everything at home, but somehow I still managed to do it. My mom was getting emotionally and physically tired, too. Halfway through the year, she decided for us to leave my dad and go live with her sister in Wisconsin. I had to leave everything behind in my life and start a new one in a different place. It was very overwhelming having to start a new life and adjust to a new high school, especially halfway through the year. Although I was far from my dad, somehow he would still affect me and influence how I felt.

After a week of us being gone, my dad drove to go find us. He knew my mom would take us with her sister since that’s the only family she has here in the United States. Somehow he got there ready to take us home, but I wasn’t too convinced. He convinced my mom he would change for good and to leave back with him. I decided to stay because I didn’t want to have to adjust one more time to school, and I was embarrassed to show up there since I wouldn’t know what to tell the school. My dad was offended by me not wanting to leave back with him, but he didn’t consider how I had left everything for him, and deep down inside I knew it was too soon for him to change. About two weeks after my parents left with my baby sister, he had again relapsed into his drugs. So, my mom ended up coming back to Wisconsin embarrassed, but I didn’t judge her for believing in him.  At the end of the day, we all held the same hope he’d defeat his drug addiction.

Things only got even worse after that, as now my dad was all alone drugging himself non-stop. I fell into a really bad depression, as I didn’t understand why my dad chose his drugs over his family. My aunt would check up on him occasionally and even pay the rent so he would have a place to stay, but that didn’t help him much. He destroyed our house. He broke the walls, burned our belongings, burned spots in the house, painted the windows black, and so on and so forth. He was only damaging everything around him but most importantly damaging himself.

After three months, he got arrested for driving recklessly and that was the best thing that could’ve happened since my dad would be locked up without being able to drug himself anymore. My mom left back for Oregon to save our house from getting taken away, and facing consequences since it was under her name. I stayed to finish my high school year at Hamilton High School, even though it was a pretty dangerous school. I felt unsafe many times because the staff weren’t very strict, and it felt as if the students were in charge. We had to go through security every single day before entering school. My life was slowly getting back together again, as my dad was now sober and would frequently call me. After a month, his parents paid the bail and he was three months sober getting his life back together. My parents ended up getting back together, and when I arrived home in the summer the house was rebuilt again. Nothing remained of the house I had left behind. I did not see the destruction my dad had done to it. Sadly, this didn’t last long. On my birthday, my dad came home very upset with bad news about the court and having to leave for Mexico. My whole world was falling apart just when everything was getting back to normal.

In Mexico, my dad relapsed back into his drugs and spent time in and out of rehabilitation. I would go visit him when I could during the holidays, and my grandparents would take him out to spend the holidays with us, but after a short time, he would just go back to his drugs. It was like no matter what I did, his family or friends did to support him, he’d always choose his drugs over everything. At this point, he lost all his family, his job, and his life due to his drug addiction.

The hardest moment in my life was my senior year when my dad was lost for the weekend and nobody could locate him. Monday night I received a call from my aunt crying telling me my dad had run over a person while he was drugged. Unfortunately, the person was in a cartel and sent people after my dad to kill him. I felt my world ending as I feared for my dad’s life. I prayed for the people of the cartel to have compassion on the life of my dad because he didn’t intentionally try to hurt anyone since he was struggling with a deep drug addiction. My dad drove to my grandparent’s house with bullets all over his car, and somehow my dad’s brothers managed to negotiate with the people by covering all the hospital’s expenses, buying him a new motorcycle, and giving him money for six months. Even though we found a solution to the problem, and my dad’s life wasn’t lost, my heart sank at the thought of my father almost losing his life. I remember being so emotionally unstable I didn’t go to school for a week, which got me behind in my classes.

Living through all of this was very devastatingly hard for me, and sadly I’m still living through this challenge that hasn’t ended, yet. Many people judge my father and talk bad about him. They often say he is never going to change, but, at the end of the day, he continues to be my father regardless of who he is, and I’m never going to lose hope in him changing. His weakness is his addiction, but he loves us, and I know it.

I’m happy to share that I received a four-year scholarship to pursue my education and complete my desires. After completing my college education and my criminology and criminal justice major, I plan on helping my dad by putting him in a rehabilitation center and counseling program to help him recover from his addiction for good and heal his childhood trauma. As for my mom, I want to give her everything she deserves, as she’s the one who’s suffered the most. She would’ve loved to pursue her education but couldn’t for circumstances in Mexico, and I want to complete that dream for her. I still hold no resentment towards my father or mother.

My parents aren’t bad people and never will be even after all my siblings and I have lived through. I’ve always had in my mind that people are who they are based on the childhood they lived through. My dad had a very ugly childhood full of domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse, and neglect. My dad at six years old witnessed the death of his brother who was six years old due to bricks falling on him while they were working in Mexico. My mom’s life faced some trauma as well, and I acknowledge that they’ve both reflected on what they got as children, their trauma, problems, and more that hasn’t yet been healed so this is why I don’t hold any grudges or judgments against them. As you could imagine this was very traumatic in my life but it also made me desire a better future and mature very young. I honestly don’t know where I would be today without my parents or the life I’ve lived as it has shaped me into the woman I am today. Although not everyone is strong enough to forgive and look beyond the trauma, I encourage you to forgive your parents, forgive the life you’ve lived, and move forward to truly heal yourself. Break those inter-generational curses that separate and restrict us from living and pursuing a healthy life.

"Mirror's Reflection: My People and Me," by Rebecca Hart Benitez Hernandez

[Sense of community is] a spirit of belonging together, a feeling that there is an authority structure that can be trusted, an awareness that trade and mutual benefit come from being together, and a spirit that comes from shared experiences that are preserved as art.” Dr. David McMillan

 I often struggle to explain to white people the sense of community and connection I feel within my race and culture and how that sense and connection is different from theirs. I currently live with my husband and in-laws, who are white, and from living with them I can see that the relationships, connections, and loyalties they have within themselves as a family and within their cultural community are different from that of people of color and immigrant families in America. 

As a Mexican-American, I immediately feel connection, understanding, respect, and love toward any Latinx person I meet. I see my parents in the faces of the elders in my community. I see their struggles, and I see their pain. I think about how, like my mother, maybe they haven’t held their mothers and fathers in over 30 years. Maybe they, too, came to this country young, and now many years later, with adult children of their own, cry out in their rooms for their parents and family as my parents do. I wonder if like my parents they left a peaceful life on a village farm, where life is slow and full of love and laughter, for uncertainty. I can look at any old Latina woman and know she hugs her children tight every chance she gets. I know she prays for them constantly, I know she makes all their meals with love and care. I know if she doesn’t have documentation she probably babysat kids in the neighborhood for money like my mother. Or sold things she made like the many years my mom would make hundreds of tamales every weekend, drive an hour to a Latinx-dense neighborhood, and stay out until she sold every last one. Or maybe, like my mother, she sold AVON or winter blankets or pots and pans. I see my father in every Latino man I see who is tired after a long day of labor. I know that after a hard day at work, that old man still makes time for his kids. No matter how tired my pops was or how late it was, he was there for me, eye bags and all with a smile on his face. If I ever come across a younger Latinx person, I know that like me, they have a soft spot for their mamá. Maybe their mom also stays up at night with them, telling them stories of their village life, and maybe they too, laugh together like I do with my mom when I ask her about how the boys were in her village. Maybe when they complain about being tired, their dad too, starts telling stories about how back in his day everyone had two full time jobs and that we young folk have it easy. 

I am constantly trying to explain the logic behind the trust I have in Latinos who are complete strangers. It is hard to put into words that I simply trust them because they are like me. They too love their Mexico as I do, their first and biggest love is their mother, and like me they will work themselves to death before seeing anyone in their family suffer. They will sacrifice everything good to make sure those they love are okay. Their father is the protector and head of the family, like mine. They have a blinding trust in God and in his word like me. They have a mother who poured all the love in the world towards raising them like mine. They eat what I eat, they love what I love and love as I love, they respect as I do, and they were raised with Latin-specific rules, beliefs and morals like me. I find myself getting comfortable quickly around Latinos because I am able to see myself in them, I am able to see similarities in how we process and respond to information, on how we act and what we care about.. Their mother is a mirror to mine, their pain is the same, their struggles and their love are the same. They are responsible to their families, they take accountability, and they love like no other. I feel safe around them because I have faith in the strength of our culture and that our values align. I find that that mentality isn’t the case for white communities. Thus, what takes me one meeting to read, open up to, and decide if I can trust or feel safe around a fellow Latino, takes more with a white person, because I am unable to trust that the morals, values, rules, beliefs, family roles and structure for their community as a whole will be consistent with all members of their community. It is a very individualistic culture whereas Latino culture is heavily community and family based. 

“Collectivism stresses the importance of the community, while individualism is focused on the rights and concerns of each person. Where unity and selflessness or altruism are valued traits in collectivist cultures, independence and personal identity are promoted in individualistic cultures.” 

Kendra Cherry, MSEd

For us, family is everything, and my people are very important to me. Immigrant communities also take those bonds very seriously. They are what make us who we are. We are truly never alone. I experience my people’s love in all aspects of my life. I can go up to any Latinx people and strike up a conversation. A simple hello followed by where are you guys from. "De que parte son?" And the possibilities are endless for where that conversation will lead. A new friend? A new family member? Food advice/ a recipe to try? Talking about what we know and love about each other's regions? Telling every older Latina woman she reminds me of my beautiful mom because they all do in some way. I see mi gente everywhere and it brings me great pride. And with that community growing so does our connection. It will never falter, we will always be there for each other, helping our raza continue on one step at a time.

Beyond the Numbers Podcast: Freshman Inquiry Students Reflect on Their Lives

Many of the smart, determined, and funny students who make Portland State such a delightful place to work and be find their way into the Freshman Inquiry classes--Immigration, Migration, and Belonging--that I'm honored to teach.

Last Spring a half dozen or so students in both classes collaborated with Joe Rivera Soto, a wonderful student advocate at Portland State, to create a podcast about, well, whatever they wanted to talk about. The sound quality of one of the podcasts was strong enough to distribute, so here it is. The peer mentors and I invited the students to research some topic that meant a lot to them, so they are discussing both that subject (imposter syndrome and racism in Portland, for example) and how it has shaped their lives.

The students decided on the format and what their roles in the podcast would be.

The title reflects the complex, particular, challenging, and wonderful personal stories behind the growing numbers of students from under-served communities who are enriching Portland State. I used to think that my primary role as a scholar who was interested in making the world a better and more humane place was to research and publish. Listening to students such as the ones speaking her helped me to realize that my time is much better spent doing what I can to smooth the paths of people such as Abigail, Adilene, Fatima, Joel, Liza, Nicolas, and Stacy to positions of power and influence. 

Enjoy!

 La Casa Latina (Numbers Speak Podcast).mp3

A Student Bill of Rights by PSU Freshman Inquiry Students Just Published in Amplify

About a year and a half ago, the seventy or so students in the Freshman Inquiry classes that I'm honored to teach at Portland State University--Immigration, Migration, and Belonging--collaborated to create a Student Bill of Rights. The great majority of these students are people of color, from immigrant families, and first-generation college students, and the great majority are excited and proud to be at university. But many of them soon feel out of place and discouraged.

Here are their conclusions on what colleges should do to help them to feel at home and to succeed, just published in Amplify: A Journal of Writing-As-Activism: 

https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/amplify/vol2/iss1/5/

 

The Journal of Transformative Learning just published a piece that nine Freshman Inquiry students (Raya, Arina, Kenyn, Daira, Jennifer, Estefani, Han, Brianna, and Tony) and our Peer Mentor (Laihha) and I co-wrote based on our class!

It is a very short piece but one we all enjoyed working on very much. "'Like a Family'" describes how we strove to create an environment where people from very diverse backgrounds, in a class in which nearly everyone was from an immigrant family, eventually felt seen and welcome and at home. Many of the students felt much like Jennifer at the beginning of our first class that fall day in 2019: "I was so nervous that I wanted to leave." But as we sat and listened to and got to know each other, magical things happened.

Here is the link: https://jotl.uco.edu/index.php/jotl/article/view/446

"Barriers and Passion," by Aline Alvarez

I never really imagined I would be where I am today. I grew up in a home where right off the bat I was destined to be a statistic. Single-parent household, father in prison, immigrant family, Latina, first-generation American, English language learner, the list could go on. This is very common in my culture as many Latinx youth carry the weight of so many circumstances, many of which they cannot avoid or control. It's frustrating to think that because we grow up like this, the world already uses these circumstances as barriers towards our success. Because of this, we grow up with the mindset that we have to work ten times harder than our peers who don't share the same circumstances. Who don't share the same “barriers.” Very early on, I knew I wanted to show that my culture is more than just a statistic and we are capable of accomplishing pretty much anything despite what we go through at home.

Throughout high school, I was a very introverted person. You wouldn't catch me at any homecoming games or dances, you would probably find me at home watching reruns of CSI: New York or working. I kept to myself and had a close knit group of friends. I got great grades. Not because I wanted to, but more because my Mom refused to let me or my sister fall into this pot of statistics. And also because my Mom truly scared me at the time and I knew if I had a failing grade, I would come home to the infamous chancla and the very common Mexican mom lecture where she would explain all of the sacrifices she has made for me and my sister. At 14, I was expected to work and contribute what I could at home. Growing up in a single-parent household, my mom alone could not provide for us on her own so both my sister and I had to take on the role of provider alongside my mom. I had to grow up fast, again not because I wanted to, but because I had to survive and support my family. From fast food jobs, retail, babysitting, and even selling tamales as a side hustle, whatever income I could bring into the household was crucial to whether we would have enough money to keep the heat and lights on. Like many Latinx youth in the same position, we dream of one day earning enough money to move our families out of the struggle and poverty we so commonly face. We dream about taking care of our parents so that they don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn to work a crappy minimum wage job where they work away the rest of their lives. Not the American dream but the Latinx dream.

I took advantage of the fact that I was already busy working by also piling up volunteer hours. I figured by doing this, I could network and in my high school mind, these programs would all of a sudden hire a little 16-year-old as their CEO (I know, I had big dreams). I knew realistically that wasn't going to happen, so I had to keep doing what I was doing to eventually get there. Over time, I lost track of everything I was involved in. It became apparent that it wasn't about my dream any more and more about my passion. I loved working with people and helping people. This has been a huge reason why I have always been involved in service work or more specifically service work in our educational system. Student life and environment is crucial to a person's development, career, and overall future. With programs such as SUN, Latino Network, and IRCO, they are able to target school environments and provide extended services for students with backgrounds similar to mine. I think that's why I kind of felt at home when I would volunteer with them because they understood the eager goals of a Latinx teen just trying to survive. 

This brings me to where I am today and what I do. My senior year of high school, I applied to many universities. A majority of them accepted me without hesitation, which was great until you saw the cost of tuition, fees, books, all that “fun” stuff. I decided Portland State University was what would work best for me and it was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made. Being a first-generation student, I went into college pretty clueless and scared. I didn't have anyone to help or guide me so I am appreciative that I was able to find my niche at the Multicultural Center and my FRINQ class with professor David Peterson Del Mar. While in college, I started to take the risk of actually applying for these student-life careers. Of course, rejection was common. I was still pretty young to be in this type of field as many districts and programs wanted paid experience, a master’s or bachelor's degree, certifications, etc. I still took the risk and rejection and kept applying. Eventually, I ended up getting hired with Volunteers of America as an after-school program coordinator. This job gave me the experience I needed to then move on to my next career which was with Portland Public Schools. I was a Family Service Worker with the Head Start program which focused a lot on aspects of social work and family and student resources. This journey of course wasn't easy. I wouldn't say I was the best employee and I did perfect in my field because I didn't. It was a very big trial and error process for me as I was still learning so much and was also juggling my last two years of college. What kept me going was the people I was helping in the process. The passion.

With both of these experiences I learned a lot about myself and what my purpose was. I was nearing my last year at PSU so I really had to reflect on what I wanted to do after I am done. I received a BA in Criminology and Criminal Justice and knew I wanted to continue working with youth. My end goal is to work with youth who have been put in a system already set up to fail them. Youth that could not overcome their “barriers.” By starting in the school system, we are able to help these youth before they are put into the correctional system. By being that mentor, role model, or friend, it can come a long way and make just enough impact in their lives and futures. I now work with David Douglas High School as a Bilingual after-school coordinator where I focus on the Latinx student population. A lot of the Latinx student population is very underrepresented and underestimated. I run an after-school club Monday-Thursday where Latinx students can come in to do homework, connect with other Latinx peers, and learn about the overall Latinx culture.

I didn't really know what direction I wanted to go with when it came to writing this blog post, I just wanted to assure readers that regardless of your background, anything is possible if you take the risk of doing it. I am the product of that as well as the many students I have worked with. The strength and resilience this new generation has had is incredible and I am thankful to be working with them as they teach me new things every day. I didn't let these so-called barriers in my life stop me and I encourage you to do the same. Some days might be good and some days might be bad, no like, really bad, but trust me, it will get better and you will succeed.