In my Halfa Kucha presentation I analyzed how the graphic novels Spinning and The Best We Could Do utilized different mediums to recover and heal from their traumatic past. In Tillie Walden’s novel Stitches she focuses on the various points if her life in which she experienced a form of trauma and neglect, the biggest concerns being the bullying she experienced from her bully Grace and the sexual harassment she faced from her SAT tutor. I also noted that in order to give her attackers any power she purposely chose to draw them without faces as to denote their lack of humanity. In Thi Bui’s novel she describes the generational trauma her parent’s experienced while in the midst of growing up during the Vietnam War. Instead of focusing on the physical aspects of trauma like Walden, she focused on the mental and social aspects of it. She focused on the trauma of never being able to measure up to her mother’s standards and the terror she felt being left alone with her father. Walden chose to find her healing by confiding in her cello instructor who symbolized a safe haven for her to run to while Bui chose to see that her parents were not terrible people and looked at the birth of her son as a chance to break this plague of generational trauma and look toward the future with hope.
Link to the original assignment: https://eng181f19.davidmorgen.org/assignments/projects/halfa-kucha/
Andres Velasquez 