The Soccer Game

By: Tiana

From anyone, my name can be thought as basic, every other girl has my name. It doesn't translate to anything, not in the ethnic groups I am a part of. It's not long and hard to pronounce, like the names of people I know. Although, it has a significance. My first name is the name of the city of which my two great-grandparents met in the Philippines. Which eventually led to their immigration to the states, and led me to the place I am today. They left their homes for a better life and sacrificed for their families. They may have passed on but their stories are carried throughout my whole family. My middle, "Maria," originates from my great-grandmother. Her first name was "Maria." Many of my cousins, including me, have the middle name "Maria." However, my great -grandmother was a strong woman of perseverance, she immigrated from Philippines for a better life for her children. She worked backbreaking hours to keep food on the table for her family, and she birthed 7 children, one of which is my grandmother, and passed away at the age of 104. So the name "Isabella" or "Maria" may not be long or hard to pronounce and may not come off as beautiful to many, but it's where the name comes from that makes it meaningful to me.

Isabella By: Lola

Everyday I pass by frames filled with memories of what is my family history. My grandpa's and grandma's during their younger years. As I look at that photo, I wonder if their life had turned into everything they had hoped. If they could go back to the exact moment what would they change? I am half-samoan and half-filipino and barely know enough about both of my cultures, I feel as if I am not a part of them. How can I call myself samoan or filipino without truly knowing what it means to be one.

I have spend enough time with my filipino side to understand traditions and immerse myself with enough of the culture that I know my way around a filipino party. However, I don't feel like I belong there. I am too tall at the parties that you can spot me amongst the crowd in an instant. Everyone there has the same body type and I stand there looking around and wondering if I am truly filipino. I don't know the language and some of the food is questionable in my opinion. I stand there questioning, "Is that what a filipino would do?," second-guessing every step I take because the wrong one can lead me into a lecture about life with drunk uncles and even drunker grandpas. Well, how about samoan? Am I samoan enough? Hanging out with my polynesian side doesn't make me feel any more samoan than me hanging around my filipino side to feel more connected to who I am. I get lost in the crowd at samoan parties being filled with people over 6 ft vibing to the beat of the music. I couldn't fit in with the polynesian club at school how am I supposed to at this party. So where do I fit in? I am so lost. Am I the object in my house that wants to know more about its culture. I sit there at parties laughing never truly understanding why I am there and who I am there for.

Someone is always throwing a birthday party and someone who is related to me is there. How am I related to you, I ask myself as I enter every doorway to a party that I was dragged in to. I question every move I make before it too late. I shouldn't be here, I should have stayed home are the thoughts that run through my mind at every party I attend. I never feel as if I should be there. Someone is always critiquing me, looking over my shoulder and judging my every step, as they watch, I stand there in fear. I don't know where I belong, but I want to know. But the more I learn the more I question myself. How can I stand there and call myself samoan-filipino without being able to blend into the parties and know what's going on. I feel like a fraud, a fake who doesn't belong. Yet I still stand there, with paralyzed fear of my next move, I smile.

Out of Place

By: Tiana

My two vignettes contain many literary devices and strategies. In my first vignette, “The Painting on the Wall”, I use a lot of imagery to describe the painting and many of its features(Vieira, The Painting on the Wall). I also go deep into the story of the painting and how I interpret it as a viewer. In my second vignette titled “Time is almost up”, I use many literary devices such as imagery, similes, and interjections(Vieira, Time is Almost Up). There are many signs of imagery such as in the beginning when I am explaining to the reader what my surroundings are and the weather(Vieira, Time is Almost Up). I use a simile in the beginning when I am talking about the sun, and I am using an interjection when we score. I go deep into the aspect of time and how it can affect something.

My two pieces of art really reflect the vignettes they were written about. The first one is of an alarm clock but with many clocks inside as the times. This piece of art was made for the vignette about the composition of time and how it's running out. I chose to portray time in this way so that it would be interesting to the reader's eye and kind of hard to figure out. My second piece of art was a photograph of the scene the author was talking about in the vignette. The picture is of the table that the author talks about, and I chose to portray that in a black and white photo to set it apart.

For my vignettes, I wrote about my experience of breaking my arm and a morning in a rush to finish homework. For my vignette about breaking my arm, I used figurative language with an onomatopoeia when describing how my bone sounded when it cracked(Nomura, The Arm Breaking Anecdote). I also used a simile to say how the pain felt as well. For my second vignette about running out of time, I used a metaphor by saying “Relief washes over me,” explaining how I feel relieved, but I'm not actually washing myself in relief (Nomura, Don’t Forget).I also used personification when saying how my alarm clock “forgot” to turn off, because alarm clocks don’t forget, I just forgot to turn it on (Nomura, Don’t Forget).

I made art for Bella and Caris’s vignettes. Bella's vignette talked about her connection to her name, and how it may be seen as “basic”, but to her, it is an important part of who she is. I choose to take a picture of a sticker name tag with her name written on it because. I thought that it was simple, and although people may not think that it has a deep meaning, to her it does. For Caris’s art, she sent me a picture of her holding her jade bracelet, and I thought of editing it and making everything else besides the bracelet black and white. What appears is a green jade bracelet, and her hand along with the background is black and white. I thought that this resembled her vignette because, she explains how she was given it at birth, but never really connected to it. It resembles the Chinese culture that she isn’t really connected with. I thought that depicting everything besides the bracelet in black and white would show the disconnect that she felt and the uneasiness of wearing it because of its reminder of her struggle with the Chinese part of herself. -

Authors Statement:

I wrote two vignettes, one about the dirty tables in front of the snack bar and one about a challenging paddling race. In my vignette about the dirty snack bar table, I utilized descriptive language to paint a vivid picture of the conditions of the table. For example, in my writing, I wrote, “These small grey fluffy feathers were marinating in this sticky yellow puddle.” (Winter, The Filthy Table) I also use sensory details to help the reader better imagine the scene and situation I was in. In my vignette about the challenging paddling race, I employed the use of metaphors to help the reader better understand the emotions and sensations experienced during the race. I also used dialogue to help the reader better understand the relationships between the characters, which was the guy in the escort boat controlling when the race began. As shown in my story, I wrote, “As we arrived at the starting line, we were anxiously staring at the guy in the escort boat holding the flags. Boom! The red flag went up, waving in the sky.” (Winter, Against the Current)

The first vignette I created art for was for Ellies. Ellie's second vignette was about how she and her team had a limited amount of time to score a goal for a soccer game. In her story, she described different events and moments that were happening during her soccer game in the story. That's what gave me the inspiration to create the art I created. For my art, I drew a big soccer ball. In some of the pentagons on the soccer ball, I drew some of the key moments/scenes that were talked about in Ellie's story in each of those pentagons to show that those were some of the most important events in the story. Now for Bella's vignette, I chose her second story. Her second vignette was about how she feels very guilty and confused that she is half Filipino and half Samoan but barely knows anything about both cultures. That’s what gave me the idea to take a picture of this brick step. As shown in the picture, it is a picture of a red brick step, but in the middle of the step, instead of the continuation of the red brick pattern, that pattern is broken with a more faded set of bricks that also have some cement around it. I decided to photograph this because I thought the different sets of bricks were a good representation of Bella. I thought this because, in her story, Bella talked about how she felt like an outsider whenever she was with either side of her Samoan or Filipino family.