“yeah well it’s just more paperwork for me”

Safdar ending his graphic novel with this remark from his case manager is extremely impactful when looking at the exigence of his writing. Throughout the entire graphic novel, we see the many hardships migrants face in Australian detainment centers and the systemic oppression they had endure through the perspective of Safdar. When Safdar is finally told that he would be released from the detainment center and was excited to finally be set free, his case manager downplayed his freedom as just more paperwork that she had to deal with and is completely tone death to what Safdar had gone through. Even at his best point, there were still people degrading him and eating away at his humanity. One thing that interested me about Safdar’s graphic novel was the date mentioned when he joined the rooftop protest in Villawood. The year when the uprising happened was 2012, which was only ten years ago. This makes me wonder about the current conditions of the detainment centers in Australia and if they are still this bad. This also makes me wonder if these issues have been exacerbated by the global pandemic and if Australia has made any attempt at trying to improve conditions for migrants who are essentially seeking asylum from violence.

“I couldn’t believe I had been in the house so long and had not seen the man himself. ‘Can I see him?’ I asked again. ‘Have some bread soup,’ my father’s wife said. She pours me a bowl of plain white soup filled with soaked bread, potato chunks and a few white noodles”.

This statement made by Nadia is interesting because of how its conflicts with Nadia’s initial sentiments about Maurice (Her father) at the beginning of the story. Initially, when Nadia’s mother told Nadia about her father’s declining health, she wasn’t in a hurry to see him at all. Nadia continued to grade her student’s papers while being very hypercritical after having a negative experience over the phone with her mom, giving one of her students a C. However, as the story proceeds, Nadia begins to learn more about her father and the truth behind him through her mother. She eventually starts feeling less resentful towards him and comes around to wanting to meet him and talk to him about his and her mother’s divorce and why he chose his school’s students over her. She eventually reflects on her C-Students paper and realizes that it wasn’t the execution that mattered, but rather the message that the student tried to send. This paralleled the relationship between Nadia and her mother’s recent struggle in trying to talk about Maurice and dealing with the many emotions that came along with it. Once Nadia arrives in Miami she is anxious to see her father but her mother knows something she does not, leading her to stall for time so Nadia can prepare for what she’s about to witness. Unfortunately once Nadia finally gets to see her father for the first time, it’s already too late & she finds out that he died the same morning she flew into Miami.

“They are not responsible for what you have; you owe them nothing; in fact, you did them a big favour, and you can provide one hundred examples. For here you are now, passing by Government House. And here you are now, passing by the Prime Minister’s Officeand the Parliament Building, and overlooking these, with a splendid view of St. John’s Harbour, the American Embassy. If it were not for you, they would not have Government House, and Prime Minister’s Office, and Parliament Building and embassy of powerful country.” (Page 10-11)

This remark made by the protagonist is very interesting considering the way it contradicts some of their internal monolog made throughout the reading. At the beginning of the reading, the protagonist talks about being on vacation. As they travel through Antigua, they notice many issues within the country, but refuse to dig too deep into some of the issues because they worked long hard hours in America “(or, worse, Europe)” to be on vacation. On page 9, the protagonist makes a parallel between the state of Antigua and the island’s library. They made the point that similarly to how the island’s library was severely damaged during the earthquake of 1974 and hasn’t been repaired since, the influences of British imperialism still affect and influence the struggles of islanders to the current day. By the protagonist claiming they weren’t responsible for the past events of the island and shifting to say that they did the islanders a favor by opening an Embassy, it makes the protagonist come off as playing the role of the white savior instead of acknowledging and taking partial responsibility for the state of the islands in, which they themselves are very aware of. The protagonist even comes off as insensitive at times, as shown at the end of page 19 when they mention the relationship between tourism and natives, and aren’t very humble about their experience on the island in contrast to other’s experiences on the island and being hypercritical about every small detail instead since there arrival.

“This incident caused the assembled adults obvious discomfort, but it amused me, and it is impossible for me, even now, to think of the events of that day, wreathed as they were in sorrow, without feeling a certain gratitude to those children, all younger than eight, who fell under the momentary spell of mirth and let air into a room that the rites of death had been asphyxiating.” – Page 206

Julius recalling this memory from his father’s funeral is a nice juxtaposition to another one of his memories from earlier that day before the funeral occurred. Earlier in Chapter 19, Julius monologues about his only positive memory from the funeral day being when he went to the tailor to get his clothing for the event. He made the point that when he went to the tailor, the tailor comforted him because to Julius getting a suit was similar to getting a haircut or visiting the doctor in the sense that you trust them getting close to you to see positive results afterward. In this portion of the book, Julius recalls the children present at his father’s funeral that day contrasting them to the parents and relatives at the funeral that were very solemn. Their solemn attitude although professional, created a negative atmosphere for Julius, especially when paired with the insincerity they had when approaching him to talk about his father. The children enjoying themselves brought Julius joy by not taking the event as seriously as the other adults lowering tension and creating a sense of comfort.

“It must have been an unimaginably different place back then, I said. I did not tell him that my mother and oma had been there, too, as refugees near the end of the war and afterwards, and that I was myself, in this sense, also a Berliner. If we had talked more, I would have told him only that I was from Nigeria, from Lagos”. Page 139

This monologue from Julius is very interesting when looking at him in contrast to himself in the first half of the book. In chapters 1-11, Julius has expressed that he does not feel a sense of belonging in where he lives or with the people surrounding him. The tears from his childhood resulting from issues between his parents and the transitions from Nigeria to New York City left him stranded not knowing what to identify as. This resulted in him choosing to distance himself from people and developing the tendency to analyze and assess people from a distance rather than interact with them directly. In this scene, for one of the first times in the book, Julius makes an effort to interact with someone he doesn’t already know and attempt at forming a deeper connection with them due to interest he had. This contrasts the taxi scene toward the beginning of the book where Julius tried to dismantle the conversation between him and the taxi driver whom he shared similarities with. Additionally, here Julius finally finds a sense of belonging identifying himself as a Berliner, which was something he couldn’t do earlier in the book.

“And how odd it was, hours later, to hear her strained voice, in counterpoint with the protestors down below. She had moved to San Francisco a few weeks before, and we had said we would make an effort to work things out at the distance, but we’d said the words without meaning to them” Page 21-22

Prior to this segment of the book, Julius was monologuing about a woman’s march that was happening (and could be heard) outside of his apartment with many young women chanting “Woman’s bodies, Women lives, we will not be terrorized” towards Amsterdam Avenue. This is interesting considering the connection Cole makes between the march and Julius’s relationship with Nadege in the following paragraph. Nadege and Julius were at one point lovers (supported by Nadege’s first introduction mentioning her as Julius’s girlfriend) and at some point, they tried transitioning into a long-distance relationship. However, it seems that didn’t work out as Julius states “We’d said those words without meaning to them”. Cole starting Julius’s monolog by mentioning the protestors and ending it by mentioning “words without meaning to them” could be referencing how some people attend protests but don’t attend it for the cause or don’t commit to periodically supporting the cause afterward due to not being passionate on the issue. This is similar to Julius and Nadege, demonstrating how a lack of commitment from both of them resulted in the downfall of their relationship.

“Grace felt for her, so she didn’t say about the police on that Boxing Day, oh years ago when Ed was still alive, beating them off the beach with wooden batons. How were they to have known that the beach had in the meantime been declared white? As for penguins, she didn’t think there were any; they must have come for the white people who were so pleased to swim with them. Oh I used to swim like a fish in my time, Grace boasted instead.” -Page 32

These lines from the passage confused me. Before these lines were mentioned in the text, Shirley talked about how she planned to take Fiona on a wine route, a picnic at Silvermine, and a beach called Boulder before she left. When Shirley discovered that she and Fiona wouldn’t be doing any of these things because Fiona decided to spend more time at Grahamstown, in disappointment, Shirley asks Grace if she’s done any of these things. This leads to Grace lying to her about her previous experience at Boulder beach when it was segregated. She also purposely avoids confronting Shirley about the misconception that penguins are present at the beach. If Grace “felt for her” why would she lie and not tell Sheirly the truth about the beach. This could have reduced the disappointment Shirley had about not being able to visit the beach with Fiona since the beach has a negative (and fabricated) history behind it. The only reason why I think Grace might have lied could have been to make Shirley feel bad on purpose. This relates to the fact that Grace has experienced the beach in a way Shirley never will. While Shirley is so disappointed in the fact that she didn’t get to do these unimportant superficial things with Fiona, she is ignorant to acknowledge what someone like Grace may have gone through while the apartheid was going on and these activities may have been restricted to her, leading to Grace possibly saying this out of spite.

“Woman: He’s a chemist. An Adulterous Chemist, Dr. Kerry. He thinks I don’t know he’s sleeping with that Wilkins woman. Some common tart he picked up in the midlands to work as his assistant in the laboratory. God, what a joke!” Page 10

This quote stood out to me a lot after reading the text and seeing the plot twist that unfolds at the end of the story between Kerry and Gloria. In the end, Gloria finds out that she is actually related to Dr. Kerry through blood after his mother was raped by her father while working for him as a housemaid, making Gloria (the person Kerry once had an intimate relationship with) his half-sister. This is important to acknowledge when referencing this quote because there is a morbid juxtaposition between the information Gloria knows and doesn’t know when she’s pressing Kerry for information earlier in the story. Gloria was well aware that her husband was cheating on her, leading to her having a distaste for him and ultimately wanting a divorce. What she hadn’t known by this point however was that her father was doing the exact same thing to her mother. The same hypocrisy she held her husband accountable for was something she wasn’t able to accept when she came to the brutal reality that her father wasn’t the person she thought he was, going as for as feeling weak at the knees and sitting heavily on the couch when she learns the truth about her family tree.

“Is inherited trauma like the water passed from one generation to another, placed in the hands of each person in turn?” These words stood out to me the most when reading “1947: Spell to Reverse A Line” by Bhanu Kapil. In her writing, Kapil discusses her family’s relationship to the 1947 Partition and how the events that had unfolded in her family’s past resulted in the development of trauma in family members who were trying to emigrate from their home country. A point that Kapil emphasizes is that trauma isn’t a static force. Trauma moved alongside her family affecting people who lived through the Partition and unfortunately those who weren’t alive during the event. A key example of this can be seen at the beginning of page 4 when Kapil discusses a memory of herself telling her son to ask his grandmother about the effects of colonization. This resulted in her mother breaking down in tears. In saying that, she accidentally had her mother relive haunting memories of the past, which resulted in Kapil reliving negative experiences she faced while growing up with a mother who suffered severe trauma. This experience could result in the development of trauma in her son because he ponders whether it’s his fault all this unfolded due to a question he could have kept to himself, reinforcing Kapils idea that trauma lives in a perpetuating loop.