Cole Zingas

4/22/18

Project Annotated Bibliography

Droushia to Detroit

 

Burrel, K. (2006). Moving Lives: “The Decision to Migrate: The Greek-Cypriot Experience”. pp.31-34. Ashgate: Burlington VT. 

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The demographic most likely to emigrate from Cyprus during the time period (40s-50s) that my Papou was considering emigration was typically young single males. Even in they were married, they often left the country by themselves in hopes to one day to bring their wives and children to the U.S. This finding is especially interesting because it fits what Papou has told me about himself, his Cypriot friends that immigrated, as well as my uncle (who was married in Cyprus but came over by himself, later bringing his family with him). I found a few quotes in particular useful from this article, one being:

 

“Young men on the threshold of adulthood had always been encouraged to travel in order to display their honor, courage and freedom... The Greek-Cypriots are a proud nation, a proud people — hard working people…moving to improve, and prove, the economic welfare of the family was a powerful social and cultural statement”. 

 

The importance of family, even when a young man left his family for good, was not lost upon Cypriot Americans.

 

Campbell, W. (Producer), Sani, D. (Director). (2016) Faces of Santa Ana [Documentary]  USA: Retina Productions. Retrieved from http://www.facesofsantaana.com/documentary/

 

The homeless are everywhere, and nowhere. They are habitually ignored and stigmated as addicts and proletarians. But what happens when you make an effort to understand the homeless. When you give people a second chance? I always think what it would have been like for my grandfather if he didn’t get lucky and eventually find himself in the right situations where if he worked hard, he could achieve his goals. Maybe he would still be homeless? Matt Faris (the homeless person in the film) was an ambitious musician until things went south. Watching this film helped me try to appreciate the individuality of all people, and realize that “homeless” or “addict” should not be words that define people.

 

“None of us really carry our stories on our face, like you do when your homeless.”; “Everyone deserves to be seen with eyes of love” ; “The purpose of this film is to affect people inside homes; and get them to step out of their homes.”; “My job is not to fix them. Why I’m out here is just to love them. And if you’re just out there to love them, there’s no way they can dissapoint you.”

 

In my project, I try to demonstrate that Papou could not have achieved what he did alone. His family and others around him were essential in moving him out of homelessness. Other questions I try to address, that were inspired by Faces of Santa Ana: Who showed him love? Can my grandfather’s story inspire social change, like Matt Faris’ did?

 

Club Paradise LLC (Producer) & Bischoff, B. (Director). (2017). Canción del Campo [Motion picture]. USA: Vimeo. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/208850349

 

Narrated completely by the main (unnamed) character in his native Spanish, it tells a vivid story from his youth. While panning over images of the tomato fields that he worked in as a child, he emphasizes the lines “Life is suffering. Life is work.” This is the lesson his mother taught him, but he never understood the meaning, until he put the lesson in the lens of his cruel stepfather. We find out later in the short film that the man now has “a lovely home”… Several homes, actually, stemming from a successful career. He says, “Education, discipline, work and suffering have brought me to this level”.

 

Education, discipline… those things are the clear, more obvious path to success. But he adds a third word, “suffering”, to his statement. To clarify, he tells a short (~3 min audio) story of when his stepfather came home after work, sweaty and bloody, saying “I finished the bastard”.

 

“After that time I understood, that in that rage, in that suffering, that man could do anything he wanted. If he could do that, then…[pause] It’s a lesson that he taught me, that the pain, the slashes, the heaviness of the field can be survived; and you can accomplish what you want.”

 

Bischoff, the director of the film, explains how they produced it. “We used a C-300 and filmed it in real-time over the course of a 24-hour sunrise to sunset. Our crew was nimble, no more than 10 throughout the entire process. Having worked with a similar crew for over a decade, we allowed ourselves to enter this particular production with a very specific goal in mind on what to capture and for what purpose.

 

From this film, a couple things can be garnered. First, the imagery is beautiful and finding visually appealing backdrops and toning my videography techniques will be essential. Second, the film had a theme – “life is suffering” — that, unexpectedly, led to success. What about my grandfather’s story is unexpected? Thirdly, the production crew demonstrated the importance purpose in efficiency and achieving good results.

 

So, like Bischoff’s film, I wanted to the imagery to be a powerful representation of what Papou’s story means. While “Cancion del Campo” does this through the images of the fields, I felt for Papou’s story this was best done through the faces of his family.

 

And because Papou’s story is told through the other pages of the website, I felt it was more powerful to show other faces (rather than him) that are important in his story – namely his wife and grandchildren.

 

Gatorade and Gimlet Creative (2017) The Secret to Victory. Podcast retrieved from https://thesecrettovictory.com/?page=about

 

A podcast documenting sports figures, which intrigues me especially because sports biography is one of my favorite genres. The audio, brought to us by Gimlet, is interesting and provides a backdrop to the narration. Just like the tomato fields set the scene as a captivating visual backdrop in Canción del Campo, setting the tone in a podcast or audio clip can be key to engaging a listener. It’s a podcast that centers on how the greatest athletes in the world are shaped not by their victories, but by their defeats. Success is a marker of what adversity you’ve faced. Episodes include: Peyton and Eli Manning; Serena Williams; and JJ Watt. The other thing I enjoy about this podcast is that’s its concise. All episodes are under 20 minutes, which I think is important in today’s world of so many podcasts and media available. I believe you should be able to capture a story, and do that well, in the time it takes for someone to commute to work in the morning. That’s one of the reasons I decided to split up the audio on Papou into several different sections.

 

The underlying text, which is an element I’d like to provide to complement my audio clips, is a summary highlighting key aspects of the podcast and key voices that are featured. However, I did quite a bit more writing and reflecting in text underlying the audio. This is because the context (self-narration) is not present in the audio. Therefore, it was important for me to provide this context in text outside of the audio buttons.

 

Julia, a woman who has experienced homelessness, addiction, and mental health issues; Personal Communication; February 20, 2018

 

Quotes: “It took me so long to realize… it’s ok to be happy. It’s ok for good things to happen.” “My children are my life, my children are my anchor”

Notes: Working hard and having success at school isn’t the same for everyone. When you keep trying + failing, it is really hard to keep up hope. But for Julia, the only reason she says she is still alive is her kids, who gave her hope in the darkest of times. She exemplifies the dream of a mother. When she talks about her kids, she doesn’t say… “I don’t know if my kids are going to pass third grade” (even if that may be a reality)… she says “I don’t know if my kids are going to be the next J.K. Rowling”. Despite the mental health problems that she and her kids have faced, she still believes in a bright future. How Julia define success? I wished I had asked her this question, but if I had to guess, she would define it in terms of her children. All of her personal ambition is not geared toward moving up in a company, but rather it is making a better life for her kids.

Takeaways: People, just like ballets or books, have spines. What is Papou’s spine? What is my spine? Does someone need a spine to become successful? A spine doesn’t have to be an internal quality. It can be external, like a community (church, for example). For Julia, it is her kids.

 

Though I never used Julia’s story on my webpage, thinking and reflecting on questions of spine, success, and homelessness helped me greatly in my reflections, especially Looking Inward and Looking Forward).

 

 

Kaminsky, S. (Jan. 30, 2010) My father the forger [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky/up-next?language=en

 

His name is Adolfo Kaminsky, and his work during World War II, forging papers for 14,000 Jews, turned into a life of fighting for the rights of the persecuted with his correction pen and ink. His life has now been documented in a TED talk and book, Adolfo Kaminsky, une vie de faussaire by his daughter. A documentary “Forging Identity” directed by Jacques Falck was created as a spinoff of Sarah Kaminsky’s work. In addition, CBS did a 60-Minute special on Adolfo on October 29, 2017. What inspires me is that despite his old age (92), people from so many walks of life are still invested in his story. His daughter Sarah, the speaker at TEDx, is the one who spearheaded the telling of this amazing story. Without her, who knows? As a private, humble person, his story might have gone untold.  She says that as a child she knew “one day I would have to question him.” And when going back and doing so, she asked about regrets. “He said no. He told me that he would have been unable to witness or submit to injustice without doing anything.“ This inspired me greatly, as you never know what can come of making an unknown story come to life.

 

To start the talk, an overview of her father is necessary: a couple sentences about what he did — “I am the daughter of a forger; not just any forger.” Then, a glimpse into his personality — “Anyway, he was a photographer and a street educator, and he always taught us to obey the law very strictly.” The dynamic speech highlights why he felt such a sense of responsibility for other people’s lives. It uses personal stories, historical context, and artifacts (actual forged document pictures, family photos, etc.) to do so.

 

“In one hour he could make 30 forged documents. If he slept one hour, 30 people would die…His guilt for being a survivor, since he had escaped the camp when his friends had not -- stayed with him all his life.”

 

What’s interesting is that he made sacrifices at the expense of his family. He disappeared on his children. “And while my half brother and sister thought they'd been abandoned, orphaned, my father was making false papers. And if he did not tell them, it was of course to protect them.” Telling stories on the purpose that Adolfo felt, which lead to the drive that resulted in touching so many lives, was the intention of Ms. Kaminsky’s TED talk. This focus on purpose, rather than biographical overview, is something I believe I did in my project. Small stories are not left unexplained – they are expanded on in the context of what they could mean for the reader.

 

Krakauer, J. (1996) Into the Wild. New York: Anchor Books. Print.

 

The book is a non-fiction post-mortem documentation of Chris McCandless’ life. Mostly, the book focuses on the choices he made after graduating college that ultimately led him to his death at age 24, alone in the wild. This may sound like a story of a stupid young kid who went and threw away what could have been a promising life — he was always one of the top students in his class, and it seems from his early life that he would have made a successful scholar, engineer, or really anything he wanted to be. What he wanted to be, however, was free. And that freedom came from being on the road, on his own, exploring the country. His confidence and determination is inspiring, and his intuition helped him avert some very adverse situations over his two-year solo journey. The essential question that was on my mind after finishing this book was: Was Chris McCandless successful? This is what led me to compare Chris to my Papou in an essay on “Time in Limassol”. I didn’t end up addressing that question of Chris’ success directly, but I see that many of the qualities I noticed in Chris are similar to the qualities that ultimately led to the success of my Papou. It makes me think that things could have worked out very differently for either one of them – sometimes it comes down to a stroke of luck or a certain ill-advised choice that can be a make-or-break moment. After the project is over, I’d like to reread the book Into the Wild with the question “Was Chris successful?” in mind, to see what I think.

 

Krakauer, Jon. (2009) Where men win glory: the odyssey of Pat Tillman New York : Doubleday,

 

 “Unencumbered by biographical insight, people felt emboldened to invent all manner of personae for Tillman after his passing. Most of these renderings were based on little more than rumor and fantasy. The right-wing harridan Ann Coulter claimed him as an exemplar of Republican political values. The left-wing editorial cartoonist Ted Rall denigrated him in a four-panel comic strip as an "idiot" who joined the Army to "kill Arabs." Neither Coulter nor Rall had any idea what motivated Pat Tillman. Beyond his family and a small circle of close friends, few people did.” When writing a story of someone’s life, it is important to know where that particular story (from your angle) will fill a gap somewhere. Krakauer had a purpose when writing “When Men Win Glory”. His dedication to the truth is what set his story apart from others about Tillman. Also, following the flow and trajectory of this story is interesting. Playing with chronology and form will be something to consider down the line.

 

What is my purpose? Many in my family know parts of Papou’s story, and others know other parts. Putting those together in a way that is meaningful for my audience (my family and also my peers in this class) is my purpose as of now.

 

The most apparent use of this book in my project is the quote from The Iliad at the end of the first page. This meant something in the life of Pat Tillman, and I believe it meant something for my life as well. (See Blog Post introducing Project)

 

 

National Public Radio (2018). StoryCorps [Audio Podcast] Retrieved from storycorps.org

 

Some Examples (I have listened to many more):

Dion Diamond -

Quotes: “Today, when people read my name, they may not know who I am, and most likely they won’t. I have three grandkids, they aren’t the least bit interested, but any time I pick up a historical publication, I feel as if a period or a comma in that book is my contribution.”

Notes: Dion Diamond narrates his own story, complemented by photographs and a mash-up of audio compiled by StoryCorps. These photographs nicely complement the storytelling — in fact, I think that asking someone to describe an old photograph can conjure up the most vivid of memories. I hope to try this technique with my grandfather, and also use a similar multimodal approach to narrating a story from the distant past.

Takeaways: What happens when things don’t work out? What if your own parents don’t agree with what you’re doing?

 

Lan Cao and Harlan Van Cao

“Life is like a lotus flower”

Quotes: ‘You know, life is like a lotus flower. The lotus flower lives in mud and is open and blooms. If you come as a refugee with nothing, no matter what trauma you went through during the war, no matter what you have lost, you have to have the mental toughness to start over and to succeed. That’s what I’m most proud of: that I did not collapse and I’m able to pass that on to you.’

Notes: For Lan Cao, it is a remarkable tragedy early in her childhood that has shaped her perspective on the rest of her life. For me, I never had an early childhood pinnacle moment or essential tragedy that has shaped me — does this make a difference in a person’s purpose in life?

 

William Lynn Weaver:

Quotes: My father was a chauffeur; my mother was a domestic, so we didn’t have a lot of stuff. And that Christmas, I don’t even remember what gift I got but I do know that made me feel better than any Christmas I’ve ever had.

Notes: Even when you don’t have a lot yourself, generosity was paramount for the Weaver family. From just 2 minutes of audio and one small story, I get a great glimpse into the life of the Weavers.  A middle-class family that put others first.  Forgiveness, love, and getting through hardship are the three big themes of this story. 
Takeaways: How can I capture the kind of person my grandfather is, in simple stories like this one? How can I capture what kind of family he raised? This story works because it contains a surprising, happy ending — the family that had their bike stolen forgives the boy and gives their granddad money. Out of the ordinary things like this are what can truly capture someone’s true self.

 

Oakley, R. (1979) Family, Kinship and Patronage: The Cypriot migration to Britain. Minority Families in Britian: pp. 13-34. Accessed from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-349-16099-0_2

 

           While Teerling & King look at migration from a more macro-level, Oakley takes a specific subsect of Cypriot emigration (to Britain), establishes the fact that it is prevalent, and looks at the specific reasons why so many Cypriots emigrated to Britain (this is also true for the US, but this paper deals with Britain exclusively).  What the paper concludes is the importance of family in emigration from Cyprus. In general, Cypriot emigrants left and maintained strong connections with family, especially through patronage. Also, many left with the desire to return to the island after receiving an education or finding wealth abroad. However, seldom did emigrants return.
 

Stuart-Pontier, Z., Smerling, M. (Gimlet) (2016). Crimetown [Audio Podcast] Retrieved from http://www.crimetownshow.com

 

This source is a continuing inspiration for me. Their podcast has one of the best audio mashups I’ve ever listened to, and it really does make the stories they tell more emotional and engaging. In addition, they have a website to supplement this podcast. The website contains biographies about the characters involved in the podcast, complete with pictures and associated audio clips. The website serves as a source for further information – if you want to know more, go to the website. Similarly, I’d like the articles and extra artifacts that I post online to serve as a supplemental resource, while the audio/video of my grandfather’s story will serve as the main text. My essays on success will be reflective and informative, but I hope these will take a backseat to the focus of my piece, the documentary. This is just how Crimetown is structured, and I think emulating this structure could help me immensely.

 

Teerling, J. & King, R. (2011) Cyprus as a Multi-Diasporic Space. Working Paper No. 67 University of Sussex Centre for Migration Research. Accessed from https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=mwp67.pdf&site=252

 

Explores the “migration realities” present on the island of Cyprus during the 40s -70s. In that time, Cyprus had the highest rate of emigration in the EU. Examining the reasons for that high emigration rate, and who exactly was leaving, is the purpose of this paper. In addition, immigration to Cyprus from all different regions of the globe is prevalent as well. For the purposes of the “Why Leave?” essay that I’ve written, this document was essential in order to understand the migration dynamics (whether cultural, political, or otherwise) of Cyprus. Direct quotes from emigrants are present in this document, which were helpful to use as examples in composing the essay.

 

Wooden, J. (February 3, 2001) The difference between winning and succeeding [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/talks/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success/transcript?referrer=playlist-what_is_success#t-126670

 

John Wooden is the winningest coach in NCAA history. I chose to look at a coaches’ definition of success because their jobs are dependent on such success. So, knowing what it takes to succeed – for both him and his players – is essential. Moreover, it is Wooden speaking at the end of his life (age 91) which mirrors Papou’s self-reflection on success at age 88. There are many quotes from this that are meaningful, but Wooden wastes no time in defining his meaning of success. This was an ideal quote to use in my “Looking Forward” essay, which also contains my definition of success, my classmates definitions, and Papou’s definition. I felt that getting an outside perspective on the issue was important for the purposes of this essay. I also considered a quote from Coach John Calipari (a successful coach at the University of Kentucky, who is a first-generation Italian America) because of his immigrant background, but I ultimately chose to feature Wooden.

 

If I were to revise this essay, I might play around with adding other perspectives (such as that of Coach Cal) into the narrative.

 

Writing 420 — Notes. Peers Definitions of Success, class on 1/30/18

 

            I realize that a one-minute class exercise might not reveal the most nuanced feelings about success. But on the other hand, forcing people to write this definition, unprepared, could also reveal something raw about what this age group truly wants to accomplish. When reading these notes, I went in with some framing questions in mind:

 

• Which definitions are the most extreme?

• How many of the students’ goals are short-term, versus long-term?

• How ambitious are the students in their goals?

• What are the most common words/themes that I can identify?

• Where are the biggest differences between each definition? What makes each one unique?

 

However, ultimately, what I ended up doing was not really analyzing these notes at all. Instead, I chose to take pictures and frame my essay of “Looking Forward” with my classmates’ definitions of success. Not only would it have been difficult to analyze 15 different definitions, more than that, I think they stood alone. They provide context to what I’m thinking, feeling, and writing. Are my thoughts mirrored by my peers? What’s the spectrum of definitions? Taking opinions of other twenty-two year olds with similar life questions on their minds is interesting, I think.