Shania Khoo completed a summer fellowship with Migrant Roots Media, a digital platform which amplifies the voices of migrants, children of migrants, and those struggling to thrive in their homelands to unearth the root causes of global migration. She researched the various historical, social, and political forces that affect folks in Singapore and Malaysia and created a zine based on her family’s immigration stories. You can see the full zine at: https://issuu.com/shaniak/docs/immigrationzine.
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Hi Shania,
Congratulations on producing such an intellectually rigorous and artistically profound project! A zine is a fantastic medium for conveying the historical data you’ve compiled and interpreted, and it effectively showcases the important perspective you bring to this topic. The annotated timelines are a particularly nice touch; juxtaposing handwriting with the printed text visually recenters a non-Western perspective just as your probing questions do. Diasporic nostalgia also seems to be a central theme in the zine—especially with the line “Sometimes I feel like my past is out of reach.” Having viewed your project, I’m wondering what specific projects might have inspired yours, and what thoughts you may have about the importance of arts-based approaches to (im)migrant history?
This is such an interesting project. I think it’s really fascinating that you were able to connect a larger cultural/historical concept to your own family. I was looking through your Zine, and I think the annotations on the timeline is such a unique way of making your argument. Knowing that the history of Singapore and Malaysia is so diminished because of western imperialism, What do you think is the best way to address this problem? Do you think that increased education and awareness of these histories and cultures is an adequate way of addressing this issue?
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