(Everything Is) Cells and Bodies

"I am a man."

"Yo existo."

#BlackLivesMatter.

If you've never felt your humanity denied, you might not understand why some people have to declare their right to exist. We are all just "cells and bodies," after all. And that is a connection the Ohio Migration Anthology, in all of its volumes, is trying to highlight.

The stories, artwork, poems, and interviews in Volume Two, "(Everything Is) Cells and Bodies," grapple with belonging, identity, and dignity-from Maya McOmie and Betsy Rose Uvagi's poetry, to Saidu Sow and Mory Keita's interviews about life after deportation, to Varsha Prabu's "Immigrant of Extraordinary Ability" and Gloria Kellon's narrative quilts.

Marina Manoukian writes, in her sophisticated Foreword to Volume Two:

What is thought to be two distinct entities-cells and bodies, others and ourselves, here and there-is created through an imagined division between entities that couldn't exist without the other. Our stories remain bound to one another and it is up to us to decide what we want our connections to look like as we break down these imagined borders. Nothing occurs in a vacuum.

Volume Two includes representation from the United States (African Americans;) Indonesia, India, Singapore, China, Hungary, Slovakia, Mauritania, Guinea-Conakry, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Uganda, and parts of Latin America-and simultaneously Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Cincinnati, Parma, and more. 

The Illustrated Memoirs Project is also represented with three stories written by young immigrants who matriculated through the Cincinnati Public Schools. From Enock Sadiki's story about disappointing his father, to Henry Arriaga's walk through the desert and Shirley Betzaida Lopez Sanchez' brave decision, readers will find something to connect with and something to learn from these new Ohioans. Also for the first time, we are publishing a trilingual story (Lopez Sanchez), written in Spanish, English, and Mam.

All of our contributors, all of the people whose stories they share, and all of our readers have one thing in common. We may come from different lands, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions, and "races"-whatever that means-but we are all just people: cells and bodies.