Dr. Rossina Zamora Liu and Vi Bao Le Featured in COE "Stories of Hope and Healing"
On Tuesday, November 25, the College of Education published “Stories of Hope and Healing: Through the Open-Ended Process of Zine-Making, Community and Student Storytellers Explore Personal Experiences, Family and Community History, and Visions of the Future,” which featured the work of AAST affiliate faculty, Dr. Rossina Zamora Liu.
Led by Rossina Zamora Liu ’98, an assistant professor in the urban education specialization in the University of Maryland College of Education, the students had each created a “zine” expressing how they imagined building spaces of hope, healing and rest for themselves. The zines were brightly colored artworks fashioned from magazine cutouts, family photos, braided pipe cleaners and handmade paper suns and flowers. The students sewed their zines onto patches of burlap and then joined these together into a quilt that blazed with brilliant hues, rich textures and empowering words written with bold markers:
“We are not alone.”
“Rooted and reaching.”
“Black & Beautiful.”
“Safe. Seen. Celebrated.”
“This is no time for despair, but a time for resolve. We are authors of tomorrow’s democracy.”
“The zine-making process allowed us to express our feelings and share them in a space we created for ourselves,” said Colin McCarthy, a Ph.D. student specializing in urban education. “It was a labor of love, joining all of our individual thoughts, experiences and dreams together to create a representation of our community.”
Vi Bao Le (AAST Business and Scheduling Coordinator) was a member of Dr. Zamora Liu’s research team as a psychology undergraduate student with the AAST minor. She created three-dimensional paper sculptures out of replicas of old family letters and writings.
“As a Vietnamese American woman and the daughter of refugees, understanding who I am is inherently intertwined with the stories of those who came before me,” said Le. “For my family, home has never been a constant, so creating my zine allowed me to explore: what does it mean to find home? For me, home is the culmination of the memories, stories, journeys, relationships, loss, joy and beauty of the simple things that we share.”
Read the entire feature here: Stories of Hope and Healing: Through the Open-Ended Process of Zine-Making, Community and Student Storytellers Explore Personal Experiences, Family and Community History, and Visions of the Future