MIGRATION

“If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.”

– Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator

Pain comes in many colours. It distributes vividly through all variations of human experience, touching everyone in vastly different ways. We all go through different experiences that both make us who we are and simultaneously hinder the path to knowledge and self-discovery. Unfortunately, many of these obstacles are systemic. The prevailing socio-economic system in western society today does not serve those with marginalized identities. That is, anyone who is not an able bodied, straight, white, cisgender man. Many of us do not fit these parameters, and are subject to prejudice and harmful rhetoric which impacts our communities, our safety, and our identities. The following pieces in this chapter reveal a common thread throughout the hearts and minds of UPEI students this year. Many spoke to their experiences with womanhood and gender-based discrimination. You will read about the experiences of UPEI students and their thoughts and feelings from a social justice lens, hearing from students who both celebrate and grieve their identity, autonomy, safety, and mental wellbeing.

The critical essay “A Battle Fought Alone” by Mallory Travis exhibits the stress and judgement experienced by single mothers in society. Without support, space, or understanding, single women raising children in today’s climate are an increasingly vulnerable subsect of the population. Abby Lacey’s eclectic and poignant poem “vanna” delves into the world of body shaming, body insecurity, and the diet and weight loss culture that permeates media, the impacts of which are seen and exhibited strongest in celebrities and public figures such as Vanna White. Other pieces, such as Emma MacMillan’s short story “The Devil in My Home” and Isabella Bradley’s poem “The Silence,” handle topics relating directly to the safety and bodily autonomy of women and queer people. The celebration and empowerment of women also comes in different forms. While pieces such as Alexander Gaudet’s short story “The Woodcutter’s Weary Wife” highlight the ingenuity and quick-thinking of women in crisis, poems like Isabella Bradley’s “Feminine Rage” revel in the messy and raw emotion of feminine anger.

The stories of women and gender-diverse people come in a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours, each one unique and individual to their own experience. This collection of creative work exhibits an intimate and striking array of meaningful reflections on the journey to self-understanding. As students evolve through grief and pain into new seasons of growth, they begin the emotional migration of understanding their identities and the spaces they rightly occupy within the world.

Jo Godden

Editor