Because We Go: Poetry Exploring Memory and the Migrant Identity
Author:
Andrei Bucaloiu ’22
Co-Authors:
Faculty Mentor(s):
Professor Katie Hays, English Creative Writing
Funding Source:
N/A
Abstract
I came to the United States from Romania with my parents when I was two years old. I struggle to remember this moment directly and I often find myself trying to bridge a personal gap between languages and cultures, between my memories and my parents’ stories, and within my own emotional affect. This chapbook project serves to probe my own narrative and analyze my own position in the world as a multilingual and multicultural individual, while aligning itself with a definition of memory that hinges on intergenerational storytelling, rather than lived experience alone. The poems vary in form and subject, and are unified by a sense of longing and an exploration of how an immigrant child understands their position—displaced from a home culture, and never fully planted in the adopted culture. This chapbook proposes that creative expression through poetry is a vital operation for young migrants seeking to better understand themselves, showing that memory and identity are not stagnant relics, but rather dynamic and ever-developing processes. This project is my story.