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LaValle

     The aspect of “We Travel The Spaceways” that was the most interesting to me was how LaValle worked bits of our modern society into his version of the future. The most obvious example of this is the name Grimace. I love that no matter how much the world around will change, there is always a guarantee of McDonald’s. While it brings a smile at first, it is moments like these that make the reader realize how little the future might change if we do not do the work to make it different. The story opens with Grimace’s distaste for that name compared to the other McDonald’s mascots and uses it as the set up for Grimace’s situation as a homeless black man. “I do not like that nickname… If I make a fuss about it, the local store owners would just call the police; between them and me, it’s easy to guess who’d get handcuffed” (LaValle 3). He starts with something familiar, McDonald’s, so that the presence of something even more deeply rooted in our society, racism, has a bigger impact. We see
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The McCoy Game

  My favorite aspect of “The McCoy Game” was the importance Alston gave to music. Alston sets up the reveal of this by beginning the story with logic. For the first bit of the text, the two boys are only concerned with the logic of making their way through the house. They are deliberate in which direction they go and think out every decision using only their heads rather than their hearts. Jamal provides context to this thinking by explaining his and Dre’s family worldview. Their grandfather had a theory that there are caretakers out there that had their origins in Africa in order to “teach us stuff like math and science. Basically how to survive and thrive” (Alston 45). With this Alston sets the scene that it is science and book smarts that should get the boys through the house, making the reveal that it is music that saves them even sweeter. Once again remembering their grandfather’s outlook, the boys recount a story of his about monsters as they try to fight off a breathworm. After
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Pet Second Half

  The aspect of the second half of Pet that stood out to me the most was how performance was used as a metaphor for Jam’s guilt about hiding Pet. One of the earlier examples in this section was when Jam was eating breakfast with her family. Her parents are concerned more than anything else, but Jam still feels the weight of their watchful eye because she is anxious about Pet’s hiding.“Pet was a loud secret in her, a wrong note in the usual harmony of her house, making it discordant, guilty” (Emezi 103). Of all the metaphors, it is fascinating that Emezi chose to focus on music, specifically its creation. By portraying that the happiness in her house is something that Jam feels she must actively perform to achieve, Emezi is showcasing the roots of Jam’s anxieties in a really interesting way. A similar situation happens when Redemption is over for dinner. While they are eating, Jam notices the metaphorical mask of casualness that Redemption has put on to avoid suspicion, and once again
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LaGuardia Reflection

The aspect of this graphic novel that stood out to me the most was the visualization of the future. This is probably fairly obvious as most of our work this semester has been traditional written word, but seeing the future before my eyes was very beneficial. I have not read a lot of science fiction, so visualizing the futures of these stories has always been very difficult for me. Most of the futures I have imagined and the ways that I pictured our class’s texts is one centered around silver and metal. There was always something cold and distant about the future. This totally contrasts Okorafor’s vision of the future and I love that. It brought me such joy to see a future where the world is so bright and colorful. I also love, especially given our current environmental situation, to see how central plants are. Although they are as alien as they are plants, it still provides a lot of hope for the planet. I also thought the use of aliens in the novel and their parallel to immigration in
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Laguardia Reflection

Grace Perry Dr. June Ellis  EN376*01 27th November  Laguardia Reflection What I really enjoyed most about Okorafor's Laguardia  was the literal use of the word "alien" to depict the ways in which our contemporary society approaches immigration. The travel notices, the banning of people from specific countries (ironically announced after the image of the Statue of Liberty, the pinnacle of freedom for most of the European immigrants coming into New York throughout the 1900's), the blatant racism in profiling travelers, and the inclusion of microaggressions paralleled against human-human interaction and human-alien interaction all contributed to an incredibly poignant commentary of the hypocrisy many Americans maintain towards their own immigrant ancestors. The graphic novel format provided an apt depiction of the degree in which the "aliens" in the novel's reality compare to immigrants within our reality. I also could not help but chuckle at Future naming
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Laguardia reflection

  Elizabeth Thompson Dr. Ellis EN 376 27 November 2023 Internalized Colonization             Okorafor’s  Laguardia  discusses the threat of the colonized becoming the colonizers with the tension between aliens and the Neo-Biafra movement. Citizen says the movement originally had good intentions to combat discrimination toward Igbos but became very rigid and discriminatory of aliens supported by Nigeria’s government. Even though Citizen is Igbo, he was targeted by protestors for having floral alien spores in his body, and his home, including the floral aliens he was caring for, was burned down by them (Okorafor). However, Citizen also has internalized prejudice against aliens as he offends Payment later on by refusing to let them hold his newborn (Okorafor). Although he later apologizes, his initial attitude demonstrates how colonization can make someone protective and defensive, giving them a survival mentality that prevents them from helping others when power dynamics shift. This is s
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LaGuardia Reflection

Naming is a key feature: Freedom, Letme Live, and  Citizen.  Nigeria is supposed to be accepting of alien life, coexisting, and acknowledging their advancements, but there are people protesting the progressive mindset, including Citizen.Its interesting that Freedom was worried about how her grandmother was going to react to Letme Live being illegally in America--the immigration lawyer, who has a building named the "New Hope Apartments"--it highlights how deep rooted the fear is when you are an immigrant. I noted that immigrants have two names, the original and the American version. It highlights that culture and language is unique. For example, if you speak Spanish and are asked to no longer do so--there is a part of your identity (a whole other world) that no one will get to meet. Therefore, people prefer dividing their identity, rather than erasing one or prioritizing one. I think its interesting that the author choose plant-based aliens because plants depend on nature and
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