Portland State Magazine Fall 2021

14 // PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE COMICS ENCOURAGE readers to lean in with wonder. Images punctuated by words draw us into the story like no other medium. “There is something about the language of comics that allows us to connect in a different way than if we were reading a book or listening to a podcast,” said Portland State instructor Kacy McKinney. That’s why she turned to the medium to share stories from PSU students experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness. “The hope is that these stories will resonate,” she said, “that they will touch people in unexpected ways, and change the way we think, talk and teach about homelessness and poverty.” McKinney teaches in the College of Urban and Public Affairs. She is also an illustrator and comic artist, and has served on the board of Sisters of the Road, a Portland nonprofit working to end poverty and homelessness. With a grant from PSU’s Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative (HRAC), she’s leading a project to create a series of comics on student homelessness. About one in six PSU students have experienced homelessness, according to a 2020 HRAC report.That figure is even higher for Black, Indigenous and other students of color. Daniela Ortiz experienced housing insecurity growing up and continues to feel its impact. She answered the call for students to participate in the project because she wants to fight the stigma of homelessness, which is why she chose to share her name in this story. “I need to stop being ashamed of my childhood and what my reality might be,” she said. “I want people to see me and hear my story.” “We should stop looking down on homelessness and look at the real reasons why we have homelessness,” she said. “I hope people see that housing instability has many different faces and many different realities.” Ortiz is one of 10 current or former PSU students selected to share their stories.The team also includes McKinney, two student research- ers, two student interns, and 10 professional artists. Each comic will tell a story from a student’s perspective.The stories explore themes including safety, survival, connection, fear and isolation.They center the voices of historically marginalized groups and show how forms of oppression underlie, exacerbate and perpetuate housing insecurities. The work is part storytelling, part research and part teaching tool. This collaborative process is called ethnographic cartooning, which uses a combination of in-depth interviews and a back-and-forth edit- ing that includes frequent check-ins with students to make sure the stories reflect the storytellers.The research team interviewed students this spring and prepared notes and guidance for artists to draw from. “It was beautiful the way they wrote it,” Ortiz said about the interview notes. “I thought ‘This is me, and this is OK’…. It made me thankful to be where I am now.” The team, with input from storytellers, will match each story to an artist. For example, one student’s journey starts in an opulent home that feels dangerous, but ends in safety, surrounded by nature. It has the feel of a fairy tale or epic quest, so the team hopes to pair the story with an artist whose style reflects that energy and emotion. “Each story has a theme or important set of meanings connected to who each person is,”McKinney said. “It’s about us translating, and the artists translating again, and creating space for the audience to connect. ” The artists will collaborate with the students to make sure the comic reflects their experience in a way that resonates with them.The goal is to disrupt harmful stereotypes and build greater understanding, empathy and awareness. Portland comic artist Quinn C Amacher, one of the artists on the project, noted that art can reveal the humanity of subjects who don’t get their stories told very often, but can also reveal the humanity of those experiencing the art. “How we view the most vulnerable members of our society reflects how we view the most vulnerable parts of ourselves,” she said. Amacher likes to tell stories about real people using a cartoon-like style. People are bendy, stretchy and Looney Tunes-esque, emotional and dynamic, she said. “Sometimes steam comes out of our ears one second and water pours down our faces the next,” she said. “We’re always changing. It’s the silliness of being human and the absurdity beneath all of it.” People seem to connect deeply with this project, McKinney said. More than 75 artists and 55 students applied to participate. When the arts CHANGING THE NARRATIVE Comics break stereotypes by bringing stories of student homelessness to life SO-MIN KANG “How we view the most vulnerable members of our society reflects how we view the most vulnerable parts of ourselves.”