DNF Semester Project

Your browser lacks required capabilities. Please upgrade it or switch to another to continue.

Loading…

<<if visited("DNA1") >=1 and visited("Growing Up") >= 1 and visited("Church") >= 1 and visited("Elementary School") >= 1 and visited("What are you?") >= 1>>  <img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/qsix8xkklln0n0q/main-2.png?raw=1" usemap="#image-map"> <map name="image-map"> <area target="" alt="artist" title="artist" data-passage="Artist's Statement" coords="259,111,633,394" shape="rect"> <area target="" alt="comp" title="comp" data-passage="Intro" coords="150,496,424,496,433,692,130,690" shape="poly"> <area target="" onclick="play()" alt="music" title="music" coords="803,541,1005,675" shape="rect"> <area target="" alt="house" title="house" data-passage="Growing Up" coords="649,611,664,592,699,588,713,611,709,692,649,690" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="objects" title="objects" data-passage="DNA1" coords="1004,681,1011,655,1036,649,1048,656,1047,612,1066,612,1070,656,1083,614,1089,509,1096,500,1108,615,1138,678,1139,686,1074,699,1046,699" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="angel" title="angel" data-passage="Church" coords="632,706,617,653,629,628,607,614,585,628,590,660,579,708" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="toy" title="toy" data-passage="Elementary School" coords="510,682,441,678,433,502,556,494,603,527,630,574,611,597,582,577,574,639,580,686,553,691,513,691" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="pic" title="pic" data-passage="What are you?" coords="709,457,794,587" shape="rect"> <area target="" alt="end" title="end" data-passage="Why adopt? End" coords="908,72,1232,503" shape="rect"> </map> <<else>>  <img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/fzswdt0tif2e2gz/main-1.png?raw=1" usemap="#image-map"> <map name="image-map"> <area target="" alt="artist" title="artist" data-passage="Artist's Statement" coords="259,111,633,394" shape="rect"> <area target="" alt="comp" title="comp" data-passage="Intro" coords="150,496,424,496,433,692,130,690" shape="poly"> <area target="" onclick="play()" alt="music" title="music" coords="803,541,1005,675" shape="rect"> <area target="" alt="house" title="house" data-passage="Growing Up" coords="649,611,664,592,699,588,713,611,709,692,649,690" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="objects" title="objects" data-passage="DNA1" coords="1004,681,1011,655,1036,649,1048,656,1047,612,1066,612,1070,656,1083,614,1089,509,1096,500,1108,615,1138,678,1139,686,1074,699,1046,699" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="angel" title="angel" data-passage="Church" coords="632,706,617,653,629,628,607,614,585,628,590,660,579,708" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="toy" title="toy" data-passage="Elementary School" coords="510,682,441,678,433,502,556,494,603,527,630,574,611,597,582,577,574,639,580,686,553,691,513,691" shape="poly"> <area target="" alt="pic" title="pic" data-passage="What are you?" coords="709,457,794,587" shape="rect"> </map> <<endif>> <script> function play() { var audio = document.getElementById("fz"); audio.play(); }; </script> <audio id="fz" src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/wqk9s7u1mf2wch0/mx.mp3?raw=1"></audio>

<video autoplay muted loop id="myVideo"> <source src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/1gl6bflsoh2r5uh/playgroundvid.mp4?raw=1" type="video/mp4"> </video> <div class="content"> In Elementary School, I would brag to other students about being adopted. I don't remember a time when my sister and I didn't know about being adopted. It was just a normal part of our lives. However, I did know that being adopted made me different from everyone else, so I carried the status around like a badge of honor. It was like a gold star to show on the playground to the other kids. I also knew that I was mixed. My Mom says that whenever someone would ask me what color I was, (which was, in hindsight, a weird thing to ask a child), I would always say "peach". When we would take standardized tests in school, I always got to mark 'other'. As weird as it was, it made me feel special. [[Back|Main]] </div>

<div id="churchtext"> Growing up, my Mom was children's pastor at our church. Every Sunday morning and Wednesday night, I spent time at church learning bible stories, practicing for musicals, and helping with events. I loved church, but as I got older I began to notice how my sister and I were the only people with dark skin at our church. Even as a child, I noticed how I didn't look like anyone at my church. No one ever made me feel bad about looking different, but it was always on my mind. I remember how, once I got old enough to help my Mom in children's church, the kids would get confused when she told them I was her daughter. I could see the looks of confusion on their face as they struggled to figure out how the two of us - two people who looked so different - could possibly be related. There were times when I felt disjointed, like I didn't quite belong. I remember wishing that instead of standing out, I could just <a id="demo">fade into the background</a>.</div> [[Back|Main]] <script> $(document).ready(function(){ $("#demo").click(function() { $("#churchtext").animate({ opacity: 0 }, 2000, function() {}); }); }); </script>

There is one question that I heard multiple times growing up and still hear today. Chances are that if you are mixed, from another country, or have unusual features, you have also been asked this question: "What are you?" As a kid, the problem with this question was that I didn't know the answer. I didn't know what my 'other' consisted of. One day I finally asked my parents if they knew, and they said that according to some of the people they spoke to after adopting me, they said I was African American and Asian. I was thrilled to learn that I finally had some kind of answer, and would proudly share my newfound knowledge whenever I was asked. [[It turns out, however, that this answer only complicated things.|What are you? 2]]

The question of my identity [[turned into a kind of game|Conversation]], where people would immediately try to figure out 'what kind of Asian I was.' I would even have people try to convince me that I was Vietnamese or Chinese, saying that they were confident in their decision of figuring out 'what I was'. People love to solve mysteries, and I was a walking question mark. Once, while standing in line at a fast food place, a guy turned around and asked, "Hey, you're not just black, right? You're mixed?" When I reluctantly said yes, he immediately grinned, triumphant. "I knew it," he said. "I knew you had to be //something//." [[Back|Main]]

Americans are obsessed with identity. We need to know who we are, which is why we read our horoscopes, take tests to find out if we are INTJ or ENFP, or spend 20 minutes taking personality quizzes on Buzzfeed. Most of it is just fun and games, but there's always the underlying question that we all are trying to answer: Who am I? In the past few years, a kind of solution has popped up: DNA tests. Thanks to companies like Ancestry or 23&Me, people can now spit in a tube and send their DNA across the country, where a company will tell them where they are from and, in some cases, who they are related to. For the regular person, a DNA test isn't required. It's something fun that you get for Christmas; a gift that tells you that you're '1% Native American' or '33% German'. For an adoptee who doesn't know their birth parents or ethnicity? It's anything but fun. [[DNA2]]

After I submitted my own DNA to Ancestry a few years ago, I was told that instead of being African American and Asian, something I believed for over 20 years of my life, I was instead African American and Caucasian. [[My Ancestry DNA map showed origins in Northern Africa, Great Britain, and even parts of Ukraine.|Map]] I should have been relieved. I finally had the answer to the 'What are You' question that people kept asking me. Instead, I was confronted with a map I didn't recognize and, to my surprise, a list of DNA matches. A list of people I didn't know. A list of people I didn't recognize. I wanted to be able to take my DNA test, post on Facebook about my results, and forget about them. I wanted to be like everyone else, but yet again, I was left with a lot of questions and no real answers. [[DNA3]]

After taking the DNA test, I went on the Ancestry website and was met with a list of people. These were people that I didn't know. People I had never met. But, according to my DNA, I was related to all of them. I took time considering my options. I could move forward and act like the list didn't exist, or I could reach out to some of my 'relatives.' After a few months, I finally decided to reach out to some of the people on the list. <<linkreplace "This is what I thought would happen:">> <<linkreplace "It would be just like all the adoption stories you saw on television or in the movies. I would knock on a door and be met with someone who - surprisingly - looked exactly like me. There would be tears. Hugs all around. A nice afternoon sifting through old family albums while an uplifting song plays in the background...but this is what really happened:">> <<linkreplace "Absolutely nothing." t8n>> <<linkappend "There is something they don't tell you about adoption stories. About shows like Long Lost Family or This is Us. They don't tell you that those stories rarely end the way you want them to." t8n>> In reality, I sent dozens of e-mails and messages that never got answered. The little I knew about my birth parents was far from perfect. The people listed as 1st cousins on my Ancestry List refused to contact me. I didn't get welcomed in with open arms. I didn't get my Hallmark ending. Instead, all I got was locked doors. <</linkappend>><</linkreplace>><</linkreplace>><</linkreplace>> [[Main]]

Growing up, my adoptive father was a hard person to get to know. Even as an adult, I was confronted with a man who was more like a wall; the little I knew about own childhood was told to me by my Mom, or given to me in tiny pieces through old photos. As I struggled with my own identity, I made the mistake of thinking that my family's history wasn't my history. What was the point in learning about my family's past when it wasn't really mine? I resented the relationships that couldn't be proved by blood. Resented the family tree assignments we had in school and was annoyed that at every doctor's appointment they would ask about the history of illness in my family. I resented it because it wasn't 'mine'. [[I didn't think any of it belonged to me.|I was wrong]]

<video autoplay muted loop id="myVideo"> <source src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/6fpysuzaowwnrry/grocery.mp4?raw=1" type="video/mp4"> </video> <div class="content"> When I was about 12 years old, I went to the grocery store with my Mom. It was a routine outing, picking up a few things we needed for dinner. We approached the checkout line and I could see the woman behind the counter glancing at me, then my Mom. She scanned the items one by one, slowly putting them into bags before finally saying: "Can I ask you something?" I instinctively felt my body stiffen. It's as if I could hear the questions before she said anything, could see the same confused look on her face that I saw on everyone else. She directed her question at my Mom: "Is this your daughter?" Me: dark skin, short, hair turned to fluff from the heat. Mom: light skin, tall, delicate features. "Yes, she is," my Mom said with a smile, picking up the bags. I grabbed a bag and turned to leave as the woman behind the counter leaned forward. "I knew it," she said, smiling. "She looks just like you." [[End|Story Title]] </div>

/* Background pattern from Toptal Subtle Patterns */ <img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/g6ldx79qgk8jr07/peach.jpg?raw=1" class="polaroid"> Grandma Lived through World War II. The whole family was there when they brought us home. 25 stairs going up to the apartment, Grandma would go up and babysit us, special time with us. (Books story, getting coins from car) "Grandma was always up for an adventure." Grandma and Aunt Jill had a dial rotary phone - never got rid of it, because when we would go out there it was always the first thing we wanted to play with. We would walk in the house and look for the telephone. [[Back|Growing Up 2]]

/* Background pattern from Toptal Subtle Patterns */ Grandpa Would write notes on birthday and write riddles - (WHERE IS THAT??), throwing keys up in the air, flick our long hair across our face. [[Back|Growing Up 2]]

/* Background pattern from Toptal Subtle Patterns */ One of the proudest moments - for us girls - was when Obama became president. Finally had a black president. Lived through the civil rights era. Talked about how he wanted to make sure that we wouldn't have to face what he did - didn't want us to be persecuted like he did. "You can't feel something that you haven't lived." He never changed my diaper - even though he said that he did all the time. Always made sure we had food in the house. "Makes me wonder if he ever did without." "In his mind & how he was raised, working hard for you was what he was supposed to do. That was his job." Was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather said Florida or California - civil rights was so bad, "You will die or be put in jail if you stay here." Remembers the borders in the city - if you were black, you didn't go to those parts of the city. Grandparents - Cherokee Indian background [[Back|Growing Up 2]]

While I was putting together this project, I called my Mom to get her perspective on some of the different points in my story. In the middle of one of our conversations, I asked her something. Something I had never asked her before. "Why did you decide to adopt us?" There was a moment of silence at the end of the line. Growing up, I had always assumed that there was some kind of problem. Maybe my parents found out that my Mom couldn't have kids. Or maybe there was some kind of divine intervention - a dream or sign that made them want to consider adoption. "There's no cool story," my Mom finally said, laughing. "Your Dad was a man of few words. We never really talked about it." "Adoption is the only way we ever thought about having a baby. We just felt that's what we should do." As much as the statement bewildered me, I couldn't help but smile. A serious, nonverbal agreement between my parents just seemed so...//them//. "It just felt right," she said. "Everything just worked out that way." [[Grocery Store (end)]]

''Artist's Statement'' When I first started thinking about ideas for my semester project, I knew I wanted to focus on my family. As I've gotten older, my family has become more important to me. In the past few years I have, unfortunately, lost many family members. However, it was through these moments that I realized how strong my family is. We love each other through thick and thin and celebrate each other's lives, even when someone passes away. I chose to tell the story of how I grew up adopted because it is a story I haven't told before, even to some members of my family and to my closest friends. I wanted to challenge myself to write a story that I knew would be difficult for me to write. In Joy Harjo's piece "Suspended" she talks about how a time in her life shifted her perspective, causing her "relationship to the spin of the world" to change. I wanted to shift my own relationship to the world while helping my readers do the same. I knew from the beginning of this course that I wanted to use Twine to create my semester project. I was drawn to Twine because of its flexibility and the way it, in many ways, is a tool for creating video games as well as interactive fiction. In one of her blog posts, Emily Short talks about how Twine "has given rise to a lot of works that are personal expressions on the part of the author...that prioritize communicating to the player rather than inviting the player to communicate in return." I wanted to share my story in a way that was personal and interactive, making the reader feel like they were learning about my story while still having a little bit of input in how they navigated it. At first I thought I would have a linear story, but after talking with some other students through peer review and looking into some different options, I decided to go with a non-linear format. I wanted to focus on what Root and Steinberg call "flexibility of form" (xxvi). This is a way of combining genres together to create a unified piece. In my project I combined different styles, images, video, sound, and 'mini-stories' that all came together to tell one story. I tried to make each branch of the story unique. In one story, the user clicks through a conversation between me and an unknown speaker. Another page shows a map that, when clicked, shows the user the results of my Ancestry DNA test that I took earlier in the year. These pieces also helped to make my project, as a whole, more interactive. I wanted to give the user as many options as possible so that they could feel in control of the story. One of the big things I added to the story was the interactivity related to selecting objects. I was inspired by Hatton, McGurgan, and Wang's project in "Keg Party Extreme and Conversation Party." In the article they talk about one of their own projects, where users were able to walk around a virtual space filled with objects. The user would be able to 'zone in' on an object and learn the history behind it. I decided to use an image map to simulate a similar idea. The users will see a desk with objects that they can click on and be brought to a story related to that object. The other students in my class encouraged me to ask the different members of my family for their opinions and views on the different information in my project. The idea is similar to what Alexandra Hidalgo talks about in her piece "Creating Our Pasts Together." Hidalgo notes that as writers, we must participate in "remembering together, creating together, and editing together." I chose to speak with my Mom about the different sections, adding information where relevant. I learned things about my family and about myself; how I was growing up, and how others in our lives reacted to our adoption. Right now my artist’s statement lives on the introduction page, along with some other links that will tell users how to navigate the project and tell them about my project’s sources and citations. I liked the idea of having homepage that was always accessible to the reader. They would always be able to access it in order to view information about the project, sources, and the artist’s statement. That way, they can read the ‘about’ information whenever they want, whether it be at the beginning of the journey or at the end. Overall, I think I was able to pull in the key concepts we had in the course in an engaging and effective way. Although it was difficult, I loved the end result of my image map, and its something I would consider doing again. I also like that I stepped out of the box, choosing to give readers a non-linear story instead of a strict beginning to end structure. I tried my best to expand my horizons while developing this project, and I hope that it shows. Works Cited Harjo, Joy. Suspended. W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. Hatton, Sarah, et al. "Keg Party Extreme and Conversational Party: Two Multimodal Interactive Narratives Developed for the SMALLab." New Perspectives on Narrative and Multimodality, edited by Ruth Page, New York: Routledge, 2010, pp. 202-216. Hidalgo, Alexandra. “2-1-Hidalgo.” 2-1-Hidalgo | The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, multimodalrhetorics.com/2-1-hidalgo. Root, Robert L., and Michael Steinberg. The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction. Pearson, 2012. Short, Emily. “Choice-Based Narrative Tools: Twine.” Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling, 13 Oct. 2015, emshort.blog/2012/11/10/choice-based-narrative-tools-twine/. [[Back|Intro]] /* Background pattern from Toptal Subtle Patterns */

''Project Sources'' This story is the Summer 2018 semester project for Dr. Londie Martin's Digital Nonfiction course at The University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Project created using [[Twine|http://twinery.org/]] and [[SugarCube|http://www.motoslave.net/sugarcube/]]. All photos, unless otherwise specified, are from [[Unsplash|https://unsplash.com/]]. Atlas image from [[Pexels|https://www.pexels.com/photo/atlas-close-up-dark-dirty-592753/]]. Background patterns are from [[Toptal Subtle Patterns|https://www.toptal.com/designers/subtlepatterns/]]. Folder icons for the computer screen are from [[Whatever Bright Things|http://whateverbrightthings.com/]]. Family photos are my own. The main project image was made using [[Mockup Editor|https://mockupeditor.com/editor]]. The parts of the main image and the different points on the map were turned into links using [[Image Map|https://www.image-map.net/]]. All stock video is from [[Pexels Video|https://videos.pexels.com/]]. Full screen video code from [[W3 Schools|https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_css_fullscreen_video.asp]]. All audio, unless otherwise specified, is from [[Audio Blocks|https://www.audioblocks.com/royalty-free-audio/loops]]. [[Back|Intro]]

<img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgv15w2a66bjq7n/map.png?raw=1" usemap="#image-map"> <map name="image-map"> <area target="" alt="Great Britain" title="Great Britain" coords="612,199,579,171" shape="rect" onclick="gb()"> <area target="" alt="Eastern Europe" title="Eastern Europe" coords="681,197,714,229" shape="rect" onclick="ee()"> <area target="" alt="Iberian Peninsula" title="Iberian Peninsula" coords="575,218,600,248" shape="rect" onclick="ib()"> <area target="" alt="Mali" title="Mali" coords="566,291,596,324" shape="rect" onclick="ma()"> <area target="" alt="Nigeria" title="Nigeria" coords="605,316,633,349" shape="rect" onclick="ni()"> </map> [[Back|DNA2]] <div id="hidden1" style="display:none;">Great Britain 21%</div> <div id="hidden2" style="display:none;">Eastern Europe 11%</div> <div id="hidden3" style="display:none;">Iberian Peninsula 10%</div> <div id="hidden4" style="display:none;">Mali 9%</div> <div id="hidden5" style="display:none;">Nigeria 14%</div> <script> function gb() {$("#hidden1").fadeIn(1000);} function ee() {$("#hidden2").fadeIn(1000);} function ib() {$("#hidden3").fadeIn(1000);} function ma() {$("#hidden4").fadeIn(1000);} function ni() {$("#hidden5").fadeIn(1000);} </script>

''About the Project'' At its core, this project is about family and identity. It talks about things I experienced growing up - both good and bad - all relating to my feelings about being adopted shortly after birth. This project is interactive, which means that nearly everything you see on the main page can be interacted with. Click on the objects to read the different stories. Once you have read all the available stories by clicking on the different objects, the last story will appear. [[Back|Intro]] /* Background pattern from Toptal Subtle Patterns */

!Mistaken Identity by Jacklyn Carroll [[Start|Intro]]

<<linkappend "@@.convo;“What are you?“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Human?//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Annoyed?//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//I am what I am, man...//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo2;“I'm African American and Asian.“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo;“Really? That's cool - what kind of Asian are you?“@@" t8n>> /* Background pattern from Toptal Subtle Patterns */ <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Dude.//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Seriously?//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo2;“Actually, I'm adopted, so I'm not sure.“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo;“Really?“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Really.//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo;“Let me see. So, I think -“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//No, don't do it.//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo;“- you must be -“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Please don't.//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo;“- Chinese! I can tell. It's the eyes.“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//......//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//It's the eyes??//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Is this guy serious?//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo2;“Okay. Sure.“@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//Thank you for identifying me, person I'll never meet again.//@@" t8n>> <<linkappend "@@.convo3;//I really appreciate the help.//@@" t8n>> [[Back|What are you? 2]] <</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>> <</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>> <</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>> <</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>><</linkappend>> <</linkappend>><</linkappend>> /* https://leaverou.github.io/bubbly/ */

Double-click this passage to edit it.

In the past few years I've learned a lot about my family members - things I never knew before. I took the time to discover why certain family members - like my Dad - did or said the things he did. Through learning about my family, I began to discover something; that nurture is, in some cases, better than nature. In other words, I began to find out that although I looked nothing like the people in the photos, I was more like them than I thought I was. /* [[Family: gma]] [[Family: gpa]] [[Family: dad]] */ [[Back|Main]]

[[I was wrong.|Growing Up 2]]