Celebrating Our Stories, Our Lives: Visual-izing Cultural Heritage and Identity

CHE Diversity Committee

She sells a traditional drink from Indone-sia. It is called "Wedang Ronde" (wedang means "a type of drink while ronde is the main ingredient). Nadira RARAS Purdayinta

Traditional toy from Indonesia. It needs some oil in it to work (we then burn the end part so then it will work by it-self - it's put on the water).

Nadira RARAS Purdayinta

This old woman is wearing "batik" which is the traditional clothing (or pattern) of Indonesia. She is buying a baked corn by the street.

Nadira RARAS Purdayinta

My great grandmother (Bubbi) came to the United States by boat from the Ukraine when she was 12 years old. I’m told that at 12, she al -ready had the most beautiful head of white hair you’ve ever seen. She married my great grandfather (Dido) and set up housekeeping in Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania. Right after my grandmother (my mom’s mom) died from tuberculosis, my mother and her youngest brother were driven to Belle Vernon to live with Bubbi and Dido until Grandpa could “get back on his feet.” (In those days, this phrse usually meant until a man could find another wife.)

I was born and raised right here in Ithaca and we only went to visit the Belle Vernon folks about once a year. I didn’t get to know them real well but the one thing I remember about visiting is the wonderful, wonderful food that Bubbi made for us; kielbasa and sauerkraut, home -made sour cream donuts and especially the perohy. A perohy is a little bundle of white flour dough (made stretchy with egg and not too much water) which you wrap around sauerkraut or meat filling, prunes or apricots. But by far the BEST filling is chees-y mashed potatoes. After the dumplings are sealed, they’re boiled in a huge pot of salted water until they rise to the surface; they’re drained briefly and fried in butter and browned onions until they’re brown and a little crispy. Heaven! Though she’s been dead for over 40 years, the wonderful aroma of perohys frying in a cast iron pan never fails to bring back my Bubbi to me.

Marianne Arcangeli

Well my grandfather is the sole survivor of his family from the Holocaust. He had 3 brothers, a father and a mother. During his hell in the camps, he held on to the hope that his family would survive and they would meet up once again in Israel. He did, they didn't. When the al -lies bombed the city his camp was in, he used the distraction to escape and eventually managed to avoid capture until he was picked up by the russian army where he stayed until the end of the war. Eventually he met our grandmother and they bore my father and aunt, named af -ter his mother and father. All four of them moved to Israel where my father grew up until he studied and worked in America. Eventually he met my mother, right across the street from his parents house, and brought her back to America where myself and my three brothers were born. Two of us carry the names of our grandfather's brothers, and we will bring the last name back into the world soon. Whenever we go to Israel to see our grandfather, he recounts his stories and tells us how happy he is that the family name lives on, that the Nazis haven't won. These pictures were taken before my youngest brother's Bar Mitzvah.

Isaac Yitzhak Taitz

Our life together.My husband (Rich) and I have been married over 35 years. We have two wonderful adult children, Kristen (Kristy) and Richard D. (Rick), and they have blessed us with five grandchildren and another on the way. Rich and I were nurtured by wonderful, caring parents, very similar to each other. We also have a strong love of our country. Both our fathers served in WWII (my father in the Army (European Conflict), Rich’s fa -ther in the Army Air Corps (B-24’s in Pacific Conflict). Rich is an Air Force Vietnam War Veteran (C-123 & B-52) and our son, Rick, is the third generation Air Force (B-2 Stealth), now serving in the Air National Guard (C-130). Rich and I enjoy our family, our rural home, cars, motorcy -cles, and all sorts of internal combustion vehicles! We are also strong in our Christian faith, and, after 35 years of Cornell University employ -ment, I feel blessed to be a part of the College of Human Ecology.

Lois J.P. Brown

Samantha Wronski

This picture of my Grandmother's village in Slovakia reminds me of her tremendous fortitude as she left all that she knew to immigrate to the US. I am continually awestruck by her humble roots in comparison to all that I have now. It reminds me that life is about family and community not material wealth.

Sheila Danko, Chair, DEA

I'm submitting a photo of my little boy, 21-month-old Wyatt. He is ½ Chi-nese, 1/4 Japanese, 1/8 French, and 1/8 English, an embodiment of di-verse cultural heritages and identities!

Qi Wang, Assoc. Professor, HD

This photo was taken this past winter in up-state New York. It was an interesting image to contrast the barren tree with the cross. I believe that the stark similarities help to ex-emplify a part of my culture that has shaped who I am and what I believe. The love of one man dying to save me from my own wrong-doings is a crazy thought. However, realizing how such a belief can create a firm founda-tion for me in my life, even through the ups and downs, really makes it my story and my life in this picture.

Andrew N. Hsia

I grew up in Germany, but – maybe because of Ger-many’s conflicted history – I’ve always felt like a “Cos-mopolitan”, a citizen of the world. I’ve since made my home in the U.S. and married a Frenchman whom I met in San Francisco. When our son was born, a friend embroidered this T-shirt with “Franco-German Ameri-can” to celebrate the fact that he holds three citizen-ships. As I hear our son – who is now almost three years old - speak in three languages, and as I strengthen my ties to the U.S. and France while main-taining friendships back in Germany, my son’s blended identity becomes my own also.

Corinna Loeckenhoff

Red packets symbolize the blessings and luck bestowed upon our loved ones.

Chee Yuen Leng

Medicine from Indonesia-Vietnam-Hong Kong. (I am half Chinese, quarter Viet-namese and quarter Indonesian.) I was recently sick with the stomach virus and my parents sent me the medicines in the picture!Diana Cheung

This is a photo of my grandmother, Edith Amerasekera, my aunt, Sunimal Perera, my mother, Devika Florim-mel, and me. This is taken in a small town in Sri Lanka, in my grand-mother's house where I was born and where I grew up. These are the three people who took care of me in my childhood, so this is the photo that best reflects my cultural identity.

Kosali Simon, Assoc. Professor, PAM

Fatma Mete

Fatma Mete

A wide-angle panoramic view of Istanbul in photography. The Bosphorus, also known as the Istanbul Strait (Turkish: İstanbul Boğazı), which is the boundary between Europe and Asia, can be seen at the left of the picture. It also connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. The Golden Horn (Turkish: Haliç or Altın Boynuz), a historic inlet of the Bosphorus dividing the city of Istanbul and forming the natural harbor that has sheltered Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and other ships for thousands of years, is seen from left to right. The Galata Tower (Turkish: Galata Kulesi), also called Christea Turris (the Tower of Christ in Latin) by the Genoese, which is a medieval stone tower in the Galata district of Istanbul, is seen just at the fore-ground. The Seraglio Point (Sarayburnu) where the Topkapı Palace is located is seen at the left tip of the historic peninsula; followed by the distance views of (from left to right) the Hagia Sophia, the Sultanahmet (Blue) Mosque, the Yeni (New) Mosque near the Galata Bridge, the Beyazıt Tower rising high in the back-ground, and the Süleymaniye (Suleiman the Magnificent) Mosque at far right, among others. The Galata Bridge can also be seen at the right tip of the picture. At the extreme left of the picture, the district of Kadıköy (ancient Chalcedon) on the Asian side of the city can be seen.

Fatma Mete

William and Harriet Staib Piano Maker NYC 1915

Craig Higgins

Staib Family NYC 1915My great-great grandfather (Michael Staib) came to NYC from Germany around 1855 when he was an infant.My great grandfather William Edward Staib was a piano maker in NYC, his son Edward Staib (my grandfather) took the following pictures in 1915. Audrey Staib (my mother) was born in Brooklyn in 1929.

Craig Higgins

Staib Piano NYC 1915

Craig Higgins

I come from maple syrup. From trees so tall you can’t see their tops. From warm spring days and cool spring nights. From collection buckets, bags and drums. From squirrels who like the sap as much as I do. More than I do. From hot fires and good stories. From distilling. From bottling. From labeling. From love.

Matthew John Fischer

My uncle and cousin are sushi chefs who concocted this vibrant hand roll. You’ve got a chicken egg, fish eggs, blanketed by an avocado, all neatly wrapped in seaweed. This fusion between Japanese (the fish eggs and seaweed) and Californian (the avocado and sunny egg) represents my identity as a Japanese-American growing up in California.

Masumi Rosana Izawa

The man in the picture I submitted is Clarence Gilling. He was my grandmother’s brother on my mother’s side. That makes him my grand-uncle.I met Clarence just after his 86th birthday. He had been widowed the year before and he never had any children. He didn’t even have a dog or cat! He only lived 10 miles away but for some un-known reason he was never part of my growing up. He was never mentioned, never visited. Please don’t despair for Clarence because this isn’t a sad story. In fact, Clarence lived to be 103 and I had 17 years in which to get to know him. But, Clarence hadn’t waited for my acquaintance to build a family where none existed by blood.My grandmother pretty much ordered me to go see her brother soon after my 26th birthday. I was pretty sure I knew everything about anything by that time in life. I reluctantly drove into Clarence’s driveway in my 1977 International Harvester Scout truck and was surprised to see a cherry red 1969 International Harvester pick-up parked by the house! I love International trucks and my IH Scout was my baby! Upon seeing an even more perfect IH I struggled to re-align my mental image of the “old lonely widower” whom I was about to meet. It turns out that Clarence had been an International Truck and Implement dealer since the 1930s. Not only did he love IH’s ‘stuff’ more than me, he knew all there was to know. It also turned out that his birthday was the day after mine but 60 years before mine in 1899. There is more to say about Clarence and how he became my grandfather figure, my mentor, and my closest friend. I had to share him with a whole community that already venerated him. I’d rather not write it all out but instead I ask you to just look at the picture and re-align your metal image of what it means to be 86 years old, a recent widower and to not even own a dog or cat for company and yet, not be lacking for friends or companionship. Can you see the warmth and humor radiating from the man in the picture? I think it’s a class of character that was more common an earlier generation. The generation made up of those people who we usually only know from the history books. The people who were born in the 1800s and lived through the advent of the gasoline motor, air travel, the depression, the great wars and even space travel. Lucky for me I got to share a birthday and a passion with such a person and he’s smiling at me in that picture.

Mark Vorreuter

This is the poncho that I was wearing on January 19, 1973, when I arrived for the first time in the United States. I was one of about 8 infants on a plane that arrived from Bogota, Colombia, that was adopted. A couple from the Florence Crittenton League Adoption Agency in Lowell, Massachusetts, went to Bogota, and flew back with all of us. Each one of us was given a poncho, by the orphanage that we were living in.This is mine. My adopted parents saved it along with other things I arrived with. I am one of two adopted children in my family. My sister is from Pusan, Korea, and she also has the clothes that she wore when she arrived in the United States in July 1980.

Laura Tyler Paige

Tools are an important part of my family's history.This photo shows my son holding an old shovel that belonged to his great-grandfather, who originally used it to help build the Long Island Railroad. My father, myself, and now my sons have in turn used the shovel for a variety of projects.

Paul S Fisher

“A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.”

I didn’t intend to submit anything for this project because I just could not imagine how to portray my cultural background with a picture. Then I ran across this photo of my great grandparents and it clicked: We are Americans of the “melting pot” variety – “mutts” as my grandfather would have put it – and happy with that. I was raised with the belief that you live by the golden rule, believe in God, work hard, provide for your family (God and family are the core), and enjoy life – find the simple pleasures – if you have a passion pursue it….

When you state celebrating our stories or lives and visualiz-ing our heritage one thing comes to my mind, family. My family is huge, and I love every minute of the craziness. With all the love provided I know there will be continues support for me and my family no matter the situation. For as long as I can remember I have always spent time with my great aunts and their families. It all started because these two fell in love (Allie and Russell Moshier) and married in 1923, to-gether they had 7 children, the times were so different back then. They didn’t take into consideration national average, college tuition, family finances, way of the world, it was just about family. Grandpa Moshier passed away 1973, age 74, from Congestive Heart failure. Grandma Moshier died in 2004, age 99, from the same. I often wonder was it really Congestive Heart failure or just a broken heart. While she lived alone for 31 years after grandpa died, I am sure she missed him and his company. She was a very vocal women, always said it like it was; no sugar coating, even at times very blunt! However, while she lay in the hospital bed with her family around her saying their final good bye you knew there was a lot of love. She was truly blessed. As the time passes on, so do the elder, if we were all here and got together the total would be 93 individuals (7 chil-dren with spouses, 22 grandchildren, 43 great-grandchildren, and 12 great-great-grandchildren). We try to have a family reunion once a year, since we have all traveled our own paths. Ninety-three people can shape a lot of history, we have many stories to share, and I often wonder what our family will be in the next 10, 15, or even 20 years.

Tina M Daddona

This is a photograph of an Israeli soldier I met while in Israel. He is standing over the grave of a fallen soldier at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. I am Jewish and am grateful for the brave men and women who have sacrificed their lives protecting the Jewish homeland. I plan to return to Israel this summer to continue exploring my Jewish identify and heritage.

Lauren Wagner

“Ithaca is Rhus glabra”The watercolor “Ithaca is Rhus glabra” (common name Smooth Sumac) captures the essence of my identity. I have identified as an artist throughout my life and this watercolor is a reaction to my new sur-roundings and how I have embraced the local pen-chant for the natural way of living. I am a recent Ithaca transplant and have joyfully accepted the life-style here, which is reflected in this painting in the subject matter, the muted earth-tone colors and in the end result, the painting itself, which was inspired by nature. Nature is a considerable source of inspira-tion and identity for me and for many Ithacans, given the local beauty and wonders of our distinctive sur-roundings.

Melody Reinecke

“Doorway in Mexico” painted by my grandmother, Helen Jones in 1964My grandmother – my father’s mother – was an artist. She trained in classical drawing at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, but she quickly moved away from realist art toward more abstract interpre-tations of the things she saw. This painting, whose title reveals its literal subject, is my favorite of her works and I asked to have it for my own when I was very young. When I was a small child, I would imagine her traveling to Mexico to paint this church doorway. In my imagination, I cre-ated a brightly colored city around the church walls, and I pictured my grammy armed with easel, apron and paints amidst the inhabitants of the city. (A brightly colored rooster and his dog best friend, Roger, became especially familiar characters in my day dream). I knew the city held adventures beyond my wildest dreams, and I couldn’t wait to get there to observe it and capture its impressions in my own way. In its unusualness, adventurousness and colorful-ness, this painting expresses my identity. In my cul-ture, I have never been made to feel that there is one correct path to tread, and I attribute this to my grandmother’s adventurous spirit, openness and ob-servant eye, qualities which I think are expressed in “Doorway in Mexico”.

Lauren Jones