Fun Home

            Bechdel places a lot of emphasis on location in her memoir when talking about her father. Multiple

 times, she shows a map that marks the small distances between where Bruce was born, where he lived,

 where he died, and where he was buried. All of these occurred within a limited range. She finds that when

 her father was in different places like New York City on weekend getaways, or in Europe during his

 military service, he was inherently different. When talking about his time overseas, she uses panels that

 show the passionate love letters he wrote to her mother. In NYC, she describes him as much freer and not

 as tightly wound. Despite these different places he spent a bit of time and likely discovered things about

 himself, Bechdel still keeps his life's map contained to Beech Creek. She writes, "Although the

 anonymity of a city might have saved my father's life, I can't really imagine him anywhere but Beech

 Creek," (144). Where someone is from is so deeply entrenched in their identities that it becomes hard to

 separate the two-- especially coming from such a small town like Beech Creek. 

            We have seen the importance of physical place in some of the other books this semester like Brown

 Girl Dreaming, A Tale for the Time Being, and No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies. In the 21st century,

 we may not see place as being such a big part of who we are because social media has the ability to

 connect people from all over the world instantly. In recent years, television and social media have caused

 many regional accents across the U.S. to begin dying out, as does people moving away from their

 ancestral homes. Bechdel quickly sheds her accent when she gets to college, and forgets how

 "bumpkinish" her father's accent sounds. Baltimore city natives have a very distinct accent, and say words

 like "to" and "you" as "tew" and "yew". I met someone Freshman year from Baltimore who suppressed

 those distinct sounds in order to have a more mid-Atlantic accent, because she had been made fun of in

 the past. Nao also struggles with her language and accent since she learned Japanese while growing up in

 the United States. Jacqueline Woodson's friends in the South said she and her siblings talked too fast after

 they moved to New York, and they could not understand them. 

            Location is tied to identity and culture for marginalized groups. New York City is viewed as some

 sort of Zion for the LGBTQ+ population of Bechdel's father's generation. The island of Guam is

 incredibly important to the indigenous people. Although the South is a place of generational pain and

 trauma for many African Americans, it is also home. New York City, too, though is a refuge for Black

 Americans, as well as immigrants of all ethnicities. In today's moment specifically, we need to be doing

 more to slow climate change. So many people's homes are being threatened because of rising ocean

 levels, and many of these people are members of marginalized groups and of a low socio-economic

 status. Aguon discusses this in No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, but Guam is not the only place this

 is occurring. There are Indigenous people currently being relocated in Alaska due to the rising sea, and

 Tangier Island is in danger. What will happen to these people's individual and collective identity if they

 are forced to move from their land? 

            

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