IT'S REAL
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Meet the Team >
      • Partners
    • Contributors + Recognition
    • Press + Updates
    • Resources >
      • Black Lives Matter
      • Indigenous Resources
  • Projects
    • Documentary
    • Previous Events
  • Musings
  • Submit
    • Staff Applications
  • Issues
    • Issue 16 - Entropy
    • Issue 15 - Allure
    • Issue 14 - Isolation
    • Issue 13 - Best of 19
    • Issue 12 - Retrospect
    • Issue 11 - Hunger
    • Issues 1-10
  • Contact
    • FAQ
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Meet the Team >
      • Partners
    • Contributors + Recognition
    • Press + Updates
    • Resources >
      • Black Lives Matter
      • Indigenous Resources
  • Projects
    • Documentary
    • Previous Events
  • Musings
  • Submit
    • Staff Applications
  • Issues
    • Issue 16 - Entropy
    • Issue 15 - Allure
    • Issue 14 - Isolation
    • Issue 13 - Best of 19
    • Issue 12 - Retrospect
    • Issue 11 - Hunger
    • Issues 1-10
  • Contact
    • FAQ
ARTS
Emma Chang, Taylor Wang, Brenden Koo
Picture
Hollow Mask
featured on this issue's cover
Illustration by Emma Chang

​Artist's Statement
My first language was Chinese, but because I grew up in America, I got my limited vocabulary from my parents and only learned words appropriate for a good, obedient child force-fed filial piety. Thus, I grew up deprived of words to adequately explain my feelings, and in touch-starved, feelings-ignorant America, the English language fails me too. This poem is an exploration of the way it feels to attempt vulnerability with a limited set of words as each misunderstood interaction hollows me out, leaving me so cold inside.

Emma Chang is a visual artist, actor, theatrical technician and musician. She is a first year student at Willamette University planning on pursuing a degree in Theatre.

Picture
Isolation
Portrait by Taylor Wang

Artist's Statement
An Asian American woman stares longingly, both listless and anxious. I wanted to examine the feeling of emptiness that is increasingly apparent among the younger generation of Chinese immigrants. Weighted by high expectations and GPA numbers, we lose all sense of self in our journey to be the best. It's a cold and dreary experience, but one that is undeniably East Asian.

Seattle-based Taylor Wang is an artist who seeks to combine traditional art forms with the emerging style of youth artists. Wang’s art reflects her personal experience as a Chinese American as well as the broader contemporary issues that plague her generation.


Diaspora
originally created for the East Foundation Diaspora Project
Collection by Brenden Koo
Picture
Japanese soldier leads a Korean woman as she fights to provide for her family as a comfort woman.
Picture
Korean man traveling to Russia to find new work.
Picture
Korean man content with his position in the mines that allows him to provide for his family.
Picture
Korean woman wearing a traditional head-covering expresses her sadness at the departure of her family.
Picture
Depiction of changes that can happen to a Korean man working abroad.
Picture
Korean finds work in Germany as a nurse; German nurses believe she is stealing job opportunities.
Picture
Korean worker resting against henequen plant that he harvested in Mexico.
Picture
Korean sugarcane worker in Hawaii.
Picture
Japanese soldier kicks down door of a Korean home during Japanese occupation.
Picture
Koreans seeking a new life disembark at Cuba.
Picture
Korean woman watches her brothers travel to China in search of work following Japanese occupation.
Picture
Korean man excitedly waves Korean flag after Japanese evacuation.
Editor's Statement
Poetry

​
Stories

​
Issue #12 - Retrospect
​

Copyright © 2020 by It's Real Magazine. ​All Rights Reserved.
ISSN 2688-8335, United States Library of Congress.
publ. Bellevue, Washington.
​
This website is best viewed on a computer.
Unless otherwise indicated, nothing on this website is intended to be taken as professional medical advice.