Chad Onianwa: It’s really cool to talk to somebody who’s interested in talking about it. It really feels like weird and surreal, I guess.

TC: I love talking about magazines and the Midwest. Have you seen The New Territory?

CO: Um, no, I haven’t.

TC: OK, so this is our most recent issue, so it’s just a little bit larger. [stacks magazines next to each other]

CO: OK, wait, yes, I have seen that. So did you know what size you wanted it to be before you started?

TC: No. When I visited the printer, I asked what would waste the least amount of paper. Turns out The New Territory is a millimeter shorter than a National Geographic, which I didn’t know until after I saw it printed. How about you?

CO: I had a pretty good idea. I really wanted region to be a specific kind of trade size book. It’s convenient. I didn’t want it to be super thick. Or if you were to hand it to somebody, they wouldn’t be like, “Oh, God.” Initially, I just wanted to give them all out for free. And then after a while, you know, the reality sets in and then it’s like, OK.

TC: Why not do a zine?

CO: Initially, when I was wanting to do it for free, the idea was to be more zine. Later I was like, OK, I think what I actually want is just a fucking book or something like it. I wanted to put together work from people that I knew or that I like. While I do appreciate getting the word out there, part of what I’m trying to present is something a little bit more polished. Specifically, I want to pay my respects to the people whose work I respect, you know? Even if it is just this initial issue, being specially printed and perfect bound and full color, it was important for me to display it in this way that could be presented as such.

TC: Awesome. I respect that a lot. That’s what we’re trying to do as well, you know, same sort of idea with, like, the Midwest kind of being written off like it was backward or …

CO: Nonexistent.

TC: Yeah, yeah, nonexistent, not cultured. That kind of thing.

CO: Right.

TC: When you started making region in 2018, was that your goal, to push back on the idea of the Midwest as nonexistent?

CO: It speaks to the hyper invisibility of being a person of color, you know. For me, a Black person, but also a child of immigrants in the Midwest. We’re here, you know? But when you think about how you’re talked about, how where you are is talked about in the national conversation, you don’t feel seen. Anytime I’ve been other places, 1) nobody really ever knows where Wichita, Kansas is. And then 2) it’s like, “Oh, there’s Black people in Kansas?” Or, “There’s Nigerians in Kansas?” It’s like, yeah, we have a whole Nigerian Association of Wichita, and it’s been functioning since 1994, which is kind of a cool thing to think about. But you don’t see or hear about those kinds of things unless you’re literally there. And even when you’re in the spaces, you don’t always hear about those things. So to have a place to tell our stories, having a physical object or location, a manifestation of our thoughts and ideas and visions and dreams — archiving that kind of thing is important, especially when it comes to archiving different communities, like marginalized communities.

TC: In the first issue, you interview Heinrich Toh (whom our creative director invited to this issue, by the way). You talk about an unfortunate conflict among artists of questioning whether you’re liked for your work or your representation of “diversity.” The NT tries to not publish the same people all the time. I don’t want the voice to get stagnant in that way. But it’s tricky. I’ve only been to Wichita three times. I would feel like an interloper to drop into, say, the Wichita Nigerian community and say, “Hey, where are your artists and writers?” Because we do want to publish their work, you know? I’m paralyzed sometimes by feeling afraid it would feel inauthentic or tokenizing.

CO: Yeah.

TC: Yeah. Also, well, and whenever we are asking our networks for connections in underrepresented communities, we end up running into a lot of people who get a lot asked of them.

CO: So they’re like the person to go to.

TC: Yeah, they’re just so busy, you know? I don’t know. I know nothing’s a monolith.

CO: I think that’s where it becomes difficult. Because it’s like, dude, I was born in the United States. I was born in Wichita, Kansas. I’m not a refugee. None of my family are refugees. My parents came here legally, you know what I mean? So I’ve never had to even deal with issues of, say, having any of my immediate family deported. I still have a passport, I still have a Social Security number. I’m not going through the processes of trying to resettle my family in a new area. So, like you were saying, nothing’s a monolith. And so even within region, I have difficulties trying to figure out how to represent these different people and also come to these people without being exploitative. I’m not just trying to get a story of someone who came to this country fleeing a conflict, you know? I want people to share their stories, yes. If that’s what it happens to be and that’s what they want to share, then that’s cool. But I want it to be organic. And I think finding the communities in a way that feels natural and comfortable and not exploitative is definitely a struggle. I’m still figuring it out, honestly.

TC: Who have you been able to reach with the magazine so far? What’s the reception been?

CO: A lot of the people who initially got it through Kickstarter were a mixture of people who are of migrant communities and people who aren’t. The reception has been pretty good. Just trying to not let it all just fade, you know?

TC: It’s the promise and the challenge of a periodical magazine, right? You’re on the hook to keep up the momentum. But I think there’s something really important about having a platform for discussing these ideas as they evolve instead of just having a one-off object and saying, “Oh, this is region, and it was published once in 2020.”

CO: Actually, my goal wasn’t to just make a print magazine. We’re definitely more interested in the platform, the discussions. If it could be a talk show, I guess that would also be cool, too. Not to say I’m making a talk show. Just saying, yes, I wanted to create a print publication, but I’m more interested in what we’re talking about and how that evolves and how we’re expressing and deconstructing all of these ideas.

TC: Ooh. So let’s talk about that deconstruction. In the text of region I was really struck by all the slashes you use. I think it’s such a fantastic expression of exploring ideas in a very simple, written-characters kind of way. Like on page 15, you say, “What are borders with which we maintain/ establish an allegiance?” And there’s another part where you write about, “borders/ boundaries.” There are so many.

CO: I guess sometimes you can express similar ideas through the use of commas, but I don’t think it has exactly the same feel, you know? People explore the structure of writing in different ways. For me, slashes express the simultaneity of things, things happening, things equally important at the same time. So it’s not like, “This and then this and then this,” it’s just like these two things. When you structure it in certain ways, even using a comma, it can also present a sort of hierarchy of what you’re trying to say. Or there’s implied importance associated with it.

TC: Or a choice.

CO: Right, exactly. Or even just the word. I think it’s easier to not insert unnecessary things that might obscure the language of what I’m trying to say. Sometimes it does lend itself to being very confusing, I realize. And so sometimes I do have to clarify, sort of edit a little bit.

TC: Yeah. Well, OK, so here’s your own question back to you, since it’s not answered on the page: “What are the borders with which we maintain/establish an allegiance?”

CO: Well, were you born in Missouri?

TC: Me? Yes.

CO: Right. And so to some degree, you would identify as a Missourian. And also with the city where you live. And also the United States. And maybe if your family is originally from X country, you know, then it’s like you would also say that you have X roots. All of these things are ways that we’d learn to talk about ourselves, essentially. So Kansas isn’t actually Kansas, you know, it was something before Kansas. Native peoples had it as something else. And it wasn’t even recognized within the same lines that we understand it to be. But me, as a Witchitan and a Kansan, born within those borders, those designated areas, it’s like, that’s how I grew up learning to talk about who I was, you know? I mean, in the context of being someone who’s the child of immigrants or who is an immigrant. My parents are from Nigeria. But it’s the same thing. Nigeria isn’t Nigeria, Nigeria is a colonial idea. We only have Nigeria today because of the established boundaries. The boundaries are established by the British, unfortunately. But it’s turned into this way that we’ve unified as a people to understand our collective experience within this given area, even though it encompasses more than 200 different groups of people who identify differently, you know what I mean?

TC: Yeah.

CO: So what does it even mean for me to identify as a Nigerian, given that I actually would like to continue rejecting ideas of colonialism and assessing how it’s affected my life today? Am I supposed to continue identifying as Nigerian? Is the right thing to do to identify as Igbo, which is actually my ethnicity? There’re all these different ways that we’re informed to identify ourselves and a lot of them are based on borders. I’ve just been thinking a lot about how it’s hard to talk about yourself outside of the lens of colonialism, and that’s a very stressful thing, you know?

TC: Yes! I’ve been getting really hung up on that sense of colonial/state identity lately. I can say I’m an eighth-generation Missourian, which could be a source of great pride. On the other hand, I have this hyper awareness that we are occupying land that was cared for by the Osage people, who then got pushed to Kansas and then to Oklahoma. I sometimes feel weird or uncomfortable claiming my so-called deep roots in Missouri. In a sense, it’s such a privilege to be able to know I have these deep roots here. But I’m also aware that it came out of violence, and the same for colonialism elsewhere in the world. And so I want to be proud that I have this long Missouri heritage. It comes back to those slashes, right?

CO: It’s like trying to reconcile all these different aspects of how we’re forced to identify, and what that means in terms of our family history and our memory. And I guess our connection to ourselves. Heritage, and history and roots — all of those things are very important. They are part of what grounds us as individuals.

TC: Like, my grandfather on the Casagrand side came to the St. Louis area from Italy. I have their name and know their history, and that means something to me. But I wasn’t raised by that side of the family, I don’t share the culture. Do I really get to claim Italian roots?

CO: What is a home, and where do I actually claim, and why do I claim it? You can get lost in it. At some point, it sort of makes you want to be like, why does any of it matter? And on some level, it doesn’t, and on some level, it has to. You can’t ignore it. That’s a lot of the stuff that was being sorted through in the initial creation of region.

TC: I think one thing that does unite us is that we’re all here together right now, in the Midwest. And we’re figuring out what that means.

CO: It’s a constant conversation. Everybody’s different. All of us, depending on who we are, will have different conversations with it.

TC: There’s another concept that I wanted to talk about, this idea of the American dream. What do you see as the American dream? That’s a huge question.

CO: I guess what I understand the American Dream to be is the idea that you can establish success in the United States based on what is provided to you as being on American soil.

TC: Do you think it’s attainable?

CO: I think to some extent, it’s attainable. But I think it’s also a matter of, like, what’s your ideas of success? If your ideas of success are having a house and a yard for your family to run around in and play with their fucking dog? Then, I mean, I guess it’s attainable, but that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed. Within the context of America, there’re always strings attached. You may find success. You may have a house and a yard, and your kids are playing with your fucking dog. But you’re still tied the colonial legacy of the United States and what it would have meant to get to the point of having a house and all that stuff. I don’t think it’s necessarily worth it, achieving or chasing an American dream. Like I said, my parents are immigrants, they moved here before me and my siblings were born. I’m the youngest of four. My parents have been here longer than they’ve been in Nigeria at this point. We’re working class. My mom was a teacher and worked in an adult home. My dad had a cleaning business. So very regular, I guess. Well, regular, it’s subjective. So that’s my background. The whole American Dream shit I didn’t really start thinking about until after I left for college. I guess just recognized that, like, dude, my parents have worked, like, literally since they came here. My mom just was able to retire last year, and it wasn’t even by … it wasn’t even just being able to retire. It was being forced to retire. But since I left for college and was forced to view my siblings and my family and who I am, my trajectory and all that sort of existential shit, outside of the context of my family’s home … it’s just forced me to consider the fact that to be in the United States is to dedicate your life to working, to this idea of attaining a certain socio-economic status. So you can work your whole life, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be financially secure. But to live here is to dedicate your life to constantly working in search of some sort of stability, financial or social or otherwise. And that’s never guaranteed. And I think it’s just used more as the ploy to monetize our bodies, monetize our labor. It’s attached to American ideals of financial wealth and attaining capital in being a part of a ruling upper class of people. And I think that it damages the psyche of people who are in pursuit of that. So, yeah, the American Dream is possible, but it’s conditional, extremely conditional.

TC: Definitely. Even if you choose not to participate, inescapably, you’re still judged by those standards.

CO: The American Dream doesn’t just speak to immigrant populations. It’s how everybody sees their life in the United States. Culturally, it’s ingrained in us to think about ourselves as in pursuit of certain class signifiers. And that’s ultimately just a way of devaluing ourselves as people.

TC: Do your parents know what you’re doing with your creative projects?

CO: I mean, kind of.

TC: Have they seen a copy of the magazine?

CO: No, they haven’t seen a finished copy, which is funny. Because, I mean, I was telling them as I was doing it, I told them when I had the idea … I was updating them with everything. They got that I was doing magazine stuff. But they haven’t seen an issue. So it’s like, Oh, you know, whatever you’re doing, have you found a job yet? Can you still pay your rent? And I’m like, actually, the magazine doesn’t pay my rent. So that’s the thing. Their interest is measured. Sometimes they’re willing to hear more about it. Sometimes they’re like, oh, cool, cool.

TC: What did you go to school for?

CO: I went to KU. Originally, I wanted to do environmental studies. But then I failed intro to environmental studies and wanted to be a bureaucrat, you know, like a diplomat or some shit like that. And so I ended up doing an international studies major with an emphasis in political and social systems. My area of specialization was Africa. My major was in international studies and then also French. That’s what I ended up studying, and then at some point, I was like, yeah, I definitely don’t want to fucking be a diplomat. I don’t want to work for the government. And then I kind of honestly wanted to do international journalism, it’d be so cool. And then I’ve just kind of been doing whatever since. I worked the radio station at KU. KJHK. And that was pretty significant because we had an arts and culture staff, and I was on that, and then I was director, and that was cool. It helped me to continue making stories and writing.

TC: Yeah, I went to Mizzou, and I knew that I wanted to do journalism, but I also thought I wanted to do international journalism. But then, yeah, international studies somehow morphed into anthropology. Looking back, I really had vibed the most with the geography department, because it’s anthropology with maps.

CO: Right.

TC: You know, which is cool, but nobody explains that to you in high school, so.

CO: Oh, my God. One of the things I was initially wanting to do was geology because a lot of the stuff that I’m interested in now is learning about the natural world.

TC: Are you going on hikes? What do you do?

CO: I’m definitely not a hiker. I don’t usually go out like that. But I’m definitely down to do that kind of stuff.

TC: You’re open to the elements.

CO: I’ve always been really interested in nature and the natural environment, animals specifically. I don’t think it really shows up much in the final issue of region. But in these zine versions that I have, you’ll see these black and white graphics, and a lot of those are maps that I find online and was editing or distorting to use as graphics. It was related to the conceptual part of region, just thinking about borders and what they mean. A lot of the original region graphics are based on maps from various Midwestern states, whether topographic maps or hydrogeologic maps. Or just ones showing the different aquifer systems within different areas of the Midwest or like the different levels of bedrock within them. They look pretty sick, but there’s also this idea of thinking about how else we can look at the lands we’re on. Rather than a regular state map that shows the 50 states and all their borders, which is very clear-cut, I’m thinking about the different ways that we’re able to think about the natural world, specifically the areas that we live in. Thinking about region as something representing the Midwest, how can I connect those ideas of our natural environment to this 2-D or digital representation? And also just the idea of maps and borders and identities overlapping, and that kind of shit. The maps were a kind of creation of that.

TC: I mean, we can get really caught up and in our heads about differences and historical implications of identity and things like that. But, like, whenever you take a deep breath and look around, we’re here, all sharing this land.

CO: Yeah. Yeah.

TC: So that’s what we all have in common, and it requires multiple maps and multiple versions of what a landscape is to even begin to hint at what that means. Because what is the Midwest, you know?

CO: Exactly. We initially came at it, like, Hey, we have a lot of thoughts on immigrant identity and what that even means, and being in the Midwest, but you don’t want it to end as just an art publication, you know? I wanted to be a little more involved in connecting people to things that can help them.

TC: What does that look like, beyond using the publication as a space for conversation?

CO: My friend Erick is our technology director and he’s working on creating our website, which will be a good start. Part of what we want to do with region is create a network for communities, individuals and ideas around the Midwest and hopefully make it a space for collaboration and resources. Whether it’s organizing for a cause or supporting a local business, partying or a combination of all that shit. We’re trying to translate those big lofty ideas into smaller projects and connect more with our people. The publication is just one physical piece of that.

TC: Well, if you put as much craft into that aspect as you have the physical magazine, I can see region making a meaningful difference. Good luck, Chad. I look forward to whatever the next phase is for you. Where can people find more?

CO: We’re on Instagram: @regionjournal. That’s where you can find announcements about future issues and our new website, once it’s out.

The post Shop Talk: The Borders/Boundaries of a Region’s Shared Archives appeared first on The New Territory Magazine.