Story shows effects of poverty on childhood
er comic book about a character escaping poverty is less a hero’s story, Tara Rase said, than a survivor’s story.
Metaphorically speaking, she added, “Refugee Road” is not about her character going into a burning building to save someone; it’s about that character emerging from the building alive.
Rase, 38, knows personally about such a struggle: She spent much of her childhood in central Ohio moving from place to place — wherever a family member would shelter her and her mother and brother.
The 1996 graduate of West Jefferson High School counts herself fortunate to have found success, first as a student at Eastern Michigan University, then as an understudy at the now-defunct Second City in Detroit and later as a graduate student at the Dearborn campus of the University of Michigan.
Rase, who works for a company that owns performance and training businesses, now lives in Plymouth, Michigan, with her husband, Stu and their 3-year-old (with
another child on the way), is keenly aware that others born of similar circumstances don't always fare as well.
That includes her brother, Ben Daniels, whose death in August 2014 (from complications related to a car crash five years earlier) made Rase ponder: "How did things turn out so differently for me than for him?"
Such reflection is, in part, what inspired her fictionalized account of her upbringing.
Stu Rase, 37, a highschool teacher who in his free time creates and self-publishes comic strips, had the idea to tell the story in a comics format; he also helped her write the first issue and will serve as an editor on future editions.
Tara Rase said she hopes the book both helps readers understand the challenges of being poor and also reaches those living in poverty to let them know there is hope.
The first issue of the self-published Refugee Road, which follows a fictional Tara as she grows up in a mobile home in central Ohio, is available through Prince Delight Comics (www. princedelight.com/ comics).
Rase recently discussed her work with The Dispatch:
Where did you grow up?
When we were in Columbus, I lived in houses mostly — but I did live on the East Side of Columbus on Refugee Road. Hence the title. That was a formative time for me and my brother. I didn’t live in a trailer park until I was older, and then, soon after, I moved in with my aunt and uncle.
How did your childhood inspire this work?
I grew up with a single mom. She had me when she was younger, 17, which puts you at a challenge right there. She went on to get married and had another kid, which is my brother.
I definitely spent some time living with other cousins, and later on I do eventually end up living with my aunt and uncle, which is a theme of the story — what a difference that environment makes.
What are you trying to explore in this work?
My younger brother passed away and that made me really start to be reflective of the whole journey, for better or worse — choices I made, choices I didn’t make. It just became a point of reflection.
We definitely explore the idea of what it means to grow up poor and how that affects your ... chances? How does that affect the next generation?
How do you think the comic-book medium benefits the story?
I really love the visual aspect of it. I think the challenge to actually say less is a good one: And I think the comic medium
forces you to do that.
What are some of the misconceptions you see about poverty, and how do you hope the book addresses them?
I think one is that 'bootstrap mentality' that’s out there — that if you work really hard, you can change X, Y and Z. But I don’t think that addresses the complexity that comes with growing up in a poor environment. There are certain degrees of poor. I would never say I had the worst of it — in fact, I would consider myself very lucky.
One of the things that goes unaddressed— and this is something I like to explore in the comics — is the emotional difficulty of changing your station, and it kind of goes back to the survivor/hero mentality.
There’s always this pressure inside your community to stay with your community. It’s not because they don’t want you to succeed but because they love you.