[00:00:07]
>> It'll. Context talk. But really want to
comes down to it it's really what we do with
it and how do we. Take this in not to deny
to ignore it but to turn it into something
creative and healing so we need we need the
artists for this we need the creators who
transform and take it into their bodies and
then turn it into something that can really
help us all feel better so here to kind of
lead to framing sessions are three amazing
terrific people you've already met Amy says
there are with her amazing poetry also Kara
pages here and you're going to see her piece
that she performed in that same space at the
end of the day tomorrow and it's really a
spectacular kind of cleansing ceremony that
she does of our space.
[00:01:15]
The red Eros is also here and the red has
been key in helping us kind of imagine and
formulate this project and also the ongoing
project they were hoping to develop with all
of your help so maybe we'll just start with
perhaps of the read if you would my beginning
and will and then we'll be joined by are there
folks.
[00:01:40]
Good afternoon I think it's crazy that I'm
on the arts panel because I don't do are a
left brain girl. I do lecture so I'm a try
to compress within five to seven it is. Something
that kind of build this builds that bridge
around creative the tax of frying and dealing
with.
[00:02:03]
What we're learning about what terminal things
people can do to each other in the pursuit
of the so called public good. Companion I
actually think that most people who believe
in eugenics are by definition bad people they
don't mean these murderous things that they
do and so how can we reclaim myself and in
many ways reclaim them too.
[00:02:32]
Because these thinking patterns are still
here with us you think down trauma is that
you Genesis when he talks about making America
great again. The same thinking patterns here
and the thousands and millions of people who
think that America needs to be detoxified.
Is driving our political system so how can
I get into this.
[00:03:01]
Talk about reclaiming when I was twenty three
years old a doctor decided I didn't need to
reproduce any more so he sterilized me that
pissed me off eugenics in the one nine hundred
seventy S. because I was one of millions of
black and Native American and Latino women
sterilized it was very routine back then and
that led me to working on reproductive rights
issues because the freedom to control my body
became very important to me and then it led
me to even writing about the history of black
women in reproductive fight for reproductive
freedom or this term we call in later called
reproductive justice and I learned in trying
to write about this stuff that I needed to
put history into action because I couldn't
organize African-American women to fight for
reproductive freedom because they didn't know
their history and so once I started researching
the history of the fight back then I discovered
this whole concept called eugenics.
[00:04:09]
You know and I didn't start out thinking that
I was going to become a eugenics scholar started
out majoring in chemistry and physics I thought
I was going to be in a laboratory somewhere
talk about a path detour but I've had to always
put history into action as a project of my
organize like whether it was about responding
to races billboards around the country to
claim that the most dangerous place for a
black child is in the womb.
[00:04:39]
You know offering another form of eugenic
thanking our bodies. And then in the nineteenth
seventies when I was in Washington D.C. I
found that I was taking on another eugenics
project. Washington particularly Capitol Hill
and Adams Morgan were being gentrified. Through
a program called specialty concentration.
That was a response Prof by the Kerner Commission
civil unrest report about how they needed
to depopulate the inner cities break up these
black and brown voting strains.
[00:05:19]
And we are in the midst of trying to pass
the seas first rent control bill. We found
out that we were working against forces that
were two hundred years the rules again putting
history into action that they didn't just
come up with the space of the concentrator
after the one nine hundred sixty eight riots
that it was a long term plan.
[00:05:42]
So long. As a Reproductive Justice Act is
this. I have to do this healing because I'm
fighting what now we call a new genetics.
Eugenics with a new spin on it. And this is
so important to me talk about detoxifying
and healing because I'm going to my family
reunion.
[00:06:06]
Over the Labor Day holiday and it turns out
that I'm the only woman in my family who's
not in a wheelchair are Walker over sixty
and there are very few men who still live
in my family over sixty. So I have to look
at the combination of environmental you know
internalized oppression you know all the things
that are about that are multigenerational
that cost my family to have to be wheeled
into our family reunion.
[00:06:43]
And so this isn't some abstraction for me
so when I talk about creativity toxify up
about how do I do toxified my family legacy
from eugenics because what all of these. Morbidly
Obese women have in common is that we were
sterilized in our twenties. So what's the
relationship between that.
[00:07:04]
And the lack of control over our bodies and
so. Right now the new genetics is being characterized
by new public policies based on MIA liberalism
not have the time to explain all of that the
basically the one percent decide they don't
need the workers anymore so course they don't
need the workers support for because they're
making all their money off by Nancy capital
and I don't know so what do they argue let's
not feed the poor Let's not cure diseases.
[00:07:37]
As a matter of fact they're immorality deserves
the neglect we're going to offer them. And
this is what we see animating discourse and
I society now but they don't call it engine
explicit call it do genetics because it's
the same old B.S. and that they want us to
take bigger bite.
[00:07:58]
So I'm very pleased with this form I'm really
pleased that we have used that eugenics tree
to go beyond just looking at the medical implications
of eugenics we're looking at the land use
policies that the miss is U.K. tional system
the criminal justice system the misuse of
science and psychotherapy and all the things
that the eugenicists considered that somehow
in finding eugenics really reduced to medicine
and sterilization abuse.
[00:08:32]
And that looked at the coherent interconnected
whole a manipulative whole populations of
people for the enrichment of the one percent
because it was to Gilded Age elites who supported
eugenics back then it is the Gilded Age elites
now who support Nugent acts today. And so
I'm healing from my trauma using things that
the black feminist movement is Gary like self-help
and the company of my sisters and all of this
other stuff but the thing I want to close
with saying is that.
[00:09:08]
Silence about the stuff is deadly. That I
have to connect my family reunion to the eugenics
movement is something that I have to do so
I can process why I'm the most mobile woman
still left standing in my family over sixty.
What's going on here is about how we have
to detoxify our mind.
[00:09:32]
Yes in order to detoxify our bodies and so
thank you all for letting me have this opportunity
to tell you a. Thank you and. Good afternoon.
I just want to thank Laura Rozen again who's
one of the She's very humble but as one of
the founders mothers of the reproductive justice
movement in this country so another round
of you and.
[00:10:13]
Welcome or Hello thank you for all the work
that it took to get to this space. I'm Kara
Kara and I just want to offer some thoughts.
This might sound of the kind of thing. I'm
really going to project into so great thank
you. I just wanted to.
[00:10:37]
Honor the ancestors and those. That. Have
resisted the generational trauma from the
this eugenic history that we're speaking of.
My work has been about memory memory work
to organize through racial justice economic
justice **** gay by a chance to spirit liberation.
And body reproductive and body justice. Around
how we seek to integrate the analysis of how
Thankyou our communities have been path Allah
just dismissed seen as less than human.
[00:11:17]
And how we have a collective memory in understanding
of our bodies and our existence as resistance.
I do memory healing site installations and
I have the opportunity to do that. As Professor
Chen mentioned earlier with as part of this
eugenic What do you say installation that
A.P.A. did and I have been working for the
last fifteen years with artists cultural workers
and healers in particular and how we are remembering
or we call remembering how do we remember
the memory of.
[00:11:55]
State and communal violence that has targeted
our existence much to what Loretta has already
spoken to. The work that I have been rooted
in is around population control and this notion
that we are less than human and we being in
particular women as women of color and as
a black clear woman.
[00:12:18]
Always being identified as if I'm not going
to reproduce labor for society then my value
and worth is one more thing and if I'm not
going to exist for Christian white able bodied
well then I shouldn't exist at all so how
do we transform these idea of our relationship
to value and worth and capitalism when there
are actual There the scientific racism allows
to permeate in our belief that we actually
genetically should not even exist so what
I want to bring to focus attention is how
we are remembering remembering in relationship
to the dismissal or decide complete invisibility
of our existence and I believe there are several
places of sites of resistance that I just
want to name the ritual of healing and wellness
has been critical to the survival of the communities
that I am a part of as a black **** woman
and as an able bodied woman working with disability
justice organizers as an ally How do we push
through the notion of healthy How do we push
through the idea of what was being well means
what being healthy mean.
[00:13:32]
When that spend codified by the pharmaceutical
companies and the medical industry I want
to name and honor the thousands of black indigenous
Latino women and career and trans birth workers
who remain unseen in the history of made with
free and birth work since slavery and particularly
black midwives were the brunt workers were
the healers and both workers were recording
data has about one of the central current
of their wealth as he's made the well being
of our communities and how they were the frontline
of surviving attempted genocide in our communities
they also became teachers other white medical
industry that came down right in the thirty's
and forty's and fifty's to consume this idea
of birth work which then became codified again
by certifying and making it a certifiable
to you had to be certified to become a midwife
which then removed all these black midwives
and Latina midwives and I think some nods
and indigenous folks who were already pushed
out by the church to not acknowledge the level
of organizing and healing that they were holding
merely by birthing generations of our communities
in resistance to the idea that we should not
exist that role was incredibly important for
me to be standing here in the fourth fifth
generation of my family originally from the
south.
[00:15:06]
But that gets dismissed in history and when
we talk about the medical industrial complex
our we don't we're not talking enough about
the medical industrial complex but when we
talk about violence we tend to not mention
the relationship to this the complete dismissal
of a communal infrastructure around the well
being that has been decimated by a public
health system that both co-opted and and then.
[00:15:32]
Dismissed And on this decertified all of our
healers and root workers so I've been organizing
for the last fifteen years with healers and
birth workers and how we build memory of our
traditions how we take back our right to understand
ritual and relationship to wellness that goes
outside of a western state idea of being well
and how do we push back this notion that we
are not a front line resistance of attempted
genocide on our communities merely by birthing
generations and generations I want to bring
to this side of resistance another side of
resistance is the disability justice movement
and I wasn't here this morning so I don't
know if this was named but it's critical that
the disability justice movement has shaped
in the last decade the sight of resistance
as merely existing in our bodies as people
with mental physical emotional disability
and chronic illness and how performance troops
like Sins invalid if you don't know please
find them I have the honor to work with a
troop to say disability justice organizers
who use performance to name not only the existence
of being disabled but to name the erotica
to name the passion and the desire in the
politic of being whole in your body despite
the notion that you are already.
[00:16:52]
Less than whole when you're born and really
pushing up against this notion of who is fit
and I'm fit by using performance I want to
thank the Kenyan pharaohs and Nancy or Dover
or and order her writing American Eugenics
in continuing to understand the complicated
history of HIV AIDS and how that both a pit
of my eyes to our relationship to sexuality
and queerness in relationship to deceive us
instead of in relationship to erotica politick
desire and it also Gys to our sexuality as
something that could be contained controlled
two minutes greater two seconds.
[00:17:32]
I don't know. And how how do we push back
against this HIV AIDS epidemic or the notion
of ending right New York City is a part of
ending the AIDS campaign how are we going
to and years and years of the misinformation
of how queerness and sexuality is identified
by each I mean it's that is a trauma within
of itself that many of us are unpacking and
I'm peeling that to be black and clear every
day for me is racialized it's.
[00:18:06]
Our eye but I want to I want to remember the
memory of the power of being black the power
of being **** the wellness of being black
and **** that isn't related to deceives and
chronic illness. And finally how do we unpack
the deployment of U.S. tactical strategies
of population control eugenics as an extension
of population control as again my mentor her
the writer spoke to this archaic belief that
women of color are the root cause of environmental
degradation is danger US and in the point
of Case in point post Hurricane Katrina the
governor of Louisiana called for the old called
for O.B.-G.Y.N. doctors to spend a couple
weeks down in the Gulf Coast in New Orleans
in particular to sterilize black even unlike
Tina women because he truly believed that
our existence caused the storm and that if
we you know sterilize a bunch of women that
maybe we would be targeted again it's also
steeped in Christians or promises beliefs
too but we don't have time to get into that.
[00:19:13]
But seeing post Katrina and the way the state
responded or did not respond is a site of
resistance and anyone that was able to exist
beyond in these last ten years and maintain
any notion of dignity and integrity despite
the mark the target put on many of our community's
backs.
[00:19:32]
As for black folk incarcerated folk immigrant
communities clear and transfer indigenous
tribal nations homeless folk and people with
disabilities who were nuts were seen as not
viable to live after Katrina hit we weren't
valued as being the most important to save
or in some respects me we weren't given the
resources to save ourselves and this notion
that the South and doesn't know better what
I know is the South knows best so on August
twenty ninth the tenth anniversary most recently
in two thousand and fifteen honored the resiliency
of our community healers cultural workers
disability justice organizers racial justice
organizers so on and so forth honored what
we've been able to maintain and hold on to
despite the co-optation and complete decimation
of New Orleans and Gulf Coast culture and
this is just one more I want to include when
we talk about eugenics a side of resistance
is how we are resisting stop and frisk How
are back to more uprisings how focused and
how garner our resistance in fighting back
against this notion that we deserve to be
policed that we are always under the guise
of as a as a threat as a danger as terrorists
to this country and the status quo so how
do we think about eugenics as an extension
of surveillance and how I know many political
artists using this notion of being watched
being counted and documented having being
tagged how are we talking about that relationship
to the president complex and really pushing
this notion of surveillance as eugenic for
thank you.
[00:21:11]
Thank you. Thank you I feel really honored
to be a part of this. I think just to name
it I think one of the things that brings us
together. It's something around the body and
that's definitely something that you'll be
speaking about. So. There's also strange things
in the microphone I mean.
[00:21:46]
So I was preparing for this I was thinking
about this idea of creative intervention I
was really excited about it and as many times
as writers we do we look at the book the terms
and we say what are the definitions and so
I'll share with you I found artistic intervention
and I found intervention so just to put it
out there intervention can refer to our enters
a situation outside the our world in an attempt
to change the existing conditions.
[00:22:14]
Intervention is sometimes called public intervention
in the arts there's also just plain intervention
which I like interpretation or interference
of one state of affairs of another. In the
affairs of another. Intervened to come between
disputing people groups and to interfere with
force or threat of force I liked that one
and so I'm going to kind of put that out there
and to to think about being an artist that's
called to intervene and I'm going to put again
the the the definitions I'm kind of thinking
about the most to come between disputing people
interfere with forces which could be history
systems or to occur or be between two things
maybe like a bridge so how do we intervene
there are.
[00:23:06]
OK I forgot that that picture was up there
that distracted me so back to this OK Listen
this is you this real quick OK Pause That's
a picture of me in high school. You're like
what does this have to do with which you just
said I just forgot this is my art artifact
so side no this will actually connect back
I promise.
[00:23:31]
You a lot of this is about by. The body and
being in our skin and sort of like the personal
experience of that so I didn't want to be
what I looked like growing up and so this
is what I want to look like Robert Smith of
The Cure.
[00:23:45]
And so I kind of bring that up because it's
sort of like an artifact of me like avoiding
the sorting or the identification that I was
given in my own body and perhaps like what
my parents were resisting as people who came
here to pursue the American dream and all
of the things that came along with it can
we switch then it's going to change a lot
OK so here's a lot of what I do in my creative
practice is now going back to the history
to the turn of the century and this is what
I'm going to be talking more about is sort
of the Filipinos first bath so thinking about
the body and skin President McKinley washing
the Filipino baby and then you can see Puerto
Rico in the back happy like that's the next
step when he grows up or when he gets out
of there and that's a Filipino baby yes he
looks like different he looks black you looks
native savage all that.
[00:24:35]
Next. So this is a creative project I would
call it creative intervention that was most
of the ways that I kind of moved into that
loving my own skin but also I have a theatrical
project called The History of the body that
I decided I was working the designer to create
a image that was sort of like how's the steer
to project an antidote.
[00:24:56]
OK so now we're back to my other part ha OK.
So let's keep going with the images actually
there so just take a moment I'll just look
at these really briefly. This is from the
one thousand and four World's Fair to get
keep going so it's going fast souvenir an
actual souvenir keep going this is the card
I wrote about earlier the playing card.
[00:25:27]
This is I wrote a poem that was about this
that I think I read actually earlier to. And
we'll stay here for a second. So this is took
men to who was on the cover of my book. So
in many ways the intervention or disruption
can be seen can be the act of illuminating
what has been obscured and for me one example
would be to try to give or in Dow or bring
out eliminate thus the Filipino sign the humanity
of a woman whose image I gazed upon when I
was researching at the archives of the World's
Fair in St Louis.
[00:26:03]
Using that sort of as a moment in time which
is two thousand and eleven I'll go back for
a moment back to the time of the picture of
me as Robert Smith growing up you know I would
talk about I could how I could apply my own
personal experience to sort of these notions
we talked about with internalize oppression
and what friends Fernand called epidermal
Lizzy inferiority which I was really obsessed
with this idea of the body and skin and when
I came to that term it really captured it
I grew up wanting blue eyes and blond hair
wanting to escape my own skin and in my late
twenty's though I became introduced to some
of the histories of my people that you started
seeing for the first time and the Filipino
American war the acquisition of the Philippines
and the colonial presence I learned how the
Philippines became a territory which was reduced
to a dark archipelago populated by savages
childlike even Kipling's have to will have
child who needed to be washed in the waters
of civilization I learned how the visual lexicon
of racism previously used for African-Americans
and Native peoples are recycled for these
new human objects of war complete with every
costume from the speared to the lowing cloth
to the red lips and wild hair always the darkest
skin driving in the message that brown or
black was not beautiful but inferior.
[00:27:32]
And I learned about the Louisiana Purchase
exhibition and the twelve hundred Filipinos
on exhibit a coming upon coming face to face
with these images I saw myself in the mirror
I felt I was there too being exhibited. In
all of the stereotypes I had already been
starting to experience as growing up you.
[00:27:54]
As a young woman of color in small towns in
the United States. The Exotic the foreigner
the other the ugly. Blown up to new proportions.
And these added to my my understanding of
all of the distorted mirror images of myself
that I was getting increasingly exposed to
and also now being able to deconstruct and
face back in the mirror so cowboy.
[00:28:28]
So. This is a lot of the writing I do has
to do the moving to the west and the chilling
truth is back to the mirror this will come
back to the cowboy in a second when you're
presented enough with a carnival mirror you
begin to believe it's real and so this exaggerated
version of myself became what I believed and
yet again once you face something you can
start to break it now and face it and change
it in my book the speaker tells her own tales
about growing up in small towns where she
wore cowboy boots and went to county fairs
and became the loner once again going back
to Grover Smith who.
[00:29:08]
Felt she was on exhibit. So this is the back
and forth past and presently This is the picture
from the Philippines so part of the turning
point for me and this is what I'm having you
kind of think about it for yourself as well
and I'm running low on time already is.
[00:29:28]
I have my time or thank you is going to the
Philippines for the first time and learning
about where they came from sort of being immersed
in a lot of brown people for the first time
and so here's what I want to say. How are
stereotypes. Now that a lot of us face growing
up in the United States how do they affect
us it's not just simply an idea they become
the way that we see ourselves many of us grew
up feeling other by our own skin hair and
bones and we.
[00:30:06]
Try to skip forward a little bit. We we start
to to internalize that just again internalize
oppression. Let's move forward OK So jumping
to quickly how do we intervene with this through
art so I saw this in the Philippines and you
know going to the Philippines you know learned
a lot about some of the beautiful things and
some of the disturbing things about our past
as colonies of Spain and the United States
and so here we go with the some of the roots
of my project around the body and let's keep
going.
[00:30:43]
So the theatrical project which also took
place in the World's Fair like my book. This
is the dance portion in that some of the whitening
creams that are used in the United States
and by the in the Philippines by the way the
previous woman shoes black and Filipino and
she wanted to completely become the way you
saw the second image so to turn it to you
I'm actually starting to have a think about
what you might talk about we might discuss
in the breakout session what can we do to.
[00:31:12]
And to intervene with the eraser or destruction
of our bodies and our histories we begin with
ourselves we intervene with the silences and
the distortions and create new ways of being
and creating. I believe we create conversation
through collaboration in our communities in
our schools and our creative circles theatre
and performance our place to have a live conversation
is palpable and reciprocal.
[00:31:41]
Yes OK sorry all my time reading more images
and wrapping up definitely more images from
the theatre so one of the things I want to
say to sort of have you again resonate is
when we're addressing these histories. So
I'm skipping. OK. So I want to say is a little
bit about connection to current day events
I'm going to skip to the end here so there's
so much resonance I started feeling with what's
been going on in the world of the Black I
was matter movement and with the Asians for
black I was matter Solidarity Movement our
work as artists is also the job is to be in
solidarity so far how do you find how your
story might stand in solidarity with what's
happening not only to people of your own background
how can we identify the machinery's of violence
stereotyping and identified some of the sources
for the metaphorical and literal and physical
and spiritual annihilation of black and brown
bodies.
[00:32:50]
The ratio of our histories all the way including
mass incarceration I found ways that the writing
could be an intervention and in that definition
also a bridge. And so I ask you how do you
form your new narratives How do you make creative
interventions flipping the script with your
past how do you speak to the future how do
you just erupt and innovate how do you act
in solidarity with your words and actions
and how do you render complexity this is your
challenge Thank you.
[00:33:24]
Thank you this is amazing group that we have
way too much to talk about in such a little
bit of time but. Beginning. And we're going
to be showing a piece tomorrow Judy has written
was performed also in the space Judy. Thank
you it's a pleasure to be here and to listen
to all of your experiences how you came to
think about detoxifying creativity.
[00:34:01]
I'm challenged by your questions and hopefully.
You guys we interested in some of the work
that I've been doing I met all of the wonderful
people at A P A When they had their installation
which I was fascinated by after a an article
came out in the New York Times and I went
down to see it because I work with.
[00:34:28]
Reclaiming disappeared histories and creating
just futures with my project the American
slavery project I created it in twenty eleven
at during this beginning of the sesquicentennial
of the Civil War. And the primary focus is
to we're theatrical response to revision as
I'm in this country's discourse around the
Civil War slavery and Jim Crow and I don't
know if you remember in two thousand and eleven
but the South went crazy the Confederate flag
was still flying over the South Carolina capital
they were having sesquicentennial balls people
were dressing up like Jefferson Davis I mean
it was just really offensive an appalling
and there didn't seem to be a theatrical response
to this at the same time there were three
main stage productions of theater in New York
City around slavery the Civil War in Jim Crow
and not a single playwright was an African-American
writer and so I said to my is that this has
got to Jane's And so we created the I co-founded
it with some friends of mine who will keep
that going to have the new black fest and
we did a reading series of plays by African-American
writers Fast forward a couple of years I was
visiting the African Burial Ground you know
how many of you guys have been to the African
Burial Ground in New York OK so not that many
the African Burial Ground is downtown between
Broadway and elk Duane Reed Street and it
is where about twenty twenty five years ago
four hundred nineteen bodies of African descended
people were buried.
[00:36:24]
There were discovered their bodies were discovered
during the excavation for the Federal Office
Building now these four hundred one thousand
bodies were just some of between ten and thirty
thousand African descended slaves indentured
servants three people who were living and
working in colonial New York between sixty
ninety and seven hundred ninety and when I
went down to visit the African Burial Ground
since then.
[00:36:53]
And museum minimum Oriel has been been erected
I was looking at the engraving it's now when
they discovered these bodies they brought
in thank God finally anthropologist an archaeologist
from Howard to study them and they were able
to tell the proximate age range of these people
whether from the chemicals in the teeth where
they were born whether it was here in the
motherland or in the Caribbean and whether
they were male male or female approximate
age range but the thing that struck me as
I was looking at the engravings in the Morial
were that they looked very much like headstones
except for there were no names there are no
extant records of somewhere between ten and
thirty thousand human beings who existed in
New York and labored in the creation of this
colony and eventually this city and so I said
to myself Well this is a job for artists so
I commissioned seventeen of the most decorated
and talented African-American writers that
I knew working in New York at the time and
we created a collective theatre piece called
unheard voices and it is a monologue piece
celebrating that the daily lives of these
people who lived and loved and toiled on the
streets of New York and they were living their
ordinary lives in what we look back on now
as extraordinary times but they were simply
living their lives and one of the things that
I really wanted to do was to stress that this
very thin mill your trope of Southern slavery
was different we were in New York which abolished
slavery in one thousand nine hundred eighteen
twenty seven had a very different form of
enslavement and that had not been seen or
given voice to and the stories.
[00:39:06]
I wanted to see human stories people had children
and they they'd helped other people give birth
they did all kinds of things that you don't
see in the. Admittedly horrible tropes that
we have of cotton and beating and change but
that's not the only thing I wanted to honor
the humanity and somewhere in the readings
that we were given there was a.
[00:39:30]
A code a quote that said. Humanity is not
made up of atoms we're made up of stories
and that really moved me and so that was one
of the things that I was compelled to do with
the American slavery project and that was
to tell the stories for these people who lived
and for whom there are no extant records and
so when we do so we do this we have Nigerian
singers we have music we have dance we have
the stories that are told and we have a ritual
offering so the people that come into view
the unheard voices they are able to put on
parchment names of their loved ones that they
have lost and while we're honoring the ancestors
we're also honoring the family members and
ancestors of the people who have come to engage.
[00:40:35]
Thank. You and. Hello I'm Tumi a wry and I'm
a visual artist. First of all I just want
to thank the presenters for their really wonderful.
Presentations very very inspiring and there's
so much to respond to I don't really know
where to start but I thought I would start
with the artifact that I was asked to bring.
[00:41:09]
By way of some background Japanese American
and I was born in New York in post-war New
York in a city that looks very different at
that time than it does now there were actually
very few Asians in New York because of the.
The exclusion exclusionary immigration laws
and so.
[00:41:35]
I grew up largely on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan where there was an enclave of Japanese
Americans who had settled there after the
war and my artifact is actually a past book
that my grandfather was required to carry
with him so. My grandfather came to America
in one thousand nine hundred five and after
working on sugar plantations now in Hawaii
he settled in Sacramento and he opened a diner
with his wife.
[00:42:13]
For Mexican and Japanese farm laborers so
they served tortillas and Terry Aki. And they
raised five children and forty years later
when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt
signed a I just want to see if I can remember
this a proclamation numbered twenty five thirty
seven that required all descendants of Japanese
Italian and German.
[00:42:43]
Analogy to register as enemy aliens and so
this is a pass book that all Japanese Americans
had to carry that certified them as enemy
aliens and I just wanted to read what it says
here because I think it really is interesting
that both. See. This is for your general this
is noticed a holder of this certificate.
[00:43:17]
You should remember that the regulations that
you. Require to follow govern travel change
every residence occupation or employment and
possession of the various articles like cameras
radios firearms ammunition explosive signal
devices and similar articles certain areas
of the military character will be designated
as places you may not reside and certain other
areas will be designated where you may not
go without permission from an authorized government
officer in addition to obtaining any advance
permission required you must immediately give
written notice of any change of name residence
or place of employment these notices must
be sent to the alien registration division
and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
[00:44:11]
And there's a note here because there is a
curfew in California for all Japanese Americans.
Permission is granted to be at the OK restaurant
which is the name of my grandfather's diner
it was called actually called the OK Cafe.
Only going to say OK. And telling him that
he is only allowed to.
[00:44:42]
Be on the street between four thirty AM and
nine thirty pm. And he carried this around
with him for forty years because of use of
rape that he was caught without it somehow
he would wind up in trouble. But you know
I just wanted we have a few minutes to to
say that my stories of dislocation and.
[00:45:10]
I guess. Have across the globe of people who
have been removed in this OK Didn't homeless
have actually formed the basis of a lot of
my work and I wonder if you know this isn't
really directly related to my family history
of internment because shortly after my grandfather
received this is a terrific it he was told
to.
[00:45:37]
Executive Order nine of six six was put into
law and he was given six days to pack everything
he had and he was relocated to the lake in
terming camp. There was so much I wanted to
respond to in the panel and I'm sorry I I
might be running over time but.
[00:45:58]
There were so many overlapping themes with
the panelists. There their message and my
where the read a lot lot Ross's wonderful
powerful personal story which I which I feel
is you know personal stories are are so important
and I think that as an artist incorporating
these stories through oral history and through
conversations with community are such an important
part of my work.
[00:46:32]
Her. Her call for us to see the broader implications
of eugenics as an intern or connected hold.
Her her need to start with history putting
history into action is also so much a part
of my work which is an exploration of history
and memory. I was very moved by keris.
[00:47:02]
Cara ph is. Remarks about how he she honors
the ancestors through what she calls memory
work and sees how building a collective memory
is a form of resistance. And I was especially
moved by Amy's discussions about creative
interventions with historical images in the
need for artists to create counter narratives
and to disrupt and subvert the stereotypes
that shape our feelings of self-worth.
[00:47:39]
OK So as an artist. Practicing artist who
struggles to make a living I I thought that
I would just use a template that is the theme
of the conference to put forward some suggestions
for creative solutions or creative ideas I
love the idea that we can talk about solutions
to some of these very serious issues playfully.
[00:48:07]
But using a line create and connect as a kind
of template I do think that artists need to
think about working collaboratively with community
organizations and work in ways in which which
I call artists centered but community led.
Artists need to. Know is so eloquently put
it listen and they need to certain surrender
their thought.
[00:48:36]
Already in many cases to chill in the hands
of the community but they also I think need
to think about creative ways to do this and
for those of you who are artists out there
I think we live in a really exciting time
because. Art is is in this amazing process
of transformation our production I think there
is now a really exciting surge of social turn
in our production from the production of objects
to the production of knowledge and artists
are ever capable of being agents of change
in this process working if they work in an
open and collaborative way.
[00:49:24]
We're no longer stuck in the studio but we
are now being encouraged to work in communities
on the street in places where art can really
make a difference I think that art is a symbol
and has always been a symbol of resilience.
And so I mean there's so many ways artists
can address some of the very serious issues
that have been brought up today and finally
I think in terms of connecting.
[00:49:59]
Artists Yes it's in really important for artists
to connect with each other but I think artists
need to connect to movement of change and.
One of the things that I feel that artists
have to be very aware of in today's. Really
rapidly like convulsively rapidly changing
city is their role or their complicity in
gentrification.
[00:50:28]
Artists are often seen as the front line of
gentrification and development in. And. And
communities where people of color live. And.
I don't really know what the answer is I think
that artists are. Not necessarily the bad
guys but they need to think about creative
ways. To join with community in reshaping
the places in which we live because gentrification
I believe is going to happen the reorganisation
of our city is going to happen in the spaces
in which we live whether we like it or not
and we are faced with this real challenge
of whether or not we're going to be part of
that change or whether it's going to be done
without us so I think artists need to connect
to that reality and understand their role
in that kind of transformation.
[00:51:34]
Thank you. Plus the better Great First of
all Jack thanks a lot for making me the one
white guy on the stage I'm not going to forget
those. But seriously what an honor just to
be here again and to. Be amongst this group
and to listen to the discussions earlier today
I can't wait to come back tomorrow and be
in the audience and really take it all and
also thanks for giving my partner Jen and
I the opportunity to have a romantic eugenics
weekend in New York City.
[00:52:14]
I'm an artist and I teach architecture at
the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and I'm
a somewhat amateurish historian and to apologise
collector museum as I generally speaking make
large scale installations that are that sometimes
use the methodology of science are critical
of science and also Roman. Besides science
a little bit because that my ambition as a
child was to become a scientist but mathematics
got in the way.
[00:52:46]
If I was to I was also very moved by this
request to bring in a document that sort of
talked about how you were sorted and as I'm
in the process of packing to move I could
not find a few things that was interesting
but it took in another direction and I had
to choose an object that sort of talked about.
[00:53:05]
How I now look back on the circulation of
my childhood would be this this is a stone
that I found in a stream by my driveway when
I was ten years old. It's extremely pleasurable
to hold it into your hand I've had it for
over forty years now and to my mind this is
a representation of a sort of pre awareness
of culture this is me as a child being in
nature all the time playing with friends and
I'm just going to let people pass this around.
[00:53:41]
I'd like to get it back. I have a few things
to pass out today and. A few years ago I started
asking a question of my own work that I started
to ask other people and that question was
that I asked myself and then asked lots of
artist friends or just anybody when did you
first learn about the Holocaust and for me
it was in third grade I went to the school
library and was looking frankly at images
of the King Tut exhibit.
[00:54:12]
And being in the history section I soon wandered
into these books about the Second World War
and saw these horrific images of course obviously
there have been many Holocaust but I'm talking
about the Second World War and I wanted to
check the book out and my parents got a phone
call from the librarian saying you know your
third grade son wants to check out this book
on.
[00:54:32]
The death camps and they said let him check
it out. And so. There ensued many conversations
at dinner about what that book meant. Many
years later after practicing art for a decade
I was also. Starting to ask this other question
when did I first recognize my whiteness was
it in high school or maybe earlier when.
[00:55:04]
I was a Catholic in a largely Protestant community
probably not that didn't look too white. Was
it when during my senior year at Holland Wein
the only African-American person in my for
a moment High School of a thousand students
came to school dressed up that day with the
only Jewish person I knew so chip George Allen
Naomi Seligman came respectively as.
[00:55:31]
An African-American Klansman and a pregnant
nun and that this was a brave act in one nine
hundred eighty one and I thought it was probably
the most powerful thing that I've ever seen
but I don't think it was really then I mean
it was much later when I began to work on
a project that would eventually be the eugenics
installation called the long shadows hundred
Perkins and the eugenics survey Vermont's
I was asked as an artist to look into the
collection of a museum in from the Fleming
museum and to come up with.
[00:56:03]
And most of my work comes to me through discovering
material cultural objects holding in my hand
it comes through whispers and rumors and.
Obviously once you go down the eugenics wormhole
it's a very deep hole and I've been this was
twenty years ago I did this project it's very
difficult to remember from that unchanged
but one of the things that happened was that
I realized that my if you will protagonist
Henry Perkins who was.
[00:56:34]
Sea wall just trained a Colombian who became.
The director of the genic survey of Vermont
and later the National eugenics president.
Embarked on a survey with his graduate students
that ultimately resulted in the sterilization
of hundreds perhaps you know a thousand or
fifteen hundred Vermonters and when I discovered
Perkins's handprint which was from his own
handprint collection of his friends and students.
[00:57:02]
And I made the connection to my hand holding
this egg. It was a very kind of powerful moment
for me because I realized that whiteness for
me was about. Acknowledging and learning something
about white privilege and what can I do with
that as an artist so the last thing that I'll
hand out that second last thing is a book
that features some of the images from.
[00:57:29]
The long shadows project and they're bookmarked
here so that you can see it. So this idea
of what we can do is artists. I'm disappointed
that the kids are inherently more because
what I want to say to them. As artists is
to go deep and look at everything.
[00:57:51]
It's actually not start out by editing but
the Start out by like seeing what's there.
Eugenics is a is a place where no stone should
be left unturned in fact it's actually more
of a minefield I think what you want her into
it it's a very powerful place to find herself
and after this project was over.
[00:58:12]
And it was interesting in that it brought
together. Many disenfranchised groups the
Native American app and actually tried in
Vermont use the show as a political kind of
touchstone for. The white university at the
way to stay in the union also was having a
lot of racial tension at that time so the
show unintentionally became a kind of football.
[00:58:36]
All and you know I didn't embark on being
an artist to become a political person it
just sort of happened that eugenics brings
you very strongly into that territory so I'll
just finish up by saying that. Too i mean
i cri completely with what's been said here
about creating agency creating connections
I think that if you have a project where you
can leverage.
[00:59:05]
Media where you can leverage as many diverse
voices as possible I think that's really important
to do and. I also think that in a way this
idea of rituals or healing is essential to
taking on these histories and when I finished
the project I was still very much interested
in finding new eugenics material I found hundreds
of things that I had returned to the state
that had been effectively kind of jettisoned
out of the fit of embarrassment in the one
nine hundred sixty S.
[00:59:38]
when the U.V. embracing heredity course was
finally cancelled because it was deemed recent
racist. But about six months later I was I
was in a bookstore looking for various books
and. Something made me reach up on to the
top shelf of in this in this bookstore and
laying up there was this volume covered in
maybe ten or twenty years of dust but it's
this book called rural Vermont a program for
the future which is recommendations in nineteen
twenty eight about what Vermont should do
sixty years later in order to anticipate changes
in things and when I opened it up when I was
shocked that it was signed H.F. Perkins this
was Perkins own personal coffee so it was
quite a chilling moment and.
[01:00:25]
You can't ignore that and I think it's part
of the ritualistic cleaning that has to happen
solve I'll pass this around as well
thank you thank you. Thank you so much. To
all of my colleagues here it's an honor to
be here. I. Changed his name. He could.
[01:01:06]
Get a job. My mother the daughter of immigrants
who basically had one option to go to college.
Felt. To have a career. And. In terms of my
own experience. I'm sure. And I. Have to say
that. And in many ways my father. Was fortunate
enough to get the.
[01:01:41]
Story right. We moved to the suburbs. Which
is right next to. And then. It's amazing.
And I think part of this. Happened in my life
so. I went to high school. I just feel like.
One strong memory. Position. And the only
black girl and her getting. The role of ethnic
stereotypes and supporting it by swapping
parts.
[01:02:37]
But. That's my artifact. Which I think. Anyway
I think. If we can come to grips. With how.
We can disrupt anything. That's my sort of.
Thank you and that's hard. And a struggle
so anyway. What I'm involved in I'm a cultural
organizer and. Organized but I see so much.
[01:03:40]
Who they are. The meaning in their life their
culture or. Side. And so cultural organizing
for me is about saying when you have to deny
who you are. So the cultural organizing. So
a couple comments. A couple comments comes
really fast. Just on things I've heard. Is
the power of stories.
[01:04:20]
One experience around the. Evacuation shelter
for special needs people these are people.
To the Rockaways many of. Sort of forgotten.
Really went through the shelter and were turned
into numbers on cots and I could see the power
of storytelling to not just. And then when
things got really bad for them to get the
story out to others it so that we could organize
around it.
[01:05:01]
The other thing I want to talk about is the
power of the cultural. Part and. Really. Back
together the social frak fabric. Part. Like
the highways but now gentrification. I was
just a roundtable around looking at arts and
culture in relationship to. Changing public
housing and the relationships of public housing
and communities and what really struck me
there was people talking about the trauma
of the superblocks.
[01:05:51]
That destroyed all the kinds of things that
were already there here people you know whether
it was your church or your you know the place
you came together and then how the expectation
that people. From the have that and so the
question for me and I put this out as a question
is how do we do arts and culture that really
gets it's not just a Band-Aid that just makes
you know it's OK but actually is part of activism
that changes things and then finally.
[01:06:23]
I do keep thinking this experience I had I
worked a lot of urban bushwoman I've had the
good fortune and there Institute and I remember
a moment where we saw a film about we construction
and after this film people just were in despair
and it was just so horrible the history like
we learned and then it was just brilliant
how.
[01:06:48]
Are. Shifted the room and allowed people to
take their drama and but literally through
the body in movement move away to another
place so the transformation of physical movement
and story I'll just end with that. Are two
thousand. I'm actually he said it really is
not hard to hear a monster.
[01:07:26]
Thanks Jack I really appreciate it I'm a fine
artist and I guess academic now a discredited
from N.Y.U. used to school the arts the B.F.A.
this past May And now I'm sitting for a master's
of Arts Masters of Science in world history
with club University and the London School
of Economics I'll be in London next year setting
mostly middle east west relations so I am
a born in the US is from you're on my dad
is from Pakistan and I grew up with.
[01:07:57]
My parents sort of raise me to be very American
whatever that means and that's a defense mechanism
it's not their fault but there are certain
things that I grew up understanding the Middle
East through sort of an American ones my parents
didn't really tell me a lot about my heritage
or what we're doing here why no one else in
my family could get visa and why we can't
go there and is this These things were unclear
to me so.
[01:08:21]
I learned about you know with it like you
know war of the war on terror in school and
from the news and so I sort of pieced together
my own Middle Eastern identity I mean I'm
fully Middle Eastern like you know all the
blood that runs through my veins is not white
and yet my understanding of this heritage
is so white.
[01:08:40]
So I try and reconcile that through art is
there are so many Middle Eastern immigrants
who came here especially Persians who came
after the revolution like my parents did who
are going through the same thing of like what
am I doing here and so I made this website
called your fantasy dot net If you a Smart
Car know you do you can look at it right now
I don't care if you're not listening turn
the sound on you'll enjoy it so it's a paper
doll game basically where you can dress me
up in a series of stereo try types like ways
that I learned what a Middle Eastern woman
was like the first time I had no idea who
Middle Eastern was it was Jasmine from the
Latin like I don't really have another person
to look to you know and I mean like when I
was very young all my friends were like Aren't
you happy about that and I was like who is
what it's like and so.
[01:09:25]
You can dress me up is that there's also a
burka baby that's from the in the character
and it's me and it's really a boy but whatever
it's a burka and I'm holding it you know a
big A K forty seven and you can have a Koran
and you can look you know you can play with
me like that and that is like the wife of
ISIS an.
[01:09:44]
American Sniper It's like the mom who's extract
the bomb and like brings her kid like it's
that woman in homeland of the ad where the
woman in Homeland is looking and then she's
like surrounded by all these women burka so
that's not like literally at all like So it's
that that's in their character and then there
is.
[01:10:02]
A warmth in her name. The war torn woman how
could I forget that's the want the National
Geographic the refugee. Which. She was not
exactly. In show that that is the woman that's
me I actually want to focus on in this speech
about eugenics eugenics abroad so that is
a trope that's being used this woman for sure
this woman who is.
[01:10:31]
Because of the backwardness of her culture
going back to Samuel Huntington class of civilization
like she's part of this Middle Eastern culture
that is so. Disrespectful towards women and
can't seem to put salt gathered just inherently
violent and then you see women like these
off on refugee who is like tattered and like
always crying and is hungry and has all these
babies around her and she's like solving she's
unpoliced in Syria she's and young and she's
in Iran she's in Iraq.
[01:11:00]
Everywhere like so it's just this woman and
she is used like and around the time of the
eighty's that's when women's rights starts
popping up in the western world and starts
getting into reading the conversation of global
human rights and is really used as the reasoning
for so many Western interventions in the name
of women's rights into the Middle East so
she is a huge part of Laura Bush has this
amazing address in two thousand and three
about why.
[01:11:25]
U.S. needs to go to Iraq because the woman
in Iraq is so disrespected and we need to
go there and help her and what does that lead
to I mean that leads to so many such structural
violence upon that entire nation and community
which keeps any type of real governmental
structure that helps women like providing
health care and child care and all these things
that actually provide women rights instead
what that does is bring upon a huge war which
destroys all these things puts women the worst
place they were originally and that's another
form of eugenics if you really think about
it because women aren't able to reproduce
in a way that they want to or even have I
don't know there's so many different things
that go into there's violence on so many different
levels.
[01:12:07]
And I think that trope is just something really
interesting that's worthwhile to look at if
you want to learn more about that I would
read Dr Ablow gods do Muslim need save and
that's basically just regurgitating what she's
saying there but it's a true a true thing
and such a sight if you're curious your Arabian
fantasy you've done that.
[01:12:25]
Thank you.
