In Ireland we have an old saying
That you bloom where you're planted
Like a tree
When its replanted
We humans also need lots of tender love and care
And nurture and sunlight and water
And all the love we can get.
How would you describe yourself?
I was born and raised in Venezuela
My family's from India
I was born in Turkey
I'm Irish, I'm still in America on my green card
I have not become an American citizen in 44 years.
I'm from Indonesia
I'm Ecuadorian American
That's how I identify my self
Meaning that I was born here in the United States
but my parents are originally from Ecuador.
I'm Haitian American
I am an immigrant myself
because I came here
2 years and
9 months ago
It was very emotionally intense
Because when you have very strong ties to your country
Or the place where you always grew up
It's very hard to let go.
But when I came here I kind of hated it
because I felt like I was being taken away from my life
and my family, and my grandma who I adored so much
and all my friends back in Turkey.
Even though I was only 8
I still had a life on my own there
I was in school
Being born and raised here
and having to
teach my parents the American culture
or helping them to assimilate
into the American culture so.
Well since my parents are immigrants
They're more used to the indonesian customs
So I've grown up
thinking like an Indonesian
speaking like one
acting like one.
Since I was a kid
I've noticed
that you know I wasn't
Like I guess, I guess to paraphrase,
like the other kids
I spoke Spanish at home
I grew up learning english on television
It's kind of like I've straddled
two different worlds.
The cultural Indian world and then growing up in America
and being everything that it is
to be an American child and an American teenager.
And then some of the bad I would say,
would be some of the sterotypes I had to deal with
some of the obstacles of
having a family who didn't really understand the culture
They always say well
you dont sound like you're Haitian
because of the
accent as far as them having a French accent.
and they always say well
I dont look or theres always some sort of features
or how you know the dressing, the characteristic
as far as the clothing.
I grew up in a predominantly white town
in Pennsylvania
and I was the only Indian kid in the school
so it was kind of trying to figure out how to fit into a place
where I felt like I didn't really belong
So even though I go to a very diverse school
often times they think I'm not going to be able to solve a
math problem, because sterotypically
only Asian kids are good at math.
So, the typical Asian sterotypes
is something that most kids have to go through
that are Asian
since I go to an specialized film school
everyone thinks I can do everything
I can do all their jobs
I can do everything for them and I'd let it slide
and it just gives me more pressure
and makes my work go down and degrade myself
What I want for people to know is that
because I have an accent doesn't mean that I'm uneducated
What I want people to know is that because I have a
different culture than anybody else it
doesn't make me less human.
I want people to know that they should never
be ashamed of looking different than everyone else
Being an immigrant
or a child of immigrants
gives you a whole different perspective on the world
and it allows you to experience a culture
that many people don't even have access to.
Everyone to be happy
I really want, you know not about it being
the race and the culture and ethnicity
and where you're from and so forth
I mean its pretty much all one human race
I can remember when I was a child
my grandmother did not encourage me to play with other
children, to even enjoy or know of other holidays
such as Christmas
And now that I'm a grandmother I think I do
Quite the opposite
I encourage involvement of my grandson with all holidays
and with all children and with many different experiences
I was born right here in
New York City
and my mother's family which had the most influence on me
was from Russia, in a small Jewish ghetto called a Shtetl
I was born in Ciudad de Juarez, Mexico
Which is the border city with El Paso, Texas
So I grew up on the US-Mexico border
I grew up in both countries
It's very common to have a lifestyle
that deals with crossing back and forth between countries
sometimes everyday.
So I mean since before I was a year old
I was at consulates getting visas
and it was renewing visas
one visa after the other
And growing up in the US was a challenge
because I couldn't for a long time make plans for my future
I could only make plans for the expiration date of
my current visa
and then planning out how to get the next one
Right now I have a 10 year visa
and I can apply for a citizenship in a few years
Which is nice
I can now make plans for my life
What was most difficult of crossing back and forth?
What did you have to change?
Border patrol agents tend to be really intimidating
So I remember everytime we crossed the border
our parents would say
If they ask anything just say you were visiting your grandma
or say we just went to lunch
Even though we had done something completely different
we had a script
we had a
a scripted answer every time border patrol asked us
what we were doing
And to this day
everytime I cross a border patrol checkpoint
I know I'm being completely honest
but I feel something like I'm hiding something
Or you know
I think that's been the most difficult thing for me
As someone who grew up from a migrant family
what would you have liked your parents to do differently?
Well to accept more people who were called different
and to let me accept people who were different
not in the same
ethnic group and in the same religious group
I remember I had a boyfriend and he asked me
to go to the spring prom one year
and I knew I couldn't say yes
because he'd have to pick me up at home
and when my parents heard his name
which was very different
It was not a Jewish name
My mother and Grandmother especially
were very determined to keep us children in the fold
and didn't want us going out into the mainstream
Just being open and accepting and seeing and judging
and making friends and being aware of the big world
with many people in it
For some reason I've had to deal with this my whole life
you know being separated by a fence
from my family
and visas and not being able to see them
but I really hope that my children and my grandchildren
and so on
can
invest their energy into something different
I hope that what I'm doing in this lifetime
can really
in a way
heal
my bloodline
I think all human beings have the right to walk the earth
To explore this planet
And it just doesn't seem right to limit people's dreams
for political reasons
just because of a piece of paper
I'm from this country
You're from this country
and now I can never visit you
or you can never visit me, that doesn't seem right.
I just brought this because this picture reminds me
of how there's a space in the world that is really open
and feel's comfortable
and I feel like it's very real and honest
and it's like the ground
The same ground that my ancestors walked on
and the Indigenous people that were here before
pre-columbus
Walked on and it's like the same ground
it hasn't been developed
and that's something that's also really special to me
I feel like that's really rare kind of
I just moved to New York but I'm originally from New Mexico
I identify as multi-ethnic
but I guess specifically I identify as Native New Mexican
and Puerto Rican
and the New Mexican part is really important
because people don't recognize that it's a culture
that's actually really ancestral
and
a really important part of our countries history
because before New Mexico was a state
before we robbed it of Mexico
there was a group of people there
that had really important culture and food
and the language and everything
They've actually maintained it there
and it's called New Mexican culture
that's like my whole family on my mom's side
and on my dad's side im Puerto Rican
and that's also really important too because
there are things that are a part of that culture
and part of my culture that are so steeped in
Afro-descendent
ancestry and Taino ancestry
that's the Indigenous people that were there
before Columbus
So I just have a lot of pride when I say multi-ethnic
it's like definitely multi-ethnic
but there's
a lot of Afro-disasporic culture
Latino
Spanish
Jewish
and indigenous
all mixed into one
when I applied to middle school
my mom put on my application
she was checking
what ethnicity and she was checking
like Latino, Hispanic, Native American
and then she checked Black
and my dad was like
WHAT?!?
She's not Black
and my mom was like are you kidding me?
and they got in this huge fight about it and I guess
she was like well you can self-identify
you don't identify as Black
Ok we won't put that
But then later on I remember just having
a lot of conversations with my dad
where I kept being like
but dad you're followed around the store
the same way Black people are
I was stop by the police last weekend with my brother
in the car and he had to have a conversation with us
about it
White parents don't have to do that
Hi Dad
cause I've been studying so much about my culture
and it just didn't make sense like I'm half Black
and I have all these very African cultures
My Dad's spiritual belief's, religious belief's
and the food he cooks for us
everything just made sense to me
I'm half Black
My Dad is Black
but up until recently he really denied that
so even though it's so obvious
like people have kinky hair
People have dark skin
that they will
Not call themselves Black
And then they also do that for Indigenous
The Indigenous people all died after Columbus
They didn't, they're still Indigenous people
who dance, who have a culture
My grandmother always said my sister
looks like her grandmother who was Taino
they have the same face
but at the same time she'll say they all died
but it's not true
so I just think that there's a separation between
and that could really mess with someone's mind
especially if you're Black and Indigenous
you know it
and theres an inherent part of you that knows it
to have a double consciousness
always be like theres others but then there's also me
so it's just a really tough thing to grow up with
For me I think that, having a variety
of culture and a variety of people
and diversity I think thats really beautiful
and I think that its also just
kind of necessary for us to exist in interesting lives
