Author: Critical Ethnic and Community Studies

Decolonize this museum

Sofya Aptekar
TCCS Core Faculty

For the third year in a row, I observed Indigenous People’s Day this past fall by joining the Anti-Columbus Day Tour at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Even if you’ve never been in person, you might know this museum from the movie, Night At The Museum, where Ben Stiller plays a security guard. In general, I think most of us think of kids gawking at dinosaurs or maybe the giant whale hanging from the ceiling when we think of this museum. Pretty innocuous. Why, then, would a thousand protestors pack its halls screaming “Fire to the Colonizer”?

The Museum of Natural History is profoundly shaped by its active participation in settler colonialism and white supremacy. Aside from the dinosaurs and the giant whale, whole floors are devoted to racist displays of indigenous people of various regions. These dioramas feature thousands of artifacts (some sacred) taken from people across the globe, racist models and representations of human beings, and actual human remains, such as skeletons. As an organizer from Chinatown Brigade pointed out during the tour, exhibits of non-European, non-settler people – portrayed as primitive – are located between models of apes and displays of rocks and minerals.

Most of museum’s displays have not been changed in decades, sometimes not at all since being installed a hundred years ago. There have been no attempts to explain to visitors how the various artifacts have been acquired, not to mention the central role of this museum in the eugenics movement in the early 20th century. (NB: This museum actually hosted the International Eugenics Congress conference!) At the grand staircase entrance to the museum stands a statue of Theodore Roosevelt, who is celebrated inside as well. Roosevelt is riding a horse, towering over an African man on one side and a Native American man on the other. A city commission on symbols of hate in the city was split about what to do with this statue, and the activists demand that it be taken down because it celebrates settler colonialism and white supremacy.

Over $17 million dollars of public money flow into the museum every year, underscoring the need for this public institution to be held accountable to the very public it serves. This museum is also the place where hundreds of thousands of school children come to visit on school trips. New York City public school students, who are predominantly people of color, are exposed to exhibits that portray people of color in a degrading and dehumanizing way, without any contextual explanation.

The Anti-Columbus Day tour was certainly an opportunity to have a different experience in the museum. First, we gathered in a big hall as a group with our banners and signs, and used the people’s mic to communicate our goals for the tour. Then, Decolonize This Place brochures in hand, we split into groups to visit various exhibits on a self-guided tour, where we had “encounters” organized by participating organizations, which included NYC Stands with Standing Rock, Black Youth Project 100, South Asia Solidarity Initiative, Chinatown Art Brigade, and Take Back the Bronx. For example, in the Hall of African People, two young organizers with the Black Youth Project 100 used the people’s mic to talk about Ota Benga.

Benga was a Congolese man who was bought at a slave market and exhibited in the museum in the early 1900s. While they spoke, other participants unfurled huge banners from the second floor balcony reading, “Smash Patriarchy,” “Abolish White Supremacy,” and “Stolen Bodies on Stolen Land.” In the Hall of Biodiversity, activists covered the plaque of donors – which includes Monsanto – with a red banner that said “Support for AMNH provided by slavery, genocide, imperialism, and theft.”

At the end, we came together for a People’s Assembly, with hundreds of us sitting in an oval under the Great Canoe hanging from the museum ceiling. One speaker after another brought home the interconnectedness of so many struggles – deaths of indigenous women, police brutality, gentrification, Palestinian liberation, US military in the Pacific islands, and more. As the museum closed, we walked out together chanting Decolonize This Museum and filled the steps leading up to the Teddy Roosevelt sculpture, guarded tightly by the NYPD.

Read Jack Carolan’s article, “How to Make it in a Global City (Chances Are You Can’t…)”…

At this point you probably have a couple of questions. How can thousands of people do this in a museum? The organizers did tell the museum this would happen, in solidarity with the museum guards whom it would affect. What did other visitors to the museum think? My impression was that most were European tourists who were either bewildered or annoyed by our intervention. A few visitors did join the People’s Assembly and more than a few asked questions about what was going on. An organizer from the Chinatown Art Brigade standing in front of a display meant to represent some vague idea of Chinese culture was challenged by a tourist who said that he didn’t see a problem because he’d been to China and that’s what it looked like to him.


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What would decolonization of the American Museum of Natural History look like? Well, let’s take a look at the Museum of Vancouver as an example. Last year, I visited this museum and I was blown away by an exhibit exploring the museum’s own role in colonialism and examining how it told the story of Vancouver that excluded the Musqueam people who continue to live there. This is not to suggest that Canada is a country that currently and completely respects indigenous people’s rights (just one example of how it doesn’t). Instead, I believe this example provides some alternatives for ways that museums might grapple with their racist and colonialist legacies – for the public good.

In the case of the American Museum of Natural History, decolonization would begin by removing the Teddy Roosevelt sculpture; doing a major overhaul of the racist dioramas; providing extensive new signage that educates visitors about the museum’s history; and endorsing the call to rename Columbus Day Indigenous People’s Day in New York City.

What do you think? Is there a cultural institution in your life that could use some decolonization? How do we make it happen?

 

Sofya Aptekar is Assistant Professor of Sociology and core faculty of the Transnational Cultural and Community Studies program at University of Massachusetts Boston. Follow her @sofyaaptekar

No Justice, No Peace: Stop the killings in the Philippines #stopthekillingsPH

Izzie Villanueva
TCCS ’19

A photo of a young college male spray a cannon with spray paint
College student Timothy Manalo paints “#stopthekillingsph” and “Never Again to Martial Law” on the cannon during a commemorative action by Boston Pilipino Advocacy and Resources at Tufts University on October 13, 2018. (Image credit: Alonso Nichols/Tufts University)

On Saturday, October 13, 2018, Boston Pilipino Education Advocacy and Resources (PEAR) organized an action at Tufts University to continue the resistance against fascism and martial law. Organizers and participants wrote and painted on a cannon in honor of Filipino American History month in continuing the struggle for genuine freedom and democracy.

Hxstory of Painting the Cannon at Tufts

In 1977, the Fletcher School at Tufts University accepted a $1.5 million dollar grant from Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, former dictator and president of the Philippines. According to the Marcos family, this money was given to fund the East Asian studies program and create an endowed chair of East Asian and Pacific Studies. In response, Tufts University offered Imelda Marcos an honorary degree.

An drawing of a cannon on a red background with the words "Call to Action - Writing on the Cannon for the Philippines" beneath the cannon
An image from the flyer of the action.

On October 28th, 1977, Tufts students and faculty rejected these funds as a protest against martial law, the Marcos dictatorship, and US imperialism in the Philippines. In solidarity with the Filipino people who had been under martial law since 1972 under the Marcos regime, the campus quickly erupted into protests. Hundreds of students and faculty alike voiced their dismay with Tufts administration’s decision to take the grant, making it known that accepting money from a fascist regime cannot be free of political weight. Throughout their many visits to campus, the Marcos were consistently met by student protests drawing attention to their human rights violations in the Philippines.

This unrest led to the start of a tradition: Amidst protests, students painted the cannon for the first time as an act of opposition against Tufts’ willingness to host and accept money from the oppressive Marcos regime. The first painting of the Tufts cannon was a stand against martial law, political corruption, and human rights violations.

Martial Law in Mindanao
A photo of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

Today similar conditions in the Philippines persist: More than 25,000 Filipinos have been killed by government police and military since the commencement of Philippine President Duterte’s “War on Drugs” and implementation of martial law in Mindanao. Also notably, the U.S. military has given approximately $180 million in military aid to the Philippine military.

In May 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law on the entire island of Mindanao. Martial law, which extends military authority and allows for warrantless arrests and heightened surveillance, was supposedly enacted due to the Maute group’s attack in Marawi City. The official proclamation states, “the attack shows the capability of the Maute group and other rebel groups to sow terror, and cause death and damage to property not only in Lanao del Sur but also in other parts of Mindanao.” However, “the social unrest and armed conflict in the Bangasamoro region of Mindanao must be placed within the proper socio-economic and historical context. Lanao del Sur, the province where the Maute group operates, has the highest poverty rate in the Philippines, yet remains one of the most resource-rich in the country, a prime attraction for foreign corporations for lucrative investments and large-scale extractive operations” (BAYANUSA). The martial law order was originally signed to be enacted for 60 days, however in December 2017, Duterte declared the continuation of martial law in Mindanao for another calendar year.

Isang Bagsak

Back at Tufts, there were speakers and performers who shared personal experiences and historical information about the past and current state of the Philippines and Filipinx diaspora in the United States and Boston. I was excited to perform a spoken word poetry piece, ‘Isang Bagsak,’ and lead then group in the Unity Clap to end of the action.

The saying “Isang Bagsak” has a powerful history. The saying was used with the creation of the Unity Clap during the United Farm Workers Movement in the 1960’s. During this time, farmworkers, consisting of mostly Filipino/Filipina/Filipinx and Latino/Latina/Latinx farm workers (with notable leaders Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta) were protesting unfair labor wages and working conditions. Though there were language barriers, the farmworkers wanted to create a way to show solidarity and understanding with one another; at the end of each day, the farm workers would start the Unity Clap. Later the saying was also used during the People’s Power Movement/Revolution in the Philippines in February 1986 when protestors were demanding the removal of President Ferdinand Marcos and an end to martial law.

The Unity Clap begins slowly to the beat of one’s heart to symbolize the solidarity and oneness felt through similar struggles and experiences. The clap gradually increases in speed into a thunderous applause, and at the height, there is a pause for everyone in unison to say “Isang Bagsak” and ending with one large clap. “Isang Bagsak” is Tagalog for “one fall, all fall”, which can also be read as “one rise, all rise”. Many current Filipinx organizers now use the Unity Clap to end events and actions as a way of honoring those who came and resisted before us, so that we may continue their legacy and fight in the present and future.

Like the Unity Clap, our collective action and solidarity celebrated and validated different experiences, while still allowing us to come together in resistance against oppressive regimes, both historical and of the present day.

Despite the rainy weather, it was empowering to see and experience the support and validation of so many people gathered for an action that we all felt genuinely passionate about. Like the Unity Clap, our collective action and solidarity celebrated and validated different experiences, while still allowing us to come together in resistance against oppressive regimes, both historical and of the present day. While this action was partially to honor Filipino American History Month, the struggles faced by Filipinos under martial law and Filipinos in the greater diaspora are still taking place today; we deserve platforms to express and honor the legacies of those who have come before us as well as current modes of resistance. I look forward to seeing and organizing future events with Boston PEAR and further exploring my own Filipinx-American identity.

A group of college student activists after an action in which they painted a canoon with "Stop the killings" and "PH" in white spray paint
An inter-collegiate group of students representing Boston Pilipino Advocacy and Resources poses for a photo after an action to paint the cannon with the message “#stopthekillingsph” and “Never Again to Martial Law” at Tufts University. (Photo credit: Alonso Nichols/Tufts University)
Moving Forward

If you’d like to get involved and/or stay up to date on our events, like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BostonPEAR/

If you’d like to see a livestream from the day-of the action, click here.

As American as apple pie

Taina Teravainen
TCCS ’19

An infographic showing the extreme unlikelihood that perpetrators of sexual assault will convicted of a crime and incarcerated in the United States, courtesy of the organization RAINN
Content warning: Sexual Assault, rape, racism
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I was nineteen seven autumns ago. I had just moved 15,000 kilometers to Boston from Singapore, my home, for my freshman year of college. In photographs, the most striking thing about me from that year was my purple and black hair, split neatly down the middle. All the other parts of who I am weren’t so obviously portioned out and displayed. I imagined listing all my multitudes during the many upcoming introductions – I am Chinese and white. I’m a Singaporean with a U.S. citizenship. I had chosen Boston partly to be closer to my grandma in the South Shore, a place I visited most Junes, the place I was told harbored the other half of my
identity, as if I would always be divided into two, an entire part of me missing from myself.

As my parents and I drove past the Rainbow Tank toward downtown Boston, I was wedged in the backseat next to my new laundry hamper. Wow, I thought, I’m actually doing it. I feel just like an American teenager. A few days later, still in orientation, I had another experience that turns out to be common among college-aged women in America. I was sexually assaulted. I was raped multiple times that first semester by the same man, another freshman.

According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a person is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds in America. 9 out of 10 rape victims are female. Women in college between the ages of 18 and 24 are 3 times more likely than women in general to experience sexual assault. Most college sexual assaults happen from August through November. It may be hard to understand these figures. For me, it simply means that rape culture continues to thrive in America, and that when I’m in a room with other people, I am more likely than not there with another person who has been sexually assaulted.

We have endured an exhausting summer, and stumbled into a fall that feels so much like defeat. Brett Kavanaugh is now an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I’m unsure what this means for the people of America, but I know that a victim of sexual assault was told in front of this country and the world that her pain did not matter. Kavanaugh, her assaulter, would
not be punished nor denied any opportunities.

The man who raped me told me later that he had first come up to speak to me, when I was sitting alone reading in the dining hall, because I was Asian. He showed me a handwritten list of experiences he wanted to pursue in college, one of the top few being having sex with girls of different races. He was white and from a predominantly white Massachusetts town – the type of town the white side of my family lived in, where I was told held the answers to who I really was. To him, women of color were not individuals, just a box to check off on his scrap of paper. Having found out I was only half Asian after he raped me, he was uncertain if I counted.

When I encounter racism, it almost always, always holds the threat of gender-based violence. There is a tenable link between racism and sexism, and I cannot close my eyes to either, because sometimes they feel like one and the same. Racism and sexual violence are not merely American problems, but their presence dates back in the history of the U.S., a double-edged tool of oppression. Our anti-racist work and anti-sexist work should be intertwined, and these connections should be discussed openly and frequently.

How Water Taught Us to Laugh

Allie Richmond
TCCS ’19

A color photograph of sunset over a still body of water with trees on the horizon line

Water laughs. It giggles and gurgles in streams and brooks, and whispers amusement in creeks and springs that quietly trickle through dense forests and down rocks with moss. Water delivers unexpected bursts of joy on the drops of light rain that mysteriously wash over the earth as the sun shines on. It creates a patchwork of glittering diamonds in the sky. It cackles, as the rain turns heavy and pitted, as the wind carries it down faster in a deceivingly loud breath of life. Then it coos in contentment as smooth, crystalline water. Sweet and soft like the giggle of a child, revealing tender enthusiasm for bright days and warm dives below the surface.

Beguiling laughs lap the shoreline of the great coasts, the water tantalizingly immense and mysterious. Familiar up close, but further out and deep below, it continually shocks and startles – pulling one in closer to see more. Waterfalls pour over cliffs and outcroppings delivering hearty, bellowing larks that can be heard long before and long after they are seen up close. Water laughs in joy and sadness. It sarcastically scoffs at our meekness, leaving us cold as ice, sharp and judgmental – or, clear and concise. Water speaks of its amusement in many tones. It carries the echoes of ages, the most beautiful face to ever laugh without wrinkling up in the way humans do. We are unable to experience joy as profoundly as it does. But yet, it still shares with us, and encourages us to try.

I grew up next to a lake. It laughs a lot. In the wind it has short and clipped laughs, but these deepen into rolling gasps when the rain begins to tickle it. I use to listen to this laughter and join in as a child. I grew up and began to recognize each melody, when the water wanted company in its joy and remained still or playfully rambunctious, or when it had a private laugh, with rough bursts in high rises, and cutting falls in the sound waves, leaving it too difficult to join. So, in times of shared companionship, I would sail out on the still morning waters when the lake remained sleepy enough to only ripple in thoughtful acknowledgement, and interpret my own quiet laughter; the little inklings of dreams and thoughts that produce hidden smiles that dance at the corners of my lips.

I learned that people should be treated with the same observance and sincerity that the waves demand in their wake.

In times of reckless joy, the waters swelled up in waves curling like daring smirks, and I would swim deep and strong with a fiery soul or ride the waves at outrageous speeds to feel the bubble of nervous and excited laughter rise from my chest with each goal gained. I learned that all people take after water in this way. We exert certain tides to fit our moods. I learned that people should be treated with the same observance and sincerity that the waves demand in their wake. Water taught me to laugh, and how to laugh with others. It taught me to experience joy in many forms and to appreciate the ways in which life and feelings are expressed.

A hand-drawn image of a goddess-like human with an orb, clouds and plant-life surrounding her.
Allie Richmond 2018

The waves on the lake are where I found my playful spirit. The waves were also the ones of my warmest childhood memories of home. I still hear the lapping of the ripples along the peaceful evening shoreline, the sound similar to the sound of a puppy contently licking up water from her bowl. I still see the last glitters of sunlight fracture and dissipate along the rolling surface allowing slivers of clarity that reveal the swimming fish below. I still overhear the tingling laughter of my sisters as they splash in the shallows. Where the water is a warm with a welcoming smile after a long day in the hot sun. We were so young and charmed by life; the water reflected our soft naivety.

Read Zainab Zalawala’s article, “Using a Faucet is a Privilege” on the Flint water crisis and human rights in America (3/1/18)…

As I grew a little older, my parents brought us to the cabin – a little two room shack nearly indistinguishable from the trees around it. Here, I encountered the babbling creeks that brought the girlish laughter of teenage years. The excited and bubbling laughs that also flow in a nervous and shy manner. The creeks lead to a large muddled marshland full of unsure twists and moody pools of mucky waters. Here I realized that not all laughs are playfully shared, some are exerted in fear and trepidation. Laughter in the face of uncertainty, learning to compromise softness for tough determination not to let the sludge soaked bogs, ambiguous and changing, slow down my travels to a complete halt.

In the river waters I learned to create my own laughter and enjoy the movement of aging.

The low and slow laugh of the swamps, the kind that make one shudder, often give way to more level currents. The clogs of mud shift and become open rivers where laughter flows with strength and self-assurance. In the river near the cabin, my sisters and I would float along with the loud and boisterous laughter that makes all that touch it join on the rush of energy. We played in the rapids and waded into the deeper pools that swirled in determined delight. Life for the laughing river is fast-paced and constantly looking forward. The belting amusement of river rapids is consuming, direct, and incredibly influential. In the river waters I learned to create my own laughter and enjoy the movement of aging.

The year I moved to college, the tides changed completely. Luring laughs guided me to the coasts where laughs were different. Salty, with an undertow of ancient knowledge. The tidal pools swelled around me, teeming with lively giggles of deeper intuition that bespoke of the depths hidden from the shallow interest of curious eyes. New life, mixed with old experience, the ever-changing tides that mysteriously transform the landscape and renew the shores all the while dependable in its coming and going.

In these enticing grins left on the wet sand, I found my passion for life. Laughter became deep and rich, shared with the hopeful intellectuals and vibrant minds.

In these enticing grins left on the wet sand, I found my passion for life. Laughter became deep and rich, shared with the hopeful intellectuals and vibrant minds. The memories of many lives washed into our collective bay of understanding, just as the deep trenches of the ocean collect the remnants of old empires and ages, and I learned to share laughs to collect experience. I came to entertain the idea of temporary chuckles of immense understanding with temporary moments in time, and to extend my smiles curiously with passion and power.

Water collects our laughs. It categorizes each tone into natural music so that the earth can laugh and play as we do. We, in turn, learn to laugh again from the babbling brooks and whistling white waters. It is a cycle of happiness and joy that brings life to that which is empty. Just as water feeds the land and makes it grow lush and green, we grow up with laughter guiding us through the dark and the light. It feeds our souls and allows us to flow with the tides and currents of our lives.

A hand-drawn and painted image of an ethereal woman of the clouds being blown to the shoreline
Allie Richmond 2018

Navigating through the red tape for workforce development

Fernanda Macedo
TCCS ’19

Students learn hair cutting techniques at a cosmetology school.
Cosmetology students practice hair styling techniques. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/codnewsroom/15580904957

Have you ever wanted to help your community and been slapped in the face with bureaucracy when you attempted to do so? I have, to the point that I am getting a Master’s degree to help me research about the government red tape in my industry as well as to shed light on whom this bureaucracy is marginalizing in my community.

I am a cosmetologist by profession and would like to teach cosmetology to others who could benefit from learning this trade. I am also a Brazilian immigrant who understands the lack of workforce development that the Brazilian community faces in Massachusetts. I can make a difference and close the gap that my profession has provided me by teaching the profession to other Brazilian immigrants, some of the people in most need of workforce development. Along the process, I am finding out how and why the Brazilian community specifically is being marginalized by the current difficult access to enter the cosmetology industry in this state.

Along the process, I am finding out how and why the Brazilian community specifically is being marginalized by the current difficult access to enter the cosmetology industry in this state.

The beauty industry, much like any other field to which someone dedicates fully over many years, has the ability to provide financial stability for its professionals, benefiting that individual, their household, and also community. Therefore, I am using the TCCS program to best research the needs of my community with a long term goal of using that research to open a low-cost cosmetology school that meets those specific needs.

However, I have spent the first third of my master’s research facing the board of cosmetology’s bureaucratic and unresponsive structure. Many of the requirements to open a new cosmetology school in the state of Massachusetts, like square footage per student and minimum station numbers, are excessive and add to large overhead costs, making student tuition unnecessarily high. I am using all the tools I am learning in TCCS to put together my research findings to the board of cosmetology, to reveal to their policymakers that these excessively-high costs serve to marginalize the most at risk in the community, including those with the lowest opportunities for workforce development, like Brazilian immigrants, in Massachusetts.

I am using all the tools I am learning in TCCS to put together my research findings to the board of cosmetology, to reveal to their policymakers that these excessively-high costs serve to marginalize the most at risk in the community…

Since the Division of Professional Licensure of Massachusetts requires that anyone interested in becoming a cosmetologist must obtain a minimum of 1,000 cosmetology school hours and pass a written and practical state board exam, and also that no individual licensed cosmetologists can teach students outside of an accredited cosmetology school, I argue that access to affordable cosmetology schools is an important first step in improving workforce development for vulnerable members of the community, like Brazilian immigrants, who reside in this state.

Lastly, I hope to use my TCCS research to learn about policy change and how legislation is approved as well as changed. It was not until the early 2000s that the written Massachusetts state board exam required to obtain a cosmetology license became offered in Vietnamese and Spanish. Prior to that, cosmetologists like my grandmother paid and took the board exam every 6 months to maintain a legal permit to work at a beauty salon until her next attempt at an exam in a language she did not know, regardless of being the best cosmetologist I know.

Sometimes the need for change is obvious, but the red tape to make change happen is long and tangled. TCCS is helping me take it apart to improve Massachusetts’s cosmetology workforce development and to decrease institutionalized marginalization of vulnerable communities like my own Brazilian immigrant population residing all around the state.