Author: Critical Ethnic and Community Studies

The Power of Sharing

Jimena Cascante-Matamoros, TCCS ’19

Last April, I had one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

It all started when my Lesbian and Bisexual organisation called Colectiva IrreversibLes decided to start hosting poetry nights for women, this was several years ago. After a while we realized how few spaces we had in Costa

Paritcipants in a theater workshop hold and interact with chairs in non-traditional ways
Participants in a workshop organized by the author. (Photo credit: Virginia Paguaga López.)

Rica to share our poetry, so I decided to organize a spoken word poetry workshop for women. As a result of that workshop we started a spoken word group, Poesía Irreverente. After being together for a year some of us decided to separate from the group, and we felt the need to organize and, this time, also facilitate ourselves (my wife and I), a second spoken word poetry workshop this time only for Lesbian, Bisexual women and Non-binary people.

As a result of this second workshop, “Las Les-bi-anas hablamos,” we ended up forming another spoken word poetry group, Voces Fieras. With this group, we wanted to explore beyond spoken word and we wanted to share this experience with others. We decided to take upon a bigger project, to connect with other Lesbian and Bisexual Women and Non-binary people. So we started to connect with people we knew to decide on ideas, dates, possible venues and how to find funding.

A few months later we decided to put on this event during Holy Week in a dance studio in Masaya, Nicaragua We would finance the event ourselves to have complete autonomy. We decided collectively we wanted a space to

Silhouettes of two people, one person standing on a chair, the other person with a chair over their head
Participants in an exploratory movement-based workshop. (Photo credit: Virginia Paguaga López.)

exchange knowledge in artistic forms. We launched a call for submissions asking for a small symbolic fee to pay for the venue where we were also going to sleep and for the food. It was a very experimental event and a lot depended on the people signing up.

A few months later we decided to put on this event during Holy Week in a dance studio in Masaya, Nicaragua We would finance the event ourselves to have complete autonomy. We decided collectively we wanted a space to exchange knowledge in artistic forms. We launched a call for submissions asking for a small symbolic fee to pay for the venue where we were also going to sleep and for the food. It was a very experimental event and a lot depended on the people signing up.

We also performed and organised fundraising events in Costa Rica to help pay for the bus fees and some of the lodging. In the end, we gathered 6 women from Costa Rica and 6 from Nicaragua to get together for 4 days and exchange workshops including clowning, contact dance, Playback Theater, Theater of the Oppressed, writing in couples and spoken word poetry – all while taking turns cooking, cleaning and always maintaining a safe and respectful space for all.

These four days of exchanging art, experiences, love, food and knowledge left us with our hearts full and a wanting for more.

We are working on other exchanges with other Central American women in the years to come where we can keep learning from each other while creating our own spaces, where we can keep creating and exploring our art and connecting with others with whom we share so much yet know so little about.

A group of people in a studio with their arms intertwined
Participants in an embodied theater workshop. (Photo credit: Virginia Paguaga López.)

***

This video is a small recollection of what those 4 days were about. It was created by Nicaraguan filmmaker Virginia Paguaga López. The subtitles were added by Costa Rican artist Angélica Azofeifa.

To Mourn and Give Thanks: Some Thoughts on November

Dr. Cedric Woods, Director for the Institute for New England Native American Studies (INENAS)

For many Americans, November conjures up images of turkeys, pies, and English colonists with large black hats with buckles, with Native Peoples joining these Puritan dissenters in a feast. President Lincoln institutionalized a uniform celebration of this American myth in 1863, a time of deep division and civil war in American society.  

In his establishment of the day of Thanksgiving and Praise, Lincoln encouraged his fellow citizens when “offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also… implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”*

Picture showing sign at National Day of Mourning protest reading "Dismantle the Discovery Doctrine"
National Day of Mourning, November 2017 (photo credit: Myles Green)

Frequently, contemplation of the relationship between Native Peoples and Puritan immigrants that gave rise to the legend of Thanksgiving is neglected. Instead, Thanksgiving is a time for food, family, and shopping. If there is a thought to the Native Peoples–in this case, the Wampanoag, who served as hosts to the English immigrants –it is around what they brought to the feast, or if the feather headdresses used by the children in local plays look authentic.

Rarely do we discuss what became of those Native Peoples in subsequent years at the hands of those they sheltered. Rarely is any thought given to what became of the Indigenous hosts of the Puritans, and how they fare in their homelands today.  

This ignoring of the history of Native Peoples in America led to alternative programming around this day called “The National Day of Mourning,” in Plymouth, MA. Plymouth is viewed as the location of the events around which the contemporary American Thanksgiving holiday is based (http://www.uaine.org/).

At the National Day of Mourning, many contemporary indigenous People and their allies gather to remind America that Native Peoples still exist, if only as a shadow of our former numbers before sustained contact with Europeans.  

The National Day of Mourning is a call that in the middle of the day of Thanksgiving and Praise, contemporary Americans remember the harm brought by their ancestors upon the Original Peoples of the Americas through direct actions of warfare, enslavement, and dispossession, or as Lincoln would describe it, “national perverseness and disobedience.”

A crowd listens to speakers at the annual National Day of Mourning 2017
A crowd listens to speakers at the annual National Day of Mourning 2017, Plymouth, MA (photo credit: Myles Green)

It is easy to become locked in the binary of which to commemorate: the near extinction of the Wampanoag and other Native Peoples via a National Day of Mourning; or the celebration of bounty and Thanksgiving that focuses only on the contemporary blessings of the American nation state, while ignoring the cultural erasure of Indigenous Peoples.

Programs like TCCS challenge faculty and students to move beyond this false binary via critical analysis of the past and present, and a visioning for the future.  

As such, we examine the complexities of relationships, not just between Europeans and Native Peoples, but also African Peoples and Native Peoples, and enslaved peoples and free peoples. We explore how these interactions continue to shape who and what we are today.

In this spirit, we recently hosted a panel discussion this week: Indigenous and African Intersections: Emerging Topics, Experiences, and Shared Histories. This event was co-sponsored by TCCS, the Trotter Institute, and the Institute for New England Native American Studies.

Engaging diverse perspectives of Native elders, leaders, and a descendant of enslaved Africans of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, we will look at how the past still impacts our present, and how we can avoid repeating the mistakes of our ancestors. We will expand the conversation about how these lessons do, or should, impact future relationships with our contemporary neighbors. .  

Rather than focusing on self-interest or a zero sum game of politics and power, we can develop relationships based on reciprocity and respect.

I challenge us all to think of this time of harvest as an opportunity to move beyond attacking or supporting the myth of the original Thanksgiving to develop “a concept (where Thanksgiving) [is] a state of being. [Where we] want to live in a state of thanksgiving, meaning that you use the creativity that the Creator gave you.”**

* Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler et al.

**Ramona Peters in “The Wampanoag Thanksgiving Experience,” Indian Country Today.

Recruiters’ Paradise

Sofya Aptekar, TCCS Core Faculty

On November 11, currently recognized as Veterans’ Day in the United States, I attended a screening of Island Soldier at the DOC NYC film festival. Island Soldier presents the story of Kosraens – citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) – in the US military. Micronesians, who are not US citizens, enlist at high rates, and face a devastating lack of support and services after they leave the military.

Compact of Free Association
The Federated States of Micronesia is a group of small islands scattered over an immense territory northeast of Papua New Guinea. Micronesians have suffered under and resisted European colonialism for centuries. In the 20th century, Kosrae Island was colonized by Japan until the United States occupied it after WWII.

Under President Reagan in the 1980s, FSM gained independence, but remained connected to the United States through the Compact of Free Association. In exchange for US military control over FSM’s vast ocean territory, US would provide aid. Under the compact, FSM citizens can enlist in the US military.

“Leaving to fight with white people”
FSM has a higher number of Army recruits per capita than any US state. Impoverished by colonialism, islands like Kosrea offer few opportunities that can trump the $18,000 starting salary for a recruit. The average yearly income on Kosrea is about $2000, while staples and gasoline are much more expensive than in the US. An 18 year old enlistee makes more than the governor of the island.

In Island Soldier, we see Kosreans who are veterans of wars in Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. When they return home, they have no access to VA benefits. There is no GI Bill for education. There is no health care. There are no housing loans. Some veterans resort to paying for air fare to Guam or Hawaii (x hour flights) so they can access their health care benefits.

“We die for others.”
Island Soldier profiles Sapuro “Sapp” Nena, a young Kosrean who died in Afghanistan. His mother remembers Sapp’s inner turmoil over his work in Afghanistan. Looking at snapshots of Sapp with Afghani villagers, his mother recounts him telling her: “They say I am one of them. I look like them.” After his death, Sapp’s best friend, Mario Robles, raises money to come visit Kosrea and meet Sapp’s family in a wrenchingly emotional scene. FSM does not just hold the record for recruitment: it has lost five times more soldiers than the average for the US.

I was curious about Island Soldier because of my ongoing research project on immigrant soldiers in the US. Although the film does not grapple with these questions, the story of Micronesian soldiers is part of the larger story of the poverty draft. Across the US, there are communities with high levels of enlistment in the military, where the military is seen as the best career option for young people living in poverty. What makes Micronesian soldiers unique is that when they go home, the net of benefits that veterans are entitled to is missing. That makes them similar to another group of US veterans – those who have been deported to their countries of birth under the current crimmigration regime. While Micronesian soldiers can travel to the US to access some benefits, deported veterans are barred from returning for life.

 

Bringing Their Ancestors Back Home

Taina Teravainen, TCCS ’19

On October 7, citizens of Nipmuc Nation gathered to commemorate the forced removal of their ancestors from South Natick in 1675, during King Phillip’s War. This bloody period of armed conflict between the New England colonists and the Wampanoag, Podunk, Narragansett, Nashaway and Nipmuc nations led to massive amounts of human casualties and destruction for both sides. The Native peoples had attempted to push the colonists out after enduring years of unfair land and arms deals.

Participants in the Deer Island Commemoration launch from Boston Harbor to paddle to Deer Island
Participants in the Deer Island Commemoration launch kayaks from Boston Harbor to paddle to Deer Island

Many of the Nipmuc people had converted to Christianity, but the colonists remained distrustful of them during the war. At least five hundred Nipmucs were put in shackles and transported by water to an isolated concentration camp on Deer Island, without enough food, proper clothing and shelter to carry them through the harsh winter. Most of the Nipmucs died on the island; few were able to make it back to their homeland at the end of the war.

I was there for this year’s memorial on Deer Island, along with other non-native people and native people from other nations, as a spectator, a witness, and as a form of support. 24 people were retracing the Nipmuc ancestors’ water route in reverse, paddling in two canoes from Deer Island back to the falls in Natick. Around five volunteers were walking around 11 miles from Brighton to meet up with the paddlers. It was to be a long grueling journey – but one that also allowed the participants to recall what had been inflicted on the Nipmuc ancestors.

Commemorative plaque on Deer Island (Boston, Mass.)

I’m an American that only began living in the U.S. at age 19. It’s been seven years since I moved to this country, and I’ve realized that I’m not alone in my ignorance about the histories of Native peoples in the U.S. There is a frustrating lack of acknowledgement, awareness and discussion of the past and present experiences of Native peoples within education and social contexts, barring environments where there is a concerted effort to do so.

Since I began living in Massachusetts, I have had the privilege to spend great swaths of time contemplating what I wanted to do here. I’ve never really stopped to think about under what circumstances I am able to do so. I’m currently taking a graduate course called “Community Formation and Development” with Dr. Cedric Woods, the director of the Institute for New England Native American Studies at UMB, and a citizen of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. However, he still identifies himself as a guest of the Native peoples of this state. His words reminded me that I too am a guest – so many of us are – and that I have responsibilities as one.

Marcus Hendricks, grandson of Nipmuc sachem Mary Anne Hendricks, wasn’t taking part in the sacred paddle or walk this year, but was part of the logistics and support faction. He was one of the Nipmuc citizens present who spoke of their people’s connection to the water in the Boston Harbor and their hopes to leave the world in a positive state for future generations. They spoke of resistance – some were thirteen generations removed from the internment, but they were still there and still standing. They spoke of being able to continue gathering, year after year, to bring their ancestors back home.