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ately hung up, but it was too late. I could hear the front door being unlocked and my mom’s gentle voice whis- pering to the ICE officers in Spanish. I’ve been thinking about this moment and my parents’ migration to the United States recently and how this has afforded me the privilege of and access to U.S. citizenship. It took them 10+ years to go through their process of naturalization that unfortu- nately involved this incident of deportation. Deporta- tions often happen in broad daylight and at wee hours of the morning so as to be discreet and not sound the alarm within the respective neighbor- hoods. In essence, there is a system in place that grants humans with the authority to disappear and move bodies. Lxs Desparecidxs. This event created a series of ghosts within the family that haunted us, in addition to the phenomenon of feeling islanded for being queer within this same family. What do you do with the presence of someone you love who is still alive yet no longer around? Does this qualify as a kind of death? This deportation happened during Obama’s tenure as president leaving my family bitter, torn, economically in debt, and stoking anti-Black sentiments. In 2021, I found out that I have roots connecting me to Angola, further complicating these anti-Black, anti-Indigenous
Let’s be real:
And as we know there were always beings, human and non-human, who were stewards of these lands before colonial forces came to lay claim over a place, disrupt- ing these ecosystems vibrationally by giving them a new name. What we name anything matters. What is your preferred name? What are your preferred pronouns?
There is no level playing field here. We have to co-create it and turn to nature and AfroIndige- nous stewards. There are several businesses in the form of industrial complexes with legislation that keeps the system well oiled and moving forward. There is a scarcity mindset that needs to be attended to coming from inherited and experienced trauma, and all of the systems need to be radically redesigned without perpetuating the same colonialist patterns, and people need to be compassionately held accountable without being dis- carded or executed. How do we move and create within a frequency of abundance when so much of our education and infrastructural systems are drilling into our subconscious that
Stolen. Wealth. Stolen from beneath our feet.
Voices silenced. Limbs shackled.
What happened to you that your prime directive has become to consume even to your own detriment? “More,” they said, “I want more. What I have isn’t enough. And therefore, I am not enough and I won’t be enough until I have everything. Give me everything so that I can hoard and fill the void of my existence with distractions that buy me time so I don’t have to feel my pain.” I’ve been guilty of this too though. Of piling on the workload as a way of running away from myself. Of hyperproductivity that gets in the way of calling in the kind of intimacy I desire. The beauty has been that
we are marginal, marginalized, working-class bodies, never going to amount to anything except the pipeline? I genuinely rebuke this on the daily.
And as we know there were always beings, human and non-human, who were stewards of these lands before colonial forces came to lay claim over a place, disrupting these ecosystems vibrationally by giving them a new name.
TURN-ONS: When I think about my American identity, I imme- diately think of the movie Mean Girls . There is something so iconic and poignant about how this film represents everything beautiful and terrible about this country through narratives centering high school coming-of-age motifs (and the lack of any BIQTPOC/BIPOC lead roles in the film…sur- prise surprise). I’m obsessed with Regina George. I’m obsessed with “on Wednesdays we wear pink.” I’m obsessed with the cheesy Christmas dance routine they do, especially when the CD player gets kicked into the mom’s face accidentally. I’m definitely into morbid humor. I LOVE a good burger with fries. I LOVE chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks and slushies on a hot summer night on the East Coast. I LOVE(D) smoking blunts. I LOVE brunch after a night out with the homies. I LOVE Whole Foods. I LOVE my BIQTPOC+++ lovers, cuties, who are my ride or die
So…how do we do this?
Follow your pleasure. Ask your heart. Take some time to listen to the frequency and tone of your Spirit. Together we can come up with a myriad of approaches. I don’t think the U.S. ever really felt like home until this last year when I was forced to stay and examine my American-ness.
no matter where in the world I have gone, my wounds were there to welcome me, asking me to attend to them. To hold them with reverence and acknowledge how they have shaped me. Even the darkest of shadows need love too and often contain the medicine you need and are meant to share with the world. III. It was 6:05am when the phone rang and my dad’s voice, full of terror, said “Go wake up your mom and sister and tell them NOT to open the door.” I immedi-
sentiments that have been expressed within the blood- line. How do you love someone even when their views do not align with your own? How do I account for the gaps in information I have been able to access and theirs? Intergenerational collaboration takes work. My mother eventually followed my sister’s journey back to Guatemala because if she didn’t, it would have delayed the process of either of them obtaining U.S. cit- izenship and potentially not being able to return at all. I couldn’t believe it. How could this be happening for a f****** piece of paper? How many people are wait- ing and continuing to wait? Waiting for the facade of a fractured American Dream?
What makes me American? What makes me cringe? What can I not say? What ancestral lineages claim me?
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
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