all want to speak to you first in line
is a large black bird it is huge and its
wings are enveloping you they’re lifting
you up into their wings it is beautiful
they’re holding you and stuffing flowers
into your mouth red yellow and black
flowers eyes closed
the chakra reader said this to me
apparently seeing whatever visions I was
unknowingly projecting out of my body
chills run down my spine as I heard this
it was the first time I’d ever had a
chakra reading and I couldn’t make heads
or tails of it weren’t black birds every
Goths mascot they were symbols of death
a messenger of hard times suffering and
destitution what did it mean that this
bird the symbol of despair was carrying
me and feeding me later on that day at
home safely away from the terror
realizing that I was unknowingly
projecting this thing that in my body I
began to realize what exactly that
particular vision actually meant the
answer crept into my mind and has stayed
with me so that I could share it with
you all now earlier that year I had been
asked to create an altar for local Day
of the Dead exhibition for those of you
that don’t know the other dead ordeal
smart those in the state as a way for
some Mexican Americans to honor their
ancestors through procession altars and
art this exhibition an honor for those
that had passed on was an opportunity
for me to honor my uncle who had
recently passed away a survivor of the
japanese-american prison camps he along
with the tire of my entire mom side of
my family endured for years incarcerated
during World War two for simply being of
Japanese ancestry they were uprooted
from their homes jobs and businesses and
everything they were only allowed to
carry one suitcase with them to live in
prisons constructed on barren lands
it’s oftentimes located on Native
American reservations which brings up an
interesting point my family’s story is
one all too common for Native and people
of color in America existing in many
forms this is the underlying legacy of
government policy
fueled by racial hatred that is still
alive and well today to scapegoat entire
groups of people is a strategy that we
see play out we talk about ending daca
we talk about starting a Muslim travel
ban allowing privatized prisons and
continuing the cycle of the prison and
military industrial complex these are
all current policies that have roots in
the genocide of negative people that
have roots in the enslavement of African
Americans that have roots in the
deportation of Mexican migrant workers
through the bracero program and that
have roots in the Chinese Exclusion Act
these histories of systematic and
Justices will no doubt continue and that
is why we need to continue to speak up
and remember the entire history of this
country and the racist laws that have
shaped it so in creating this art piece
for Day of the Dead I wanted to create
an homage for him my uncle a high school
student who shipped off to the Navy as
the rest of his family remains in prison
in the camps I wanted to create an altar
for the entire generation of
japanese-americans who lived through
that camp and who were passing on now
taking that legacy with him and I wanted
to create an altar for the rest of my
family who live on and still carry that
trauma how would I do this how would I
create this homage that honored my
family their legacy and this history in
an appropriate way
then I remembered visiting the Japanese
American National Museum and remembered
a volunteer tour guide himself a
survivor of the camps who showed us a
photo of a funeral that was happening in
the camps he showed us a picture of a
beautiful floral wreath adorning a
casket and told us how he should look
closer because all of those flowers on
that wreath were made by hand out of
so this is a footage film footage of
Japanese prisoners in the camps I think
this is heart mountain Wyoming and
they’re creating paper flowers together
I’ll be all to be instructed constructed
this is the finished wreath I realize
then in my own practice as an artist
I’ll be in subtle ways I’ve always tried
to represent the ways we cope I am very
interested in simple small survival
mechanisms we enact even subconsciously
to find moments of healing in moments of
catharsis and connection in the face of
familial and historical trauma whether
is choosing to pick people in
self-medicated bliss or friends in an
intense karaoke session or the look on a
friend’s face during an emotional
breakup all these moments including
times of alienation and injustice are
painful but necessary to heal and grow
as beings as people we look for
connection as a means for survival in
these Japanese American prison camps
communal crafting and making flowers was
not only a way to honor the dead but a
way to serve as a way to connect and
mourn together as a community so in the
meaning behind the blackbird vision the
meaning behind it became clear the bird
a symbol of hard times was nurturing me
in the way a bird feeds their young by
stuffing food into their mouths the
blackbird was feeding me the flowers had
honored those hard times that image told
the story of myself as an artist being
inspired inspired and nourished by those
flowers that were born out of that
trauma I realized on his artists and his
people we have the strange ability to
take something awful something traumatic
and transform it we can find inspiration
in moments we’d rather forget and we can
take that memory and rework it and own
it every visit of this floral and lodge
project in many forms but realize that
the crux its meaning is underlying need
of artists and people in general to take
pain and suffering and turn it into
cumin creation connection and
inspiration thank you [Applause]