WEBVTT

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It's very good
that, because that

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is sort of given
preponderance to the visual.

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Is a way of oppressing cultures.

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You know?

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Because the
majority, for example

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when they speak
of the Indigenous,

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I always get the sense that
people think, Oh, she's

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speaking like for
example, in Chile,

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I'm often ridiculed
for being an Indian.

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And why is it
because people have

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this idea that the
Indians are minorities?

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And there are the
primitive peoples?

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Nobody thinks that
there are 380 million

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of Indigenous peoples who
still live in oral cultures

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like people have lived
for millions of years.

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So this preponderance
of the visual

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is something that is not
experienced by the majority

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of people in this planet.

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However, this wants
to be imposed.

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So that's why
people, for example,

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that when you have a colonizing
effect of the dominant culture,

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people can adopt the images
of the dominant culture.

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But they very rarely
give up their sounds.

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And I think that is something.

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It's like a resistance
of connectivity

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with the ancient spirit that is
transmitted through the ability

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to hear, which is dimensionless.

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As a desert rat, I
encourage you to reflect

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on how racism is being played
in Arizona today as visitors.

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It's the Black, white sort of
racist discourse, is not if--

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you can learn from it, but
it's Brown and white here.

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And so it's really
interesting when

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you look at how
Mexican-Americans, Mexicans,

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Latinos, ethnic studies,
immigration, it's

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all this politics
of just want to say,

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you're supposed to be invisible.

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So Trayvon Martin
is fine, we learn,

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we understand what there's
acts that are going

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on today that are very toxic.

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Then Cecilia, the question
about your piece was beautiful.

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The desert, what we have,
we'll be gone, thank God.

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And the fact that the whole
time you were doing this,

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it sort of--

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I kept thinking about the
power of ritual and ceremony,

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which within this Indigenous
Southwest we see it.

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We have holidays around it.

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And so it's really interesting.

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Then I was trying to
think about how does

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that work with film and text?

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In terms of ceremony?

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If we wanted to kind of
put ourselves in that frame

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for a moment.

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Just thoughts.

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It's a wonderful thought.

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For example yesterday I
went for the second time

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to the so-called reservation.

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I do not understand how
this world came to be.

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I mean, it is so offensive.

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So offensive, just as a name.

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For a place, you know?

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But there I was, and so
I have been translating

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some of the poetry of the
Southwest, the sacred poetry

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of the Southwest for
more than 20 years.

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So for me it's really
a thrill to be here,

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to be in the land that
generated this poetry that

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has been sustained for
thousands of years,

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through ceremony and ritual,
and never through text.

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And I encountered
this lady who told me

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we don't speak about it.

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So that's how it's kept alive.

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By not writing and
not speaking about it.

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But how can that be so
contrary to the Western idea?

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You see?

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And yet it is so powerful, that
it really generates such force.

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However powered up it
may be, it will surface.

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And I know, I am with
you, the desert will win.

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The deserts will continue.

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The Black white,
there's a sportscaster.

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And anytime that anything
happens that is racially,

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he says, oh, it's a
Black white, and then

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the other guy goes you mean
it's another Black white.

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Like, yeah, it's a Black white.

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And it just it's code
for it's something

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between the dominant
and the non-dominant,

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or the Black, the white,
the brown, the white.

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So I think to say that here
is the question is brown,

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I think the black white is
any form of discrimination

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in this country by the
majority against the minority.

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So in a way you're also
talking about gay marriage.

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You're talking
about immigration.

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And that's why we call
this piece "Undocumented"

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because we're also talking
about undocumented.

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It's the same impotence
is what spreads out

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into oppression across.

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And I think it's a
mistake to see it

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as, well, you might
think the Black white,

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but here it's the brown.

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That's bullshit.

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It's all the same.

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It's all the same.

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I didn't-- I didn't--

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I was just trying to say you're
here, visitors, you should--

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No, no, no, I'm understanding.

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But I'm saying--

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I use the language of the
politics of dis-belonging,

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understanding that
marginalization

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happens all the time.

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Right.

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But it's so easy to
reduce it to Black/white,

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and I want to keep that--

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I want to rupture that.

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I want to create a
critical witness that

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says, no, it's more than that.

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We know it.

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I get what you're saying.

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I didn't have a
problem with the word.

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No, no, no, it's not a
question of having a problem,

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but I do think it's a
good thing to bring up,

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because I think it becomes
emblematic of a condition that

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plays itself out over and over
and over again, but points

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to different-- at one
time it was women,

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and probably if Romney gets in,
it will be women again, right?

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And it just-- but
it's the same dynamic.

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It's a question of limiting
the rights of certain people.

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Because they don't
have the power.

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That's it.

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It's just like in
order to maintain

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a certain kind of power,
all of these other people

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should have none.

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And but I do think that
what goes on for Brown men,

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Black men, in this country,
it's not that dissimilar.

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It's the same dynamic.

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They're all Black men, in a way.

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Black man is just the paradigm
for that kind of condition.

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I-- thank you.

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I just want to thank
you all for coming.

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Let's give our artists a great.

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[APPLAUSE]

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