WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.280 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:00:08.280 --> 00:00:10.120 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:00:10.120 --> 00:00:13.350 align:middle line:84% I feel some responsibility to bring you up to date 00:00:13.350 --> 00:00:16.980 align:middle line:84% as to what's going on here, because I 00:00:16.980 --> 00:00:19.710 align:middle line:84% was the professor across the hall from the demonstration 00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:23.070 align:middle line:84% that happened here when the border patrol came 00:00:23.070 --> 00:00:25.440 align:middle line:90% into the building. 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:27.100 align:middle line:90% Confine myself to facts. 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:33.600 align:middle line:84% But right now, we are a Hispanic serving institution. 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:35.580 align:middle line:90% We make a great deal of that. 00:00:35.580 --> 00:00:37.410 align:middle line:84% Right now, the University Police are 00:00:37.410 --> 00:00:41.910 align:middle line:84% in the process of using technology and interviewing 00:00:41.910 --> 00:00:46.500 align:middle line:84% everybody they can to seek out all of the demonstrators 00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:51.270 align:middle line:84% and serve them with papers one by one. 00:00:51.270 --> 00:00:53.880 align:middle line:90% Now we have three. 00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:56.400 align:middle line:84% They're continuing that process until-- 00:00:56.400 --> 00:00:59.100 align:middle line:84% the goal is, the policeman who interviewed 00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:02.100 align:middle line:84% me said, to find all the demonstrators 00:01:02.100 --> 00:01:04.050 align:middle line:90% and to bring them in. 00:01:04.050 --> 00:01:09.690 align:middle line:84% So I wanted you to comment on that particularly since you're 00:01:09.690 --> 00:01:11.250 align:middle line:90% at our sister institution. 00:01:11.250 --> 00:01:16.140 align:middle line:90% And at what point does one-- 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:19.080 align:middle line:84% at what point does one begin to act out? 00:01:19.080 --> 00:01:21.150 align:middle line:84% I'm a veteran of the Act Up demonstrations. 00:01:21.150 --> 00:01:27.540 align:middle line:84% And so just speak to that question if you would, please. 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:29.100 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:29.100 --> 00:01:30.750 align:middle line:90% This is, I think, my question. 00:01:30.750 --> 00:01:33.780 align:middle line:90% And I think in a lot of spaces-- 00:01:33.780 --> 00:01:37.290 align:middle line:84% there are a lot of groups doing a lot of work. 00:01:37.290 --> 00:01:39.700 align:middle line:84% My partner and I were just talking about that. 00:01:39.700 --> 00:01:44.250 align:middle line:84% And I think sometimes from within the institutions, 00:01:44.250 --> 00:01:46.710 align:middle line:84% at least this is one lens of it, is that we say, 00:01:46.710 --> 00:01:48.690 align:middle line:84% OK, well, people are doing a lot of work, 00:01:48.690 --> 00:01:52.830 align:middle line:84% and I don't want to step on that work or reproduce that work 00:01:52.830 --> 00:01:55.210 align:middle line:84% or pretend that work hasn't been happening. 00:01:55.210 --> 00:01:59.820 align:middle line:84% And so we in some ways insulate ourselves. 00:01:59.820 --> 00:02:03.690 align:middle line:84% But this is one of my big questions 00:02:03.690 --> 00:02:09.449 align:middle line:84% is, what can we do from within the institution? 00:02:09.449 --> 00:02:13.050 align:middle line:84% What kinds of pressures can we put on the very institutions 00:02:13.050 --> 00:02:18.630 align:middle line:84% that are also receiving the monies from these privatized 00:02:18.630 --> 00:02:20.760 align:middle line:90% institutions? 00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:24.750 align:middle line:84% We teach in Arizona, so most of the state money that's 00:02:24.750 --> 00:02:28.740 align:middle line:84% coming through has been touched by these privatized prisons 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:31.980 align:middle line:90% and detention centers. 00:02:31.980 --> 00:02:35.490 align:middle line:84% I'm fairly new to academia, and this 00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:37.620 align:middle line:84% is I think one of my big questions. 00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:39.390 align:middle line:84% I think it's one of the questions of many 00:02:39.390 --> 00:02:40.380 align:middle line:90% of our young people. 00:02:40.380 --> 00:02:43.980 align:middle line:84% And in some ways, I think we are actually probably looking 00:02:43.980 --> 00:02:49.110 align:middle line:84% more toward people like you who have done some of that-- 00:02:49.110 --> 00:02:53.040 align:middle line:84% those initial works when the works were still 00:02:53.040 --> 00:02:56.400 align:middle line:90% new at that time. 00:02:56.400 --> 00:02:57.570 align:middle line:90% That's my biggest question. 00:02:57.570 --> 00:03:00.990 align:middle line:84% Is it enough that I can talk with my students 00:03:00.990 --> 00:03:05.010 align:middle line:84% and give them a different set of lenses then to go out 00:03:05.010 --> 00:03:06.810 align:middle line:90% into the community with? 00:03:06.810 --> 00:03:10.530 align:middle line:84% Or is it more the fact that, no matter 00:03:10.530 --> 00:03:13.920 align:middle line:84% what I do, my institution is large enough 00:03:13.920 --> 00:03:18.820 align:middle line:84% that it can umbrella me and still keep me in my place, 00:03:18.820 --> 00:03:21.180 align:middle line:90% so to speak? 00:03:21.180 --> 00:03:23.820 align:middle line:84% And I also think this for me is one 00:03:23.820 --> 00:03:27.780 align:middle line:84% of the most important reasons why I might be in Arizona, why 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:33.720 align:middle line:84% I might be back here, why we might all be back here. 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:35.730 align:middle line:84% One of the ways I think about Arizona 00:03:35.730 --> 00:03:41.640 align:middle line:84% is that it's in some ways like the original-- 00:03:41.640 --> 00:03:45.960 align:middle line:84% it's one of our original sins, in a way. 00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:48.630 align:middle line:84% A lot of the policies that happen across our nation 00:03:48.630 --> 00:03:54.570 align:middle line:84% have started in very small ways in Arizona, 00:03:54.570 --> 00:03:58.570 align:middle line:84% whether it's trying out new surveillance technology, 00:03:58.570 --> 00:04:03.000 align:middle line:84% whether it's implementing new procedures on the border, 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:07.830 align:middle line:84% whether it's a border patrol, whether it's in some ways 00:04:07.830 --> 00:04:12.240 align:middle line:84% just a replication of the ways we built reservations here, 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:16.380 align:middle line:84% the ways we put internment camps here next to reservations. 00:04:16.380 --> 00:04:18.089 align:middle line:90% This is all the same system. 00:04:18.089 --> 00:04:23.310 align:middle line:84% And for me, again, I don't have the answer what to do 00:04:23.310 --> 00:04:25.020 align:middle line:90% or even if I have-- 00:04:25.020 --> 00:04:27.900 align:middle line:84% I think the question I'm asking every day 00:04:27.900 --> 00:04:31.920 align:middle line:90% is, what can my poetry do? 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:34.070 align:middle line:84% Like some days, I wake up and I think I'm a poet. 00:04:34.070 --> 00:04:37.860 align:middle line:84% Like, what does that even mean right now? 00:04:37.860 --> 00:04:42.630 align:middle line:84% Something my partner and I talk a lot about is language. 00:04:42.630 --> 00:04:47.640 align:middle line:84% That question-- what is the language we need today? 00:04:47.640 --> 00:04:49.560 align:middle line:84% The same way I asked it in regard 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:52.590 align:middle line:84% to my indigenous language, which is a language 00:04:52.590 --> 00:04:58.260 align:middle line:90% my community needed and needs. 00:04:58.260 --> 00:05:02.400 align:middle line:84% But for me, the thing that I think I am most-- 00:05:02.400 --> 00:05:03.780 align:middle line:90% I'm not hopeful. 00:05:03.780 --> 00:05:07.700 align:middle line:84% That's something-- I feel really exhausted by hope. 00:05:07.700 --> 00:05:10.550 align:middle line:84% And I don't mean that in a way to take that-- 00:05:10.550 --> 00:05:13.820 align:middle line:84% If hope is something that belongs to you and you need, 00:05:13.820 --> 00:05:17.300 align:middle line:84% I say we keep what we need and use it. 00:05:17.300 --> 00:05:21.530 align:middle line:84% But I think hope, to me, is actually a very pessimistic 00:05:21.530 --> 00:05:22.490 align:middle line:90% word, it seems like. 00:05:22.490 --> 00:05:24.230 align:middle line:84% It seems as if we aren't actually 00:05:24.230 --> 00:05:25.625 align:middle line:90% investing in the future. 00:05:25.625 --> 00:05:27.500 align:middle line:84% It's like, well, I hope, and suddenly there's 00:05:27.500 --> 00:05:31.670 align:middle line:84% this big chasm between action and what 00:05:31.670 --> 00:05:34.490 align:middle line:84% I'm hoping might become of something. 00:05:34.490 --> 00:05:38.520 align:middle line:84% But for me, the constellating of all of these things, I think, 00:05:38.520 --> 00:05:40.940 align:middle line:90% will be the most powerful. 00:05:40.940 --> 00:05:44.420 align:middle line:84% We talk a lot about intersectionality, 00:05:44.420 --> 00:05:47.840 align:middle line:84% and I think not many of us know what it means. 00:05:47.840 --> 00:05:50.060 align:middle line:84% Like in America, it's like we feel 00:05:50.060 --> 00:05:53.630 align:middle line:84% like, oh, it's like that intersection right out there. 00:05:53.630 --> 00:05:56.818 align:middle line:84% Like you show up on the right and they show up on your right, 00:05:56.818 --> 00:05:58.610 align:middle line:84% and suddenly we're all at the intersection. 00:05:58.610 --> 00:06:01.610 align:middle line:84% And I say, OK, you go, and then you go. 00:06:01.610 --> 00:06:03.380 align:middle line:90% And then I go, and then they go. 00:06:03.380 --> 00:06:07.700 align:middle line:84% But it's like that ability to say all of our problems 00:06:07.700 --> 00:06:11.450 align:middle line:84% are happening simultaneously right now. 00:06:11.450 --> 00:06:16.700 align:middle line:84% We are-- I would love to say, get all your asses out of here. 00:06:16.700 --> 00:06:18.515 align:middle line:90% This is indigenous land. 00:06:18.515 --> 00:06:19.640 align:middle line:90% That's not going to happen. 00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:20.760 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:06:20.760 --> 00:06:21.260 align:middle line:90% 00:06:21.260 --> 00:06:22.490 align:middle line:90% No, seriously. 00:06:22.490 --> 00:06:26.240 align:middle line:84% I don't believe in reparations, but we're all here right now. 00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:28.580 align:middle line:84% And so what is it that we are all 00:06:28.580 --> 00:06:34.970 align:middle line:84% going to do right now in this place that will make tomorrow 00:06:34.970 --> 00:06:36.320 align:middle line:90% a little bit better? 00:06:36.320 --> 00:06:39.470 align:middle line:84% Or maybe even make the hour better? 00:06:39.470 --> 00:06:41.270 align:middle line:84% The reality is, most of us are going 00:06:41.270 --> 00:06:44.480 align:middle line:90% to go home and do nothing. 00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:46.160 align:middle line:90% We might wonder-- 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:46.730 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:06:46.730 --> 00:06:49.220 align:middle line:84% I don't know that the power of anything I've said 00:06:49.220 --> 00:06:52.940 align:middle line:84% or anything Nadia said is actually 00:06:52.940 --> 00:06:57.620 align:middle line:84% going to make you think next week about your own life. 00:06:57.620 --> 00:07:00.950 align:middle line:84% And that's the crazy thing about America. 00:07:00.950 --> 00:07:03.680 align:middle line:84% Unless you can-- unless it makes you think about your own life, 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:05.120 align:middle line:90% we very often-- 00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:08.000 align:middle line:84% or we very rarely think about another life 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:10.235 align:middle line:84% unless it somehow tracks back to our own. 00:07:10.235 --> 00:07:13.610 align:middle line:90% 00:07:13.610 --> 00:07:17.480 align:middle line:84% And I don't mean that to sound pessimistic, because I actually 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:19.230 align:middle line:90% think the opposite. 00:07:19.230 --> 00:07:23.310 align:middle line:84% I feel like there is work that we are capable of doing. 00:07:23.310 --> 00:07:26.810 align:middle line:84% And I happen to feel like it begins with language, like it 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:31.790 align:middle line:84% begins with saying words that hold bodies in them. 00:07:31.790 --> 00:07:35.150 align:middle line:90% 00:07:35.150 --> 00:07:35.990 align:middle line:90% It begins with-- 00:07:35.990 --> 00:07:41.720 align:middle line:90% 00:07:41.720 --> 00:07:43.850 align:middle line:90% I really do-- this is crazy. 00:07:43.850 --> 00:07:45.140 align:middle line:90% It almost seems absurd. 00:07:45.140 --> 00:07:50.840 align:middle line:84% But I really do believe if we can get enough people visiting 00:07:50.840 --> 00:07:53.930 align:middle line:84% people in asylum who are being held 00:07:53.930 --> 00:07:56.630 align:middle line:84% in detention because they've sought asylum, 00:07:56.630 --> 00:07:59.960 align:middle line:84% if we can get enough people visiting people 00:07:59.960 --> 00:08:03.170 align:middle line:90% who are incarcerated-- 00:08:03.170 --> 00:08:06.620 align:middle line:84% I feel like this is the place we have to build, 00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:11.180 align:middle line:84% is from our own bodies, versus trying to wait and pretend 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:14.040 align:middle line:84% that our governors and senators are going to represent us 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:14.540 align:middle line:90% when-- 00:08:14.540 --> 00:08:15.980 align:middle line:84% I don't know, maybe there's someone in here 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:17.810 align:middle line:84% who's got a ton of money in their pocket, 00:08:17.810 --> 00:08:21.410 align:middle line:84% but I think the reality of it is we're 00:08:21.410 --> 00:08:24.230 align:middle line:84% going to have to match money with body. 00:08:24.230 --> 00:08:28.010 align:middle line:84% And I don't even know if we know how to do that in America. 00:08:28.010 --> 00:08:30.080 align:middle line:84% America is one of the few places-- 00:08:30.080 --> 00:08:36.409 align:middle line:84% in other countries, revolutions start with poetry. 00:08:36.409 --> 00:08:39.409 align:middle line:84% And that hasn't happened in America. 00:08:39.409 --> 00:08:42.590 align:middle line:84% So even in my own art and the one thing 00:08:42.590 --> 00:08:45.410 align:middle line:84% that I feel like I have a gift of, 00:08:45.410 --> 00:08:50.360 align:middle line:84% I don't even know how to use that to its full potential. 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:52.310 align:middle line:90% So I don't know-- 00:08:52.310 --> 00:08:54.320 align:middle line:90% what was your name, sir? 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:56.390 align:middle line:90% Fenton Johnson. 00:08:56.390 --> 00:08:57.800 align:middle line:90% Fenton? 00:08:57.800 --> 00:09:02.660 align:middle line:84% So even like ACT UP, that's I think something 00:09:02.660 --> 00:09:04.250 align:middle line:90% we can learn from even. 00:09:04.250 --> 00:09:09.380 align:middle line:90% 00:09:09.380 --> 00:09:12.560 align:middle line:84% That was a very long winded way to say I have the same question 00:09:12.560 --> 00:09:17.420 align:middle line:84% and I've started to ask myself that question more 00:09:17.420 --> 00:09:21.020 align:middle line:84% and in a more interrogative way, in a way that doesn't let 00:09:21.020 --> 00:09:23.870 align:middle line:84% me get away with not having the answer yet but saying, 00:09:23.870 --> 00:09:26.090 align:middle line:84% OK, but you need to find something, 00:09:26.090 --> 00:09:29.510 align:middle line:84% whether it's an action or a movement or something. 00:09:29.510 --> 00:09:36.620 align:middle line:90% 00:09:36.620 --> 00:09:38.630 align:middle line:90% More questions? 00:09:38.630 --> 00:09:40.910 align:middle line:84% That's the way to kill the Q and A. Just talk for-- 00:09:40.910 --> 00:09:42.560 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:43.910 align:middle line:90% Talk for like 30 minutes. 00:09:43.910 --> 00:09:47.354 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:09:47.354 --> 00:09:51.160 align:middle line:90% 00:09:51.160 --> 00:09:51.910 align:middle line:90% I have a question. 00:09:51.910 --> 00:09:54.760 align:middle line:84% And it's who do you mainly write for? 00:09:54.760 --> 00:09:57.550 align:middle line:84% When you write your poetry, who do you want to read it? 00:09:57.550 --> 00:10:00.272 align:middle line:84% And what do you want them to take away? 00:10:00.272 --> 00:10:03.920 align:middle line:90% 00:10:03.920 --> 00:10:08.930 align:middle line:84% I think first and foremost I'm just trying to build a-- 00:10:08.930 --> 00:10:12.500 align:middle line:84% trying to find a way to articulate a question 00:10:12.500 --> 00:10:17.330 align:middle line:90% about the world or my life. 00:10:17.330 --> 00:10:20.960 align:middle line:84% It was very different writing these poems, 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:23.810 align:middle line:84% especially if anybody knows my work from before. 00:10:23.810 --> 00:10:29.000 align:middle line:84% I write a lot about my brother, my real-life brother, 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:32.660 align:middle line:84% who's a brother who has suffered a lot. 00:10:32.660 --> 00:10:36.055 align:middle line:84% And it's a, I think, a very American suffering, 00:10:36.055 --> 00:10:40.430 align:middle line:84% a very Indigenous and Latino-American suffering. 00:10:40.430 --> 00:10:43.580 align:middle line:90% 00:10:43.580 --> 00:10:49.850 align:middle line:84% And in a way, I feel like that was something 00:10:49.850 --> 00:10:52.850 align:middle line:90% between my brother and me. 00:10:52.850 --> 00:10:55.850 align:middle line:84% But in these poems, it felt a little bit different, 00:10:55.850 --> 00:11:00.080 align:middle line:84% I think because I knew I was writing alongside other people, 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:03.320 align:middle line:84% and because it was also something-- 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:07.010 align:middle line:90% so I was on another list. 00:11:07.010 --> 00:11:08.570 align:middle line:84% And when you're on a list, you can't 00:11:08.570 --> 00:11:11.840 align:middle line:84% be on more than one list in some institutions 00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:14.930 align:middle line:84% to visit, like on an individual list. 00:11:14.930 --> 00:11:20.047 align:middle line:84% And so I couldn't visit my sister. 00:11:20.047 --> 00:11:22.130 align:middle line:84% It was something Dwayne was actually trying to do, 00:11:22.130 --> 00:11:26.630 align:middle line:84% was to get me to visit my sister. 00:11:26.630 --> 00:11:29.480 align:middle line:84% And we were even thinking about doing a library visit, 00:11:29.480 --> 00:11:31.550 align:middle line:84% like as a writer I would go in and talk 00:11:31.550 --> 00:11:34.340 align:middle line:90% to them from the library. 00:11:34.340 --> 00:11:38.060 align:middle line:84% But because I had already been on another list as a visitor, 00:11:38.060 --> 00:11:41.570 align:middle line:84% I couldn't be on her visitor list. 00:11:41.570 --> 00:11:47.630 align:middle line:84% So there's a way that these poems that I'm writing now-- 00:11:47.630 --> 00:11:51.710 align:middle line:84% I think for the very first time I thought about an audience, 00:11:51.710 --> 00:11:54.050 align:middle line:84% but not in terms of whether my audience will 00:11:54.050 --> 00:11:55.400 align:middle line:90% love what I'm writing. 00:11:55.400 --> 00:11:57.680 align:middle line:84% But I think what I'm thinking a lot 00:11:57.680 --> 00:12:01.040 align:middle line:84% of is, what are-- who are the bodies who 00:12:01.040 --> 00:12:04.310 align:middle line:84% I want to hold on my pages who don't ever 00:12:04.310 --> 00:12:07.460 align:middle line:90% get to see themselves? 00:12:07.460 --> 00:12:10.490 align:middle line:84% And that, I think, is why, predominantly, most 00:12:10.490 --> 00:12:13.820 align:middle line:84% of my new poems are love poems, is because I am-- 00:12:13.820 --> 00:12:19.190 align:middle line:84% I feel like I'm trying to demand that of not just the larger 00:12:19.190 --> 00:12:22.610 align:middle line:84% like America or the larger audience, but even of myself, 00:12:22.610 --> 00:12:28.100 align:middle line:84% to say that I am demanding that I see the brother, the sister, 00:12:28.100 --> 00:12:32.270 align:middle line:84% my community, my lovers, my friends, my enemies 00:12:32.270 --> 00:12:36.800 align:middle line:84% maybe most especially, as people I can love, 00:12:36.800 --> 00:12:39.050 align:middle line:90% as bodies I can love. 00:12:39.050 --> 00:12:43.700 align:middle line:84% And so that has been a big question for me. 00:12:43.700 --> 00:12:46.220 align:middle line:84% And so in terms of who I'm writing for now, 00:12:46.220 --> 00:12:51.410 align:middle line:84% I think I'm maybe not writing for, 00:12:51.410 --> 00:12:53.870 align:middle line:84% but I'm trying to create a space where someone might find 00:12:53.870 --> 00:12:58.820 align:middle line:84% themselves who maybe hasn't found themselves 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:01.360 align:middle line:90% on a page before in another way. 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:09.200 align:middle line:90% 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:09.770 align:middle line:90% Oh, Cynthia. 00:13:09.770 --> 00:13:12.380 align:middle line:90% 00:13:12.380 --> 00:13:13.130 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:13:13.130 --> 00:13:14.662 align:middle line:90% So good to see you. 00:13:14.662 --> 00:13:15.162 align:middle line:90% You too. 00:13:15.162 --> 00:13:18.500 align:middle line:90% 00:13:18.500 --> 00:13:21.780 align:middle line:84% Since we were colleagues very briefly, 00:13:21.780 --> 00:13:25.370 align:middle line:84% I do want to just say to this audience 00:13:25.370 --> 00:13:34.430 align:middle line:84% that what Natalie's arrival referred to students at ASU 00:13:34.430 --> 00:13:41.780 align:middle line:84% was a sanctuary, a place to find themselves in their body, 00:13:41.780 --> 00:13:43.910 align:middle line:90% not on the page alone. 00:13:43.910 --> 00:13:48.320 align:middle line:84% But you might just think about the change 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:52.950 align:middle line:84% that you saw in the students over the couple years 00:13:52.950 --> 00:13:56.540 align:middle line:84% you've been there and think about them going out 00:13:56.540 --> 00:13:59.930 align:middle line:90% in the world changed. 00:13:59.930 --> 00:14:04.280 align:middle line:84% It's a quiet or a gentle revolution. 00:14:04.280 --> 00:14:06.200 align:middle line:84% But what I wanted to ask you about 00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:12.100 align:middle line:84% was your work on language preservation. 00:14:12.100 --> 00:14:20.320 align:middle line:84% How are you balancing the quest to help to preserve the Mojave 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:29.200 align:middle line:84% language and the integrity of the multilinguality 00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:35.830 align:middle line:84% of your work, and your career, which 00:14:35.830 --> 00:14:43.150 align:middle line:84% is of necessity in English, where so much of your outreach 00:14:43.150 --> 00:14:45.130 align:middle line:90% is directed? 00:14:45.130 --> 00:14:46.812 align:middle line:90% And how do you balance that? 00:14:46.812 --> 00:14:47.770 align:middle line:90% How are you navigating? 00:14:47.770 --> 00:14:48.550 align:middle line:90% I'm a mess. 00:14:48.550 --> 00:14:49.340 align:middle line:90% No. 00:14:49.340 --> 00:14:51.790 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:51.790 --> 00:14:54.310 align:middle line:84% I don't-- I'm really lucky, I feel like. 00:14:54.310 --> 00:14:57.580 align:middle line:84% So my language work has shifted a lot. 00:14:57.580 --> 00:14:59.830 align:middle line:84% So I no longer work for my tribe. 00:14:59.830 --> 00:15:04.510 align:middle line:84% I work with Hubert, my one teacher, my first teacher. 00:15:04.510 --> 00:15:07.240 align:middle line:90% And we've shifted a lot. 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:11.350 align:middle line:84% And we just do little stories and songs by phone now. 00:15:11.350 --> 00:15:15.010 align:middle line:84% And we're working on a couple of children's books. 00:15:15.010 --> 00:15:20.200 align:middle line:84% So it's a very different relationship I have, 00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:24.610 align:middle line:84% not to the learning, but to the responsibility I once, I 00:15:24.610 --> 00:15:26.530 align:middle line:84% feel like, wrongly took on my shoulders, 00:15:26.530 --> 00:15:30.520 align:middle line:84% like I felt like I had to save a language. 00:15:30.520 --> 00:15:32.530 align:middle line:84% And in a way, it kind of crushed me. 00:15:32.530 --> 00:15:38.228 align:middle line:90% 00:15:38.228 --> 00:15:38.770 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:15:38.770 --> 00:15:41.440 align:middle line:84% I feel like I don't know who I would be 00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:44.320 align:middle line:90% without the work I did there. 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:47.510 align:middle line:84% I'm a very different person than I was before I began that work. 00:15:47.510 --> 00:15:52.645 align:middle line:84% And I think in some ways, all of the things that I am-- 00:15:52.645 --> 00:15:55.270 align:middle line:90% 00:15:55.270 --> 00:15:58.150 align:middle line:84% this is, I think, the joy and the gift of poetry, 00:15:58.150 --> 00:16:02.170 align:middle line:84% is that you can be all of the things you are in it. 00:16:02.170 --> 00:16:05.230 align:middle line:84% So the person-- I was built by basketball. 00:16:05.230 --> 00:16:09.700 align:middle line:84% That's first and foremost who I am. 00:16:09.700 --> 00:16:13.450 align:middle line:84% And the way I think, the way I move in a day, 00:16:13.450 --> 00:16:16.930 align:middle line:84% the way I touch everything has been 00:16:16.930 --> 00:16:18.790 align:middle line:84% built with that kind of physicality 00:16:18.790 --> 00:16:27.490 align:middle line:84% and that energetic idea of space, I think. 00:16:27.490 --> 00:16:31.000 align:middle line:84% But yeah, it feels really, really lucky, I think, 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:34.450 align:middle line:84% to have a partner who is also invested 00:16:34.450 --> 00:16:38.950 align:middle line:84% in language the same way I am, to have teachers-- 00:16:38.950 --> 00:16:43.450 align:middle line:84% like Ofelia is sitting here just like nothing, like normal. 00:16:43.450 --> 00:16:45.520 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:16:45.520 --> 00:16:50.380 align:middle line:84% She's just hanging out over there. 00:16:50.380 --> 00:16:51.580 align:middle line:90% But also-- I don't know. 00:16:51.580 --> 00:16:54.205 align:middle line:84% Like the community you all have built here. 00:16:54.205 --> 00:16:57.160 align:middle line:90% 00:16:57.160 --> 00:16:58.090 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:16:58.090 --> 00:17:02.560 align:middle line:84% I think in some ways, it's such a freaking easy burden. 00:17:02.560 --> 00:17:03.700 align:middle line:90% It's not a burden at all. 00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:09.250 align:middle line:84% Like what a luck to be able to sit up here and do this. 00:17:09.250 --> 00:17:11.710 align:middle line:84% But also, I think something about language 00:17:11.710 --> 00:17:15.637 align:middle line:84% that we all have is we have it, and it's definitely a gift. 00:17:15.637 --> 00:17:17.470 align:middle line:84% And I think sometimes we don't realize that. 00:17:17.470 --> 00:17:19.930 align:middle line:84% We don't realize what a gift it is to read or to write. 00:17:19.930 --> 00:17:24.111 align:middle line:90% 00:17:24.111 --> 00:17:25.569 align:middle line:84% And I feel like it's something that 00:17:25.569 --> 00:17:30.010 align:middle line:84% has been offered to me by the things and energies that 00:17:30.010 --> 00:17:33.820 align:middle line:84% made me, and it feels like a lucky easy thing 00:17:33.820 --> 00:17:37.210 align:middle line:90% to step into it. 00:17:37.210 --> 00:17:43.510 align:middle line:84% And like tomorrow, tomorrow I'm going to Palestine. 00:17:43.510 --> 00:17:45.790 align:middle line:84% And now, that's a place that puts everything 00:17:45.790 --> 00:17:50.770 align:middle line:84% into perspective, another occupied land, 00:17:50.770 --> 00:17:58.510 align:middle line:84% another occupied land with a Western model set on top of it, 00:17:58.510 --> 00:18:02.560 align:middle line:84% a place where you have to be careful what books you bring, 00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:05.296 align:middle line:90% a place where-- 00:18:05.296 --> 00:18:09.040 align:middle line:84% One of the stupidest questions I asked there was 00:18:09.040 --> 00:18:11.480 align:middle line:90% the first night we were there. 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:13.870 align:middle line:84% We were in a university which was basically 00:18:13.870 --> 00:18:17.150 align:middle line:90% cut in half by the wall. 00:18:17.150 --> 00:18:19.360 align:middle line:84% And so we traveled on the West Bank. 00:18:19.360 --> 00:18:24.430 align:middle line:84% And there were these incredible poets reading, young, just 00:18:24.430 --> 00:18:26.320 align:middle line:90% full of life, incredible poets. 00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:31.150 align:middle line:84% And I was like, oh, we should bring them back to read. 00:18:31.150 --> 00:18:33.910 align:middle line:84% And everyone just looked at me like, are you-- 00:18:33.910 --> 00:18:37.030 align:middle line:90% what's-- they can't go back. 00:18:37.030 --> 00:18:39.130 align:middle line:90% They can't leave. 00:18:39.130 --> 00:18:42.220 align:middle line:84% So just suddenly to put all of those things 00:18:42.220 --> 00:18:46.990 align:middle line:84% into perspective of, again, what's 00:18:46.990 --> 00:18:49.570 align:middle line:84% happening there is what happened to Indigenous 00:18:49.570 --> 00:18:52.360 align:middle line:84% peoples here is what's happening around the world 00:18:52.360 --> 00:18:53.260 align:middle line:90% in many places. 00:18:53.260 --> 00:18:57.400 align:middle line:84% It's just it's happening in a present way 00:18:57.400 --> 00:19:01.010 align:middle line:84% that we've forgotten it's happened here. 00:19:01.010 --> 00:19:08.080 align:middle line:84% And so this actually is probably the easiest, luckiest thing 00:19:08.080 --> 00:19:11.110 align:middle line:84% I could be doing, is just to be here. 00:19:11.110 --> 00:19:13.730 align:middle line:84% I'm actually talking about incarceration, 00:19:13.730 --> 00:19:15.910 align:middle line:90% and I am not incarcerated. 00:19:15.910 --> 00:19:19.030 align:middle line:90% I am not in detention. 00:19:19.030 --> 00:19:27.460 align:middle line:84% And what a lucky thing to be just the person carrying this, 00:19:27.460 --> 00:19:29.260 align:middle line:84% and to carry it in a way that I put it 00:19:29.260 --> 00:19:36.550 align:middle line:84% on the page versus having had to endure it in that physicality. 00:19:36.550 --> 00:19:39.550 align:middle line:84% Yeah, in an emotional way I have with my family, 00:19:39.550 --> 00:19:43.930 align:middle line:84% but not in some of the ways that some of the others we've 00:19:43.930 --> 00:19:45.100 align:middle line:90% heard from tonight have. 00:19:45.100 --> 00:19:49.088 align:middle line:90% 00:19:49.088 --> 00:19:50.255 align:middle line:90% How about one more question? 00:19:50.255 --> 00:19:56.930 align:middle line:90% 00:19:56.930 --> 00:19:57.710 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:19:57.710 --> 00:19:59.210 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much, Natalie. 00:19:59.210 --> 00:20:02.560 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:20:02.560 --> 00:20:04.304 align:middle line:90%