WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.926 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.926 --> 00:00:03.704 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:03.704 --> 00:00:06.020 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.020 --> 00:00:07.430 align:middle line:90% Thank you so- wow. 00:00:07.430 --> 00:00:09.170 align:middle line:90% There are a lot of people here. 00:00:09.170 --> 00:00:10.650 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] That's terrifying. 00:00:10.650 --> 00:00:11.150 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:11.150 --> 00:00:14.630 align:middle line:90% So thank you all for coming out. 00:00:14.630 --> 00:00:16.020 align:middle line:90% Thank you for having me here. 00:00:16.020 --> 00:00:18.590 align:middle line:84% I want a big thank you to the Poetry Center, 00:00:18.590 --> 00:00:22.280 align:middle line:84% to Tyler, to Paola, to Julie, to everyone who's 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:24.182 align:middle line:84% made my time here so fun and rich-- 00:00:24.182 --> 00:00:25.640 align:middle line:84% and all the students I got to meet. 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:27.620 align:middle line:90% I really appreciate it. 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:32.330 align:middle line:84% I [LAUGHS] brought my own Halls Mentho-Lyptus relief 00:00:32.330 --> 00:00:35.360 align:middle line:84% because I've already had two coughing fits from the dust 00:00:35.360 --> 00:00:37.610 align:middle line:90% here. 00:00:37.610 --> 00:00:39.890 align:middle line:84% And I had a cold, but it's not COVID. 00:00:39.890 --> 00:00:42.870 align:middle line:84% So we're starting really, really great on this reading. 00:00:42.870 --> 00:00:43.370 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:43.370 --> 00:00:44.840 align:middle line:84% But I just want to warn you, if you 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:48.320 align:middle line:84% start seeing me like digging in this bag, it's not cocaine. 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:50.060 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:53.120 align:middle line:84% I had wine before this started, and I can 00:00:53.120 --> 00:00:56.180 align:middle line:90% see that was a huge mistake. 00:00:56.180 --> 00:00:59.720 align:middle line:84% But I want to talk to you today a little bit about this project 00:00:59.720 --> 00:01:01.280 align:middle line:84% before I start playing it, and this 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:03.620 align:middle line:84% is a reading that's a little unusual because you're 00:01:03.620 --> 00:01:05.360 align:middle line:90% going to tell me where we go. 00:01:05.360 --> 00:01:10.730 align:middle line:84% So I was Utah's poet laureate, and during my tenure 00:01:10.730 --> 00:01:12.950 align:middle line:84% as poet laureate, we were celebrating 00:01:12.950 --> 00:01:16.460 align:middle line:84% Utah, the 150th commemoration of the completion 00:01:16.460 --> 00:01:18.230 align:middle line:84% of the Transcontinental Railroad. 00:01:18.230 --> 00:01:19.520 align:middle line:90% I myself am biracial. 00:01:19.520 --> 00:01:21.530 align:middle line:84% I'm half Chinese, half Norwegian, 00:01:21.530 --> 00:01:24.920 align:middle line:90% and I wanted to do that justice. 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:27.920 align:middle line:84% I wanted to think about the railroad's history, 00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:31.700 align:middle line:84% not from the sort of traditional commemoration 00:01:31.700 --> 00:01:34.130 align:middle line:84% as a triumphal moment of American modernism 00:01:34.130 --> 00:01:37.827 align:middle line:84% and progressive values, but to think about the laborers who 00:01:37.827 --> 00:01:39.035 align:middle line:90% actually built this railroad. 00:01:39.035 --> 00:01:41.630 align:middle line:84% I wanted to see this also through the lens 00:01:41.630 --> 00:01:44.780 align:middle line:84% of Chinese exclusion because basically 00:01:44.780 --> 00:01:47.930 align:middle line:84% after the Transcontinental was completed, 13 years later-- 00:01:47.930 --> 00:01:53.000 align:middle line:84% 1882-- the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed into law. 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.640 align:middle line:84% And it stayed in effect until 1943. 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:58.640 align:middle line:84% This is an act that affected all of the lives 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:00.710 align:middle line:84% of Chinese-American families on the West Coast. 00:02:00.710 --> 00:02:02.610 align:middle line:90% I can tell you that. 00:02:02.610 --> 00:02:04.980 align:middle line:84% And so I wanted to take a poem that 00:02:04.980 --> 00:02:07.290 align:middle line:84% was carved into the walls of Angel Island-- 00:02:07.290 --> 00:02:11.790 align:middle line:84% a Chinese poem that eulogizes a fellow detainee who committed 00:02:11.790 --> 00:02:15.780 align:middle line:84% suicide during his detention in Angel Island 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:17.610 align:middle line:84% during the Chinese Exclusion Act. 00:02:17.610 --> 00:02:21.000 align:middle line:84% And I take that poem, and I translate 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:24.570 align:middle line:84% it character by character through the stories 00:02:24.570 --> 00:02:29.040 align:middle line:84% of Transcontinental workers and also 00:02:29.040 --> 00:02:31.940 align:middle line:84% the cultural impact of the railroad.