Drop Dead Diva, Deportation, and a Dream

Click here to watch the clip at mylifetime.com.

Drop Dead Diva, an original Lifetime program, is a scripted show about a young fashion model named Deb who dies in a car accident and comes back to life as Jane, an older, wiser, plumper attorney. The latest episode had a storyline about Jane's assistant, Terry (played by comedian Margret Cho), whose cousin, a young man that she and her mother raised from infancy, is arrested on a minor charge, found guilty of a misdemeanor, and ordered to return to South Korea, although he has lived in the U.S. his entire life and, until his arrest, did not know he was an illegal immigrant.

Because this is an uplifting show about human experience, the storyline has a happy ending when Jane, the young man's defender, finds a loophole discovering that her client's biological father was a North Korean and argues asylum. But reality is not as kind as prime time programming. In our real court system this young man would have been deported, or--if he had the means--been held in a detention center for an unknown amount of time as he fought for asylum. In our real court system, immigration hearings are never so neatly and happily tied up.

It is sad to think how many real stories begin much like this fictionalized one, but end very differently. There are infants and children brought into this country every day, without say or explanation. My own mother was brought into the country illegally as an infant by her parents, and she never understood why her father would leave her behind in L.A. every time he took her younger sister and brothers to visit family in Baja California. (She began to believe she wasn’t his daughter.) These things do happen, but unfortunately they happen to people who don’t have the luck of fictional T.V. characters who can afford high class lawyers. No, the real world is much much harsher.

Perhaps the result of Drop Dead Diva’s immigration storyline is unbelievable, but it is good to see a prime time show presenting a story on immigrant rights through a recurring character (Cho) that the audience has connected with. And also, that the story focused on a Korean American family because we are all connected in these stories.

If you are interested in immigrant rights for children of immigrants you can check out the Dream Act and sign a petition here, or get active here.

An Interview with Douglas Kearney

Last week, I wrote an interview with Doug Kearney for The Splinter Generation. Doug is a, as his bio says, poet/performer/librettist/educator. Much of his new book The Black Automaton (Fence 2009) is a mix of visual art and poetry that comes together in an investigation of race and culture in Los Angeles and the United States.

His poems reflecting on his experience with the L.A. Riots from his predominantly white neighborhood in Pasadena/Altadena definitely caught my eye. I was also in the San Gabriel Valley, and can remember the ominous plumes of smoke rising from the west and taking over the city. As an Angelino, a developing minor, and a person of color, the L.A. Riots meant something to both of us (and probably many artists of our generation), but in different ways. And that's what I love to discover, what this blog is about. It's about finding those connections within the human experience as much as the uniqueness and individuality.

From The Splinter Generation interview:

XB: In your book The Black Automaton the L.A. Riots are a backdrop for a series of poems. What hand do you think the riots had in shaping you as an African American poet?

DK: The riots happened my senior year in high school. I wasn’t a poet then. My family was the only black family at this white church. I had been in The Pasadena Boy’s choir, which was largely a white organization; so a lot of my peers that weren’t at school where white folks. When the L.A. Riots came down, having to ask that question, “Whose side [am] I on?” crystallized all these fears of not being sure where I belonged.

At the time, popular music included groups like Public Enemy and Arrested Development, so there was a sense among African Americans that you were supposed to have something to say. And [the question became] what would I have said? Who would I have betrayed? The riots, their impact on me as a poet, allowed me to identify a question that I figured I could only answer through the kind of introspection that poetry allows. And what is crazy, even after all this time, I still don’t know what I would have done. And I think, “City with fire and a piece of silver,” revealed to [that] me.

XB: You mention “City with fire and a piece of silver." That poem stood out to me, for one, because of its element of chance. In some of your more visual poems, like the “Black Automaton in Tag” series, there is a feeling of chance, almost like “Choose your own adventure” poetry. Can you speak about that?

DK: Those “choose your own adventure” poems came from people telling me that they would not have gotten the poem if it were not for my performance.They meant it as a compliment, but a part of me could only hear that to them the emotion and ideas of the poem were not in the language itself. That means that it wasn’t well written; it was really well performed.

So I wanted to go back to the lab, and try to write poems that would demand the eye, demand a reader. And not only demand it, but reward it. I wanted to try to create a poetry [where] the page itself would become a stage. And so, the text of the Black Automaton poems that you are talking about is partially about scoring a way of reading.

What’s interesting is that I wrote [those poems] not using Word, but using design programs that would allow me to put text anywhere I wanted. I composed it by putting a text box in a spot, and I’d be like, “OK, text here. No, that doesn’t work. Let me move that.” I wanted to create this page that would perform itself. And what I began to realize when I would look at [those poems], I had no idea how I would read them. If you are looking at the “The Black Automaton in what it is #3: Work it out,” I have no idea, necessarily, how to make the fact that the word “work” is repeated four times inside all these brackets sound. It really becomes an investigation of how we read a thing.

XB: Performance is something that certainly informs your writing process, and as you know there is a long-standing debate between performance poetry and poetry on the page. Where do you see your work falling on this spectrum?

DK: When I started writing and performing, I was going to a grassroots writing workshop called Writer’s Block in San Diego, and it was modeled after The World Stage’s poetry workshop. The only difference was during the workshop, Writer’s Block people never [brought copies], so you never got a chance to read the poem, only hear it, and it ended up being a critique of the performance. And that’s when I really started hearing about the debate of page versus stage. At that point I [thought], “Well, shoot! Why have an argument about it? Let’s have a poem that works equally well on the paper as it does in the air.” That lead to certain experiments that I was doing with poetry, and what I learned was, you can do things where the tension of the poem comes from the differences, the limitations of hearing a poem versus being able to see it and vice versa.

XB: Would you call yourself a performer or a poet?

DK: On my bio it says performer/poet/librettist, and those are all things I do. I consider myself first and foremost a poet. I think I do the most good for poetry as a culture by saying I’m a poet. Then you don’t think that going to a “poetry reading” involves sitting and falling asleep. And at the same time, you don’t believe that if someone does a dynamic reading of a poem they can only be a spoken word artist or a slam artist.

XB: As a Latina poet, I often think about the connection between ethnicity, politics and poetry, and I’m curious on your thoughts as an African America poet. Is it possible to separate race and poetry? What is the connection?

DK: It is totally possible that one day I’m going to feel I’m sick of writing about black face and minstrel shows, and race, and I will write a poem about seeing my wife coming out of the swimming pool. Then the question becomes—if I describe my wife—is it suddenly a poem about race because I describe my wife’s dark brown skin? Is it a poem about black pride and black beauty? That’s baggage the reader brings, to a certain extent. For me, I don’t see them as separate. To say that you are a writer, and the fact that you are an African American has no bearing on your writing is a little difficult to believe. You might not write about black shit, but that can be because you are black, at which point you are writing the blackest shit ever.

Jacob Riis, The Camera Weilding Muckraker of Five Points

Jacob Riis

The other night I caught one of my favorite movies, Gangs of New York, on T.V. Though I own the film, there is always something satisfying about finding a favorite while flipping through channels. Watching the final riot scene I started to wonder how much of the story was fact and how much was fiction. A long journey down the Google hole dropped me in the lap of one Jacob Riis and the Muckrakers of the Gilded Age.

What does this have to do with the Immigration Project? For one, Jacob Riis was a Danish immigrant, and two he used photography and journalism to bring about social reform to the immigrant tenements and slums--such as Gangs of New York's Five Points--of Victorian New York City.

Here are some examples of his work:

Riis' photography, magical lantern shows, and books including, How the Other Half Lives, brought the struggle of the poor to the attention of the upper class and people in power, namely New York City Police Commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt (newly discovered as my favorite U.S. President). Roosevelt and Riis' time together lead to a life long friendship and partnership in working towards social reform.

If Jacob Riis was alive now, he may have a blog. If he could see our modern world he may wonder what had changed, if anything. Today, is not much different from his day. There is still a hugely unequal distribution of wealth, the upper class continues to give a blind eye to the struggles of the poor, and the middle and lower classes blame immigrants for the poor state of the job market, housing, and wealth. And so we as artists must ask, WWJD? What would Jacob do?

He would rake the muck and so should we.

Splintered Thoughts: Poetry, Politics, and the Individual

Click here for the latest Splintered Thoughts Blogtalk show.
On today's show we listened to poet and Mexican immigrant, Erika Ayon, share narrative poems about her childhood as a street vendor selling oranges. Her poems give us a personal and touching view of a way of life many of us will never experience, but pass by (at least in L.A.) daily. She also introduced us to the Dream Act, a proposal for undocumented students to become citizens under certain moral and educational stipulations. This month is very important for the Dream Act and in order to help this proposal become a bill you can call California Senator Diane Feinstein and ask her to support the proposal, or for more information you can visit dreamactivist.org. Don't be afraid to get active. Here is something we can do now to help young, hardworking students have a brighter future.

We also spoke to Arizona-based activist, Walt Staton. He is familiar with the immigration issue as he has been volunteering with human rights group No More Deaths since 2004, bringing water and medical aid to migrants crossing the dangerous deserts of Arizona. He spoke out against the negative turn Arizona has taken, and asked us all to look for a more positive solution. Instead of making the border a full out military zone, he suggests tearing down the wall and decriminalizing immigration. Perhaps, he has a point. The more we criminalize immigrants the bigger the war will get. If we don't take a different approach, who knows when it will stop?

Fight fear with knowledge and compassion, not guns and walls. And remember that we are all human, all individuals.

Sin Miedo: A Poem for the May Day Marchers

Walking around the May Day march on Saturday, I saw people dispersed through the crowds wearing true green shirts that said "Indocumentado" (undocumented) on the front, and "Sin Miedo" (without fear) on the back. This father and son were two people wearing these shirts. I was very touched by their courage.

Sin Miedo

He clutches his son,
whole arm tight around shoulders.
They move, side pinned to side,
like a three-legged race,
but these indocumentado do not run.
They walk slow, with purpose.
Father has brought his boy
onto the street, into the den.
Among thousands, they are exposed
to marchers, signs, helicopters
flying over head. Looking
to the sky they appear stacked,
helicopter over helicopter,
over high-rise, over crowds,
over concrete. Red and white
stripes flutter like a satin prison.
He brings his boy in tighter.
Father and son, protector
and protected. But windows
are watching, and people move
in every direction.
They are vulnerable to the whims
of a mob. To brick and Billy clubs,
fire hoses and dogs, rope and hate.
This is what the father considers
as he folds his son under his arm,
and they continue to march.

Shifra Goldman and Poetic Arte!

Saturday night I attended an event of Latino American art, poetry, and academia in celebration of one great artistic mind, Shifra Goldman. If you don’t recognize her name, don’t worry, I didn’t at first either, but I assure you, you have felt her influence. A Jewish American academic, who came from a Yiddish and English bilingual family, she is attributed with being one of the first to call for the conservation of Siquiero’s whitewashed Olvera Street mural, “Tropical America,” when most people forgot it existed. Her critical analysis and books, Dimensions of the Americas, Contemporary Mexican Painting in a Time of Change, had major influence in the European and American art worlds of the 70s and 80s when many believed nothing of significance could be birthed in Latin America, and generally made such names as Rivera, Siquieros, and Orozco world-known.

All this I knew about Shifra, the writer and Latino art champion, before I walked into Avenue 50 Studio on Saturday night, but what I gained by being apart of this celebration was so much more. We began with an acoustic guitar performance by her son, Eric Garcia. After playing two songs, he invited in his preteen son to accompany him on violin, and instantly the crowd was uplifted. The shaggy haired twelve year-old talent was nothing less than charming. Next was film director and writer, Jesus Trevino, who read from his memoir, Eyewitness. He shared a section about Shifra and his time with her, and her influence. As he read it was clear that many in the room know her personally. He spoke of her work with “Tropical America," her philosophy on politics and art (they cannot be separated), and it was like I could hear the audience smiling. The next performer, a poet, Ramon Garcia, was also fortunate enough to know her personally. She had taken him at a time when he was new to Los Angeles. He appeared young, and I wondered how exactly they met. How was he so lucky to have dinners with her at a bad French restaurant in Echo Park? “Taix” he shared with the room, and many laughed. Bad food, but good discussions, a majority of the 60-70 people now crowding in the tiny art studio agreed. I realized that I was only a visitor; I have never met Shifra, but I now wish I could have.

Other poets, Gloria Enedina Alvarez, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, and George Kalmar, shared poetry and memories, as well as members in the audience, and every story told was like it’s own special gem. Artists, poets, friends, a son, all were touched by her in some significant way. And it seems if you had come to know her, you were certainly influenced by her critical and caring mind. She was a mentor to artists, and other lost children of Los Angeles, and I began to wish I was a little older, a little more lost, a little more hungry and that this surrogate mother could be mine too. I imagined sitting with her in Taix drinking a dirty martini and listening to her speak about art and revolution. I wondered what heated discussion we would have, and how she would generally “school” me as I make notes in my mind. If only.

She is bedridden now, and in the final stages of Alzheimer. Her son shared that he visits with her daily, and before coming to this event he sat with her. He recorded a minute long video of Shifra knotted in her bed, her brilliant mind somewhere locked in the darkness of the past. He carried her into the event on his white Apple laptop, and it was then I remembered Frida Kahlo.


Or I should confess, the movie Frida (Shifra may not have approved since it seems she didn’t care for Hollywood). I remembered the final scene, where Frida, one leg amputated and very ill, lays in bed on the opening night of her exhibit. I remembered the doctor’s order, and how friends carry her, heavy wood-carved bed and all, to the event to celebrate, to see the culmination of her work.

In some way Shifra was there, and we celebrated with her.

UPDATE: Sadly, Shifra Goldman died from complications to Alzheimer at 85 on September 11, 2011. For more on Shifra's life and legacy, you can read her obituary at L.A. Times here or this piece by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez at KCET. She will be missed.

Images from May Day 2010, Downtown Los Angeles

I arrived in Dowtown around 10:30 am, and joined the march at 9th and Broadway. Walking over to Broadway, I past two women and a young girl. It is possible they were mother, daughter, and granddaughter. They were armored with white shirts and U.S. flags, and like me, they were rushing to get to the march. Hearing them exchange Spanish words, seeing the generations, I fought back tears. Just yesterday I read how Arizona has banned ethnic studies classes and teachers with accents teaching English, and I realize I am not marching or fighting for me, but for them. From 9th all the way up to city hall and Villaraigosa's white doves, commissioned with message of change for the White House, I allowed the power of the people to sweep me up.