For The Wild - FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ on Art & Migration Know No Borders⧸85

00:00:00.000 Hey, for the wild community, it's Ayana here, and I wanted to share a few updates before we begin our conversation with Fabiana Rodriguez.

00:00:09.600 So, I am speaking to you on the eve before I head north, first to our reciprocity retreat in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington, and then beyond to Alaska.

00:00:20.560 I'll be spending the next six weeks with Madison, working with allies on the ground to support the campaign to end old-growth logging in the Tongass National Forest.

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00:00:39.380 Also, we are looking for land partners for our 1 million Redwoods project,

00:00:43.380 and we're specifically at this time wanting to connect with people who tend land in the Redwoods region.

00:00:48.720 So if you steward land that once had Redwoods, or still does but you see space for more,

00:00:54.340 please reach out to us at engage at forthewild.world.

00:00:57.480 lastly but certainly not least i want to thank our 123 drip founding members we're all so damn

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00:01:22.100 our campaign at d.rip slash four dash the dash wild. All right, now on to the show.

00:01:36.900 I believe that this is white men's kind of last attempt to really have power and it's

00:01:44.240 getting ripped out of their hands. And naturally when that is happening, you will have a backlash.

00:01:52.100 The silence is broken by somebody crying

00:02:01.940 Trying to be heard, never a word

00:02:05.420 Always the attitude, sort out your own

00:02:08.980 Always alone

00:02:10.760 Wishing for something the world is denying

00:02:14.640 Out in the wilderness somebody's crying

00:02:19.800 Somebody wishing for something to happen

00:02:33.120 Wishing to tell, wishing to help

00:02:36.540 Someone was listening, someone who cared

00:02:40.360 Never despaired

00:02:42.200 Someone to lean on and someone to trust

00:02:46.880 Who needs your assistance and finds your disgust?

00:03:01.380 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:03:06.300 Today we are speaking with Fabiana Rodriguez.

00:03:10.500 Well, Fabiana, on behalf of the entire team at For the Wild,

00:03:14.800 I really want to thank you for your work in imagining a culture of liberation through art.

00:03:19.940 So thank you so much. It's wonderful to have you on the show today.

00:03:23.500 Thank you. I'm excited.

00:03:26.500 Envisioning a world where militarized political borders no longer separate children from the love of their mothers

00:03:32.700 and the stories of their ancestors is an immense endeavor.

00:03:37.140 I won't attempt to paint a picture of the atrocities families are facing at the imaginary,

00:03:41.840 yet severely physical line between the U.S. and Mexico right now, because those are not my stories

00:03:48.080 to tell. So instead, I want to begin this conversation by honoring the spirit of the

00:03:53.660 monarch butterfly, the longest migrating insect in the world. Monarch-like salmon symbolize our

00:04:00.820 multi-species right to migrate for survival, a will to survive that women embody fiercely,

00:04:08.180 80% of whom will be raped on their northward migratory journey.

00:04:12.680 Much of what I have said has been a reiteration of the messaging

00:04:15.780 from the Migration is Beautiful movement,

00:04:18.720 a movement that your art catalyzed.

00:04:21.480 So would you begin by speaking about the beauty of human migration

00:04:25.260 and how you have witnessed the symbol of the monarch butterfly

00:04:28.920 and power migrant communities?

00:04:32.540 Yes, that's a great question. 0.70

00:04:34.460 And so when I first became a socially engaged artist, a lot of the work that I was doing was often about what we were against or what we were saying no to. 0.84

00:04:45.540 And, you know, I grew up in an immigrant family, and so immigrant issues have always been very important to me because I've understood that this immigration system is severely broken.

00:04:54.420 And so when I first began to make art and I wanted to speak out against anti-immigration, a lot of the messages that I was focusing on were around ending deportations or legalize us or give us amnesty, give our communities amnesty.

00:05:13.560 And then I saw many years ago, somebody used the monarch butterfly to show the beauty of migration because the monarch butterfly flies from Mexico through the US and Canada.

00:05:26.960 And what it sparked in me was to be able to be taught by nature and to be led by nature and to really uphold nature as the ultimate truth.

00:05:38.300 And nature teaches us that there are no borders.

00:05:42.440 Everything in nature moves.

00:05:45.000 And I think that often, even in political movements, we don't fully integrate the lessons that nature teaches.

00:05:51.160 So for me, when I really began to understand that I was connected to the symbol,

00:05:55.800 and I felt that this symbol in such a beautiful way changed your heart, it changed your imagination.

00:06:03.460 Because if you think about it, you know, many times when we're talking about Latino people,

00:06:09.580 and we're talking about migrants, especially whether they're Mexicans or they're Central

00:06:14.020 Americans. And even if you think about the language that's been used around criminalizing

00:06:20.020 narratives or saying negative things about them, the analogies that are drawn are things like

00:06:25.580 those cockroaches, right? They are invading us, this kind of idea of invasion. But when you think

00:06:32.080 about butterflies in flight, and you think about the freedom of butterflies, you just have a totally

00:06:38.300 different kind of reaction. And for me, the power of the butterfly is that it helps people really

00:06:45.100 see that all living things move, like we've always been moving since the beginning of time.

00:06:54.280 And to be able to tap that into people's hearts and minds, and to help them associate that actually

00:07:03.360 migrants are in line with what human beings have been doing for years. And the fact that we

00:07:09.740 criminalize migration and we punish it is a part of a dominant kind of political system.

00:07:16.200 And so as I began to be, you know, more and more engaged in climate change, because I would say

00:07:21.120 environmentalism is something that I've come to in the last eight years really kind of come to in a

00:07:28.020 strong way. I really appreciate what many people talk about the extractive economy, right, which is

00:07:35.040 that the system, you know, the system of patriarchy and domination is extractive. It's about extracting

00:07:41.980 from the earth. It's about extracting from human beings and dominating them. And so when I think 0.99

00:07:48.420 about the right to move that immigrants have, and I can connect the dots to, as we should connect

00:07:56.260 the dots to all living beings right butterflies salmon to me that's just a powerful way to like

00:08:02.940 open up our minds and it's a powerful way to get free because then we understand that oh this is

00:08:09.020 the system we currently live under which is patriarchal and it's extractive and it dominates

00:08:14.280 but nature actually has provided another way for us and how do we kind of tap more into that

00:08:20.300 as rapid planetary change continues to pressure all types of beings to migrate for survival

00:08:28.120 we must not only dismantle the ways that white supremacy and global capitalism are criminalizing

00:08:34.200 migration but also ensure that people understand how u.s imperialism is largely responsible for

00:08:41.380 the flow of migrants from mexico central and south america in recent decades i'm wondering

00:08:47.040 if you could help us understand a bit more thoroughly how NAFTA, signed in 1994, displaced

00:08:54.240 and disrupted local economies, pushing people to flee north. Absolutely. You know, I was a teenager

00:09:02.200 in 1994 when NAFTA was passed by Clinton. And the narrative that he talked about was, oh, here was

00:09:10.080 a world without borders. But interestingly, he actually, they began to build the U.S.-Mexico

00:09:16.080 border that same year in 1994. But what that meant is that, you know, the U.S. could openly

00:09:23.100 just go in and dominate and also bring their GMO corn, which the American GMO corn disrupted

00:09:31.620 the local economies in Mexico. And corn is not just a food in Mexico. Corn is a part of the

00:09:40.920 national identity. You know, there's a saying that says, without corn, we have no country. I mean,

00:09:49.620 corn is the basis of the tortilla. So when you disrupt such a critical economy that is central

00:09:56.260 to people's culture and their ancestral traditions, and then you also come in with, you know, factory

00:10:03.800 farming or you come in with, you know, things that begin to disrupt the food chain. You disrupt

00:10:11.540 entire economies. And I think that, you know, U.S. imperialism, when we really begin to understand

00:10:16.520 it, not only is it, you know, militarized systems, but it's also the stealing of natural resources.

00:10:23.000 So we have to always remember when we talk about climate change and we really talk about, well,

00:10:27.440 what got us here. What got us here is that we have not used energy and resources in a way that

00:10:36.560 is sustainable. And there have been powers that do that more than others, the United States being

00:10:45.020 one of them. And so we have really created a ecological disruption to so many areas in the

00:10:53.820 world. And what happens when you have ecological disruption, what follows, because remember,

00:10:59.260 we're completely reliant on the earth to live. So when you extract natural resources and you

00:11:06.360 steal people's ability or you begin to tax certain part of what they export, and when people can no

00:11:12.480 longer survive on their land, that leads to political instability, just like droughts led

00:11:18.580 to political instability in Syria, which created the Syrian migration crisis. It's the same thing

00:11:24.820 that when we don't act, when we behave in a way that's greedy and we violate the land and we

00:11:31.380 disrupt the ecology, we also disrupt people. And maybe over 20 years, 30 years, you won't feel it.

00:11:38.880 But after hundreds of years, people are going to feel that. Just this is what's happening even in

00:11:43.660 migration in Europe, the English colonized so many parts of the world. And now migrants are going 0.98

00:11:50.680 to those places from which they were colonized because their homelands are so disrupted.

00:11:57.580 And so to me, that really illustrates this huge intersection that we have with

00:12:02.700 the environment, ecology, however you want to call it, is that the effects of what happens

00:12:10.480 when we go in and not act in a sustainable way with the land, we will disrupt it. We will

00:12:16.300 eventually cause huge problems like mass migrations, like what we're seeing right now,

00:12:21.120 where you have families showing up at the border with their children and you have children traveling

00:12:26.800 on their own, you know, sometimes as young as six. People are putting themselves at that risk

00:12:30.880 because they can no longer tolerate the instability and poverty and the violence, the just blatant

00:12:37.920 violence that's happening. And on top of that, then the United States begins to criminalize that.

00:12:42.980 And guess what? Who makes money? The prison industrial complex. Where are they? Where are

00:12:47.800 they incarcerating these people? They're incarcerating them at the U.S.-Mexico border in

00:12:52.740 the Rio Grande Valley. Hey, guess what kind of water they drink? They drink fracked water. And

00:12:57.700 the kids, as a result, are very sick. So these things are very interconnected. And I think,

00:13:02.840 you know, as an artist, it's very important for me to to really tell those kinds of stories,

00:13:07.800 because it's not about, you know, climate change is an issue here and immigration is an issue there.

00:13:12.860 It's not like that. These are not, we don't separate our lives by issues. We experience

00:13:17.900 various kinds of intersectional oppressions. And I think that art is a really good way to talk

00:13:24.100 about that because art is about your emotions. Art is about really understanding a story and being

00:13:30.840 moved by it. And I think that for the kinds of connections that we need to draw and really help

00:13:37.400 people understand art is critical to that.

00:14:07.400 Deena

00:14:12.580 Por la boca escupo lava, corazón de obsidiana

00:14:16.500 Alma de anciana sabia, rabia, música y magia

00:14:20.680 Por la boca escupo lava, corazón de obsidiana

00:14:24.580 Alma de anciana sabia, rabia, música y magia

00:14:28.840 Demasiado intensa para una simple humana

00:14:32.160 con su orgánica materia y tormentas en el alma

00:14:36.700 Demasiado intensa para ser humana, pero muy mundana, para ser diosa.

00:14:43.980 Por eso soy odiosa y bastante caprichosa, por eso digo lo que pienso, aunque incomoda.

00:14:52.640 No me pasan en la radio, no les voy a pagar, si el honor es tuyo no me voy a rebajar.

00:14:59.760 No me invitan a sus fiestas ni a sus festivales

00:15:04.040 Pero me ponen fuerte en las marchas, en las calles

00:15:08.280 Sabes, no quiero un carro del año

00:15:11.900 Quiero aprender a manejar mi vida sin hacerme daño

00:15:16.360 Y sin hacerte daño

00:15:18.360 Pues que voy a cantar si tuviera el alma podrida

00:15:22.340 Si no me atreviera a sanar

00:15:24.380 ¿Qué tal? Me llamo Rebeca 0.75

00:15:26.860 Tengo orejera de jade

00:15:28.300 Tengo tatuadas las piernas, los brazos y en los puños los ideales

00:15:32.140 Soy un volcán, soy una pantera y tengo manada de peras

00:15:36.420 No le canto a cualquiera, le canto a mis lobas, le canto a guerreras

00:15:40.380 Soy un volcán, soy una pantera y tengo manada de peras

00:15:44.420 No le canto a cualquiera, le canto a mis lobas, le canto a guerreras

00:15:48.360 Por la boca escupolaba, corazón de obsidiana

00:15:52.320 Alma de anciana, sabia, rabia, música y magia

00:15:56.360 I absolutely agree with everything you said from the importance of art and really understanding

00:16:16.500 these intersectional issues and then also explaining how we're in the situation we are

00:16:23.980 at with immigration through u.s imperialism and just bullying i mean it's it's really crazy to

00:16:30.980 zoom out and see what the united states does all over the world coming into countries stealing 0.91

00:16:38.600 resources creating instability profiting off poverty and suffering it's really disgusting

00:16:45.580 um you know you write and speak about how artists who are activists must work in the space of ideas

00:16:54.200 In your published conversation with Teddy Cruz and Dominique Wildston,

00:16:58.200 the example that was given that it would be ineffective to waltz into Congress

00:17:03.740 proclaiming that borders are irrelevant because culture precedes law.

00:17:09.540 Along that same vein, I heard you speak about how the term illegal

00:17:13.540 was crafted by a white supremacist network,

00:17:17.040 knowing that if they succeed in painting immigrants as the other,

00:17:20.580 then they would win the cultural war.

00:17:22.540 So with those examples in mind, could you share your perspective on art as cultural strategy, and then perhaps elaborate on how art, as a force of social change, can shift migrant narratives away from criminalization towards celebration, resilience, and strength?

00:17:42.840 Yes, I love to talk about art and the power of art.

00:17:46.280 So first is, you know, understanding culture and how culture works.

00:17:53.480 And so in order to have social change, lasting social change, three things have to be into alignment, politics, culture and economics.

00:18:04.620 And those three sectors need to or those three kind of worlds need to be aligned.

00:18:12.280 And so, for example, when we talk about the gun debate, there have been parents who have been fighting for gun control since after Sandy Hook, and yet we have not had political change.

00:18:23.540 The political world has been frozen or has simply not moved.

00:18:27.480 And meanwhile, we've had the economic space. You know, there could have been companies who many years ago began to take some economic measures to limit the sales of guns or to do something to address the issues.

00:18:42.620 But that world was not did not feel compelled to do that. Fast forward many years later and you have the kids in Parkland, Florida, who begin to once again share their stories and really, you know, share their human stories.

00:18:59.880 and they begin to get some momentum in the press.

00:19:05.080 What did they end up doing?

00:19:06.420 They ended up pressuring the economic sector

00:19:08.560 as we saw Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods

00:19:11.020 change their policies.

00:19:12.820 And I believe it happened within a week or two.

00:19:15.300 And now that's creating pressure

00:19:17.580 on the political sector to move.

00:19:19.940 So if we understand that those three things

00:19:22.240 have to be working in unison,

00:19:23.760 we can also identify that culture

00:19:27.120 is the component that moves them both.

00:19:31.860 Because when you have cultural pressure,

00:19:34.600 the economic sector will yield

00:19:36.500 and eventually the political sector will yield.

00:19:39.400 But the political sector is the one that moves the slowest.

00:19:42.580 And that's because, frankly,

00:19:43.820 you have these white men in power 0.78

00:19:45.860 who we have a very broken system 0.99

00:19:48.720 and those who represent us

00:19:50.180 don't actually even reflect the country

00:19:52.480 or the world we live in.

00:19:53.540 so um if if the space of culture is very powerful it's where we create the narratives of how we

00:20:00.520 identify it's how we perceive other people um it's everything it's how we dress how we talk

00:20:07.060 how we express ourselves where we spend our time how we spend our dollars all of that is shaped by

00:20:12.880 culture and culture is made up by music film television art game food there is so many different

00:20:21.480 components that make up culture. And so I believe that if culture moves the fastest,

00:20:28.200 then we need to be having the stories and the songs and the films that really reflect the world

00:20:33.640 we want to see. And this is actually why I've been involved now also with the Time's Up movement,

00:20:38.600 which is the movement led by women in Hollywood, led by survivors to really talk about representation.

00:20:44.960 now art is about what you see and feel and so if you're consistently looking at a screen and you

00:20:51.620 have white men acting out all these different roles or you have just straight up heteronormative

00:20:56.180 people just like or or you have these dominant cultures on tv you will begin to normalize those

00:21:02.560 cultures and then when you see you know black people only being presented a certain way you're

00:21:08.120 going to start normalizing that in your brain you know we are we are still creatures that are moved

00:21:12.760 by our hearts and our imaginations. And these messages work in our subconscious. And so if

00:21:18.540 we're watching TV and we keep seeing people driving cars, you know, and they're burning

00:21:22.480 fossil fuels, do you think that we're going to think about renewable energy? We don't even see

00:21:27.120 solar panels on in film and television. So if for me, culture is a space where we absolutely need

00:21:34.020 to, one, take back the tools of culture making and we have to make it an equitable space. But we also

00:21:40.480 have to think about what stories are we really telling? Like, how do we, you know, tell stories

00:21:45.520 that are about inclusion, about togetherness, about sustainability? If we begin to normalize

00:21:51.680 these through music, film, television, art, then we have the possibility of actually going there

00:21:57.620 because every single major social movement was always led by culture, right? The AIDS fight

00:22:03.980 during the Reagan era, that was led by ACT UP, that was posters, that was advertisements, that was

00:22:09.420 Keith Haring, you know, and then you had more and more queer people on TV. You had the AIDS 0.99

00:22:14.880 quilt. It's the same thing when we had in the civil rights movement, you had music, you had

00:22:19.620 literature. So culture is indispensable and it's hugely important. And so as a person who works in

00:22:26.600 culture, not only am I an artist and I, you know, do my work as an artist and create these art

00:22:32.720 experiences, but I also work with many other artists because I believe that artists actually

00:22:37.440 are very crucial to social change. And I think that when we include artists and when we really

00:22:43.260 can tap into the power of what artists can do, we are more likely to win. And what I mean by win is

00:22:49.100 we are more likely to achieve equity, justice, and equality. So moving on to your second part

00:22:55.800 of your question, which is about the butterfly and how it can change attitudes towards migrants

00:23:01.980 is because all of the attitudes that we currently have towards migrants were created and designed. 0.97

00:23:09.560 They were created and designed by white supremacists, by white Natives, 0.76

00:23:13.640 who knew that if they use language like illegal, if they show pictures of people running across the border, 0.97

00:23:19.480 and if they framed things in a certain way, again, they're using culture,

00:23:24.220 and they're framing these things in a certain way that are very subliminal,

00:23:28.840 then they would be able to pass harsh policy. 0.75

00:23:31.980 It's the same thing, you know, with police brutality, you know, I mean, it's you would not if white people were being killed at the rate that black people are being killed, that would end in a few days because of white outrage.

00:23:47.400 but because we are so used to seeing dehumanizing depictions of black people on the screen or we

00:23:54.960 just don't there's a lot of people who don't even interact with black people and so much of what we

00:24:00.440 receive is racist that actually changes people's attitudes and we can live in a country where

00:24:04.980 black people are constantly being by killed by the police and nothing gets done it's the same 0.83

00:24:09.400 thing with immigrants we have been taught that immigrants are less than they're less deserving 0.93

00:24:13.420 and imagine if we lived in a society where we valued people who moved because it was a part

00:24:22.300 of nature to move and if we said wow you know you've traveled all this way it's clear that you

00:24:28.020 need a safe place let us welcome you you know have a seat drink some water you're safe now

00:24:35.720 we're going to welcome you imagine if we had that kind of society and imagine if we built

00:24:43.020 monuments to migrants. I mean, migrants are the ultimate, they are really doing something that is

00:24:49.360 the ultimate human story, which is that you leave your home to go into a distant place that you 0.99

00:24:58.460 have no idea what it's like, but you go because you want to survive or because you want to be

00:25:02.920 with your loved one. But that's a beautiful story. And I think that for me, with art and

00:25:08.200 with the butterfly, it's really about how do we show the beauty and the resilience and also just

00:25:14.260 the humanity of migrants in a way that will make us remember that we're human and that migrants

00:25:20.700 are human too. And that as human beings, we don't want to cause this level of pain to another 0.86

00:25:25.860 community. And so with my art, I'm really trying to attempt to do that through different symbolism,

00:25:32.000 storytelling, and supporting other artists who also want to do that.

00:25:38.200 I'm wondering, how has your work in terms of cultural strategy gained or changed meaning under this political administration? Not to say that other administrations in the past haven't been terrible in their own ways, but, you know, what's happening now under Trump for you?

00:25:56.340 well what's happening now is that i am extremely tired i'm very tired and i'm working double time

00:26:06.020 i never would have imagined i just would have never imagined that we would have gone so backwards

00:26:10.640 and that um the sheer level of hate and um and just you know domination and and and overwhelmingness 0.86

00:26:21.080 of everything, because we're barely recovering from the Muslim ban. And then we then are 0.95

00:26:27.920 understanding that families and kids are being separated at the border. And then we can barely

00:26:34.460 recover from that. And we see another shooting. And then we can't recover from that. And we're

00:26:39.820 seeing, you know, the extraction in the oil pipelines where, you know, indigenous people

00:26:45.240 are trying to fight. And then you see that, you know, Trump is giving away pieces of land that

00:26:52.560 are so important to wildlife, and it's completely overwhelming. And you see the people that are

00:26:59.300 hired to run everything from the EPA to Homeland Security, and it's completely overwhelming. But I

00:27:06.680 also think that it has required all of us to really bring forth our best game and our best

00:27:14.620 efforts because what we're up against is so significant. And it's also in a way, it is like

00:27:21.280 the end of this kind of ideology. I believe that this is white men's kind of last attempt to really

00:27:30.700 have power and it's getting ripped out of their hands. And naturally when that is happening,

00:27:34.780 you will have a backlash, but it'll be the last backlash. So I, I feel that I'm witnessing a shift

00:27:44.160 in the sense that I'm witnessing new normals that are going to be here to stay. And whether

00:27:49.440 that's, you know, trans people being elected to office, or whether it's black women being elected

00:27:54.800 to office or seeing a black renaissance on television, seeing more shows of people of

00:28:01.100 color than we have ever seen. And I also see, you know, just what's happening in climate

00:28:07.840 conversations. You know, I'm in a lot of, I go to a lot of kind of conferences and gatherings

00:28:12.180 where we're talking about environmental justice

00:28:15.140 and we're talking about climate change.

00:28:17.580 And I see even the environmental movement

00:28:21.620 asking itself very critical questions around our future.

00:28:25.460 So I think I've never worked this hard in my life.

00:28:27.660 And part of me is also like,

00:28:29.080 wow, this is what life is gonna be like for a few years

00:28:32.140 is that we are consistently gonna be having

00:28:34.940 to fight for our basic dignity.

00:28:36.800 And also knowing that we're part of a new story

00:28:41.580 that is being formed. And that's very exciting. So while I'm feeling just, um, constantly

00:28:48.160 overwhelmed and sad about everything that's happening, I also feel a great sense of clarity

00:28:54.580 of what's needed. And I'm so excited to actually be fighting alongside so many different people

00:29:01.060 now. You know, I, I was just at the U S Mexico border and, um, I saw a lot of white people come

00:29:07.280 to the immigration protests and i'm now um you know in places where i interact with a lot of

00:29:13.460 actors and uh from hollywood and i see in them this desire to also want to do things want to

00:29:19.340 really be um should i stop i pause for that thing to go by i hate this ice cream truck

00:29:26.920 i hate this ice cream truck okay so anyway so i'll rewind i i'm very excited to be

00:29:38.620 part of communities of change where we are just really taking ownership of how we shift things

00:29:56.920 Defendemos la vida, los ríos, los lagos, los bosques, la luna, la noche

00:30:10.960 Y así como defendemos la tierra, defendemos los cuerpos de las mujeres

00:30:17.000 Nuestro cuerpo es nuestro primer territorio de defensa

00:30:22.560 My body, my body is my first territory of defense

00:30:30.100 The wisdom, the red of life, the energy that transforms odio in joy

00:30:36.240 The valentia of women compatible, the strength that gives balance and joy

00:30:42.840 The wisdom, the red of life, the energy that transforms odio in joy

00:30:49.020 La valentía de mujeres combativas

00:30:52.540 La fuerza que da equilibrio y alegría 0.83

00:30:56.180 Sanando yo, sanas tú

00:30:58.120 Yo soy tú

00:30:59.260 Sanando tú, sano yo

00:31:01.320 Tú soy yo

00:31:02.420 Sanando yo, sanas tú

00:31:04.500 Yo soy tú

00:31:05.740 Tú soy yo

00:31:06.980 Yo soy tú

00:31:08.320 Sanando yo, sanas tú

00:31:10.940 Yo soy tú

00:31:12.080 Sanando tú, sano yo

00:31:14.120 Tú soy yo

00:31:15.240 Sanando yo, sanas tú

00:31:17.300 Yo soy tú

00:31:18.600 Yes, I agree that that's part of the beauty of this time is seeing so many people wake up,

00:31:31.360 people from different positionalities and privileges and communities coming together.

00:31:37.280 I mean, that really is a beautiful part of this movement right now.

00:31:41.180 And I want to go back to migration again. 1.00

00:31:44.340 And, you know, to be honest, I cannot even begin to grasp the scope of the frightening realities that immigrants are living with.

00:31:51.900 You know, as Trump just charges blatantly ahead in this dehumanizing, supremacist, racist, xenophobic fashion.

00:32:01.280 And prior to Trump, a surging of the undocumented and unafraid movement was praising the stories of undocumented youth.

00:32:09.100 But now I've been hearing about how fear is being overcome by terror and how migrant communities are silencing and policing themselves for self-preservation. 1.00

00:32:21.880 And rightfully so. I mean, I read an article about a young man named Jorge Herrera who was stopped by police in San Bernardino, California for riding his bicycle without a headlight, then detained and deported. 1.00

00:32:34.240 And so the stories of immigrant rights activists who were recently targeted and deported in direct retaliation for their political organizing, you know, it comes at no surprise.

00:32:46.720 So I'm wondering, would you be comfortable to share your thoughts on how this unhinged U.S. deportation regime is impacting not only the well-being of migrant communities, but also their ability to make art and organize for social change?

00:33:04.240 Yeah. So, you know, I was born in the United States. So I myself, I am not an immigrant. I'm a citizen. And this is my home. And yet so many of my family members growing up were undocumented. I mean, my parents were undocumented before I was born.

00:33:20.020 So I've understood what it is, just the ongoing fear, and I've lived close to people who experience that on an ongoing basis. 0.57

00:33:31.500 And most recently, when I really began to meet more undocumented young people, and I would say this is a new generation of migrants that came a few generations after my parents.

00:33:45.780 But when I began to meet these youth and I began to see how they were so courageously coming out with their stories of being undocumented, I felt very compelled to connect with them because, you know, when I was a young person, I would always really look for mentors and just try to connect with adults who, you know, could support me as an artist.

00:34:07.340 And so when I became an adult, I realized, or an older person, I realized that it's so important to connect with younger people. And so when I connected with younger, undocumented people, and really began to understand that in them coming out, they are telling a story, they are sharing their humanity, and they are using the tools of culture, storytelling, to really offer us a view of what it's like in their shoes.

00:34:33.880 and for many years you know many uh undocumented youth came out in 2010 and that's when i would

00:34:40.480 first see you know 2009 2010 just like the more normalization of what it means to be undocumented

00:34:47.780 because previous to that when i was growing up nobody would talk about being undocumented it

00:34:52.540 was like a big secret that we all knew but never talked about whereas what i was witnessing in

00:34:58.560 2009, 2010, were young people coming out. And it was very powerful. It also really shifted politics.

00:35:06.540 I mean, you know, 2010, you have young people coming out with their status, immigration status.

00:35:12.620 And by 2012, the president is signing into law relief for these youth through DACA. And so we

00:35:22.580 see that the storytelling strategy was very successful in moving politics. And that for

00:35:27.620 years, you know, through Obama's second term, we also saw immigrant youth tell their own stories

00:35:33.000 from their lived experiences through art and music and film and performance. And so when I witnessed

00:35:40.380 the way in which Trump's election literally created another level of fear, it's almost like

00:35:47.980 a re-traumatizing. And it's very, very evil how some laws disregard humans and their emotions and

00:35:57.120 their trauma. Some undocumented people did go back in the closet, as many people say, but others

00:36:04.300 didn't. And so I think that I don't I don't have a judgment on when people decide to take measures

00:36:12.040 for their own safety. You know, when I came out about my abortion, and people were, you know,

00:36:17.320 I had people who would pop my tires, and I had the worst aggression ever experienced on social media

00:36:25.260 that I've ever had and people threatening to kill me and all these things, I realized, wow,

00:36:30.460 you know, sometimes it's actually not safe to come out with your story. And that's everyone's

00:36:35.220 own call. You know, sometimes you may not be in a safe environment to say you're trans or to say

00:36:40.240 that you're a survivor of sexual abuse, or sometimes you're not safe to say that you're

00:36:44.800 undocumented. And so I think that's important to respect and also important to use our privilege

00:36:53.620 to make spaces safer.

00:36:55.760 And that's what I try to do

00:36:56.940 as somebody who has an American passport

00:36:59.420 and I have my citizenship

00:37:01.140 is I really try to use my privilege

00:37:02.900 so that I can help create spaces

00:37:05.020 where undocumented people can express themselves

00:37:08.560 and where I can, you know, support them

00:37:11.080 and really help amplify their stories.

00:37:14.940 Do you consider the digital sphere,

00:37:17.320 you know, social media as a safe space

00:37:19.700 for undocumented artists to share their stories? 0.97

00:37:21.980 sometimes because people who troll feminists or people who troll immigrants or people who troll

00:37:30.180 anyone with progressive ideas those are very highly organized mobs organizing people to all

00:37:38.560 go comment at the same time so these trolls are organized and sometimes they can be dangerous

00:37:45.300 i think that digital spaces there is a perception that they are safe but i don't believe that

00:37:51.140 Because, you know, especially now when we've understood the spying that Facebook has been doing on us and we understand that Cambridge Analytica is selling our data and then you see that we're under a fascist regime, you know, the FBI under President Trump has a new designation for black liberation fighters. 0.51

00:38:10.600 They're called black extremists. So there are many situations in digital media where it's important

00:38:17.440 to take precautions and it's actually important to really consider your own safety. At the same

00:38:22.920 time, you know, I, I didn't grow up with the internet. I didn't have the internet until I was

00:38:27.360 my first year in college. And for me, the internet has been so crucial in having a voice and a

00:38:32.700 platform. And so even though I have been trolled, I mean, even Breitbart wrote something about me,

00:38:37.580 I still I love the tools that technology offers me to have a platform. I go back and forth.

00:38:45.640 I don't think these spaces are always safe. I think just like technology, technology is always

00:38:50.900 changing. It's important to just always revisit how you are sharing in social media and also know

00:38:59.080 that it's a space to really get the word out and to have a platform.

00:39:03.120 mm-hmm the trump administration is pushing many of the long-standing insidious ills of american

00:39:12.060 society to a visible extreme and perhaps it takes images of toddlers in cages for americans to wake

00:39:19.720 up to the violence this government has always reaped but i wonder how long will it take for

00:39:25.580 these headlines to fade and i also wonder how attorney general jeff sessions recent decision

00:39:31.720 to deny immigrants asylum from domestic and gang violence will feed back into the social dynamics

00:39:37.800 that are pushing children and mothers northward. Oh yeah. Oh gosh. Well, honestly, like my stomach

00:39:47.460 hurts when I talk about this because it's just, it's such a hard and complicated and violent

00:39:57.060 reality. So first is that, you know, we are in the age of narco violence in places like Mexico

00:40:08.520 and in many places in Central America. And the drug, the demand for drugs that's fueling this

00:40:15.520 kind of violence is because of American demand for drugs. So and not just that, but we are

00:40:24.580 we are providing the guns for all the violence to happen. So for example, in Mexico, over 75%

00:40:31.940 of the guns that are used in violent situations are from the United States in killings and in

00:40:41.280 just atrocities. And then if we think about, for example, in Central America, that the United

00:40:48.180 States under Reagan went in and literally hired military to go in and rape women and

00:40:57.880 brutalize and torture and burn the farmlands of people in the name of ending communism.

00:41:05.780 I mean, it's just, it's very horrific what was done in the 80s in Central America.

00:41:11.980 and as a result those countries have been very destabilized you know people had to migrate to

00:41:19.440 the united states right a lot of salvadorians a lot of mexicans had to migrate to the united

00:41:23.480 states but guess what the united states treats people of color so bad that often kids of color

00:41:28.680 their only options for employment are selling drugs or getting into gangs or basically getting

00:41:33.340 into illegal activities because hey you know what we live in a racist world and people ain't going

00:41:39.100 to hire you you're not going to get hired you're actually more likely to get incarcerated then you

00:41:43.760 have gangs you have more drugs happening in the united states and then then when some of those

00:41:50.600 men now who who came to the u.s as refugees they're now men and then they get involved in

00:41:56.600 violent things then they get arrested and then they get deported back to their home countries 0.92

00:42:01.740 But imagine now they've returned and many of them are criminals and they are then bringing, they begin to terrorize in their own home countries.

00:42:14.580 But this all began with American intervention.

00:42:18.360 So when you really understand the years and years of brutality that now exist in these countries,

00:42:24.900 you know, in places like Guatemala and all throughout Central America and even in Mexico,

00:42:29.120 in Juarez, femicides, the femicides, the killing of women were at all time highs.

00:42:35.180 You have children being recruited into drug violence. We have just completely destabilized

00:42:41.640 them. So much of this not only is just straight up human rights abuses, but it's about rape and

00:42:48.360 domination and male aggression. That's what we have normalized in many of these countries. And

00:42:53.340 that's what these drug this drug trade does and when we take away the basic human rights and we

00:43:00.300 no longer look at patriarchal violence which is plague these countries because we we exported

00:43:07.060 that we set that up reagan and and even people before him and then we take away one of the small

00:43:15.920 things that women could access you know one of the small things that women could say no you know i

00:43:22.440 fear for my life or I was abused or I am I can't go back because I might be raped or abused. And

00:43:29.520 on top of that, these women, 80 percent of them who are crossing the border have been sexually

00:43:33.820 assaulted. So just consider that for so many women and trans people and queer people, they have been

00:43:41.660 experiencing assault for so much of their life and that they can't access legal frameworks to

00:43:48.680 protect themselves is horrific. And it makes me sick. I so understand that this is an issue of

00:43:55.560 white supremacy, but it's an issue of patriarchy. When you crush the women, when you crush women, 1.00

00:44:01.180 you destroy societies. 1.00

00:44:18.680 From Guatemala 0.99

00:44:23.360 Reina del caos

00:44:28.720 Pardon si arruino esta fiesta patria

00:44:31.460 Esto no es democracia, más bien una falacia

00:44:34.100 No tienen eficacia las falsas elecciones

00:44:36.700 El falo que gobierna solo son las erecciones

00:44:39.580 Son las lecciones de un pueblo sin memoria

00:44:42.240 Que se toma a las calles pero no lee historia

00:44:45.060 La verdadera guerra no ha terminado 0.73

00:44:47.720 Los que nos masacraron han controlado en el estado 0.90

00:44:50.440 A quien conviene el orden que se mantiene

00:44:53.160 Perdonen pero el optimismo ya no me sostiene

00:44:55.920 Hago lo que puedo pero no es suficiente

00:44:58.600 Aunque intento no entiendo al resto de la gente

00:45:01.440 Que matas igual no me entiendo a mi

00:45:04.060 Vivo en conflicto y no se a donde ir

00:45:06.760 Si no me hace reir prefiero no seguir

00:45:09.360 Si no me vibra el corazón prefiero huir 0.88

00:45:12.200 No encuentro la respuesta no recuerdo la pregunta 0.66

00:45:14.960 Quiero claridad pero solo encuentro penumbra 0.86

00:45:17.740 Pero el dolor alumbra

00:45:19.180 Y mis cicatrices brillarán con cada mirada que amor le apunta

00:45:23.200 Reina y señora del caos que me adicta

00:45:26.020 A veces tirana, a veces proscrita

00:45:28.800 La mejor batalla es conmigo misma

00:45:31.360 Soy autogobierno, mi bandera es anarquista

00:45:34.220 Reina y señora del caos que me adicta

00:45:36.920 A veces tirana, a veces proscrita

00:45:39.740 La mejor batalla es conmigo misma

00:45:42.300 Soy autogobierno, mi bandera es anarquista

00:45:45.060 Y no voy a hacer arte nada más pa' complacerles

00:45:50.740 No voy a censurarme para no incomodarles

00:45:53.480 Vengo a contar mi historia, no a tener buenos modales

00:45:56.120 No vine a quedarle bien a nadie

00:45:57.860 No vine a hacer las paces, no me pongo disfraces

00:46:00.620 No vine a repetir las frases de organismos internacionales 0.76

00:46:04.060 No salgo a protestar para que la gente me vea 0.84

00:46:06.740 Y luego subir fotos pa' que crean 0.50

00:46:08.800 En la calle hay pelea

00:46:10.140 Yo no elegí la guerra, pero nací guerrera y lo seré hasta en el día que me muera

00:46:15.040 Ni perdón ni olvido, aunque la llaga me duela, la llama en el alma me consuela

00:46:19.880 Ay, no busco un escenario para amenizar tu fiesta, cada una de mis letras una falla en el sistema

00:46:25.880 Los dinosaurios duermen con el arte sin protesta, que se extingan de una vez en el planeta

00:46:31.340 Que se extingan de una vez yo

00:46:34.340 Reina del caos 0.72

00:46:42.400 Reina y señora del caos que me adicta

00:46:45.120 A veces tirana, a veces proscrita

00:46:47.900 La mejor batalla es conmigo misma

00:46:50.440 Soy autogobierno, mi bandera es anarquista

00:46:53.300 Reina y señora del caos que me adicta

00:46:56.000 A veces tirana, a veces proscrita

00:46:58.800 La mejor batalla es conmigo misma

00:47:01.380 Soy autogobierno, mi bandera es anarquista

00:47:04.140 well we are so inspired by your approach to creating politically engaged art and how you

00:47:21.780 encourage art that expresses the complexity and multiplicity of human experience

00:47:26.680 and then instead of only reacting to injustice you tend narratives of joy and resilience

00:47:33.360 And I want to ask, do you think that our dedication to joy, pleasure and creativity must only grow fiercer as the militarization of global capitalism seemingly only increases in brutality?

00:47:49.980 Yes, I think I think yes, I believe that because the truth is that the level of trauma that our communities are going through is severe.

00:48:02.740 I mean, we are now living in a moment, in the moment of Me Too, thanks to Tarana Burke, we're living in a moment where we're understanding just how normalized sexual violence is in our society.

00:48:14.500 Okay, so we're dealing with years and years of abuse and assault on women that is now starting to just begin to be uncovered.

00:48:25.420 and we're understanding that so much of the behaviors that we that we thought were normal

00:48:30.380 like sexual harassment you know and that perhaps in the past we couldn't speak out about now we're

00:48:36.280 understanding that we can speak out about it and when you realize that so many people so many people

00:48:42.780 of color black people latino people are in prison and that prison has people in cages and that

00:48:48.500 prison prisons are the new form of slavery when you understand that and you understand that 0.73

00:48:54.000 you know, that we live in a society where a black person who might want to go to the park

00:49:00.740 and is driving just has to fear for their life when they get pulled over by an officer of the

00:49:08.380 law. These are very harsh times. These are very sad truths. And those can break people because

00:49:17.680 they're just like, you know, when when the plant gets shut down in your community and you no longer

00:49:23.080 are able to sustain your family or when, you know, you have no other choice but to work

00:49:30.760 in the slaughterhouses where we're torturing animals because that's the only industry available

00:49:37.100 to you or you have to, you know, work in a coal plant. You know, there is capitalism and patriarchy

00:49:45.440 and this extractive economy have really, really damaged people. That's why I think so many people

00:49:50.620 are medicated in this country. I really believe that where people are sad, they are isolated,

00:49:57.780 people work too much, they have to work because of our capitalist reality. And all of these things

00:50:03.060 are very significant, as well as I know that our bodies are feeling the pain that Mother Earth

00:50:09.620 feels. I know that, you know, the rise in sicknesses and illnesses related to pollution

00:50:16.920 or dirty water, all of that, those are in our bodies, and we're connected to Mother Earth.

00:50:23.520 So when we understand that that level of suffering is so severe, we have to equally reach towards

00:50:30.040 our joy and our freedom, because that is what's going to sustain us. The one thing that they

00:50:35.780 cannot control is our mind and our imagination, and the imagination is a very, very powerful tool.

00:50:41.860 Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. So I think that for us to tap into our joy and our resilience means that we're tapping into our power, and that we will be able, you know, despite injustices that have been committed against us, that we will be able to thrive.

00:51:01.900 And so, yes, to me, joy and freedom and a real ability to tell our stories is going to be part of our superpower to live in a more just world.

00:51:17.080 Absolutely.

00:51:18.580 A few years ago, you released a Slut Power series with images of women of color and messages such as politicians off my putang. 0.56

00:51:28.100 My uterus is mine. 1.00

00:51:29.420 And I would just love to hear what slut power and pussy culture mean to you. 1.00

00:51:35.800 Yes. 1.00

00:51:36.420 Well, what it means to me is that, you know, just like we have these laws that tell you that Latinos are invading you and you have to be afraid of them and you have to be afraid of black people.

00:51:46.720 We also have these narratives that tell us, oh, you know what? 1.00

00:51:51.260 It's like, keep your legs closed, your pussy's dirty, it smells, or your pussy should only 1.00

00:51:56.480 be used to pleasure a cis man. 1.00

00:52:00.440 So I counter all those messages.

00:52:03.460 To me, reconnecting with my body and loving my body means I am connected to nature, because

00:52:09.540 this is what I have.

00:52:10.760 When I am really truly embodied, I'm human and I get to experience what human beings experience with nature. And I'm not just here to be a productive gear in the machine called capitalism. I'm here to be a human being and to connect with animals and to enjoy plants and to enjoy many other species.

00:52:32.480 and in order to do that I want to love myself. I was taught to hate myself. I mean I was taught

00:52:37.520 just like so many girls that you're ugly and that you should hate your body. So for me pussy power 1.00

00:52:43.640 is a way to take that back and to love myself. I love how you're working with pussy power and 0.99

00:52:54.960 migration rights and climate change and i am just so grateful for the intersectionality that you 0.97

00:53:03.700 bring to your work and you know we touched on climate change at the beginning and it seems that

00:53:09.480 the climate movement is really struggling to move beyond charts and graphs towards actually

00:53:15.540 activating people through art and i'm wondering how do you think climate change related art

00:53:21.700 could be more captivating and solution-inspiring?

00:53:26.440 Climate art and the work that deals with ecology and the environment,

00:53:31.840 I think right now has been mainly done through one kind of perspective. 0.96

00:53:37.520 And that perspective is the perspective of white men. 0.62

00:53:40.260 So when I grew up and I would look at nature channels, 0.91

00:53:45.100 images of people hiking in the magazines or watch commercials 0.99

00:53:48.800 and there was people out in nature, they were always white.

00:53:51.260 And there were always men. So I never really saw myself in nature. And I lived in a city,

00:53:56.580 you know, I live in California, I lived in a city of cement, and my parents just worked too hard.

00:54:02.420 So I couldn't access nature. Sometimes I would join camps, my parents would put me in summer

00:54:07.200 camps, and I would love to be in nature. But I didn't have access to it in the ways that other

00:54:13.180 people didn't specifically white people just have more access to nature, white privilege earns you

00:54:19.160 access to nature. For me, it's really important to always see stories of nature that are also

00:54:26.460 where I see people of color in those settings. You know, I see black people connecting with

00:54:33.500 animals or I see, you know, Latinos out in the forest or hiking or swimming. So the first thing

00:54:41.740 is I think we need to unlearn what we've been taught

00:54:46.700 and that we need to see stories of people of color in nature more.

00:54:52.480 Because that will also show young people of color

00:54:56.040 that nature is for them too.

00:54:57.980 Nature is where they can also connect and enjoy

00:55:00.320 because unfortunately inequality has it

00:55:03.200 so that many poor people of color and poor people

00:55:06.020 live in very highly urban settings

00:55:08.240 where we just don't have access to it.

00:55:10.900 I think that the climate movement needs to also understand that we need to have narratives that include humans, precisely because we have to undo the white supremacist environmental images that we've been so used to.

00:55:25.100 We have to unwire our brains.

00:55:26.960 So it's going to take showing humans of color, human beings who are people of color, connecting to nature.

00:55:34.180 And it also means that we need to think beyond when we talk about global warming, for example, we need to think beyond CO2 because it's not magically being created.

00:55:43.860 CO2 is being created because of white men in power.

00:55:46.740 And the decisions that white men are making is having a huge, significant impact on the environment. 0.64

00:55:53.140 And the people who are suffering the most are communities of color.

00:55:55.940 So we need to tell the stories because it's not just that the earth is getting hotter.

00:55:59.560 It's getting hotter because of human activity.

00:56:01.820 And so we need to be able to show that. And I think so often when we talk about climate change, we're not seeing the full story. You know, we're seeing we might see a polar bear. But you know what also there are the effects of climate change is also that in places like Fresno or in Long Beach or in downtown L.A., the pollution from burning fossil fuels is so, so bad that you have generations of kids with asthma.

00:56:26.920 So those stories need to be told, because unless we tell those stories in a very comprehensive and well-rounded way, we are not going to move people on this issue. We're not going to win their hearts because we're not showing the full truth of what climate change is, who causes it, and who suffers the most.

00:56:45.960 So I believe that we need to be having a different kind of storytelling. We need to be also telling stories that show the impact on many different species, humans definitely, but many different species and how our suffering might also be connected to the suffering of an animal who was raised in captivity and is being forcibly impregnated and then separated from their offspring.

00:57:14.860 similar to what is happening at the border you know the way that cows are separated from their

00:57:20.100 offspring they're forcibly they're raped you know and they're when when you get forcibly impregnated

00:57:25.520 that is an assault on your body and so i think we need to draw those connections more in art

00:57:31.500 we need to tell stories that show how also you know what grilling means and how we're

00:57:37.880 extracting the natural lubrication of the earth and how that is also an act of violence and assault

00:57:43.320 um and so i'm i'm as an artist that's what most inspires me is to be able to

00:57:49.240 create cultural work cultural content that helps draw those connections

00:57:55.660 wonderful wonderful thank you fabiana for all the work that you do like you were saying

00:58:03.100 the tireless work with all of the issues today so thank you so much from everyone at for the wild

00:58:09.420 and we really appreciate you great thank you so much bye

00:58:13.280 thank you for listening to for the wild podcast i'm ayanna young the music you heard today was

00:58:24.160 from rebecca lane hailing from guatemala you can find her new album available on band camp

00:58:30.660 also check her out on tour going on now i'd like to thank our incredible podcast team

00:58:37.180 our editor and producer andrew stores and march young research director madison mogulski

00:58:44.660 media director molly libo and research assistant francesca glassbell

00:58:50.820 questions for this interview were crafted by madison mogulski francesca glassbell and myself

00:58:57.120 until next time

For The Wild - July 19, 2018

FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ on Art & Migration Know No Borders⧸85

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Transcript