Connections Rooted in Tears, Freedom, & Indigenous Memory
Grandmother's Indigo Batik My Ancestor-Daughter Sweet Water / Blue Notes revolutions in blue Connecting the Dots Moving Through to her // on the other side Indigo Desire Falling Things Rise |
Alessandra Williams
Laichee Yang Renée Copeland Felicia Perry Ananya Chatterjea Jonathan Van Arneman Hui Wilcox Julia Gay Kealoha Ferreira Leila Awadallah |
Connections Rooted in Tears, Freedom, and Indigenous Memory
She wailed in sorrow and covered her hair with ash from the fire, as is the custom for mourners. She picked up her child. Then she noticed that the cloth she had lain on was colored with a patch of bright blue. Just then she fell unconscious with grief, and in her dreams the water spirits came to her and revealed that the mixing of the salt of her tears, urine, river water, ash, and the wild indigo leaves that she’d plucked to cushion her child were the secret to God’s earthly blues. It had been necessary for the child to die to have had this secret revealed to her.
ALESSANDRA WILLIAMS
ALESSANDRA WILLIAMS
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The smell of hot wax rises from the bamboo hut every morning. Grandmother, a petite woman, dressed in a sarong, walks slowly down the dirt path treading through a small field of nkaj (indigo). Her weathered hands carry a roll of hemp cloth. Taking a seat on her straw woven chair, she unrolls the hemp cloth and continues working on her pattern from the day before.
LAICHEE YANG
LAICHEE YANG
My Ancestor-Daughter
My ancestor-daughter sits in the liminal zone of an unconquered vision
She comes before me and after language washed ashore Her tongue is fluent in the lashing of boats splintering to land The cleaving of voyage to water The forced hospitality of discovery She sits in the broken shell bits, mixed with brittle pottery debris Her legs splayed like Trinacria, she covers all corners of the island Her toes dig into the shorelines, connecting the ports of Palermo, Messina, Trapani, Catania, Marsala, Mazara, Agrigento, al-Shaqqa She sits with the full moon high in the cerulean sky on a bleached hot day and surrenders to the fertile tides in her ocean with her sex bare to the earth, she bleeds out her hospitality into the rich, fertile soil made by past eruptions. She and Mount Etna find pleasure in rumblings louder than anyone can contain. In her power, she is barred from ceremony, so she makes her own, greets the sea-sick warriors with indigo crushed into her teeth. A smile that evokes sweet glass candy Poison immunity Occult memory Sirocco winds from Africa writhe with her Medusa ringlets, the olive oil rubbed into the scalp and behind the ears, folk medicine She reaches her fingers deep into her roots, twists a hissing snake into sleep She dries her family’s clothing on the bone-dry hot slabs from Etna’s volcanic rock The rocks remember her Arabic great-great grandmother’s fabrics heaping with orange and lemon bounty Her marble-like muscles Rough and smooth, coaxing the land to take New fruit, new roots for the first time To feed generations to come Sicilia Holds stories of ancient rebirths from childless women dancing, their footwork rumbling their progeny Mothers of creation, suckling her back to health Sicilia, land of conquest and stewardship and her women: wounded healers My ancestor-daughter sits in the liminal zone of an unconquered vision Her smile is laced with indigo She stuffs fistfuls of salted harbor debris into her mouth in times of famine Bones, shells, olive pits, orange peels, seaweed, spilled ink, discarded dreams, wasted omens She chews on the potential of new assembly She spits the paste into brick and mortar Builds fortresses out of joy, not paranoia She invites any storm to sit with her Better to invite than to feel invaded. This land rests in the swirling center of power, which is absolute and fleeting Certain things are confident in their pull The Sirocco winds from Africa Bringing her The beauty of indigo The cutting of tongue against new humor Softly melting into flavor Friendship floats in the recognition of different land, same sea in their eyes They vision liminal zones as new horizons Their artistry is a borderless land Medicine hidden in Ceramic designs Not the first collaboration. RENEE COPELAND |
Sweet Water / Blue Notes
In the evening she wanders by the waters.
Sweet, sweet waters of the Mississippi. But they are not gentle.
Slipping in bare feet where green things peek from beneath.
When she bathes in tears, she drains the salty residue into the sweet waters.
Sending them to join her sistren at the Gulf.
We cannot hear her crying but we taste the blue notes of the Atlantic.
FELICIA PERRY
Sweet, sweet waters of the Mississippi. But they are not gentle.
Slipping in bare feet where green things peek from beneath.
When she bathes in tears, she drains the salty residue into the sweet waters.
Sending them to join her sistren at the Gulf.
We cannot hear her crying but we taste the blue notes of the Atlantic.
FELICIA PERRY
revolutions in blue
As a teenager in Kolkata, India, I begged my mother to get me a pair of dark blue jeans. Everyone was wearing them and they had become all the rage. We couldn’t afford the American brands that were popular, but our family tailor made a perfect copy with locally produced blue denim. You could tell by the buttons, back label, and stitching that they weren’t the kind the rich kids wore. But longer shirts covered up the tell-tale signs and I wore my jeans even on hot and humid days: I felt so stylish.
Little did I know then about the layered history of the ubiquitous blue jeans, that icon of American life adopted by the world. It is only later, when I chanced upon the history of denim via a choreographic project exploring women’s work with water, and learned that it takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pair of blue jeans, that I began to investigate this theme deeply. This launched me into complex research, involving both written and oral histories, that helped me realize that even though so many of us across the world wear blue jeans, they inhabit our bodies differently, depending on our historical and cultural location, our gender, race, and class. My research lead to me to the long and chequered history of indigo, the organic dye that was originally used to give blue jeans their signature color. I had learned in grade school about the forced cultivation of indigo in colonial India. But through new research I learned that, while India is the oldest center of indigo use, the dye was known and used across East and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North and East Africa before European contact—one of the valued elements in the Indian Ocean trade routes that began as early as 800 AD. I learned about the connections between port centers across Asia and Africa, Kolkata among them. In the late 19th century, the production of plant-based indigo was significantly reduced by the invention of a chemical substitute. I learned how the word “dungarees,” an older word to describe jeans or denim overalls, came from the Hindi word “dungri,” a thick, durable cotton exported from India to England during colonial rule (18th century). I learned the story of denim production, the historic ways in which women of color were involved in the production of cotton, particularly in the American South, the weaving process in denim mills, how much of the current production of denim happens in the global south, and how jeans are typically designed in the global north but often produced in the global south in unsafe work conditions. And then, in a flash, I remembered my history lessons in Class 7: Neel Bidroho, the Indigo revolt of Bengal farmers in 1859. Because of the popularity of the blue dye in Europe, farmers were forced to plant indigo instead of food crops. As is typical in a colonial economy, they forced the farmers to take loans at a very high interest rate, they paid little for the indigo grown, and the loans grew huge and were passed down through generations. In the 19th century, Bengal was the biggest producer of indigo globally – but the producers of indigo saw nothing no gain. During the revolt, though non-violent, farmers and organizers were given a mock trial by the British and executed. Today, because of this painful history there is prejudice against growing indigo among farmers. Colonialism has separated us from ourselves, from our own notions of beauty. ANANYA CHATTERJEA |
Connecting the Dots
There is an indigo trail that stretches from Cape Verde to the ABC islands. As a matter of fact, some may call it maroon due to the frequent mixing of blood and black bodies. Though usage has dwindled in recent times, the trail has remained for centuries and continues to guide spirits with blue hands and blue lungs across the deep ocean to and from the motherland. My ancestors are among them. Sought after for their knowledge of the seductive dye, they were captured and enslaved and bound by the thing that was supposed to set them free. Tirelessly they worked and toiled until back to the earth they were called and began their return across the sea.
JONATHAN VAN ARNEMAN
JONATHAN VAN ARNEMAN
Moving Through
I recently heard a story: an Ethiopian teenage boy lived in Greece with his mother; he wanted to come to the U.S., so he found out about this cargo ship that was scheduled to go to the U.S. He found a job on the ship, and planned to not return when they reached the destination. But the ship went to China, instead. He bought a pair of sneakers for 6 dollars in China, but did not stay there. He continued to work on the ship, for four years. Four long, lonely years where he had no family, no friends, “no one of my color.” He left the ship, then, and eventually found his way to the U.S. I looked at the scar by the corner of his left eye, and more scars on his right forearm. I wonder about the stories underneath the scars.
I did not ask. I had met his mother some time ago, an older Ethiopian woman with weathered skin and a shy but friendly smile. She was the one who left home in Ethiopia and went to Greece, to make a living for her family.
I think of the myth that women stay behind while men travelled far. All of the stories of Chinese men traveling across ocean for centuries, to find work and support their families AT HOME. I think of the Journey to the West, where a historical monk was accompanied by an imaginary shape-shifting monkey, as well as a pig, a carp, and a white horses, all of whom had spiritual work to do on this journey, so as to become reincarnated into human forms again. They have all been imagined as male.
But women have traversed many mountains and oceans, too. Their stories are not written, and made into movies. Except for, Mulan.
This is what I found on Mulan in Wikipedia:
Hua Mulan is a legendary woman warrior from the Northern and Southern dynasties period (420–589) of Chinese history, originally described in the Ballad of Mulan (Chinese: 木蘭辭; pinyin: Mùlán cí). In the ballad, Hua Mulan takes her aged father's place in the army. Mulan fought for twelve years and gained high merit, but she refused any reward and retired to her hometown.
The historic setting of Hua Mulan is in the Northern Wei (386–536). Over a thousand years later, Xu Wei's play from the Ming dyasty places her in the Northern Wei, whereas the Qing dynasty. Sui Tang Romance has her active around the founding of the Tang c. 620. In 621, the founder of the Tang dynasty was victorious over Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande, the latter was the father of Dou Xianniang, another female warrior who became Mulan's laotong in the Sui Tang Romance.
There are many women warriors. Many of us. But the stories are still told by men. Women took place of men when they are too old, or absent. There is a story that placed in Song Dynasty (10-13th century), where all the men in the family were generals. When most of them died or were captured by the enemy, their women folks stepped in and became generals.
Mulan’s dates of traveling ten thousand li to fight in the emperor’s army were definitely pre-colonial; But who did she fight against? People in the north, the XiongNu, maybe Mongolians, maybe people of the Central Asia.
In Mulan’s story, she refused to stay a general and returned home instead, after the war was over. Imagine her memories, imagine her imagination.
Disney had Mulan show romantic interest in a male comrade. In the Chinese ballad (which both Claire and Lynn recited for school work, like I did many years ago), the heterosexual romance was never there. If anything, the ballad spoke of kinship and sisterhood. The ending line reads, “I changed back into women’s clothes, walked out only to shock my fellow soldiers. When you see a male and female rabbits running on the ground, you would never tell the difference between them?”
Researching Mulan’s story also led to this notion of “Laotong”, a form of womanly bond that was part of the social fabric in ancient and contemporary China.
Laotong (in English: old sames; written: 老同 in Chinese) is a type of relationship within Chinese culture, which was practised in Hunan that bonded two girls together for eternity as kindred sisters.
Chinese women commonly refer to each other as "Sisters". This is a recognition of the importance of women's supportive relationships, which helped them endure hardship over their lives. Preparation for marriage might involve a Laotang relationship between several young women; the sisterhood would be dissolved upon marriage. After marriage, new sisterhoods could be formed later between married or widowed women.[1]
For Chinese women, the Laotong or "old-sames" relationship was the strongest and most precious bond of female friendship. This was a more rare and formal relationship between women. A woman could only have one Laotong, and the intensely unbreakable bond was for life.
Often a Laotong relationship would be formed when a marriage was contracted between families who were expecting babies. This was done before the babies were born. If both children turned out female against the hopes of their families, the daughters could be brought together as Laotong. An intermediary, in some places a matchmaker, would form a Laotong relationship between two girls, similar to an arranged marriage. The Chinese astrological profiles of the girls were considered during the matching process. It was unusual for a Laotong relationship to be broken.[2]
I did not ask. I had met his mother some time ago, an older Ethiopian woman with weathered skin and a shy but friendly smile. She was the one who left home in Ethiopia and went to Greece, to make a living for her family.
I think of the myth that women stay behind while men travelled far. All of the stories of Chinese men traveling across ocean for centuries, to find work and support their families AT HOME. I think of the Journey to the West, where a historical monk was accompanied by an imaginary shape-shifting monkey, as well as a pig, a carp, and a white horses, all of whom had spiritual work to do on this journey, so as to become reincarnated into human forms again. They have all been imagined as male.
But women have traversed many mountains and oceans, too. Their stories are not written, and made into movies. Except for, Mulan.
This is what I found on Mulan in Wikipedia:
Hua Mulan is a legendary woman warrior from the Northern and Southern dynasties period (420–589) of Chinese history, originally described in the Ballad of Mulan (Chinese: 木蘭辭; pinyin: Mùlán cí). In the ballad, Hua Mulan takes her aged father's place in the army. Mulan fought for twelve years and gained high merit, but she refused any reward and retired to her hometown.
The historic setting of Hua Mulan is in the Northern Wei (386–536). Over a thousand years later, Xu Wei's play from the Ming dyasty places her in the Northern Wei, whereas the Qing dynasty. Sui Tang Romance has her active around the founding of the Tang c. 620. In 621, the founder of the Tang dynasty was victorious over Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande, the latter was the father of Dou Xianniang, another female warrior who became Mulan's laotong in the Sui Tang Romance.
There are many women warriors. Many of us. But the stories are still told by men. Women took place of men when they are too old, or absent. There is a story that placed in Song Dynasty (10-13th century), where all the men in the family were generals. When most of them died or were captured by the enemy, their women folks stepped in and became generals.
Mulan’s dates of traveling ten thousand li to fight in the emperor’s army were definitely pre-colonial; But who did she fight against? People in the north, the XiongNu, maybe Mongolians, maybe people of the Central Asia.
In Mulan’s story, she refused to stay a general and returned home instead, after the war was over. Imagine her memories, imagine her imagination.
Disney had Mulan show romantic interest in a male comrade. In the Chinese ballad (which both Claire and Lynn recited for school work, like I did many years ago), the heterosexual romance was never there. If anything, the ballad spoke of kinship and sisterhood. The ending line reads, “I changed back into women’s clothes, walked out only to shock my fellow soldiers. When you see a male and female rabbits running on the ground, you would never tell the difference between them?”
Researching Mulan’s story also led to this notion of “Laotong”, a form of womanly bond that was part of the social fabric in ancient and contemporary China.
Laotong (in English: old sames; written: 老同 in Chinese) is a type of relationship within Chinese culture, which was practised in Hunan that bonded two girls together for eternity as kindred sisters.
Chinese women commonly refer to each other as "Sisters". This is a recognition of the importance of women's supportive relationships, which helped them endure hardship over their lives. Preparation for marriage might involve a Laotang relationship between several young women; the sisterhood would be dissolved upon marriage. After marriage, new sisterhoods could be formed later between married or widowed women.[1]
For Chinese women, the Laotong or "old-sames" relationship was the strongest and most precious bond of female friendship. This was a more rare and formal relationship between women. A woman could only have one Laotong, and the intensely unbreakable bond was for life.
Often a Laotong relationship would be formed when a marriage was contracted between families who were expecting babies. This was done before the babies were born. If both children turned out female against the hopes of their families, the daughters could be brought together as Laotong. An intermediary, in some places a matchmaker, would form a Laotong relationship between two girls, similar to an arranged marriage. The Chinese astrological profiles of the girls were considered during the matching process. It was unusual for a Laotong relationship to be broken.[2]
The relationship was made formal by the signing of a contract, which would be done much like a legal contract, using a seal. Laotong would frequently develop a language to use to communicate between them that only they could understand (a type of Nu shu), allowing them to send messages back and forth to one another.
But I digress too much. I can imagine women Laotongs (old sames) dying indigo together. The ballad about Mulan starts off with the sound of a loom, and the sight of Mulan weaving with the loom by the window. She could have woven indigo cloth. She could have worn her indigo while she travelled on her galloping horse into the battle fields of northern China. She would have had to say goodbye to her sisters, her friends, and be lonely in the mountains. In the ballad again, “the sound of golden bugles travels through cold air; the surface of my iron armor catches the dim moonlight.” Mulan’s time (4th, 5th centuries approximately) was also a time when Buddhist culture was introduced to China through the silk road. Indigo frescos in the caves of Mogao, endless sandy, barren dessert. Whose imagination it was that brought to life the soaring figures of indigo Apsara, dancing freely in the sky and playing pipas held behind her head? These images were imported from India. But they stayed on in China. Many, many years later, Chinese archeologists “discovered” them, and revealed their vibrancy to the world, along with tales of encountering. Chinese women dancers and choreographers could only express their love for these ghostly indigo images by embodying them in dance. On Venus, there is a crater named Hua Mulan. Is that a good place to live in? The Chinese like to tell a story of a goddess by the name of Chang’Eh. She took the immortality elixir that is a reward for her husband, the heroic HouYi who killed 8 suns that were burning up the earth. Punished by the gods, Chang’Eh floated up to the moon, immortal, but lonely. But again, that is a story probably made up by men. I’d like to imagine Chang’Eh having a heck of a good time up there. Maybe she will travel to Venus and meet up with Mulan. HUI WILCOX |
to her // on the other side
She sent her wish down the Zhangshui River, scribed on a scrap of burlap she had salvaged from the market. She appreciated its strength and durability, soaking it in indigo, so that it would fit in among the waves. She imagined the river flowed into another river which flowed into another. Perhaps it eventually would make it to the ocean, and with luck it would arrive on the other side. She had never seen the ocean before, but was no fool to the magic it held within. Tales of fishermen who took the ocean lightly never ended well. The scrap of burlap was quickly carried off by the current. She watched as it began a journey to places she would never see, where the roads were paved in gold – or so they said. Only when the burlap disappeared from view did she let her tears run free and her mind drift to the face of the baby girl she had once held close to her breast.
JULIA GAY
JULIA GAY
Indigo Desire
We arrived in Addis amidst preparations for Meskel. Our wobbly legs and stale eyes were greeted warmly with individual roses and embraces so familiar. Home ho’okipa malihini. Home that welcomes the newcomer.
Winding up Mount Etoto, we pass torches of red ginger- the same waxy flower my grandmother would gather on our way to Puowaina Punchbowl Cemetery with rusted pliers from her trunk. Scoping out the magenta blossoms closest to the roadside, she’d pull the
car over and instruct me to quickly snip four or five.
My memories of home mix with clouds of dust and Meskel flowers as our van squeezes through the yellowed city streets to Mimi’s house. We sit in Aunty’s living room while she changes her dress to perform a traditional coffee ceremony. I wait for my cup, assuring elders have theirs first. We sip together in silence and then simultaneously combust in praise. I can’t help but compare how similar this coffee is to the kind my brother-in-law grows in Kona. The sweet perfume of roasting beans fill the room, and I close my eyes to savor the lingering familiarity of this taste. I look into my coffee and then outside to the potted kalo plant sitting plainly in the courtyard. How can it be?
Years later, we plant a row of kalo at Nohoana Farms in Waikapu Valley. I grasp each hā seedling in my hand and think of its cousin growing across the ocean in Aunty Mimi’s garden. I listen to Uncle Victor recount the birth of Haloa, the elder brother of Hawaiian people from whose body came kalo. Kalo is indigenous to Hawaii as coffee is to Ethiopia. How is it that we came to plant each other’s ancestors? I am reminded that my arrival to new land is never the first of its kind. Our meetings and crossings are as old as indigo oceans. Faded histories of ancestral relations are revealed in greeting rituals and flowered mountain passes, in pots in Aunty’s garden and morning cups of coffee. The time of Indian Ocean trade routes may have passed but the desire to connect with each other was seeded long ago.
KEALOHA FERREIRA
Winding up Mount Etoto, we pass torches of red ginger- the same waxy flower my grandmother would gather on our way to Puowaina Punchbowl Cemetery with rusted pliers from her trunk. Scoping out the magenta blossoms closest to the roadside, she’d pull the
car over and instruct me to quickly snip four or five.
My memories of home mix with clouds of dust and Meskel flowers as our van squeezes through the yellowed city streets to Mimi’s house. We sit in Aunty’s living room while she changes her dress to perform a traditional coffee ceremony. I wait for my cup, assuring elders have theirs first. We sip together in silence and then simultaneously combust in praise. I can’t help but compare how similar this coffee is to the kind my brother-in-law grows in Kona. The sweet perfume of roasting beans fill the room, and I close my eyes to savor the lingering familiarity of this taste. I look into my coffee and then outside to the potted kalo plant sitting plainly in the courtyard. How can it be?
Years later, we plant a row of kalo at Nohoana Farms in Waikapu Valley. I grasp each hā seedling in my hand and think of its cousin growing across the ocean in Aunty Mimi’s garden. I listen to Uncle Victor recount the birth of Haloa, the elder brother of Hawaiian people from whose body came kalo. Kalo is indigenous to Hawaii as coffee is to Ethiopia. How is it that we came to plant each other’s ancestors? I am reminded that my arrival to new land is never the first of its kind. Our meetings and crossings are as old as indigo oceans. Faded histories of ancestral relations are revealed in greeting rituals and flowered mountain passes, in pots in Aunty’s garden and morning cups of coffee. The time of Indian Ocean trade routes may have passed but the desire to connect with each other was seeded long ago.
KEALOHA FERREIRA
Falling Things Rise
She can’t remember a time when she didn’t hear
Echoes ricocheting [bullets] inside insides Voices Crawling into spaces between spine Tide pools in deep hip crevices Fluttering in rib cages, bone to bone It’s how she sings in Arabic With a tongue no one can decipher Not filastin, nor masr, nor magrib… A speaking codified similar to.. wind Like soil suspended in storm clouds Like stones that fold into khubz, sprinkled with zaatar She can’t remember most of her memories The shimmy, the sensual swing in hips Voices Conjuring a splashing Mediterranean water with Sicilian droplets It traveled; a rhythm pokes head out of shell And the jinn joins grandmother in a dance on shoulder blades It’s how she moves with a flow Familiar dance, hazy home In filastin, in lubnaan, in suriya A baladi, a dabke appears along with... sweating ancestors Like the train’s ghost soaring across land Like the time of land without checkpoints… She can’t remember her body without Indigo Embroidered patterns on chest under hot sun Voices Whispering inside each tired finger stitch Laughing with each fold of fabric And screaming bloody tears with each of the tears Tears with tears It’s how the color fell into her With deep ocean currents Distant, but present. Absent, but here. And loud. The voices have always been She can’t remember a time when they weren’t And as the color falls farther, Voices rise LEILA AWADALLAH |