9/26: Junot Diaz analysis:
Radical Hope is our Best Weapon:
Ms. Tippett: Yeah, the spirits who kind of live inside the saints, the Catholic saints.
Mr. Díaz: Yeah, the saints are simply the masks.
"But look, I mean when we think about the state of the world, when we think about where we’re at, Trump is the latest, awful, awful turn. But more than anything, the world has been in an awful state for a long time. But I would not say that this is a different order of madness. I think it is a sharpening of the already-present madness."
"the actual cannibal horror in which they partake."
" Yeah, an inhuman: someone who’s all surfaces and has no innards, has no interiority and doesn’t require community, doesn’t require intimacy, doesn’t require family."
"I mean it’s terrifying, when you think about it, because it’s this logic of hyper-consumption. Our political, economic systems have destabilized the planet. And the planet is going to continue to unravel. And the consequences of the unraveling are going to play out in people’s bodies and in where they decide to move those bodies."
"If your community is no further than your injury, then it doesn’t seem like any agency is possible. But if your community extends more generously, more capaciously — well, certainly there’s a lot of grounds for hope there, just by the way you framed your history, your reality. Framing is as important as anything."
Observations:
1. By glorifying external, tangible instances of success what have we neglected and malnourished internally and what has that affect had on us as a whole?
2. For me, having Cuban heritage that reflects more European ancestry and my family members being white passing, how do I look to some of my ancestors for hope when they were the ones creating the damage?
3. Can the solution be as simple as vulnerability?
My idea of Radical Hope:
That the solution is as simple as vulnerability and that our timelines for ourselves and our communities are the long stretching periods of overcoming time and time again. It is we having done it before and the sureness that we can and will do it again.
10/31 Maquilapolis Response:
One of the most striking moments for me happened at the beginning of the film, it was when Carmen pointed the camera to the Sony factory in the distance, and immediately cut to her son. Maybe it was the sound of son and Sony so closely together, or the familiarity of the company and the immediate guilt the child's image evoked, but it was very jarring. There is a sort of innocence about the women in this film and a clear feeling that they had been taken advantage of by these large corporations. In the interview with Junot Diaz, he refers to our capitalist system as a "cannibal logic" and continues to talk about how our society of hyper-consumption has destabilized the planet. When I first read that, I thought purely ecologically, but after watching this film, there has been an evident moral destabilization as well due to this capitalistic system. These factories were placed and these migrant workers were hired all for the sake of profit and consumption of product regardless of the human cost.
11/14 Project Second Draft:
I wasn't entirely clear about what you wanted me to do for my project proposals since you had said that the Rueda ensemble was not doing these separate projects and our research we were doing for Rueda will suffice instead.
Project Description:
I want to explore the syncretized space between Santeria and Catholicism, the 90 miles of sea between the US and Cuba, the holy and political, through a ritual of remembrance and memorial to honor those lost at sea trying to cross to the US.
Possible Context:
The liminal space between spirits and politics.
Research that Supports my Project Proposal:
http://education.goodmantheatre.org/resources/study-guide-archive/the-convert/santeria-the-intersection-of-catholicism-and-african-traditional-religions/
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/23/us/elian-gonzalez-case-overview-cuban-boy-seized-us-agents-reunited-with-his-father.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/us/from-cuba-to-miami-by-providence-and-a-homemade-boat.html
http://www.lahabana.com/content/pilgrimage-to-rincon-for-the-feast-day-of-san-lazaro/
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-80/pdf/STATUTE-80-Pg1161.pdf
Project Goals:
To gain a personal understanding of my own history and that of my great-grandmother's life.
I feel like this can bring the two countries and peoples closer, even it's only because we're all mourning in this space between two worlds.
Radical Hope is our Best Weapon:
Ms. Tippett: Yeah, the spirits who kind of live inside the saints, the Catholic saints.
Mr. Díaz: Yeah, the saints are simply the masks.
"But look, I mean when we think about the state of the world, when we think about where we’re at, Trump is the latest, awful, awful turn. But more than anything, the world has been in an awful state for a long time. But I would not say that this is a different order of madness. I think it is a sharpening of the already-present madness."
"the actual cannibal horror in which they partake."
" Yeah, an inhuman: someone who’s all surfaces and has no innards, has no interiority and doesn’t require community, doesn’t require intimacy, doesn’t require family."
"I mean it’s terrifying, when you think about it, because it’s this logic of hyper-consumption. Our political, economic systems have destabilized the planet. And the planet is going to continue to unravel. And the consequences of the unraveling are going to play out in people’s bodies and in where they decide to move those bodies."
"If your community is no further than your injury, then it doesn’t seem like any agency is possible. But if your community extends more generously, more capaciously — well, certainly there’s a lot of grounds for hope there, just by the way you framed your history, your reality. Framing is as important as anything."
Observations:
- His idea of the numinous world and this long, expansive view of time and our operative timelines within our communities really put into perspective the durability of man. How far we've come and how much we've been through even within the last two or three generations. It was comforting and humbling to be reminded of the struggles of my ancestors and how that relates to me and my struggles today.
- When Junot says, "[...] the saints are simply masks", it reminded me of the marriage between Saint Lazarus and Babalú-Ayé within Santeria and how much of the Afro-Cuban religions are syncretized with Catholicism and other more western religions.
- While we are a society taught to be reactive as Junot explains, our society is also taught a public stoicism as well. This is contradictory. How can we learn to be openly nuanced and complex individuals? Are we being polite or simply indifferent?
1. By glorifying external, tangible instances of success what have we neglected and malnourished internally and what has that affect had on us as a whole?
2. For me, having Cuban heritage that reflects more European ancestry and my family members being white passing, how do I look to some of my ancestors for hope when they were the ones creating the damage?
3. Can the solution be as simple as vulnerability?
My idea of Radical Hope:
That the solution is as simple as vulnerability and that our timelines for ourselves and our communities are the long stretching periods of overcoming time and time again. It is we having done it before and the sureness that we can and will do it again.
10/31 Maquilapolis Response:
One of the most striking moments for me happened at the beginning of the film, it was when Carmen pointed the camera to the Sony factory in the distance, and immediately cut to her son. Maybe it was the sound of son and Sony so closely together, or the familiarity of the company and the immediate guilt the child's image evoked, but it was very jarring. There is a sort of innocence about the women in this film and a clear feeling that they had been taken advantage of by these large corporations. In the interview with Junot Diaz, he refers to our capitalist system as a "cannibal logic" and continues to talk about how our society of hyper-consumption has destabilized the planet. When I first read that, I thought purely ecologically, but after watching this film, there has been an evident moral destabilization as well due to this capitalistic system. These factories were placed and these migrant workers were hired all for the sake of profit and consumption of product regardless of the human cost.
11/14 Project Second Draft:
I wasn't entirely clear about what you wanted me to do for my project proposals since you had said that the Rueda ensemble was not doing these separate projects and our research we were doing for Rueda will suffice instead.
Project Description:
I want to explore the syncretized space between Santeria and Catholicism, the 90 miles of sea between the US and Cuba, the holy and political, through a ritual of remembrance and memorial to honor those lost at sea trying to cross to the US.
Possible Context:
The liminal space between spirits and politics.
Research that Supports my Project Proposal:
http://education.goodmantheatre.org/resources/study-guide-archive/the-convert/santeria-the-intersection-of-catholicism-and-african-traditional-religions/
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/23/us/elian-gonzalez-case-overview-cuban-boy-seized-us-agents-reunited-with-his-father.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/us/from-cuba-to-miami-by-providence-and-a-homemade-boat.html
http://www.lahabana.com/content/pilgrimage-to-rincon-for-the-feast-day-of-san-lazaro/
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-80/pdf/STATUTE-80-Pg1161.pdf
Project Goals:
To gain a personal understanding of my own history and that of my great-grandmother's life.
I feel like this can bring the two countries and peoples closer, even it's only because we're all mourning in this space between two worlds.
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