“Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element...[it is] never comfortable, not with society’s clamor to uphold the old, to rejoin the flock, to go with the herd. No, not comfortable but home.”  Gloria Anzaldúa

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In today's super-fragmented times, I find myself facing greater levels of uncertainty.  I ask myself over again "Who am I? How do I want to live in this world? What can I do as a person of color, an immigrant, a woman?"  

Current political structures in immigration, compounded by history of colonization have generated feelings of vulnerability, shame, powerlessness, and fear. Through our creative and collaborative process, we accessed uncomfortable memories and experiences as women of color navigating themes of belonging and not belonging. I remembered questions that many White-Anglo people asked of me; all three performers shared similar stories of race, perception, and identity .

Sparked and activated by these memories, I researched and compiled numerous specific questions, inspired by writer Bhanu Kapil, that became the engine of the piece. "Where do you come from?"  "What did you leave behind?" "What are the consequences of silence?" and kickstarted a series of  comments and questions that I encountered in real life, such as "You have such a cute accent. How come you speak good English?"  Filipina- American writer Barbara Jane Reyes' work "Brown Girl Fields Many Question" became the inspiration for my text as I put myself squarely in the center of the space and asked the audience to answer the questions that positioned white privilege as the dominant narrative.  "What would you say if a white person you just met 5 minutes ago asks you where are you from?" And many other questions ranging from physical, sexual, socio-economic. In short, this was a decolonizing performative act, grieving, resisting, and reshaping borders and our bodies. I wanted to feel the edges and stand in the gaps of: not belonging and belonging.

How to uncover what has been masked by many years of external and internal oppression?  How do we work with, reframe, transform such challenges through our bodies, find our voice, reclaim our presence?

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