Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Feminists Around the World: Terisa Siagatonu

Transcript

Feminists Around the World: Terisa Siagatonu · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha imot the stuff we
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: never told you protection by her radio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And welcome to another Activists around the world and happy
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: continued AAPI history months and today we're returning to our
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: love of poetry with an activist and leader, Teresa Sia
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Gatano so On her website Teresaciagatano dot com, Teresa describes
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: herself like this, The important stuff that you must know
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: off top is that I was born, raised, and repped
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: the Bay Area all day. I come from a big,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: beautiful Samoan family, even though I'm an only child, and
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I'm deeply devoted to my Pacific Islander community across the diaspora.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: And when I'm not on stage, in a classroom or
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: behind a microphone, you can catch me facetiming with my nephews,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: which I thought was very sweet. Family is important, and
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: she often introduces herself as an artist, an educator, and
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: a community leader, and her work has been celebrated throughout
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the country and the world, including at the White House
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: during President Obama's administration. She has been a speaker of
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the UN Climate Change Conference and was even awarded the
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Champion of Change Award in twenty twelve by President Obama.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: What do I think of those days? I just think
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the good old day. There was a lot of problems,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: but not these problems. Yeah. Anyway, So she uses her
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: work and talent to advocate the needs of protecting the
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: land and nature, as well as using her words to
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: speak for her community and people. She writes this for
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: culturalpower dot org in the wake of a brand new
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: year with the same climate crisis anxiety we carry. Is
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: poetry that helps me reckon with my indigenous Samoan roots
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: as a ground not only my desire to now language
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: climate crisis in my writing, but also my responsibility to
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: take action on it in my life, both on and
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: off stage, both in the poem and with my people,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: both when I create and when I organize. And this
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: piece is an amazing piece. She writes a lot in there.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It's like three or four pages, so if you have time,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: go and look her up. And this piece we're going
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: to reference it again. But obviously is a huge chunk
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: and is beautiful, Like the way she lays it out
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: is obvious that she's a poet, like you know those
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: types of people that like this is all gorgeous and beautiful,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: but this is just an essay, what not just then?
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: But you know it's not an actual poetry piece, which
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: you were like, this is a four page poetry piece
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: in an essay, But anyway, you should take time to
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: go look at it. So in this piece she talks
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: about the growth and use of poetry and artistry. She
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: explains that though she was fearful of failing as an artist,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: and even though her parents had plans that involved other professions,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: you know, being a doctor, lawyer, we got those things,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: poetry was always something important to her and a part
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: of her So again from that article, she writes, fear
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of failing my parents, my community, myself always pulled me
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: away from the choir desire of going full time with
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: my writing and instead kept me on the academic route
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to someone else's dreams. It took three career changes to
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: college degrees, leaving my life in clients as a therapist,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: and thousands of dollars in student loan debt for me
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: to realize that I will never stop being afraid of
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: failing at being an artist, that I may always question
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: whether or not I made the right decision to leave academia,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: and finally choose myself that I would rather feel free
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: and afraid of what I may fell at than secure
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: myself to a life that asks me to exist but
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: doesn't demand for me to live to dream, even if
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: it means doing it scared. Such is the duty of
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: the artist anyways, to reflect the times and to tell
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: the truth about us, as both Nina Simone and James
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Baldwin have instructed so many of us to do. I
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: love that again, this is just like a small excerpt
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: of what she wrote, Like the entire thing is just poetry.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It's obvious, and it is through her art that she
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: pushes for change and fights for her land. For the
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: land from the Justice dot Org, they say Sia Gatano
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: emphasize the role of artists in making social change cultural
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: changes faster than policy. She said, so artists have enormous
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: power through things like social media and trends to shift
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: narratives surrounding societal issues. Artists can also will the power
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: of imagination, and according to Cia Gatano quote we're in
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the dire need of a radical reimagination of a world
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: different and better than this one, and it continues as
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: part of her role as an artist. Sia Gatano uses
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: language to quote shift narratives to focus on marginalized people,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: especially when it comes to climate change, is indigenous, black
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: and brown folks who are affected first and foremost. Cia
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Gatano said Indigenous ways of knowing or ways of thinking
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: about relationships, learning, and the world informed by indigenous cultures
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: can also provide important perspective on climate change, according to Siagatanu,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: such as the understanding that one does not own the earth,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: but instead is a part of it. Cia Gatana referred
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: to the Native Hawaiian notion of kulieyana or responsibility to
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the land, as an example of an indigenous perspective on
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: climate justice. And it seems again that the power of
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: her words and poetry is something that she has used
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: to share her heart and her intentions and of her advocacy.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: So from kqed dot org, she says, I think the
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: poet is responsible for making what is typically taboo or
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: typically off limits to talk about, make it, to make
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: it possible to talk about, and make it accessible, especially
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: right now in regards to climate change. I see poetry.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I see it literally as medicine, and it is we
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: know the healing power of art like poetry. We need
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: more of it. And she uses her work to tell
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: the story of our people and community as well. As
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: we've obviously mentioned from utterish dot com quote. Her work
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: combines activism and storytelling to mesh the personal and political,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: and her poem at List she writes, I tell them
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: that home is a machete, and that I belong to
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: the places that don't belong in themselves anymore, broken and butchered,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: places that have made me a hyphen of a woman,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: a Samoan American that carries the weight of both colonizer
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and colonized, both blade and blood. She writes about the
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: experience of belonging to the Pacific islanderdiaspora and the harm
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: of being constantly decentered and marginalized in the US approach
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: to historytelling. Her poetry looks at intersections of marginalization, constantly
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: pressuring for a new point of view that is more expansive.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: So she made sure to give credit to our community
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: when it comes to her passion and her talent, and
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: she often talks about how important the arts are to
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: her people and how they communicated. Again back to that
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: culturalpower dot Org again, that beautiful piece. Many things make
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: up who we are as a community, but I do
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: believe that art is the soul of who we are.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Our dances, our music, our drawings, our films, our photographs,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: our paintings, our poems, our books, our oral traditions, our instruments,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: our storytelling, our writing. All of it is how we've
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: been able to pass down our histories and the truth
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: of us for centuries. There is a resilience in our
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: memory that art never lets us forget the reason why
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: we're able to dream in the first place. And I
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: can't think of anything else that we need to do
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: now more than that. We've tried many things, some for decades,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: that are just not working, that are just not in
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: the service of our collective liberation and justice. The time
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: has come to finally trust the artists to allow us
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: to help us to dream again. Chills just from pig
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: chills again. Her poetry speaks for itself and the work
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: she does and what she is doing, but she also
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: does advocacy work and is heavily involved in facilitating and
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: creating workshops, mentors and creating mentorships for other artists and professionals.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: And it also has the background in counseling and often does
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of work and mental health support a just rehabilitation.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: So she does a lot obviously, so you take definitely
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: if you can look her up, look up her poetry.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: It is powerful work.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, and as always, listeners, if you have any
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: suggestions for this segment, please let us know. You can
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: email us at Hello at stuff Wehenever Told You dot com.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff we Never Told
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: You more lst on YouTube. We have a teapoop a
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: store and we have a book you can get wherever
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: we get your books. Thanks as always too, our super
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: producer Christina, our executive producer and contruder Joey. Thank you
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: You is production by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: my heart Radio, you can check out the heart Radio app,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.