UUs for Racial Justice

Week 3: Creativity, Innovation, and Cultural Expression (May 15 to 21)

Asian, Arab, and Pacific Islander artists have long created from inside the tension that creativity is inseparable from the communities, histories, and urgencies that shaped them.

This week we honor an architect who redefines what it means to hold a moment, a poet who builds bridges across the Arab American experience one ordinary image at a time, and a Marshallese poet-diplomat who read their verses at the United Nations as her homeland is being swallowed by a rising sea.

Maya Lin was 21 years old and a Yale undergraduate when she was commissioned to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. The polished black granite wall, cut into the earth to enshrine the names of 58,000 dead, not alphabetically, not heroically, but chronologically in the order they died. This testament to the cost of war has become the most visited monument in Washington.... read more at: https://bit.ly/42XhIKF.

The prolific Poet, Author, Editor, and Songwriter, Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis to a Palestinian father and an American mother, and grew up between Jerusalem and San Antonio. For more than forty years she has been what she calls a wandering poet - crossing borders on the strength of language alone, leading workshops ... read more at: https://bit.ly/42XhIKF.

Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a Marshallese poet, performance artist, and Climate Envoy for the Republic of the Marshall Islands. In 2014 she stood before the opening ceremony of the United Nations Climate Summit and performed "Dear Matafele Peinam," a poem written to her infant daughter. The powerful piece is a promise of “home” made to a child whose home may not survive.... read more at: https://bit.ly/42XhIKF.

"We are the ones who will live with the consequences of your decisions." - Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, UN Climate Summit

Reflection: When has art changed the way you understood a political or moral crisis? What would it mean to you if the work of these artists was not just as inspiration, but as an invitation to engage with the worlds they are inheriting?