 The borderline is also wonderful. Great, awesome. Hello, everyone. My name is Mary Stevens, and I am the producing director at ASU Performance in the Borderlands. And I'm super, super excited to be here this afternoon. And I want to thank, first of all, Alicia and... Alicia or Alicia? Oh, I see. Okay, Alicia. And your whole team for being such incredible partners to us over the last six months. We've engaged in some really difficult conversations. But I think your whole team really took them on. I think what we see coming out of those conversations and the many conversations that you're having is such a rich and exciting engagement over both cities. So I thank you. And then also, Tiffany Lopez, who's the director of the School of Film, Dance and Theater, who's my boss. It's an honor to work with her, and I'm super excited to be in the room and share this space with you today. Thank you. And then, Ashley, here, if you want to talk a little bit about you, my partner in crime in many, many ways. Partner in creativity. Yeah, I'm actually going to hold off on that if that's okay and we can ground in place. And then I'll talk about myself a little bit if that's okay. Okay, great. Okay, absolutely. Can you hear me without the mic? Can you hear this? Okay, I'm going to step out and I'm going to put this. Everyone? Can everyone, is there anybody in here that can't? Because I can go back to the mic, if not. Okay, cool. So maybe just raise your hand if I need to go louder. Oh, we're just going to raise our hands a little bit. It's strange, it's a really thin pole, but I feel trapped behind it. It's kind of like patriarchy. But here are all the bad folks. Just came right out of the cultural moments, actually. Folks, this is your first time to Arizona. You're visiting, essentially. Raise your hand up high. Keep it high, like you have deodorant on. Great. How many folks, you're familiar with some of the history, not even going to know, thanks. How many folks, this is, you're familiar with the history of Arizona in some way, the political history? You've heard us on the news. Maybe you've heard the United Nations talking about Arizona, which is not untrue. So when Alicia and I had talked about what it really means to bring a conference to Arizona, the first thing we had a discussion about is place. And the importance of Arizona, and the importance of this place, especially as we're talking about rerouting and also roots and roots about who's doing work here and who are the people here, as Patty has shared with us, doing incredible work and the thriving communities that are in Arizona. So I'd like to speak a little bit about place and then actually we'll also speak about place from her perspective. I want to present to you also in a political moment. We are six days away from what? Elections. The midterm elections. We have one of the tightest Senate races, if not the tightest Senate race in the United States between Kirsten Sinema and McSally. I don't even know if I'm just smart enough. I'm just on today. This is super significant for us. It marks 10 years, 10 years ago, this election, we began a hyper-aggressive campaign against migrants and immigrants in Arizona 10 years ago and we are still living in the terror of that moment. So this conference and this political moment is happening in real time where people are literally fighting for their lives in Arizona. We are fighting for our lives. So I want to read something that I was thinking about. What do people need to know if they're just coming here for the first time? For 32 years, we suffered under a sheriff named Sheriff Joe Arpaio. For 32 years and for over 15 of those years we drive tanks down and through Maricopa County gathering up undocumented people and putting them into detention centers and into jails. With, I mean indiscriminately, sometimes people had documents, sometimes they didn't. It doesn't really matter though. Nobody should be treated that way. For 15 years we lived in that until 2016 when organizers gathered together in a county-wide campaign and ousted Sheriff Joe Arpaio. In 2015 we had 1,500 undocumented minors come to the border seeking refuge. Not unlike the refugees coming from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, coming through Mexico to our border as we speak right now. Many of those undocumented minors were put into cages and warehouses for months at a time. This is 2015. And then they were subsequently either fostered out and were still looking for those children or they were deported back into Mexico, some into Guatemala. These are undocumented minors and refugees coming here in 2015. As you drive from Phoenix to Tucson, five minutes off of the road, what is it, the I-10 that goes to Tucson? The I-10, five minutes east of the I-10 is the Eloi Detention Center. How many people have been to the Eloi, how many people know what the Eloi Detention Center is? It is the largest detention center that how it will cages undocumented people. It is five minutes off of the freeway as you drive to Tucson in the United States. It is 45 minutes south of Phoenix and about 45 minutes north of Tucson. You will drive past that on your way to Tucson. So as you're thinking about routes, that is the route that you are driving. Currently we are one of the states that is facing one of the biggest crises is Texas and Arizona for the separation of families. The renewed separation of families is not new and I want to be very clear about that. People in Arizona have been fighting family separation for over, what would you say? I mean, really since, you know, let's be honest. Since, since 1992, since the beginning. And of course we can hear it, thank you. Yeah, and we're gonna hear about that from Patty. So we are in a cultural moment and I'd love to talk to people and they're like, I would have fought with Dr. King. I would have been on the front lines. We are in a front lines moment and we're in a front lines moment right now. Right now. So as you are here today, visiting or if you live here, we're presencing the politics of place is essential to asking the critical questions of our time. I'm not finished. I've only touched on migration. We haven't even talked about the other political moments that we're living in. This year, the city of Phoenix boasts the highest number of officer related, related shootings in the United States. Let that sink in. The city of Phoenix boasts, not something to be proud of, the highest number of officer related shootings. I think we just hit 40, 20 people have died. Of those 40, 20 people died. That eclipses New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. It eclipses them. That's a 30% rise than last year. That's a 30% increase from last year. That is also a part of our history and our current day in Arizona. Not far from where you are seated is a mountain called South Mountain that we call South Mountain. On the west side of that mountain, the city of Phoenix, Maricopa County are now engaged in a process of imminent domain of indigenous lands to build a freeway to go from the West Valley to one of the most desirable that parts of the valley, a place called Awatuki, a mostly white, very affluent place. They wanna make it easier for people in Awatuki to get to L.A. without having to go through the city. So they decided that they would rescind their agreement to land, to indigenous land, to honor and treaties, and then imminent domain this area. It's not any coincidence that this area is also rich in water. At the base of the Australia Mountain, you have a natural water bed. And so indigenous communities from all over the state and all over the Southwest are currently engaged in a struggle, not unlike Standing Rock, not unlike what's happening up on the Dine Reservae, on the Tribal lands of Dine. Just here, seven miles west of where we are seated today. So these are the politics of this place that we are living in every single day. And the last day I wanna touch on the Red for Ed campaign. We had an incredible, we had one of the largest and most sustained Red for Ed campaigns from teachers coming out in their red shirts to fight for increased pay for teachers. This was incredibly difficult on families and people showed up, I think we had 40,000 people showing up. And in many ways they won this battle. It's not perfect, it wasn't a perfect win. But for many people, it was in terms of like how we win increased pay, it was seen as a win. Six weeks ago, Governor Ducey, with absolutely no conversation, decided that the agreement that they had reached, that he would violate and rescind the agreement no longer increasing pay and taking any voter propositions off of the ballot. Just like that, overnight. I'm only outlining five major issues. I could go on and on and on about what it means to struggle in Arizona. What it means to survive in Arizona. And so when Alicia asked, oh, what should we be thinking about in terms of the politics of the place? These are the things that I hope you will be thinking about as you're walking around our city. And then lastly, before we get into the panel, I just wanna share that in this, frankly, shit show, okay? That many of us think of the experience of Arizona come some of the most incredible organizations and organizers almost all led by people of color. And I wanna pause there, almost all led by people of color, by queer communities and trans communities and undocumented communities. And this is the time to pull out your pen because I'd like to name a few of them. A few are up here. Trans Queer Pueblo. If you don't know Trans Queer Pueblo, and this is not your first time to Arizona, please take a second, get to know this organization. They have a cultural space in downtown Phoenix that is run by, by, it's like fooboo, I for you, by you. Thank you, right here, cloudy, I thought of it. I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it. It is run by undocumented trans people. Doing art, this is what they do, this is their time. Creating informal economy and alternative economies because if you're undocumented, you can't work, you stop to earn money. And doing incredible work with art and performance. So these are just one example. Mijente, Mijente is a national organization that emerged out of Phoenix, Arizona that centers black and brown undocumented queer women. They are the ones, they are one of the major reasons that Stacey Abrams in Georgia is doing this incredible work that she's doing because all of these women from across the nation said, we need to get this woman elected. They're doing the same in Arizona, they're doing the same in Louisiana, right? So Mijente, these are the organizations, the innovative organizations emerging out of Phoenix, Arizona. Puente Human Rights, Bodev in action. In Tucson, Pam left productions, Colibri coming out of Nogales. You already have a couple of the incredible artists, Martinate, Nintortis, Ivan Montoya, Ashley Herr, Reina Montoya. These are the artists leading this conversation at the intersections of social change. We want to keep using that term. Social change, art, and political action. And so please, as you are thinking about your time in Arizona, I want to encourage you to do one thing. If you have any break time, please volunteer to get out the vote. I don't care who you vote for, I really do. But if you have downtime, if you have downtime, if you are visiting, do like Ana Maria Alvarez when she came here in 2016 as a resident artist. She said, I can't be in Arizona and I can't not be out canvassing. So if you have some break time in Tucson, you can do a text canvassing. We need it, we need it more now than ever. And I'm not pretending about that. If you're here for vacation, take an hour of your time, find some way to plug in and make those calls, knock on those doors, we absolutely need it. So thank you very much. That just gives you a sort of profile and hand to Tash. Thanks, Mary. That was wonderful. I'll give it a little context of how our last 30-ish minutes will go with each other. But thinking about what Mary said, the reason why all of the political climate that we were in in Arizona, the reason why it matters to artists and the reason why it matters to performance artists and visual artists is because we are seeing the intersection of all of these organizations that Mary is talking about that they are integrating themselves in this political moment. And so often what we have seen in the arts is this sort of bubble of elite status that arts for art's sake lives in here. That we see these large institutions or small galleries, visual arts, performance ensembles that don't know their neighborhood. They don't know the politics. They don't know the kids that walk by to the school down the street. And all of that context is really, really important. We make a joke here in Arizona that so often when you go to the neighborhood of the Little League team, you'll see like Dr. Daniela Gonzalez, Dentistry on the back of their t-shirts because they are sponsoring the local Little League team. But we've never seen an arts organization on the back of a Little League t-shirt. We've never as an arts community said, you know what, we need to be in the middle of what is happening politically, right? Yes, it can be arts for art's sake, but art and culture has always been at the center, right? When we think about cultural shifts. And I think that's really important to think about, especially being in this space in Arizona. We have some really wonderful artists of color, queer artists, trans artists that are helping us think differently to reimagine in Arizona that is vibrant, that is not negative in the news that people are looking at Arizona as, wow, they're doing something radically different that we can do in our cities. And I'm honored to be on this panel with Patty and Rita and Mary as some of the really wonderful people that's happening. But that's the things that we're thinking about in Arizona. As artists, how are we in this movement? Because we're not victims, right? As an arts educator, sometimes we think about, oh, the arts is the first cut from school, our funding is the first cut, victimizing, victimizing, victimizing. But we are culture movers, we are culture shifters. The artists are always in the center. And we have to believe in that. Because what is happening now, for example, one of the things in the south side of Phoenix, everybody's got their south side on the other side of the tracks. Economic development follows artists. We know this to be true. When you see the artist gallery pop up, you know gentrification is gonna happen. You know those people are gonna be displaced. And now in South Phoenix, the light rail is being extended down the central corridor. And that all of those black and brown undocumented queer bodies will be displaced. But it'll look just like beautiful Roosevelt row in their high rises that we cannot afford. And all of those art galleries and art that we cannot afford. And so yes, art and artists and theaters and galleries are at the center of politics. So we should be paying attention and we should be involved. That's my soapbox, the smaller one. So my name is Ashley. I'll talk a little bit in a second about what I do here as an activist and human artist in the city of Phoenix and Valley. We'll take a little bit of time. Each of us will talk about our work. But we want it to be a conversation based. We don't want to say, this is our PowerPoint presentation for five minutes. But really, when Patty gets up or I get up or Raina or Mary, feel free to ask a question, to raise your hand. If in that moment you feel inspired to engage, we want you not to wait until the Q&A session, right? You can do it in the moment in a conversational base. Because these women are absolutely very, very phenomenal work. So without further ado, because we've been talking about. We'll start with Patty. I'm gonna be your tech. I'm gonna jump to the stage manager. And we'll start our panel. Do we have lights? Like, turn off the lights? I think the lights are there. I have to constantly promote the Facebook page because I know you're all on social media, right? So I want you to like the Phoenix Indian School Visitor Center Facebook page. That's our building. And I'm the curator of the Phoenix Indian School Visitor Center. So how many of you know about the government who I'm boarding schools for American Indians? Okay, almost half of you, pretty good. So I want to go all the way back to pre-contact. And how many people were living here in what is now the United States? I'm not even worried about Canada or South America or Central America. All of the different tribes we're living here today, by federal government standards, we have more than 500 federally recognized tribes. And to give you an idea, every single tribe has its own language, its own culture, its own religion, and its own way of government. So we were not one group of people. And from contact time, we were forced to have to come to some kind of centralized government. But before the United States was even formed, tribes were signing treaties with the French and the British governments. So did you know, can anyone name the one race of people named in the Constitution? Did you know that there was a race named in the US Constitution? Native Americans. And the actual term is American Indian. That's our legal name. So, and the term Indian country is a legal term as well. So you look at, I love going up to groups that are protesting whatever, you know, I've been to all the Trump rallies and I'll ask them, you know, and they know, they know the Constitution. And I asked them, maybe the one race of people mentioned in the US Constitution when they counted. So now you guys are educated and you'll know that. So we look at, you know, politics in place and I love this topic because for tribes, we were totally, we still are totally tied to our land. You know, and Obi, our language is very specific. You know, we have, we don't have generics like trees and birds and whatnot. They're specific to where we come from. And then of course, as things were introduced, we had to figure out a way to say other things and make up names were like microwaves or whatever, but it's very land specific, land based. So not just, you know, our language, but our food as well. There's a whole movement called the food sovereignty movement that's going on across the country. So what are these indigenous foods? Well, it's something that was here before contact. So for example, Europeans brought wheat. There was no wheat in the Americas. You know, they brought refined sugars. They brought cows. We had no dairies. We had no red meat, no dairy. And those four basic food groups there really impacted our diet. And you can see that in the health disparities of American Indians. So what were the indigenous foods? You're going to, those who even get lucky and go down to the Saguaro seminar that you have down in Tucson, you're going to have just a little bit of a glimpse of what it is like to have an indigenous diet. But here in the desert, you walk outside. There's an abundance of food out there that people don't eat on a regular basis, they used to. When the troops are here trying to kill all the Indians and clear the land so the settlers could come in, they were dying for a lack of vitamin C. When all they had to do was go over there and cut down the cholla and cook it up. There was all the vitamin C there, more than a jalapeno, more than an orange. So the desert provides, in Alaska, the clinic people have a saying that when the tide goes up, our table is set. Isn't that beautiful? So where are you, what do you do in terms of place? Got all my good notes here. When contact, Europeans arrived here, they displaced us in our homelands. What does that do to a people who are living on the East Coast and are moved to the central part of the country? To now a land that they're not familiar with. A people who lived off of the sea are now having to live off of the woodlands and figure out how to hunt, how to plant, how to go harvest. So a huge change and disruption in their own culture. This goes to our songs, this goes to our religions, this goes to who we are as native people. So, and by the way, if you call me American Indian or Native American or Indigenous or First Nations, that's all wrong. So just call me any one of those, okay? We accept that. But if you want to be polite and educated, ask me what is my tribe. And I'll tell you, I'm Hopi. Now I had somebody who was very good intention and this is where you have to check your intentions too. And she was asking me, she was so nervous but she, you know, I knew she wanted to ask me something and finally she's learned it in doubt. She said, what brand are you? I was like, hmm, I think I'm gonna be Gucci. So then I remember there's a word in our language that sounds kind of like that. It's not what you want to be called. I switched it to something else. I don't know what else. But, you know, ask who are you? You know, what do your people call themselves? Like I was saying earlier, you know, they accept being called Pima, but if you really want to know, you ask them, what do you call? What do your people call themselves? And they'll tell you, Akameel or something like that. So our constitution, we have, we are written into the constitution. We are semi-domestic dependent sovereign nations. So we have a government to government relationship with, you know, between tribes and the federal government. And so the state is to step down. So we don't negotiate with the state or that was the intention, it's changed now. We have direct dealings with the federal government. And we've constantly had this fight with the federal government because even though we're written into the constitution, even though we are semi-domestic dependent sovereign nations, they still make laws that hurt us, that harm us from the very beginning. I'm using this book as my little whatever to brace my paper on here, but I want you to read this book. It's called Loaded, it's by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. It's about the evolution of the Second Amendment, where it came from. You know, the Second Amendment that some people hold so strongly to you. And I understand that I come from a gun owning family. You know, we hunt and we provide, but we don't, you know, hunt with machine guns, you know, semi-automatic weapons, and we don't need to, you know, strap the bullets all over us. The Second Amendment was actually a change in the amendment in that it allowed individuals, and it's supposed to be forming policies to overturn the government and the government turns against us, right? That's the common myth out there. It was also intended to kill Indians. So settlers would have weapons to protect their homesteads. So when they talk about, you know, where are you in anywhere in this country, you're on Indian land, and that land was stolen, and no amount of payment, or no amount of whatever will ever fulfill that debt. Now we talk about treaties that we brought that have been written by the government, and every single treaty that's been broken. So we talk about educational treaties, we talk about housing treaties, you know, all of these different kinds of treaties. Every single one of them has been broken, okay? So am I giving you a picture of people who probably have a really big chip on their shoulder? You know, for good reason, but you know what, we're not like that. We continue to move on. You know, the federal government staffs in boarding schools take our kids away and to assimilate them. That was a good intention. Henry Pratt, the officer who came up with the idea of boarding schools had previously spent his entire career killing Indians, all angels. You guys know where scalping came from? Didn't come from Indians. It came from the French. So you know, kill an Indian, bring their remains, claim your bounty. It was easier just to cut off the scalp because our hair is very distinct. And you could tell a man's haircut from a woman's hairstyle to a child. So they got paid different prices. And this is not just Arizona. We're talking nationwide, okay? So I'm not talking anything specifically to Arizona. So you look at all of this history and then the board of schools. So Henry Pratt said, okay, well let's not kill them. Let's take the kids and we'll assimilate them. And we will teach the boys skills so that they can help build our towns and cities. And the girls can work in other people's homes to take care of their families. And so that was a good intention, right? He wasn't killing us anymore, right? So now take the kids away. So here we go. For Indian people, humor has been our best resource for overcoming and enduring. We have a great sense of humor. And when you have the idea or that stereotypical image of a stoic Indian, that's not an Indian. Because we sit and laugh about all kinds of stuff. No matter how bad it is, no matter how horrible it can get, we find humor in the situation because humor sustains us, right? All right. So when we look at our history and we look at what we've gone through, we continue to stand here. We continue to have a good outlook on life because we also have our faith and what's going to happen next and how do we take care of ourselves? And I think that's a big part of the conversation. Our artists are also hugely important to us. And I think that for everyone here who's a poet, who's an artist of some sort, we need you. We need you to tell the story. We need you to tell it from a perspective that you can understand from the native people and to share that story because there's so much out there. And you just do a quick internet search. You don't find a lot from native artists. They're out there. We know that we see them but they're not making the hits on the internet and the communities at large. It's up to you to seek them out and it's up to you to go and work and collaborate, big on collaborations, big on bringing parties together so that we can work together to help educate and also help enlighten people. Somebody mentioned water earlier today. Again, we're looking at that from a native perspective. And I think the environmentalists have come up with the term ecological water. Have you guys heard about that? Ecological water. So that means that you recognize that water has its own life. Water has the right to go where it wants to go. So what's up with all the dams? Not only does water have the right to go but the water has the right to create communities. Marshlands, so animals can go there and drink so plants can thrive. Water has the right. And you know what? Even in conservative Texas they have an ecological water law on the books. But Arizona and New Mexico do not have ecological water rights. And we think about that. It's like, wow. And water will go where it wants to go. Those dams are big but maybe they'll break. Put us to my tell you about it. This idea of having a benevolent government. The U.S. is so good, right? We've run to the aid of everybody, right? That's so crazy. This is the part where I'm saying that we like to misremember things. So I'm gonna go way back in history. What happened last week was horrible. This past weekend, the synagogue. What happened with the Baptist church a year ago. Horrible. Guess what? American government and people did that to our own people long, long time ago. They went into our sacred spots for a month talking specifically, hoping now in Pueblos, archivas basically like a basement, an underground chamber. And at that time, the only way to get in there was through a step ladder. And they went there and they pulled out the step ladders and they threw fire bombs in there and killed everybody in the middle of a ceremony. And that was standard operating procedure. And that's the kind of government we're based on. You know, we talked about earlier those caravans of the kids that you mentioned, right? Coming up here and being separated. That was a couple of years ago. We're dealing with it again right now. And people are saying, that's not what our government does. They don't separate families. And Native people are like, are you kidding me? That's exactly what our government does. So you can't misremember. You have to remember. You have to dig and look and have a critical outlook as to what our history is and where we are today. And that's your job as artists. You know, throw it out there, put it out there. Couple of artists I want to point out, Ricardo Cate. You know, he's a great cartoonist and he's from San Domingo. He's got this wonderful cartoon or these immigrant ships, right? Coming up on the shores. And the little Indians are like, right this way to your holding cell, right this way. Another cartoonist, I forgot his name. He, a cowboy kind of person is asking this Indian kind of person saying, what do you mean you don't celebrate Independence Day? And the little Indian says, well, you're still here. I don't know. I don't know. So humor is really good. I think it's really interesting that we're here on Halloween. Because there's lots of cartoons out there talking about trick or treating. Yeah, so what are we gonna do with that? And just this idea of understanding who we are today and where do we go in the future. And so as native people looking at the vote and then looking down the road a few more years at the census, and as artists putting that word out there to be counting all of those people because that impacts our communities as well. Did you have a question? Yeah, can you make some comments about like trick or treating and what are we gonna do about that? What do you mean by that? So voting impacts who's going to make those decisions, right? Okay, that's where that power starts. Really understanding that from your school board, your community college level and onward. So these treaties that were signed and not fulfilled. Okay, one really great example right now is the Affordable Care Act. So especially for Indian people, we should be voting for people who don't want to repeal that. Or if they're repealing it, then they have to have something in there that covers the Indian Health Care Improvement Act because prior to the Affordable Care Act, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act was funded on a rotating basis. So now President Obama rolled that into the Affordable Care Act. And every proposal that's out there to replace the Affordable Care Act does not have anything in there to help fund Indian Health Services. And that's a real big issue because I would say probably 80% of our people rely on the Indian Health Services for health care. Medical, dental, eye care. So trick or treat is just a little plain words. So, yeah, so I want to be, so come on up. Well, I'll take it for the whole time because I've learned how to colonize. Yeah! Translating through breath. But when you give an answer to someone, it's like even words of encouragement. So, we're here today, thank you. I would actually like to start with a question. How many of you have a bachelor's degree? Raise your hand, keep it up, make sure that you're listening to this. Only keep your hand up if you were able to go to college, do do FAFSA, any Pell Grants, or any type of scholarship that was funded by the government or the state. Now, only keep your hand up if you would have been able to pay out of FAFSA. Keep it up, look around you, really high. You can put it down, what happened? Very few people could afford it, right? So, I'm in a swacking distance from the US-Mexico border in Tijuana. And I was like, mom, you could have walked and I wouldn't be here today. And little did I know that at the age of 10, one day out of the sudden, in the fifth grade classroom, my mom would come, asked for my documents, and that was the last day that I got to see my friends and my family and my teachers. We moved to Nogales, another border city, three hours south from here. And I was very confused and I was really angry at my parents because I didn't know they didn't give me an explanation, we just moved. You know that I would come at the age of 13 to Mesa, Arizona, where the president at that time of the state legislature also peers, also the mastermind behind SB-70, show me your paper slot. That was the neighborhood where I would be raised. So, talking about place and talking about context, that was my beginning here in the US. And I remember so vividly, not really understanding what was going on, had a very peaceful migration came with a visa, so didn't really understand what it meant to be undocumented. I just knew that there was something off. Until I had to go to college, so full circle, right? College, applications, high school, if you work hard, you can achieve everything you want. So our teachers taught us. Little did I know, but because I didn't have a social security number, that wouldn't be enough. But it didn't matter how hard I worked, how hard my parents worked, all of that didn't matter because I couldn't afford to go to school. So, 2010, fast forward, got very lucky, was able to get a private scholarship. So, not really lucky, I actually worked my bad for it. So, got a private scholarship and I was one of the 1% of undocumented students that graduated from a bachelor's degree of higher, 1%. So, even though you might look at me and you might hear my accent, you might see how I present myself, I am standing with a lot of privilege and a lot of the people that I call friends and family are that are not here today, we're not able to have the same opportunities that I have. So, it's been 70, 2010, first time that I got into politics and really started talking about what do I do with all of this? What do I do when my friends come and tell me, hey, Reina, how do you go to college if you're undocumented? Hey, Reina, what do we do? If we're scared about sharing your pile, what are we gonna do to just survive? So, at that moment I was at ASU, I was 19 years old and we were marching for the DREAM Act. How many of you have heard about the DREAM Act? So, DREAM Act, piece of legislation that would have created a pathway for citizenship, talking about 2010. And it felt, it felt because five Democrats decided to vote no on the Senate and one Republican, Senator McCain, filibuster, the DREAM Act. So, the irony of that, we had a democratic president, President Obama, we had a house who was ruled by the Democrats and we had a Senate that was ruled by the Democrats. So, also breaking down the narrative, only if we vote blue, we're gonna see justice. Moving forward, remember also, peers were glanted in Mesa, Arizona, so young people just like me decided that enough was enough so we hustled, we didn't know what we were doing, but we were able to get him out of office for the very first time in this franchise for many, many years. We're able to go door to door in where we're living and you can be part of the change. Moving forward, he said, I will deliver immigration reform in the first 100 days of my office. So, we didn't get that. And a lot of people, there's a lot of contradictions and I think this is really important about talking about space and place and politics because President Barack Obama is still the president that has supported the most people in the US history. And I'm talking about deportations, they were close to three million people. And during those deportations, we're not talking about an arbitrary number, we're talking about people in our communities regardless if we know that they exist or not. So, within that, we were like, you can court us and say that you love us and then deport us. So, young people again started to raise their voices and said, hey, you are the porting people, you are the porting dreamers who you said that you support. So, through all of that, we were able to get that kind of wish. It's not citizenship, it's a work permit that would prevent us from getting deported. It's pretty much like your case in the US and you now are able to travel within US freely but you still have a lot of impediments that you're not able to get specific licenses to work and you're still not able to get in state tuition in some cases and a lot of obstacles. But we can move forward. So, May 2012, midterm elections, that's when I graduated and I graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in political science and another bachelor's degree in transporter studies and I minor in death. And it will make sense, I promise. It makes sense in my head. But I like to put this picture because it's not about me graduating but it's about me looking down even though that I was receiving this really shiny award because at the end of the day, it was the fact that I was gonna walk out of that stage that it didn't matter how shiny awards you gave me that my people still didn't have the access to go to school that people were in tears and traumatized by knowing that, sure, if you were a pilot, you could deport them by the fact that so many broken promises have been made. And at that moment, I'm looking down and I'm smiling and yes, humor is what you need to do in order to survive sometimes. But it was a bitter, bitter, sweet moment for me because I was like, it didn't matter that I hustle and I got 21 credits, it doesn't matter how hard I work, how hard I do in order to prove people my work because it doesn't matter the place will never recognize those people who was not intended to recognize. So at that moment, I remember feeling really angry, frustrated, but I was looking down and then after that picture, I remember seeing through the bleachers and I see my mom and my dad. And they were my biggest cheerleaders in life. And they had the biggest smiles in their faces. And at that moment, I knew that regardless about what politics, policies, and people would tell me and turn me apart, I had to suit people that saw me as a human being. And that no matter what happened, I made them proud, so I did my job. So moving forward, TACA, we were able to push President Obama to pass the production for shallower arrivals. It only benefited close to 800,000 undocumented immigrants that came here as minors before the age of 16 had no criminal background. And it's very, a lot of like legal jargon that you have to prove your existence when they've been telling you you're undocumented, don't show up, now you have to show proof that you've been living in the U.S. So the irony in that. So within that, I was able to benefit from that program. And a year later, my dad got detained. My dad got detained. The person who believed in me, the person who was always there for me, the person that I would later find out that the reason why we migrated from Mexico was because he had been kidnapped and he had no other choice but to seek for the security of his family, was put into partition proceedings under Obama. And at that moment, I knew how to organize and knew how to create petitions, but I didn't really know how to process what it meant not to have my dad at home for birthdays, for Christmas, for any times that really mattered to me. So, luckily we were able to fight his case and after nine months of being separated, he was let go. He still has the pending deportation case. We don't know what's gonna be the outcome of that, but he gets to fight here in his community, here at home, here in Arizona. So, I like to share just those pictures and I'm just gonna go a little bit briefly. And I want you to read the years because I think that really matters. When you live in a society that constantly breaks your spirit, it does something to your heart. It does something to your human spirit. If you're constantly being called illegal, alien, undocumented, you don't belong. Get out of here. You're invaded. You don't belong. It does something to the human spirit. So, me as someone who is from the undocumented community, someone who has grew up in this context and having to face fear, anxiety, depression, and shame, I know that I wasn't alone. I needed an outlet. So, dance and poetry was something that I was able to use to transform that. So, at Aliento, we work with migrant youth, children, and mixed-satisfactor families to transform that fear, that anxiety, and to hope and action because we know we have agency, because we know we don't need sympathy, but we need co-co-inspirers and people who are gonna stand with us, that we need allies who are gonna be advocates and are just gonna say, hey, yes, I love you, I'm with you, but they're actually gonna show up with their actions and do something about it. Because if you stay silent, that's why we get to see those injustices. So, this is not a new phenomena, and I think people in this panel haven't spoken about that, but it has impacted new changes with this new administration. So, the US in 2016, it woke up to what we've been living here in Arizona for the past years. And within that, we saw how now everybody, pretty much regardless if you have any type of background or any roots here in the US now, you can be deported, DACA was terminated, so now I can be deported if things don't change. But at the same time, with all of that sadness and heaviness, we're seeing spaces where people are really transforming all those fears and anxieties into really hope and we're able to make new connections. And when I stand here, I don't stand here alone, I stand here with people who are being so brave to share their stories and really being able to use art as an outlet and art as a medium to not only talk about their own human experiences, but really leading the conversation about how should we relate to each other as human beings. So thank you so much for allowing me to be here. And I would ask you again if you can inhale with me. Let it out. Inhaling. Let it out. Inhaling. Let it out. And I will leave you with a question. What are you in this conversation? Conversations, but we are out of time, unfortunately. So I'm going to say thank you to everyone. Oh, do we? You're not out of time. Oh, I thought it was by 15. No, you guys keep going. Oh my God, this is amazing. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Heart is started. Oh my gosh. Beautiful, that's even better. I've been about some things that are happening in Arizona. Mary gave a wonderful opening about what is happening politically on the ground as you are entering into this space and then those of you who might be journeying past the Phoenix area, the Tucson, et cetera. So we just want to open it up. If you have a particular question that will really help you either ground yourself in Arizona while you're here, something that you've been pondering and your work as an artist or a culture bearer or a culture pusher, as some of our folks say, in Arizona, we'd be more than happy to hear those and answer those questions at this point. It's also okay to pause for a second, right? Especially, I'm an introvert, shockingly enough, most I think a lot of theater people are, so it's okay for us to be in silence too. As you're pondering, you just took in a lot of information. Babu, if you contact her, if anybody knows what we can do to get in on the canvassing and the texting. Yeah. Yes, so. See me after. I actually can't, I don't think politically because I'm here on behalf of A.C. We can talk afterward. Yeah. Also what's really wonderful in the day and age of social media is Ponair and Aliento and beautiful Patty. They have all media pages. They have all the ways that you can get out the boat. The soles to the poles. This is the rooftop rally. We've got the canvassing coalitions that are out. So you can find them on social media. If you're looking at Mejete, Puente, Podem, if you just look at their Facebook pages for sure. Ashley, if you all get those links to us. We'll do. We'll compile them in a place that you can just go one place and get them all. Yes. That would be wonderful. Thank you. Any questions? And then I have a question for you after the participant audience. How many folks in here researched before you flew in? So this is maybe for the visitors in the room. How many folks spent some time researching social movements in Arizona before you arrived here? Alicia. So I think that's telling. I think that's telling that when we enter a space, we don't always immediately assume that we need to do that research. And yet every place, we're going to Baltimore next week for a training and we've spent the last five months researching different social movements. And we go right to, we're always interested in people on the front lines, so we're always like Googling it, hashtag Google it, Googling youth organizations of color, Baltimore, women of color movements, Baltimore. I think that's a really good idea because it comes back to economic power. And so when you have a group coming into a city for some kind of gathering, you're bringing money to that community. And my whole career has been as a journalist. So we went to, we had a coalition of journalist groups. We were called Unity Journalists of Color. And we refused to go to Boston, Massachusetts. They were one of the towns trying to get our business. And we were bringing in upwards of 8,000 journalists in print and back then radio, television, they're all converging out. But Boston had on its books and it's a law that Native Americans were not allowed in the city, you had, one Native American man had to be escorted by two longshoremen and then they were not allowed to stay in the city after dark. Now this was still on their books even though they had revised the constitution. They never took that off. And there's all kinds of blue lots, if you're just interested in where they go, look up the blue lots and you'll be surprised at what's, I mean, there's tons of states that don't allow cohabitating unless you're married. So that's, just kind of for, maybe that's a trivia. But we told Boston that we wouldn't even consider them. And I said, well I can't bring my membership there because we'll have to get arrested at sunset. So we use that as a political entity and they change their law within a week. Within a week. And so you have that power. And voting blocks, hugely important. The native vote, there's a huge effort right now. Native vote 18, also hashtag she votes or she represents because there are a number of Native American women who are running for office nationwide. And even our former governor, we haven't had a Democratic governor for a long time. But Jen and Napolitano got in by the native vote in Arizona. And so she says that right now in North Dakota there's a huge fight going on in North Dakota. You guys know what North Dakota's doing? Yeah. You guys are aware? Okay, good. Because the voter disenfranchisement there is crazy. What's happening up there should not happen back. So, yeah, research your voter laws, research your blue laws, research. And use your political clout. And make your art. Any other questions? What can we do to still support you here? Probably not an easy answer. Yeah, so I think that knowledge is power. And sometimes we undermine that. I think ignorance is not only a place, but it's a convenience. So there's many ways that you can go with your local community. I would encourage you if you're not active with your local community, the struggle is there. There's 11 million undocumented people here right now in the U.S. California has a huge undocumented population. But also if you're just kind of more in the entry point as in like, hey, I don't even know where to start. And I feel like I wanna learn more. We have a podcast. So Alito has a podcast, make sure you check us out. And we talk about our politics and leadership. So it is, I have a co-host who's also documented. He has a podcast, I have a podcast. And we bring in people who have been impacted either by detention or deportation and really coming from like a historical lens as well. So then people can really start thinking and start asking those questions and sometimes they're too embarrassed to ask, but then being able to really share that information with you all. So we are recently on Spotify as well, but we're also on Apple Play and you can check us out at AlientoAC.org. And sometimes in other cities, it's little things that really are important when you wanna continue to connect nationally with others. For example, I just had someone from California, Oakland area, Bay Area reach out to do some performance piece and some poetry in Phoenix and asked about some venues. And I only gave POC-owned venues. I only gave hair, she also, one person asked about hairstyles and I was like, gotta go to this one because it's woman of color owned because these are the folks who on the ground, I hear on a daily that they're having really hard times getting those small business loans, fighting the gentrification in their neighborhoods, the ones who have been historically displaced and marginalized and it goes a long way if you're thinking about who, even if you're from another town and people are asking what to do and where to go. Mary and I just came back from the Grantmakers in the Arts Conference who had, if anyone knows, a big hiccup because they were gonna be at the Marriott and the Marriott was on strike. The Marriott went on strike three weeks before and they were thinking about what we're gonna do, what we're gonna do and vocally we said, well you can't be in the Marriott. Like, you can't do it. What do you mean what are you gonna do? You can't do it. And some people chose to stay in their hotel accommodations in Marriott but the Grantmakers in the Arts, as an arts organization, chose to take their entire conference out of the Marriott three weeks before and they chose to include pieces for all of us, spaces in the conference for us to go and support the strikers, to support the movers that were holding up the line and so we were able to do that between sessions. They gave us breath to support that which was really amazing and they didn't have to but they knew the importance of being in that moment and actually it was really wonderful because then all of our sessions were in like this woman of color owned queer gallery space that had a breakout session that I never would have. I would have been in this dim, lit, horrible, ugly brown room in the Marriott that we all are in all the time but I got to actually travel to different parts of the city and it was really, really cool. So I think it was beneficial all around but it's things like that, if there's a conference happening and you know locally what's happening on the ground because you're researching right to your conference presenters and be like, yo, can't have it there, not acceptable, right, you have to now put your values on the table. Other questions? I want to share two pieces that we'll wrap up here. Along with being in a very challenging environment like Arizona, California and in many, many places face these same challenges, I'm super excited. This is something that I really do boast about and I think Arizona can boast about is that we have one of the highest number of women of color running for political office in our history of the state and across the country. So we have a number of local, municipal, state and federal folks running and it's mostly women of color that are pushing that forward. And so I encourage you as you're thinking about your next conference, the next work that you're going to do, but also in your own spaces. Think about the leaders that are most invisible. We tend to make visible the same people. Even these conferences make visible the same practitioners which is not to undermine the important role that many, many practitioners play but it continues to invisibilize people newer practitioners that are doing incredible work. And so think about women of color and who are leading this movement. Think about queer folks. Think about undocumented folks and do that research. All you have to do is Google, like literally just Google that and you will find many, many people leading this. The alientos, the transqueer pueblos, they're very, very visible. They're just not always in the same discursive circles that we're working in which is a part of the way that power works, right? It keeps the same people, the same organizations creating the same conversations. And so I see Mark over there from Borderlands right here. You're going to be lucky enough to talk with you tomorrow, right? Right, that's an organization you need to know about. So thank you all so much. We're here if you want to talk with us. Oh, Tiffany, right here, great. Where there's murals, a vibrant mural culture that actually communities are healthier. And we also know from the statistics the information from Aliento that art heals and trauma and violence take away our sense of voice, our sense of embodiment and art gives that back. It makes us be present, but it also gives us a path to voice. So I just really extend that welcome. I want to thank everyone. I really want to thank you, Alicia and Net, for just inspired about continuing to affirm and start making the art that we can never lose sight that it matters. I need to respond to that actually because I thank you very much for that acknowledgement and the righteousness behind it but I honestly feel like the programming that is happening and the focus and being able to highlight folks on the ground that we are able to is only because of partnership and conversations that we were able to have with you and with you, Mary and so many others in the community that we've worked with. All of you who do community-based work in your home places know how this goes. I had already come and done a site visitor to sort of in and out of these communities and like was on the plane back thinking like, I have a whole conference program and we're like nine months, you know. And then I came back and I was in a room with Tiffany and I was going like X, X, scribble nose. And then I was in a coffee shop with Mary and Terine and Rashad who was here this morning for our poetic justice session and again with like X out everything I thought, right and everything I had no idea what's happening on the ground, you know. And that's the work, right? But that's how you actually find out what's really happening in the community is to partner with people on the ground doing the work. So thanks to all of you. It's only because of your generosity of spirit and your willingness to open up and trust people who didn't know that any of that happened. Thank you. There's actually a question for Elizabeth, right? Yeah, this isn't a question. This is just a comment and something to put in your heart's pocket. As artists, one of the things that happens through theater, through dance, through storytelling, through song, through poetry is that it gives whoever receives it a way of momentarily stepping not from your brain but in your gut into someone else's life, into someone else's sight, this kind of sight and this kind of sight. And in these days, when there is so much money and so much effort being devoted to make us divided and to encourage us to fear one another, we are the fucking first line. So as an experiment, while you are here, find some opportunity to tell someone who's here something you've never ever told anyone else before. And then ask them to do the same thing for you. Thank you. Closing out, I too wanna reflect, working with you, I said this to you in the corner, has been a joy. And I think it captures something very important that we at Insight think about a lot and that is believing people, believing people. The first act of collaboration is believing people. When you sit and you hear Tiffany say something like, oh, maybe I was wrong and I have to think about that again. And it has just been such a rewarding conversation. Then we had a lovely chat for an hour with your board and design team. And it's been something very, very special for all of us. We're very grateful to have been here. With that, I think I'm gonna transition over to you. So I think you're all closing us out. So thank you all so much. Reina, Patty, Ashley, we'll all be here at the end and we'll have more information about the time to sing. Thank you so much. So I am Claudia Alec. I am co-creator of the Network of Ensembled Theatres and we just wanted to take these final moments together at this opening plenary to echo the great affirmation and kudos that have been shared in this room because yes, to the human beings who organized us all for the amazing things we're about to embark on in the next week, yes, yes, yes. Just thank you for your thoughtful planning. Thank you for your amazing collaboration. Thank you for all of the generosity that has taken place in this community that helped us to get here. Now, the three of us, we're only a few members of the board. We're a strong old board. So there's not even board members all over this beautiful gathering we're having. But the three of us, our faces, you're gonna see a number of times because what we're gonna do is, since we're moving all over the place, doing all kinds of things, we're gonna give you some framing and whatnot. I wanted to take a moment and simply read some of the thoughtful language that we've crafted about what we're doing here and why we're here. Does that feel all right to my colleagues? You'll note that I do this a lot. I'm always asking folks for consent. I love consent, gay consent. All right, so, reroutes 2018 Net National Gathering and Symposium in Timby and Tucson. We gather in the week before the midterm elections at a time marked by government-led political actions that run contrary to next values of equity, justice, and inclusion and in opposition to our belief in the empowered agency of multiple voices. Next mission, to propel ensemble theater practice to the forefront of culture and society seems especially timely. At its best, ensemble practice demonstrates a microcosm of democracy in action. In this time when our best is called for, we must look carefully at where our practice is reaching its full potential and where it remains theoretical, leaving our values only partly realized. In this extended moment of national cultural reckoning, our collective and individual self-assessments are essential as we ask ourselves where and who are we? Where are we coming from? And where are we headed? And is that where we want to be going? And so this framing team will be reflecting on where we're at, where we plan on going, and we are just so deeply excited to be engaging in these incredibly important conversations and reflections with you all. I live in New Orleans, Louisiana. My people are Zimbabwean. And in the spirit of this, Kady, thank you so much for the delightful, delicious and very grounding, welcoming to the space. I deeply appreciate it. I just want to offer that we're going to be in a space of practice with each other over the next five days. We're building a community, right? And so I just want to offer a set of noticings for y'all to be aware of that some other people may call community agreements, right? Or ways to be some of which have been modeled, others of which I'm going to like tease out from what's happened already today to just remind us of how we want to exist in the world that we're trying to build, yeah? So the first thing that I'm going to name is the acknowledgement that we had of where we are and what this place is and whose place this is. And not in an ownership way, but these are the lands that we came from. All of us have ancestral lands. All of us are actually indigenous to a place, but we're not all indigenous to this place. And so the necessity of not only naming but acknowledging and honoring and remembering that people were forcibly erased and are still here is really important. So encouraging us to think about all of the ways that we can do that in the spaces that we inhabit now, right? We are in a settler colonial estate. Yeah, who your people are, right? This question of who are you and where did you come from and how did you get here is something that was modeled for us super wonderfully and can be added to in every session that you're in over the next five days. Gender pronouns, right? So when we talk about gender pronouns, we wanna know how we wanna refer to you in the third person. Some people aren't into gender pronouns. Other people are super into them and the reason that we ask and or offer these is to provide spaciousness for what it is that you need. Yeah, and to not assume things about other people. Speak from personal experience, we just have like beautiful, beautiful, beautiful stories and sharing from all of the folks up here about who they are and what they do in the world. I'm gonna encourage all of y'all to do that and not talk about other people's work, experiences or life because it ain't yours, right? And one of the things that we're learning to do better is not to colonize other people's stories and extract them for our own benefit, right? And we're in the practice of that doing it multi-culturally. Yeah, what else do I wanna say? Yes, consent, consent. Okay, look, I love consent as well and it's very exciting to me to think about all the ways throughout the day that I can engage in asking people permission for what it is I wanna do. Can I hug you? Can I make a comment about your outfit or your hair? Oh my God, I would really love to tell you something about your panel. Is that okay with you? Right, what are the ways that we can practice engaging from a place of asking permission which is not something we're often taught to do? Intent versus impact, so a note on that, friends. You are here, most of us just met for the first time, people don't fuck shit up, it's cool. Also acknowledge when you're impacting people, name it, apologize if you need to, have a conversation. Two other things, name your access needs. So this one is not actually challenging but we try it for folks who are able-bodied or for folks who have never had an experience of being temporarily disabled in any sort, way, shape, or form. We forget how much the world is made for us. And so we think like, oh, I'm gonna ask questions about who needs a specific thing as opposed to just doing the thing that would make it most accessible to everybody in the room or as many people as possible. And with that comes this idea of disproportionate impact. So we know that we are in a space and in a world and in a nation where we have compounding impact on people who've experienced depression. We're trying to counteract that through equity and justice. And so thinking about what are the ways that I can create the most access for the people I tend to think least of and then also name my needs in that. Yeah, so we're gonna practice that. I don't think there's anything I'm forgetting but those are some offerings. And as artists, we are really good at noticing, right? We're in a practice of noticing. So I'm gonna encourage all of you to be noticing the ways in which you interact around these agreements over the next five days. Thanks. Leslie Tamarabuchi, also a member of the net board and co-president with Claudia. My family roots are in Hawaii. My ensemble people are with Cornerstone Theater Company. And I'm one of these reserved persons who needs a conversational bridge to talk to people that I haven't yet met and in that spirit. And in the spirit of helping each other the way find through the next couple of days, I wanna take a few moments to just recognize those of you who are generously presenting leading sessions here in Tempe. And I know not all of our presenters are in the room right now, but if you are, when I read the name of your session, if you could stand, if you're able, or wave your hand so that we can regard you, see you, and you can see us, that would be great. And could we be okay if I gave a small acknowledgment to our pre-conference folks who've already been here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so I just wanna say thank you to all of the amazing leaders that were in the room between 10 and one o'clock today leading poetic justice, activism, aesthetics, and co-creation for poets and storytellers. There were some wonderful resources that were shared in that room and there was a promise made in the space to possibly post some of them online with the hashtag poetic justice as well as the hashtags were also related to the conference, which I'll talk about later more. Right, so tomorrow morning, we're starting with the morning plenary from DIY to DIT, the artists building community, weaving networks and sharing resources, and that comes in three parts. And the first part is dance in the desert, Latinx artists co-creating community across distance. So if you're presenting or leading, can you stand or give us a wave? Part two is success and succession, next generation leaders sharing stories, struggles, and part three into our own hands, a sneak peek at NET's new connector app, breakout sessions, A1 between the world's queer theater and site responsive ritual. A2 sound painting, a tool for democratizing arts. Do we have our speakers here? The magic with how stories shape our society. Any presenters or leaders here? We look forward to seeing them tomorrow. And we have a four progressive performance feast that has a few courses. A first course, Yoko Meshie, A Meal Even Sideways. Anyone here? No, looking forward. A second course, Like a Mother Bear, reproductive justice in a toxic world. Third course, Ready, Aim, Fire, and Other Survival Strategies for the 21st Century. Artists talk back on peer response, breakout sessions, B series, reclaiming dance for all bodies, think post-traumatic theater, collaboration on the edges of discipline, creating theater and conflict zones, and vessels and experiment in black feminist ritual performance process. Workshops, how and when I enter, decolonizing our work, creative exploration of cultural equity. We have a series of mini performances. If any of you are either, you curated these performances, please enter our C series of breakout sessions, three dimensional dramaturgy, balancing ensemble engagement with aesthetic excellence, centering youth leadership and power sharing and artistic process. This is a manifesto, writing workshop. And then we'll enter to awarding plenary, a conversation with Liz Lerman and Michael Wood. And that wraps our time here, it's okay together, so, then we'll, then we'll, then we'll get on the bus. Get on it. Yeah. So, remember who we saw standing up? If you have questions or thoughts or need for a conversational bridge to them, between now and when you actually see them in their session, please invite you to cross that bridge. Excited and in deep knowledge that I will not be able to be simultaneously in rooms where things are happening at the same time. So, just want to say first thank you to HowlRound for helping us all to do us the deep awesome favor of sharing your experience online if you can. If you hear somebody drop some science in a room where you're like, you know what, I just learned something or I just got inspired. I'd like to make sure somebody who's not in this room who couldn't afford to come to Arizona, who couldn't afford to take time off work to be here, but they actually still live in Arizona. You want to share that with them? Post it to all of your social medias, every single one. There's a lot of them. I'm not going to name all the social medias, but maybe the Instagram, take a photo, maybe the Twitter, or whatnot. I don't know, there's a Facebook group that Net has on the Facebook, so just go on all the social medias. Hashtag Net, three routes, N-E-T-R-E-R-O-U-T-E-S. Do the hashtagging we want to hear from you. Be positive, be joyful, be connected, call yourselves in, call yourselves up. This is about learning from each other and making our field and ourselves better. Yay us, yay! To our beautiful executive director, Alicia. Thank you. Can the rest of you all on the network also identify yourselves, current network members, however you'd like? Additional staff here. Serena's probably already over at the reception. Setting up for us, it's very challenging to get us all in the same place at the same time, because somebody's always doing something. I want to make sure you know and appreciate as much as I do all of the tremendous work that this team of folks, our very tiny team, has been doing to get us to this moment. Park Co-Field, Nicole Ciro, we're over at the reception. If you did not meet her at the check-in desk, also Mark Van Gogh will be with us tomorrow. A couple of quick things to get us out of here and into reception mode. Responding to a couple of things that came up in the panel that you all should know. This is the first time we've done this. And when we brought it up to the board, there was a resounding feeling that we should absolutely be doing it. We felt really strongly that we wanted to make visible our solidarity with communities in Arizona with folks who are on the ground tuning work through the very thoughtful advice of folks like Mary and other community partners. They helped us identify some organizations that we are contributing 5% of the registration fees from this event to as their nationals. Our two organizations are Transqueer Pueblo that you've heard Mary talk about, that is here. And the Calibri Center for Immigrant Rights that is based down in Tucson and works at the border. In addition, we will have this, didn't make it into your programs, but we will also have with us on Saturday morning when we do a similar sort of, here's where we are now, conversation in Tucson about Tucson and the border regions. We'll have folks from Calibri and also from the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Project with us to talk about the work they're doing and what's happening at the border and what's happening with migrants. So I'm really excited to be able to share with you that expertise that they're gonna bring into the room. Okay, announcements. There's a reception. Woo hoo! It's happening. It starts at 6.30. It's at the Graduate Hotel that some of you may be staying at. It's on the rooftop. You'll have a great view. It's about a mile from here. There are directions in your packets and your programs of different ways to get there, maps of where things are, use those resources. Also, this is your only evening that we have not programmed you until really late at night. The reception ends at 8. And then you're on your own for dinner or sleeping or whatever you want to do. And the same. You have the same. But I say that to sort of, I know it's your first night here. I know there's a lot of excitement about reconnecting, meeting new people, all of that. And it's also your first day of a five day journey where you will be out late at night and up early in the morning all the rest of the day. So, use your own judgment. Tomorrow morning, we start at 10 a.m. on the ASU campus. There, again, is information in here, in your packet about where we'll be, how to get there, all of those things. But just be aware you aren't coming here for the first thing in the morning. We'll be over there. And then after lunch, we'll move over here, okay? Um, Dianna. Oh, I'm sorry. Nine. Oh, nine. Sorry. 10 to two sun. I got it. Nine. Nine. Ignore me. Okay, Dianna, this is my last announcement. There are a couple of prearranged dinner outings here for tomorrow night and lunch outings in Tucson for Saturday afternoon. For those of you who might like to have a sort of prearranged group to go somewhere with, we've also organized this time around those around some co-hosts from the board and also around some specific discussion topics. So, those sign up sheets for this part of the journey here in Tempe are gonna be on your check-in table. So, look tomorrow morning, if you didn't look here. Jurian might have them at the reception too. Check in with her. So, sign up for those if you're interested. Otherwise, you can make your own dinner plans, but those are some opportunities. I think that's what I've got. Any questions? All right. Thank you all.