 Welcoming to the stage on Lana Chang. Take it away. Hi everyone, and welcome to TCG's third and final plenary. I'm Elena Chang, the director of ED&I Initiatives, and I use she, her, hers pronouns. I want to thank Alicia Harris and Whitney White for your conversation yesterday and for your work as artists, which means so much to so many of us. Before we get started, we need to say her name, Brianna Taylor. Today, she would have turned 27 years old. She was a first responder and EMT during a global pandemic. She once said, working in healthcare is so rewarding. It makes me feel so happy when I know I've made a difference in someone else's life. Her nicknames were Bri and Breezy, and she was called a cool, a cool cat. Her friend said Brianna always believed she'd be a legend. And to help us go beyond saying her name, we're providing a link here in the chat and comments with 10 actions you can take to support justice for Brianna. As we do this work, we are fortunate that so many of our ancestors have paved the way, have given us the blueprints of resistance, and are cheering us on. Some of our most beloved colleagues joined the ancestors this past year. And to honor them, I'd like to share this video with you. I'm here to remember Diane Rodriguez, a dear friend and mentor who I shared an office with for many years at Center Theatre Group. Laughing, crying, talking about life. Diane was an actress, a director, a producer, a playwright, a collaborator, an activist, an artist, a mentor, a fashionista. She was also a friend, an aunt, a sister, a wife, a daughter. We love you, Diane. Your impact will live with us forever. Diane Rodriguez, presente. Diane Rodriguez has changed my life in a million different ways over the last 13 years, all for the better. And I've had the privilege of receiving these lessons, spoken and unspoken, and even being able to pass them on to future generations of arts leaders. But if I had to lift up one thing about Diane, it would be her incredibly strong belief that we have the ability to harness our power, that collectively, with a strategy, no matter the system of oppression, we couldn't... Diane and I were in a place where we could jam on her next big idea to shake up the American theater, and maybe it was over lunch or dinner or drinks, but it was always with a lot of laughs. And I was starting to learn from her really how to lead from a generous place that holds doors open and lifts people up and pushes issues into a new place. And her imagination was so big. And I know that I'll be going back to those memories I have with her to continue to learn from always. Diane's vision around commitment to rigorous classical work, deep text analysis, deep text analysis, sometimes I know some actors like, oh my God, so much text analysis. And just a joy and love for this forum. What are lessons that we can still learn from Rene Bush about fortitude, persistence, rigor, love, passion? And aspiration, I would say, like wanting to be the best, wanting to be the best at what you do and encouraging others to do the same. So this is for Rene. We miss him. He lived a long and beautiful life. And I hope that his legacy lives on. Rene gave me the welcome to the theater ten years ago and thanks to him I'm still there. So I'd rather tell it with all the joy in my soul. For the great teacher who was there for me, for his humility and for his love for art, for his country and for all the theaters. Thank you. Rene reached New York and American theater with his devotion to the classics, to new relevant works, to the art of rotating repertory and to his deeply felt Hispanic roots. His legacy is a driven Spanish language theater company that continues his vision into its sixth decade. In 1988, he is quoted as saying, I am the luckiest man in the world. I am doing exactly the work I want to do in exactly the way I want to do it with the people I want to do it with. I think I'm going to have to pay for all this good fortune sometime, somehow. Walter Dallas was a talented and highly skilled theatrical artist. His ability to communicate the spirit in the soul of a play was genius. Last year he asked me to write about his life. With his many national and international credits, he was a highly respected inspiration to his students and professional artists. We all embrace his artistic, magic. I speak your name, Sir Walter, and we all thank you. Riyad Esmat was a Syrian playwright, director, theater scholar, and critic. He was a dear friend to me and Malik and to Silk Road Rising, a man of enormous integrity and wisdom. Riyad's art advanced a vision of Syria that was democratic, pluralistic, and just. His vision will persist. Rest in peace, dear friend, Riyad Esmat. Lee Kenneth Richardson set out to alter the course of not just black theater history, but American theater history. Lee Richardson was passionate, fiery, emotional. He was an energetic dynamo. He wanted to build upon the legacy of the Negro ensemble company. He didn't want Crossals just to have great acting, but he wanted great sets and great costumes and great scripts. He wanted to relentlessly pursue excellence. Black theater, as any theater, has many different facets, many different aspects. You know, we want to try to explore as many of those as possible. So we just want to do as much about the black experience as we can. Thank you, Lee Richardson, for a job well done. Lee Kenneth Richardson, my friend. I will continue to uplift the importance of your passions, your desires, to tell our stories, to uplift our culture, and to do the work, man. I mean, just do the work, putting excellence first. That's how I remember Lee. I miss you, Lee. June Maida, extraordinary artist and wonderful human being. As a person, he brought his own special light into the room with him. Thank you, June Maida, for your singular artistry and your genius as a theater maker and set designer. Kevin, I first knew him as a drummer. I've known him as the husband of Muriel. I've known him as, before he was the husband of Muriel, and he was the friend of Muriel. I've known him as the father of Josie. I've known him as being a part of an extended family from the Indigenous community. But the image that I have the most of him that defines him the most for me is that he was a musician, a drummer, particularly, and a singer. He was the center of this musical ensemble that he created, that he was there being the base note, being the foundation of everyone's life. It's hard to imagine life going forward without that presence, Kevin. I want to thank Annabelle Guevara and Erica Kramer and everyone else that contributed their messages for their efforts in making that video. And now, it's my great pleasure to welcome Larissa Fast Horse to the screen. Larissa is more than just a friend and trusted colleague. I am deeply grateful for her labor, her continued advocacy for larger inclusion of Native and Indigenous colleagues, as well as for her artistry as the playwright of What Would Crazy Horse Do, The Thanksgiving Play, Urban Rez, and many more. She also serves on the TCG's board where her contributions have changed not only TCG as an organization, but the lives of so many of her board members. If you're watching right now, I encourage you to honor her work as a TCG board member and beyond in the chat or comments. That can be a start at saying how much we love and honor Larissa Fast Horse. Larissa, the mic is yours. It makes someone cry first. Oh, okay. Yeah, thanks. Hey, my friends, I put a link, wow, to the article about Native Nation because we're going to do something a little different. We're not going to talk that much about the show itself, and we're just going to talk about actual Native people. So first, I must thank our Black brothers and sisters who fought to make sure that us Indigenous peoples would have a voice at this conference during this week in this time. They fought for us because we no longer accept us or them. We no longer accept the binary of Black or white in America. We no longer accept scarcity and the idea that for one of us to be heard, the other must be silenced. We believe in abundance. We understand that our histories in this place called America are interwoven through the same systems of oppression and hate. And we know that our liberation is bound together. So why must Indigenous voices specifically be heard at this conference during this week in this time? Because this place called America, this place where we make theater and live, this place where we protest and die is built on Indigenous lands and people. The moment that Columbus came to this hemisphere and immediately enslaved or killed all of the people he met, the foundation for America was laid. And we are telling you today, the foundation is rotten. Whatever new we try to build on that foundation will collapse. Whatever liberation we strive for now will fail as long as we continue to ignore the fact that this foundation is rotten through and through. So we are here today to pull up the floorboards, break open the cement and bring this rot into the light. In our limited time today, our goal is simply to crack the foundation and shine a light to illuminate some of the rot and ways to start rebuilding a strong, secure foundation for every single one of us. We were meant to be in Arizona today. So we will start with naming the many tribes of that state. The following video is how we opened the Immersive Experience Native Nation. Then a Cornerstone Ensemble member and TCG Fox fellow, Kenny Ramos, will guide a brief teaser of what the Immersive Experience was all about. This was performed a year ago, but you will hear constant intersectionality of issues of Black America today because we are all standing on that same foundation and it is rotten. Okay, now as theater artists, my friends, because we are at TCG, Michael Garces and I need you to know that because of the immersive nature of this experience, we had to shoot it during the day without the benefit of our beautiful lighting design. And it was also done in 103 degree heat. So our small audience is all clustered offscreen in the shade where they should be for their safety. So imagine large crowds and beautiful lighting at night. Let's show the video. Auction Indian Community. Kokopot Indian Tribe. Colorado River Indian Tribes. Fort McDowell Yabba Pi Nation. Auction Indian Community. Kokopot Indian Tribes. And Colorado River Indian Tribes. Fort McDowell Yabba Pi Nation. Fort Mojave Indian Community. Kokopot Indian Tribe. Colorado River Indian Tribes. Fort McDowell Yabba Pi Nation. Fort Mojave Indian Tribes. Auction Indian Community. Kokopot Indian Tribe. Colorado River Indian Tribes. Fort McDowell Yabba Pi Nation. Fort Mojave Indian Tribes. Auction Indian Community. Kokopot Indian Tribe. Colorado River Indian Tribes. Fort McDowell Yabba Pi Nation. Fort Mojave Indian Tribes. Navajo Nation, Pascua Yaddi Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, Cochan Tribe, Salt River Heap and Maricopa Indian Community, San Carlos Apache Tribe, San Juan Southern Bayou, Total Othom Nation, Tonto Apache Tribe, White Mountain Apache Tribe, Yavapai Apache Nation, Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe. Welcome, I'm Yuthmen Nuea, in Yatch, Kenny Ramos. We each are he and Yomyue. We each are he, Benegas, Snap, Bumwalt, Quechamac, Barona Indian Reservation, Kupai. Hi, my name is Kenny Ramos. I'm Tegenyo Ipai-Kumayi from the Barona Band of Mission Indians. I grew up on the Barona Indian Reservation in San Diego County and I played Cathan in Native Nation. The apocalypse is already here. Back home, people are dying every day from bad food and curable diseases and alcohol and drugs and rejection. I'm 22 years old and I've already been to so many funerals. I can't even count them all. I hear my phone buzz and I don't think who's texting me. The first thing I think is who died. I did expect this, okay, the magic of it because I did a play with Cornerstone Theater Company and Larissa and Michael Jean Garces three years ago called Urban Res. And so I was a part of that whole process which was gathering stories and then producing a full play that was immersive and simultaneous. That was about the local community and that experience changed the trajectory of my life. So many different stories going on and we have all these activities that are about American Indian issues that pretty much all of our communities face no matter where you are in the country. Is this appreciation or appropriation? You decide. We shall slur as defined by the dictionary. The subject of missing and murdered indigenous women is a tough one, but we created this space to educate, to help and to understand. Food sovereignty isn't an abstract concept of organic eating or big farming. It's life and death. We have our Hopi chef, Derek Melvin and our Yaqui tribal member Esther Amazon who had prepared a special treat for you all. It is prickly pear cactus juice from Tucson and an indigenous food that his grandma called Blue Marbles. Being a part of this process really helps you grow and it helps you heal in a lot of different ways and especially as native people because we have such a unique history of oppression within this country and oppression that's founded in United States policy and settler colonialism. But through theater, we're able to express that pain and we're also able to educate non-native folks about what it is that we deal with. Because I'm sick of going to a funeral every weekend. We all are. Yeah, like I want to do that. Luan tried to be the third. We have to do something radical to change things back home. Kathan, you keep saying that, but what do you mean? Protests and marches get attention now, especially with high school kids leading them. We put you, Damien, Lozen and Troia in the front of the march or even Bender. We arrange a protest at the next ceremony. A big one. And you want to make every native in the country hate us. We protest the ceremony. But they would hear us. Hear us saying what? That it's not okay to exclude trans people from ceremony. I think that native people, because we come from an oral tradition and we are raised on stories and our culture and histories have been passed down through telling stories, we have a natural knack for theater because theater is just storytelling. We just don't always have the opportunities to do that. But native people, we've been telling stories since time immemorial, since before colonization, we've been telling stories. So it's very natural for us to do theater. And so for us to have that opportunity is like amazing. And yeah, so I'm really quite filled with love and with like the power of this experience to be doing this with the local native people's relief. Just unlike anything ever, it's really a career highlight. And I don't know, I just love it. Great, so I invite all of my native nation folks to please come on screen with me and make sure we can see everybody. Hey everyone. So while you're coming on screen, Native Nation was produced by ASU Gammage and Cornerstone Theater Company. It was a two-year engagement project that ultimately presented the work of around 400 indigenous artists in its final presentations. You can read extensively about Native Nation online, although most recently through American Theater Magazine, which I've put in the chat and it's also up on convene right now. Today, my collaborator, Michael John Garcest and I continue to use the process that we use to create Native Nation by having a handful of the 38 indigenous cast members speak to you about whatever is on their hearts. Now in that process, we would then translate these desires into performance, but today you're just gonna hear them. Michael is here off-screen, just so you know, and he's doing what he always does in our long collaboration together. He's holding space and giving support to the indigenous communities that we both serve together. There will be links in the chat for ways to learn more and to take action. Each speaker will introduce themselves. So first, to give you context of what it means to grow up Native in Arizona, I'd like to invite to the screen Maria and the rest of us will stop showing our video. Maria. Maria, hold on, you're muted. Maria, can you unmute yourself please? There you go. Okay. Sorry. It's so exciting, everyone. On and up to get Maria Chavez. Good morning, everybody. My name's Maria Chavez. I'm from Salt River, the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian community, which is based right outside of Scottsdale, Arizona and north of Mesa, Arizona. Our reservation is not as big as some, but it's about 52,000 acres and we hold 19,000 acres of it in reserve so that it's preserved. And we always have our natural land here for us. But I wanted to talk a little bit today about discrimination. And I know that a lot of people, and I'm sure everybody feels it in some way or another, may not be as prevalent as some others, but I'm just gonna give you my experience growing up here in Salt River. Again, my mother is full blood at Pima from Salt River. However, my father is full blood at Mexican. And so we moved out here when I was like about four years old and that was in about 1956. I didn't go to school for another two years before I entered into my school years and I went to the Salt River Day School, which is the school here on the reservation. My first year of school, oh my God, it was such great experience. I had such a great time. I enjoyed being with everybody and the teacher was just wonderful. Her name was Miss Rowe, never forget her. And I felt everything was good. But I guess around second to third grade, I started feeling the distance that I was feeling from the other kids. And then as time went on, by the time I was about fourth and fifth grade, it was really bad to the point where, they would be saying mean things to me like, and not just to me, I had brothers that went to school there. So they were getting the same thing. We were either getting beat up or we were getting yelled at and things. I still remember the lady, growing up here on the reservation, you end up seeing the same people most of your life. And I do still see a lot of these people and remember the things that they said to me. And they probably don't remember themselves, but when it said to you, you feel it and you remember it and it just buries itself in your heart, but it comes out a lot of times. I remember this one day, I was sitting on the side of the cafeteria after lunch and I was sitting by myself because nobody would play with me. And this guy walked up to me and he said, hey, Maria, why don't you come play basketball with us? And I told him, no, I said, it's okay, you don't, I don't have to go or you don't have to ask me or something like that. I don't remember my exact words, but I was telling him no. And he was kind of, he was being real nice and he was saying, oh, come on, come play. And his cousin who most of the families of course lived next door to each other. Well, she was walking by two of them. And one of them started yelling at him and was called him out by name and said, you better get away from her. I'm telling mama, you know, you're not supposed to talk to her, you're not even supposed to be near her. They're not from here. And he told her, he looked back and he said, go ahead, tell on me, I don't care. And he turned back and he was asking me to go play again. And the other cousins started yelling things at him too. And so I told him, you better just leave because you're gonna get in trouble. So anyway, he did leave eventually. Oh no, I never forgot that. And I still, like I said, I see those two ladies now, but you know, all I can do is be as nice as I can be to them. I always smile at them, I say, hello, how are you? You know, and try and forget that, put it behind me. But like I said, you know, I forgive them, but I can't forget it. And so there are a lot of incidents that's like that, that happened. And then as I grew up, started the workforce, started working, I worked at a JC Penney downtown in Phoenix and they used to have the little snack bars. And I worked at the snack bar and there was one employee, he would come to snack bar every day to eat, but he would never let me take his order. I would walk up in front of him and just smile and say, hi, how are you, you know, what can I get you today? And he would turn and look at somebody and call the other waitress's name and say, oh, can you get me a cup of coffee or can you give me, you know, whatever it is? And I, every day though, when he sat down, if he was in my area, I would always smile at him and do my best to be the best person that I can be because I can only take care of me. You know, I can't control how anybody else is. And that took me a while to realize that, but I did. And I try and tell my, I told my kids that, you know, and I told my grandchildren that and now I have great grandchildren. And, you know, I have, well, you don't know, but I have seven great grandchildren. And so I try my best to hope and pray that the things are not the same for them as it was for me because even here in Salt River, things have gotten better because as time went on, the years have passed, there have been a lot of intermarriages now. Whereas like I said, back in like 55 and 56, when we moved out here, we were like the, one of the very first families that moved here that were not full blood at Pima's. And so, you know, I can understand where that came from and you would really hope, or I would really hope that in time that has eased up and that things have gotten better. And I sure hope that my grandkids and great-grandchildren are not going through that same thing. You know, I actually work at an elementary school. I work at the Salt River Elementary School. I've now worked for my community for 20, this August will be 22 years in the school system. And I work as the parent and community involvement specialist. And with that, I work with families. And I try my best to help them with anything that they need. A lot of times, well, obviously we haven't had a principal or a superintendent out here that is not a community member, not an enrolled Salt River community member. So they're always from the outside. And so a lot of times our families don't wanna talk to them. So that was my role intentionally was to be able to be a bridge for them. To be a bridge for them and be able to talk for the families and then to maybe our administration. And I really, really enjoy that because to me, I'm finally in a place where I can help somebody. And I can make them feel that they don't need to be afraid and that they have somebody here to help them out. So anyway, I just, that's what I do. That means a lot to me, thank you. I appreciate you sharing it. Thank you for listening. I thought that was the perfect segue that you were saying about to Rocio, who I know is dedicating her life through her degree she's pursuing now at ASU to nutrition and native people. And I'd love to have her talk about that. I think that goes right into what you were talking about. Thank you. Rocio? Hello everyone. So my name is Rocio Marquez. I'm Mexican, Pima and Hopi. I'm also from Salt River. And when we started Native Nation, Michael and Larissa asked us for an input on the script. And one thing that was heavy on my heart was like, always going to funerals, which you probably heard from the beginning of Kenny speaking about that and his monologue. I felt like I was always going to funerals when I was little. And the first one I can remember was I was five. And I went to my grandpa's funeral. He was the first sheriff in Maricopa County. But he developed diabetes and had to have his leg amputated and ended up dying on operating table. So that, just like I said, growing up all these funerals really, really traumatized me. So I felt like that really, we need to talk about that in the play. And diabetes as well as other, you know, stuff affects our people a lot. I'm sure the whole world, yes, but as Native Americans, us even more. Like in 1962, there was a geneticist named James B. Neal. He did just like tests like blood tests and stuff like that with the Native Americans in Arizona. And found out that we have a thrifty gene, it's called. And this, the strip genes helps us keep on body fat more so that we survive longer periods of famine. So we're like predisposition to, you know, gain weight and quickly more quickly than others. And that's not helping with our health. And then also just the confinement to reservations, how the government put us all there and, you know, gave us a crate of crap food to eat that we had to figure out what to do with, devoid of nutrients. So we've lost how we've used to eat, how we used to hunt. That's added on. And then like we live in isolation. And a lot of people are lonely or bored. And of course they're gonna turn to drugs and alcoholism. So that's other, you know, big thing on the reservations that doesn't help with our health problems. A lot of us live in poverty. In 2016, 31% of the Native American people lived in poverty and, you know, we don't have a lot of job opportunities on the reservation. I'm very fortunate to be from Salt River where we actually have casinos because not everyone does. And we also have land that releasing to companies where we get a small percentage of that. And a lot of tribes don't. And also our school systems, that's not up to par as the cities, the city schools. So even if like we graduate our attainment of knowledge is not as high as the city ones. And even if we get a job in the city, we also face discrimination there. So it's just hard. Being confined to reservations has set us up not only for a life of financial hardship but decline for our health. And that's really important that I just really wanted to talk about, just the decline of our health. But thank you all for listening to me. Thank you so much, Rocia. So next we wanna hear from one of our young folks, Lorraine. Lorraine is only a year out of high school, but she is an activist with many years of organizing under her belt already. And she's been organizing everybody, not just her fellow youth, but so many people. So I'm excited for you to all hear from this young woman. I had Lorraine. Hello everyone, my name is Lorraine Cooley, and I come to you from the beautiful tribe of St. Clause Apache. My experience with Native Nation has not only been eye-opening but a way for me to educate others around me. I was a part of the youth story with the Native Nation that we touched on teen pregnancy. We touched on youth activism. We touched on suicide and also discrimination within the LGBTQ community within ceremonies. And for me, all of those aspects, all of those epidemics that we face on our reservation has touched home for me because I have so many friends. I have family members who are a part of the LGBTQ plus community. I have classmates of mine, many classmates of mine who had to struggle with teen pregnancy. I had growing up, I had to fight for my land, the old flat land for so many years, starting at the age of 10, tell now we are still fighting. And even so, suicide is a huge, huge, huge factor within our reservation, my reservation and within the Indian country as well because the Native American people, we are the smallest percentage in the world. And with that being said, that means that the drugs and alcohol rates, the suicide rates, every bad thing that we have to face, we're number one in. And that is why, like Roci said, attending funerals, so many funerals have traumatized me as well because I have lost so many family to drugs and alcohol, to drinking and driving, to suicide. I've lost so many classmates, so many close friends and I have lost so many family to this day that I feel with the Native country that we need to turn around, we need to make a change. But with that change, it's not gonna come overnight. We have to learn how to utilize what we can by educating ourselves, going to college and beyond college, by leaving our reservation, by stepping out of our comfort zones and educating people who are non-native about us, about what we have to face, about what we have to overcome. Right now in today's world, we are facing racism, racism that we have faced for decades, not just with the Native Americans, but with other people of color as well. And to that, I say, we need to stop tearing each other down. We need to stop thinking badly of one another and instead lift one another, you know? And that is why today I am very happy to be here with each and every one of you to discuss topics that mean so much to me. So thank you, I hear us. Thank you, Lorraine. Our youth, my friends, we've talked a lot this week about our youth and we're so fortunate that in these projects, we get to have youth and elders and everybody in between and they all contribute so much. Thank you. Next is one of our beloved elders, Rosetta. I just wanted to uplift as part of the activism that happened within the theater experience that we created last year, that during Native Nation, Rosetta was leading real-life activities around missing and murdered indigenous women, talking about real women, getting people to a real advocacy. She had a place to sign up for voter registration. All of that was part of the piece and also at the same time, she was testifying over at the State Capitol to get an Arizona bill passed to help track those women. But she does so much more and she wants to share with you some of those things today. Thank you, Rosetta. Good morning. This is Rosetta Walker coming to you from Tempe, Arizona. I'm Sikongo Lakota from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe living here in Arizona on the land of the Akmal and the Ahtam peoples. I had a wonderful experience with Native Nation. It was a life-changing experience and opened the door of opportunity for so many other things. And I thank Larissa and Michael Garces for having us, for allowing us the time and space to participate in Native Nations. Thank you for the shout out for the activism. Yes, Arizona House Bill 2570 is a law here in Arizona signed by Governor Doug Ducey. The study committee created by that law is currently holding sessions and will present a state report to the governor's office in November. Moving beyond the missing and murdered indigenous women, my activism has also taken me into the realm of voter registration, which I did have a booth that was manned by my husband. I volunteered him to come help me out at the Native Nations sessions. And I do help with registration at the naturalization ceremonies at the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Courthouse. And during the naturalization ceremonies, the new citizens that have taken their, or the citizenship now have the right to vote. They've granted many new rights with their citizenship, but you've got to realize some of those rights that they're granted today, Native peoples here in Arizona and across the United States weren't given that same right. In looking at the Native vote in 1924, Native Americans were granted citizenship by President Calvin Coolidge when he signed the Indian Citizenship Act, but they weren't allowed to vote until 1948. And then that right to vote was also fought state by state by the individual tribes. The last state to allow Native Americans to vote was the state of Utah in 1962. And then you got to realize in that timeframe, we were fighting for the right for civil rights. And here we are fighting for the right to vote in 1962. So Native Americans went to war. We fought in World War I, World War II, came back, these combat veterans came back to their tribal lands here in Arizona and didn't even have the right to vote, even though they fought for their country. So two Native American combat veterans came back to the Fort McDowell, Yavapai, Apache reservations, found out they didn't have the right to vote, and so they sued the state of Arizona and won that right. So each and every one of us in the state of Arizona can thank them for allowing us the right to vote here. So along with that right to vote, we also have come across as late as 2018 in the state of North Dakota where they were doing voter suppression for not having a street address on the reservation. So that's a whole nother gambit of voter suppression there where we don't have street addresses on our reservations. We didn't have to have them. We had one post office, if anything. And now they're saying you can't get a ballot if you can't show a street address on your driver's license or state ID. So that is another form of voter suppression. So there's always these constant battles that we're fighting. Here it is to 2020, and we're still fighting for the right to vote, which leads me into my other little segment in my activism is everybody should take part in the census. Census only happens every 10 years. So we have to decide in our community's voter allocation where our redistricting lines are, who gets the federal funds, what schools get funded, and that all happens by filling out your census. So from that point, I'm also on a political campaign. And I do this because as an elder in my community, we've got to do these things. We have to partake in them because if we don't, who will? And all I ask of you today is register to vote. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rosetta. You do so much work. We're touching on like this much work that Rosetta does. You're in Phoenix. You will see her at least five times a day at different events and activism spaces. She's incredible. So I'm gonna take a quick moment to say, I think we're gonna have some time for some questions for our panelists at the end. We have a few more people to go. So if you have questions, there's three ways to get them to us. You can do the QA at the bottom of your screen. You can type them in the chat or if you're on YouTube, go ahead and type them there. And I'm gonna ask someone from TCG to go ahead and support by sending them back over here for Michael Garces to sort and get to us. All right, thank you so much, my friends. So next we have someone, almost all of you already know and love Kenny Ramos. He's got plenty to say, so I'm not gonna say anymore. Go for Kenny. Am I on? Can you see me? We can't see you, but we can hear you. Go, I'm trying to start video. Okay. How come? Any way. Anyach, Kenny Ramos. Hi, everybody. I'm Kenny Ramos. I'm Kumeya from the Bruna Band of Mission Indians. That was me in the video, but I grew a mustache in quarantine. So that looks a little different. And yes, I'm coming to you from my ancestral tribal homelands, Kumeya Amut, which is you may know as San Diego County. And I'm just so grateful for the time for indigenous voices to be uplifted. And listening to my native nation family talk about just all the different issues that we face still today. There's just so, oh gosh, sorry. I have a lot of energy. I guess to share a little bit also about myself to kind of let you know where I'm coming from. I grew up here and I grew up doing theater and loving theater so much. And when I started working professionally as a teenager right out of high school and then I really started to reflect and see how much of my experience in the American theater was absolutely racist, being forced to cut my hair for some shows when I did not want to, being forced to play stereotypes of Indians and shows like Peter Pan and Any Get Your Gun. And that all was very damaging to my identity development to the point where when I was a UCLA student studying American Indian studies, I came to the conclusion that theater was not a place for indigenous people that someone like me, a contemporary native person from my community, from in tune with my culture, I was not accepted in the American theater. So I stopped doing theater for about six years and it wasn't until fast forward to I was 26 and I was a part of Urban Rez, the development of that with Larissa, with Michael Jean-Greces with Cornerstone Theater Company and that completely changed the entire trajectory of my life. And since then I've been working in the American theater and really being able to see some of the progress that we're making in terms of how indigenous communities and tribal nations are represented and able to be a part of this beautiful art form that has so much power, especially for communities that have been historically and systematically silenced by policies and by just everything that everyone's saying like, you know, the idea that a reservation is separate from the rest of, you know, this society is no mistake. We are systematically made to be invisible and suppressed and silent. So there's just, I think, to me, no better antidote for that than being able to tell our stories and share experiences through theater. One thing I'd like to talk about is, and we've kind of been talking about this week in terms of, yes, dismantling white supremacy, yes, yes, we need to, and also what performative allyship, right? Because one of the things I've been seeing a lot in recent years is land acknowledgement. People acknowledging the land that they're on, which is great. It's such a good start for people to come into that understanding that they are standing on stolen land. They're standing on unceded land that indigenous blood had to be given for you to stand on that land today. And it is such a great little itty-bitty first step in a long road of what it means to really, you know, come to indigenous sovereign justice or just justice for everybody really. So I guess, oh gosh, okay, sorry, I'm excited. The thing is we're not going to dismantle white supremacy with a land acknowledgement. I guess I wanna know or I wanna challenge or think about what are our institutions doing to actively engage and develop relationships with the tribal communities and the native nations whose land they are currently occupying? It is one thing to acknowledge the history, but it is a whole another thing to actually put that into practice and to start to do the work. And it's not easy work. It's a lot of hard work to develop these relationships with tribal nations and tribal communities and to bring us into the American theater. Like I believe we are begging to be a part of it and there is just so much power and so much good that can come out of having indigenous people part of your institutions. And I'm not talking about just casting us, although please cast me, I would love to be cast. But also I mean like indigenous designers, indigenous people working in the box office, like indigenous people on the board, indigenous people, like we will not see justice until we really see indigenous presence in this society that has been built on the foundation of keeping us quiet, keeping us away, keeping us invisible. So I'm really, really, while I'm really happy to see the progress that we're making in this renaissance of American Indian theater, of Native American presence in the American theater, I'm really hopeful for the future, especially at this moment in time when we're talking about apocalypses, right? Or we're talking about dismantling systems and I'm really excited for the rebirth of that. Because to me it would be a radical future for the American theater to actually have indigenous people present. People who are connected to their communities, who are in tune with their culture, who are connected to their homelands and in tune with the knowledge that we gain from those connections. And to me it's a very exciting future. And kind of back to Larissa's opening point, like black liberation and indigenous sovereignty, those things are bound together. And it's just more important than ever and more crucial that we stand together. We have stood for other communities here on this land. We stand for you. We need you to stand for us as well. And I'm just really grappling with what is this deep solidarity look like between our communities and how can we build that? How can we get to that to build a better and just future for our society? Anyway, okay, I don't know if I think I'm good. But I would really, okay, yes. 30 seconds left, great, sorry. Yeah, okay. You're not just good, you're awesome. You're amazing. We love you. And thank you so much, Kenny. And I will add my personal challenge now that I've been throwing out to all the theaters is that every single theater, people keep asking me what the future of theater should look like. And I say it should look like every single theater company in America has an indigenous person from the lands on which you are standing and profiting in your institution, in the position of power, in a position of cultural guidance, every single theater company. That's where we have to start. Again, the foundation is rotten. We have to start with the foundation and then build social justice for everyone else from there. That's it. Our next speaker is Seisha. Seisha, I'm not even gonna say anything because she has opened my eyes to so many incredible ways of looking at the world from the indigenous perspective in Arizona, so many wonderful things and so many really horrible things. And I'm just gonna let her talk because she's got plenty to say. Seisha, go for it. You're muted, Seisha. Hi, I'm Seisha Napa. Hi, my family, my people. My name is Seisha Napa and I had a really excellent experience with Native Nation and it wouldn't have been possible if Larissa and Michael Garces and Cornerstone Theater hadn't come to the Valley and really engaged with community. And I just happened to see something on social media and showed up at an event and they're asking about what are your experiences? And then all of a sudden it was an open casting call and I just wanted my daughter to get an experience of being around Native actors and Native theater. And then all of a sudden I'm auditioning and I got a call back and then they said, hey, Seisha, you're part of the cast but we don't know what you're gonna play yet. And I ended up being, my character was an auntie who was raising her niece and it touched me a lot because I spent three years raising my niece and nephew when my sister was not able to. And just being in the presence of Larissa and the script and the development of this script, it was, Larissa planted all these seeds and talking about Native mascotry about Indigenous women's issues and then also about our Native vets and homelessness and mental illness and how we deal with that. And for me, all of that came down to, especially living here in Phoenix, interactions with local police and this is a very, very important issue especially in this time and environment that I show up in solidarity for people who are not Indigenous and it really would make my heart happy to see the wider community show up when people like John T. Williams are murdered by police. He was murdered by Seattle PD in 2010, L'Oreal Sinigini in Winslow in 2016 and both of these people had interactions with police that ended up in them being murdered. And a lot of this comes from local budgets, right? And so it just makes my heart happy to see people show up, especially here in Phoenix, 8,000 comments to city council to say, defund the police, don't give them any more money. They have $745 million in the city budget and our response to mental illness budget-wise is this much, whereas Phoenix PD budget is this much. And if you call 911 and say there is somebody on the street threatening to walk into traffic, then they want to harm themselves. They want to kill themselves. They send the police. Native people have lots of interactions with the police because we have a higher rate of homelessness here and especially our elders and it's just a shame that a lot of our interactions on public transportation just within the community are with police. And at the city budget, I was watching on YouTube and just hearing 100% people saying the police have to come under control. We have to do something about police. We have to defund the police. We have to move money to community programs for our youth, for our elders, for mental health, all these things and just watching our youth flex in front of their elected officials. And this is where we need to have our support is with our youth and because this historical trauma requires a generational response. And I think that definitely is with our youth, especially with people like Lorraine and one of my heartfelt organizations that I've been a part of is Poderan Action. I shared some links so I'm hoping that those links come up. Poderan Action is an organization that is grassroots. We are working to educate not only community but youth to have representation at city council at school board meetings and to actively decarcerate and also decriminalize just being POC native immigrant people within our own communities. And I've said a lot, I've yelled a lot but this was really my down the rabbit hole of everything that Larissa and the play touched upon in Native Nation is that these things are all connected but really what's the underlying foundation is the inherent worth and dignity of all people. And if that was one thing that Native Nation tried to educate about is that Native people are here, Native people are people and we are definitely wanting to be a part of these big things especially in theater. And again, I would not have been able to be a part of this if Cornerstone Theater hadn't come out and reached out for community. Again, my name is Sasha, I'm all done and thank you. Hey, Sasha, you're not done. Can I please ask you, you shared a story with us that I think most from what I've checked on, most people have no idea about like the ice roundups of Native people and you were talking about protesters being rounded up. Could you just tell us a little bit about that? Cause I don't think pretty much anybody is aware of how that affects Native people in Arizona. Yeah, so over the weekend, so Phoenix hasn't seen a riot proper, right? So what we've seen is protesters show up exercising their first amendment rights and being confronted with violent police and police tear gassing people. And over the weekend, 114 protesters were arrested. Many of them were not able to be released. Normally what would happen is that if you are detained, you would be cited, you would be released and then you would be let go, right? But what was happening within Phoenix PD is these people were being kept 48 hours without even seeing a judge, which is unheard of. You usually see a judge in a couple of hours. And one of the terrible things is that Phoenix PD continues to cooperate with ICE. Phoenix PD continues to turn over people who are undocumented or possibly documented over to ICE for criminalization and to be turned over to immigration detention centers. And this is, you know, these are our people without this imaginary line that separates Arizona from Mexico, our people used to freely move and engage and move money and goods, right? And so this idea that just because you are in Mexico or Guatemala or somewhere, not the United States, you're not allowed to be here, that completely is not in line with what our native people and who our native people are and used to function traditionally. So Phoenix PD still operates with ICE, Maricopa's Sheriff's Office still cooperates with ICE and it's really scary, but we continue to show up. Yes, thank you. And I gotta say, when we were in Arizona, we heard so many stories of, you know, original citizens, Native American citizens that are, you know, citizens of America right now, constantly being rounded up by ICE and sent to detention centers. And it was really horrifying in addition to all of our other brothers and sisters. But anyway, thank you. I just reminder, we're just about to the end of our individual sharing time. So if you have questions, please put them in the chat, put them in the QA, put them in the chat on YouTube and someone from TCG will send them over to me here on Zoom and we will try to answer what we can. Ray is a powerful storyteller in so many contemporary forms and she uses them to uplift so many people, indigenous folks, I'm gonna just let her go because she's got a lot of great things to say. Thanks, Ray. Thank you. It says my video is disabled. Oh, can someone able raise the video? And if you want to start talking, you can hear you though, Ray. Can you see me? That's our, yeah, awesome. We can see you. Thank you. Okay, so what I wanted to say was that, thank you, Kenny, because you kind of gave me some energy. Who needs coffee when you have Kenny? So I wanted to talk to about was decolonization, education through modern storytelling. I have my notes over here so I stay on topic. So I wanted you guys to think about how many movies I come from with low background. Theater is hard. I will give you a shout out because I used to cut, do it over, cut, you don't do that in theater. So thank you to all the theater people. But think about how many movies that have Native American, you probably can think of more non-native actors that play natives on screen. And then even now think about plays. I was researching a little bit last night as we were discussing this. And one big thing is that we're always, our people are always trapped in the past. And which is a huge, huge thing to understand, to know our past, which we need to educate our students and educate our children and educate those people that need to know other than Thanksgiving. I always see posts and Twitter and stuff like, oh, Thanksgiving's a great time to teach about natives. Maybe first, tell the real story. Second, there are the lots of other times to be talking about natives. And then also, again, researching movies, John Wayne, John Borg, like they were filming a Monument Valley with Navajo's wearing headdresses and living in teapots. Like I'm, oh, before, I'm so sorry. So before I start, I'm half Dinek and I'm half Dakota. I have a little bit of English and a little bit of Irish. My great, great, great grandmother on my English side was the Queen of England. So if you got that joke, thank you. So anyways, so they, you know, that was a misrepresentation of natives. And now of course we have Pocahontas. Like how many times do you have to do that movie? Thanks a lot, Disney, where it's the wrong story, you know? She wasn't, you know, this beautiful, like me and she died at 22. She was taken and she met John Smith when she was around 11 or 12. So there's all these things that are just misrepresentation of us. Modern Plays, I'm happy to announce, like I met Delana Studi. She has her play and so we want her one woman show about her journey of the Trail of Tears. That's something modern and of course Native Nation. They were able to take our modern day issues, our modern day, you know, what's happening with us and create this entire awesome play by including them into the play. A lot of recently on Facebook, you know, I know a lot of different people from all over the place and the guy had made a comment or a joke because he was a comedian about Navajo Nation and when Trimpoint, I guess, visited them or talked to them, I can't remember anyways, but he, I'm sorry, said the T word, but he basically was like, oh, you know, the Navajo's living in T, he's kind of a comment. So I commented and I just explained to him how that was inaccurate and I gave him a little education and I hashtag it the more you know, the better your joke. So we need to make sure we're including those kinds of, we need to include people. If you include people about, you know, their lives and what you're writing and if you include them in, it's gonna be funnier, it's gonna be better, it's gonna be a better, again, representation. Now, of course, we have Blasphemy Hickins, Dance with Wolves, in the past, light savior mentality. The biggest one we have currently in the film is Smoke Signals. And that's something that a lot of people do talk about, but it's not, again, super mainstream and then don't get me started on Twilight movies and no, we are not werewolves, none of us are. So there is definitely a need to, in order to have us be more present in plays on TV. One of the things that I was able to attend was a webinar with Heather Ray. She is from Idaho, she's from the tribe up there. She's a native producer and director and she was, her webinar was actually on how to get more representation on screen. How do we get more reputation out there? When you think about it, one of the things that I loved was recently, I was watching the PBS series about the author of Crazy Rich Asians. He goes, he said the same thing, there wasn't any contemporary stories about his people. And then you look at, you know, history, actual events and TV series, the TV scissors watchman just recently did one about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. No one knew about that until that air, then people started researching. So we need to have these types of conversation. We need to have this type of research and also representation. My thing is, I try to educate in a way of being factual and I find that works a lot better than trying to force and be angry about it, but this is me of course. I do have a, my mom, when I was younger said I had a very sharp tongue, so I had to learn how to be able to express myself in a way that was gonna get the point across. And naturally, you know, through a medium like theater, TV, but I granted with today's world, we have a short attendance, attention span. You know, I'm not a huge book reader per se, but I, you know, you can put me in front of a great documentary. I'll watch it. So I think in order to include everyone in the conversations, we need to be able to have, you know, these difficult conversations, but also understand it's about educating. I have a lot of friends around the world. I just recently went to India last November. We actually discussed the word Indian because, and you know what? It was a great discussion. It's here, you know, they thought they were coming to India, therefore that's how we got them in Indian, versus when I go, you know, and when I went back there, they're like, well, we live in India, we are Indians. So it was a great conversation to have with people of different cultures. So anyways, I wanna end on that and I appreciate your time. And I hope to see more, you know, stuff out there with us. Absolutely, yes, thank you. So we have one more speaker before we go to questions. Esther Almasan, she's a playwright, but she took on a unique role in Native Nation. She was a cook for us alongside Hopi chef, Derek Melvin, to provide traditional food and drink within the experience of Native Nation. She brought things from her culture and shared them with everybody. So Esther, I'd love to invite you in. Thank you. Thank you, Larissa. My name is Esther Almasan. I'm from Chukchon, or in the language of the colonists, Tucson. We are on the colonists' border, so we're one of the indigenous nations that was split by the border that the colonists set up. We like to say we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us. But I wanna talk about a magical thing that happened during Native Nation. I, as Larissa said, was paired up with a brilliant young Hopi chef named Derek Melvin, and he made beautiful blue marbles for the participants to experience. And I made nopales, the cactus pads, and also served the juice from the cactus. And so our first production, we had thought there were going to be about 200 participants. So we overplanned and created our food and made samples. And we had about double that, so we didn't have enough for everybody. And this wonderful piece of kind of spontaneous theater happened where Derek and I were the only witnesses to it, and we were the only performers in it. And so I said, we're not gonna have enough of the blue marbles. And he said, I know. So we got a message saying, cut them in half. And I thought that was a great idea. I'm like, great, we can feed people doing this. And Derek said, no, these are blue marbles, represent the earth. My grandmother would not let me cut them in half. He had already told me how sacred the blue marbles are to the Hopi people. And I said, okay, Derek, I'll support you whatever you want to do. So we have these marbles that some people won't get to experience, but they can still eat the nopales, the cactus that we still had that we were serving. And he said, okay. He said, okay, I'm not gonna cut them in half. He was really, he's a very wonderful, kind of under expressive of everything. So I could tell he was really, really amped up about not doing that. So one thing that happened is we didn't have enough of the serving cups. So I told him, do you wanna hold down the center here and I'll go get the cups? Or do you want me to do that and you get the cups? He goes, I'll go get them. Well, just before we left, he hadn't seen Native Nation yet. He hadn't been to the rehearsal the night before. And he was fascinated with the actors and the content. And I could see him standing there, kind of frowning and listening. And then I looked at him in a kind of like time. So he left and he came back and he said, you know, I was on this trip to get the cups. And they talked about smoke signals in the play. And he said, I love that movie. So I started going through every single line. I guess he knows every single line in the movie smoke signals. And he said, I got to the part with Arlene's magical fry bread. And he said, I remember her standing up and there's that scene in the movie where she rips the fry bread in half and they can feed everybody. I'm like, yeah, that's a great movie. That was a great scene. And he looked at me and said, we're cutting the blue marbles in half so we can feed everybody here. And we did. And it was this beautiful, beautiful moment of magic. And my partner is also Yaki, I'm Yaki. And she said she has a friend named Dusty who always told her every Yaki needs a Hopi and every Hopi needs a Yaki. I said, okay, well, we had each other there. And Native Nation was very, very special to me. New way to do theater and bring in Native stories. And I'm thankful for that. Thank you. Thank you, Esther. I invite all of our participants here to come on the screen, our panelists, to come on screen. Our first question we have, and so anybody can jump in, is if anyone wants to share a little bit about the impact of COVID on Indigenous peoples, especially in Arizona. And if there's any resources or ways to help that you wanna share, anyone can answer. Well, I think you or not. Yeah, Seisha, go for it. Any you want? Okay. Seisha, I think you should go. Okay, so I live here in Phoenix, but my mother and my aunties and their aunties, they all live on the Navajo Reservation proper. And my elders have been really hard hit. I had one grandmother flown down here after she tested positive and she started having complications with her breathing. She just went home after about three weeks. Thankfully, she wasn't on a ventilator, but she did have a lot of muscle deterioration and before they could send her back, they had to do physical therapy. I had one great uncle. I would refer to him as grandfather. He passed away due to COVID at 92 up in Shiprock. And then just a number of our elders who have come under this COVID illness, compounded with, right, this is the illness and we're dealing with the symptoms and we're just trying to get healthy. But when you put on top of that, the fact that we live so scattered on Navajo Nation and basic resources such as running water within our homes, many of our people have never had running water within our homes. And again, that my mother is cooking for the family and she is delivering food and doing all these things out of pocket is at a great expense because a lot of these items that she's cooking with are just so expensive at the trading post or if she does want a good deal on something, she's got to drive about two hours out of her way to go to like a safe way or a grocery store. And then just not even talking about groceries but personal protection equipment, you have masks, hand sanitizer, gloves, these are things that you can't find at the trading post. And again, you have to drive and so I think that this experience that my family is having on Navajo Nation, is echoed across Indian country and that these disparities of not just having running water but having just not enough homes on our Indian country where you have so many people in one housing unit and I saw a GoFundMe for a family that had 19 people living under one roof and if one of them gets, you know, is positive for COVID, how are you supposed to sell quarantine? How are you supposed to take care of your hygiene? How are you supposed to take care of everybody else? And it's just, you know, the death from this illness, COVID-19 is just, I feel exponentially impacted because once we lose one of our elders, that is somebody that language loss, culture loss, experiences, right? And so it's just across Navajo, within my family and across Indian country, like this is happening and this is the result of a lot of systemic institutions and funds that don't make it to our native nations. Kenny, did you want to add something? No, okay. I just want to also lift up in the chat and I hope this is happening, being sent over to YouTube as well. Michael Garcia has listed a lot of link, a document with lots of these links that we've been giving you today. Again, this is just cracking this rotten foundation, just cracking the cement, my friends. There's so much more, but we just have such limited time. There's been several questions, so around disabled justice and the indigenous community around indigenous folks and disability, and I know that's something that hits us really hard. We have so many folks suffering from a lot of things and that do not have care either, that the outside world generally has, so we're even farther behind as usual. But anyone wants to talk about disabled justice and indigenous justice and how those are intertwined or how you've seen them played out in indigenous communities. I'll go. Well, this is actually, it's a story that it hasn't been because we talked about what's happening in the world today and my mom, her godparents on the reservation, on the Crow Creek Reservation. Back in the 60s, this happened to the son and that he was dating a white girl and she happened, and the, from what the story is, is that he was dating the white girl and there was five, six guys that didn't like it and they ended up actually killing him. And this one of the guys that was there, he was the son of the sheriff of the nearby town. And he actually, after it happened, there was a farmer, a white farmer who saw it all and he wanted to tell what had happened. Well, the day after that whole row was paved where he was killed. The blood was gone, everything was gone. And then after that, when the corn, the guy that does the top topsy, the, you know how I'm talking about, he actually lied and said that he was hit by a car and he wasn't. He was actually really beaten. He was later on, there was something wrong when my uncle, one of my uncles was taking care of him. He was like, there's something wrong with him. They had shot him in the head and the corner had actually said, he said that he was fine, what again is happening today. They actually took the body to a different corner outside of the reservation in order for them to see what had actually happened. He was shot in the head, he was completely beaten up. And the only thing that really would help is that farmer, that, and he was white guy, that farmer, he goes, you've always known what you did. He knows what you did. Of course, all of them got scot-offery. None of them went to jail. However, I think I'm committed to suicide. Three of them ended up with cancer. So it does come back around. This happened in the 60s. This is again happening today. So there's always been some type of discrimination against Native people. There's always been that kind of, well, you know, and also again, if we don't have social media, how do we know these happens? Because we have to tell them. And so this was a story that nobody, we haven't shared this as much, although my aunt, she really wants to share it. She just isn't articulated. So this is the first time everyone, a lot of people are now hearing about this. So it is something that still, two days impacting. I do have a brother who is mentally ill. He has schizophrenia. He's not out there. He doesn't understand certain things. So there is a fear that when he goes out, you know, like Cory makes you stay in for curfew. And he's six, two, he's, you know, he looks gruffy. Like, how do we, and luckily on my end, knock on wood, when we've had issues and we've had to call the police or we've had to have medical help, they were actually very considerate and they were understood for what we needed versus the complete opposite. And we're very grateful for that. But that's again, one in a very few. So we're extremely lucky. But that's what I wanted to add as far as this story goes. Thank you. I appreciate that. My friends, this is, you know, the greatest colonizer time. So we are gonna have to end. I do wanna shout out that we have some other participants. One, Claude had to go speak at a tribal council meeting. So he's busy doing the work. And then we had Matthew and Adrian both had some technical issues. So we've, they were not able to join us. And this is, I can't stress enough, you guys. This is just the beginning. It's so small. We had a hundred other things to talk about, but we just had this limited time and wanted to just crack the foundation a little bit and start. And I hope this is, you know, what I always say with my plays, the point of my plays is to just make you aware of all the things you don't know and get you to start doing your own work. That's all I want you to do. I want you to do your work. I want you to get out there. I want you to start with these links and then just keep going. I want you to then get off the internet and talk to the indigenous people there around you. I can't tell you how many people have said to me, I don't know any indigenous people. I've never met an indigenous person before you. I said, that's not true. I guarantee you, it's not true. You have met so many of us and we are with you. We are in your communities. We are in your theaters. You don't even know where they're, or we leave because there's just no reason for us to be there anymore. So I'm just urging you people, this is a beginning. Get to work. Do your research. Get to know indigenous people. Find out how to make reparations. Every single person on this continent, including myself, who is now living on the lands of Serrano people, need to find ways to make reparations within your capacity to the indigenous people on whose lands you are profiting from. You are buying everything you have, doing everything you do with blood money, and you need to start paying that back. So let's find out the ways we can do that. I am now going to say thank you to my incredible, wonderful Native Nation family. We're doing our next play in South Dakota with the Lakota-Dakota-Nakota people following the same process with Cornerstone Theater Company and Michael John-Garcesa and myself. We can use your support. Please go to Cornerstone, find out how to support us. And thank you to TCG. I'm leaving, I'm at the end of my term as a board member. It's been amazing, and I've really been grateful for the platform that they've given indigenous peoples over the years. I don't know anyone else who's giving native people a non-native organizations, giving native people this kind of platform on a national level year after year after year. So thank you for that. And thank you to ASU Gammage and Cornerstone Theater Company who are both the producers of this project. They were incredible. They did everything and more. Gammage had no idea what they're getting into and they did it. It was incredible. Michael Reed invited us there and just kept fighting for us. Colleen Jennings-Rogensack, so many community partners in Arizona. If you haven't been there and experienced the incredible beauty of the indigenous cultures of Arizona, go as soon as it's safe to do so and get to know these people. It was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. We had so many community partners. I can't mention them all, but for sure I want to mention Dr. Brian Brayboy at ASU who was going to be on this panel originally on Tuesday, but then we moved it. He could no longer be here. And he again is in another national committee doing the work. So thank you for that. And I'm off with that. I'm going to say goodbye and throw it to Teresa Eyring. Thank you everyone. Hulamia. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much, Larissa. Thank you for being such a great board member and amazing artist and leader in our community. And I'm really, really happy that we were able to make this happen today because even just the fact that we were planning to be in Arizona for this conference until we weren't allowed to travel anymore, or at least for now. So having these voices and these stories told, I think is especially meaningful and powerful right now. So I want to thank you, Larissa. I want to thank Michael. I want to thank the whole Native nation team for that sharing. And yes, it's just a beginning. Your call to action is heard. And I really look forward to how we all as a field work together on some of the very specific ways that we can help to uplift the stories and the artistry and the lives of indigenous communities in this country. So throughout this week, we've been reminded of the power of the art center to be at the center of this moment and about what it can and cannot accomplish and of the work we must do ourselves. And as we've done in the past two plenaries, I invite you to lift up their work in the Zoom chat and YouTube comments. It's incredibly difficult to transform a major convening not just once, but twice. And we are deeply moved by so many of you who have stood with us as we reimagined this national conference. We're grateful for your nibbleness and we're also grateful to our friends and host committee members in Phoenix where the conference, as I mentioned, was intended to take place. Particularly at this moment, I'd like to thank our funders and our sponsors, as well as the individual donors who've contributed to support this week's convening. The logos of our institutional supporters now should be appearing on your screen, and I invite you to share your thanks in the chat now. Your support has also made it possible for over 1,700 theater students, artists, and practitioners to join us this week, along with the streaming capabilities for sessions to be viewed almost 10,000 times and even more in the weeks to come. We're so grateful for your support. I also would like to thank the session leaders, artists, and panelists who have worked with us to collectively hold ourselves accountable in reframing this conference and for the grace shown by everyone who attended. I'd like to thank the TCG staff. Now, this is a moment where if we were all in a room together, people would start cheering wildly. And so just do that at home, cheer. The staff has worked countless hours to make this week possible, and they've done that well. Many are themselves protesting and organizing. They've done it while also working second shifts as parents and caregivers. They've done it while mourning the loss of family members and loved ones. Thank you so much for your work, staff. And feel free to give the staff some love in the chat if you're in this session. I also want to thank the TCG board for your guidance in helping us navigate these days of radical change. You've not only supported us as we've made difficult decisions, but urged us to go further, dig deeper, and ask even harder questions. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, G was in a planning process. When the pandemic hit, we considered pausing because of the uncertainty ahead. But our fearless facilitators, Lisa Yancey and Yolita Crossland, convinced us that the crisis could bring about a different kind of clarity. They would help us see the more radical choices for going forward. Our staff and board have come together to work on this plan, and we will continue working on it in the coming months. And yes, though much of what will come is uncertain, we know that as TCG moves through this portal, we will lead with theater making as a central value. We will deepen our commitment to collective action and to equity, justice, and fairness, knowing that our theater field must be more representative of the rich diversity of our world. And we will listen and learn through responsive, useful, and intelligent leadership, ensuring that our values manifest not only externally, but equally, hold for how we honor our staff and internal supporters. In the first part of this convening, convergence, we closed our How We Move Forward session with your powerful calls to action and invitations to witness. We know there will be many more urgent discussions and actions in the days to come. As we close, we invite you to share your own next right acts that you're planning to take, placing them now in the chat, or for even more accountability on social media using the hashtag How We Move Forward. TCG was founded almost 60 years ago. Amid the fires of these past few months, it feels as if TCG is, in many ways, being refounded. Not only by TCG staff and board, but collectively by a field that cannot and will not go back to the way things were. Where there was scarcity, we're working towards abundance. Where power was hoarded, new models of power are being demanded and forged. Where white supremacy and patriarchy dominated, they are being newly challenged and must be dismantled. While that work has been going on for long before this moment and will continue to be the work of generations, the pandemic and uprising are requiring us to more swiftly abandon old, harmful ways of being. We don't know what TCG will look like six months from now, let alone a year. We don't know what our field will look like either. But just like our founding mothers of 60 years ago, many of you, many of us, have a vision. It is that collective vision and most especially that of our BIPOC colleagues, our disabled colleagues, our queer and trans colleagues, our survivors, our immigrants and refugees who will lead the way. Let us have faith in each other, knowing that the pain we're feeling may be the pangs of birth. And let us help each other breathe through and lean into that necessary pain. Thank you and we look forward to gathering with you again soon.