 the Zoom window. Oh, here. Sorry, I used to go ahead. I said my wife and I worked out a schedule to spend time with her daughter. My mom is here to help, so we take turns, but we never have any time to ourselves. How about you? I spend a lot of time watching movies at home. For the first time, I realized I really enjoy staying at home. I used to think I need to go outside, meet people, see shows, and socialize because I'm in New York City. You know what? I'm comfortable without going outside. My boyfriend and I would just work, cook, work out, and talk about movies. You know, that's the privilege of people without kids. And the privilege of not having to go outside to work. By the way, I got my working visa in May. Wow, congratulations. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Are we starting? Okay, I don't know if you can see this black hair. Oh my God, it's all over my place. I haven't cleaned for two weeks. Back in Korea, it used to be our family routine to clean all together in the Sunday morning. I kind of miss the fuzzy vibe by myself here. I'm on loan. I'll change. I'll just come back right away. I just decided to ban myself from social media. It's unhealthy. Public health officials share outdated information in the pandemic. And some of my friends, they really don't understand the George Floyd crisis at all. It's people being murdered. But they only care about their own sense of safety. I should stop. The music video I released during quarantine got million views. Lucky cat? Yes, the lucky cat. Lucky cat, lucky cat, who you are. Lucky cat, lucky cat, you're a star. Lucky cat, lucky cat, what you do. Lucky cat, lucky cat, I love you. Lucky cat, who you are. Lucky cat, my goddess. Lucky cat, what you do. Lucky cat, I love you. My favorite body parts are my eyes because they're not real. I decided to receive plastic surgery to change my eyelids. I feel so proud of myself because it's the first time I feel I own the power to control my own body. I'm Jiawen, an immigrant artist and teaching artist. I moved to New York City five years ago, finished the two master's degrees and just got my own visa. This is where I'm from, Hangzhou, a beautiful city. That's a grand canal from my hometown to Beijing. I used to go from my home on this side of river to a cafe on the other side of river every day. That was 2015. I was studying English to prepare for my TOEFL test to apply to graduate schools in New York City. When I was teaching immigrant kids in Inwood, I took a train from 4th Street all the way to 215th Street. One day when I got outside school, I heard one teacher said there was gum shooting. Classes ended earlier. There were a lot of police officers on the subway station. I asked, what happened? They said, no, everything's perfectly fine, no problem at all. I did not dare to ask more questions and took the subway all the way back. When I got outside and saw everything's perfectly normal in so-called, I feel I was traveling between two different worlds. I like my lips. I have a very thick line. In my age of, I've always heard from friends saying, did you put your lipstick on when I was five years old? I don't know. I just got it from my dad. My shape is exactly the same as my dad. And it's very thick. I've heard as an Asian, you have a very big lip line and I hated it, but now it's my super attraction. I feel beautiful, I wanna believe. I love my lips. I'm Josephine. I grew up in Korea and moved to US 2014. I sometimes feel I'm an immigrant culturally, but I was born in US, so I'm a dual citizen. Thank you mom and dad for that. I'm a singer, actor and a teaching artist. I just got married here in February and went to honeymoon right before quarantine. My favorite body parts are my feet. I like walking because it somehow fuels my brain. I like to walk in different places, walk for a very long time, walk and walk. I'm Jin. I moved to New York City because, I don't know, because I wasn't able to move to Berlin. I used to be traveling back and forth between Beijing and New York City that right now I'm based here. Our performer Gloria doesn't have internet access at home, so we made some videos together. Actually audio recordings together. And our another performer, Jose, is probably still working at this time, so you will see him in some videos we made. I met Gloria at Allen Street Neighborhood Center for seniors. Gloria is originally from Taiwan, but later I found out that Gloria's parents grew up in Liaoming, the province I'm from in Northeast China. My name is Gloria. I came to New York in 1981 when I was young. I want to live in Japan. Japanese culture was very popular in Taiwan because for half of central Taiwan was Japanese colony. But my mama said he couldn't support me if I chose Japan. My mom come to Taiwan from Northeast China, which was invited by Japan in the 1930s. They hated the Japanese, but she supported me decision of come to New York City before COVID-19. I work at the shelter, take care of kids. I want to learn cloning when everything is back to normal. The kids in the shelter love it. Favorite body parts, my hands. When I walk out, I shake my hands, where listen to the radio, it's fun. My favorite body parts is my nose, cause it's so big, outstanding on my face. When I was in my fourth grade, they used to call me Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Pinocchio. But I'm the opposite, I always tell the truth. I'm Jose, I'm originally from El Salvador. I moved to New York City back in 1991. I'm in the East Village, outdoors, enjoying riding my little scooter. I hang out a lot in Chinatown, I'm super familiar with all the great food that one can find in there, such as traditional Chinese food from Sichuan, and Cantonese style. Taiwan, bubble tea style, Vietnamese cafe and sandwiches, Korean chave, ice, et cetera, et cetera. One day, I bought a special plantain from a fruit stand, two plantains in one skin. I would like to ask you, if you were the seller, would you count a twin plantain as one or two? This is a song for my earlobes, the most symmetrical structure on my face. My grandmother told me people with earlobes would have very fortunate lives, so I have been very fortunate. So I like my ears, I like to listen to music, all kinds of sounds. So let's follow me and give your ears a little bit of love. I'm Yuse, I'm a father and teacher and musician, and I teach Mandarin for a living. I live in Brooklyn with my wife and my daughter and my mom. I used to play so much music before a daughter was born, but I barely have any time now. By the way, this is one of her drawings, that's a princess. She's in her princess face. She gets up, put on a princess dress every morning, I don't know what to deal with it. As a language teacher, I have some questions for you all. Do you have paper and pen ready? Great. So this feels like a classroom. When I work with my students, I think about how learning a language can give you a new persona for myself. I feel free or expressing myself in English than in Mandarin because growing up I never learned how to express my own feelings in my language. I learned how to do that here from working with people here and watching TVs. So my first question is, how old were you when you first started learning English? Next question, how old were you when you first lived in an English speaking environment? Thank you. And how many people did you speak English with in the past week? Jiawen, how come so many? I've been stage managing online performances, so I need to talk to everyone. Sometimes I struggle with different accents. Okay, next question. How many people did you speak your native language with in the past week? Now, I invite you to share a challenging moment related to speaking English. For me, it's hard to explain sometimes these idioms, slants, and jokes to English speakers. For example, in the film, The Parasite, the Korean movie who just won the Oscars, there is a famous idiom, 악쿡혐이야, 악쿡혐. We usually say that a lot in the daily lives to express this disgusted, nasty, and kind of cheesy feeling. And a literal translation to that would be, what a scumbug, disgusted, too. But when you go to Korea, people hearing that, usually Korean people remind of this bug with the hundred lags, the house centipede, the horrifying looking bug. Oh my God. So it's hard to explain this all cultural aspect when translated into English. You know, we also have that bug in China. We call it Qianchuan. It means the string of coin cash. You actually do good luck. All right. I expected to become an engineer or a scientist when I was young. After I got my engineering degree, I did everything else I could in China, like bartender, ghost writer, copywriter, editor. And then after I moved to the US, I found myself not qualified for most of those jobs because I became an English language learner. So I'm stuck with artist jobs and have given up all other career opportunities. But maybe that's a good thing for me. We have another ensemble member who cannot be performing with us today because he found a new job, a full-time job a month ago. When he was in Columbia, he was a journalist, but his first job in New York City was to demolish a house physically. Something he never imagined doing before. Keep your paper and pens. I have some questions for all of us. That's an ideal job for you. Can you put more specific? What jobs have you done before you came to the US? You did. Future. Future artist. Future. Ecosine proctor. Actor. What jobs have you done in New York City? Future. Actor. Receptionist. Translator. Ensure. Law form assistant. Actor. Can you tell us your childhood dream jobs? So please show it to us before you tell us what it is. My very first dream, I remember, is that I told my mom that I was going to be the first lady president in Korea. What's a child? I wanted to make radio shows because I really like my voice. All right, I want to be a cop. I wanted to be a deli owner when I was three years old so that I could eat as much candy as I wanted. When I was a kid, and I would ride the buses every time I would ride, I would look around, run, and say to myself, oh man, oh man, it will be cool to be a driver. I also want to be a lawyer, but of course I didn't have any idea what I was talking about. I came to the US looking for a place for refuge which could save my life. I wanted to go back. I really wanted to. In 2001, I was studying at FIT, hoping to become an advertising art director, but my English wasn't good enough and I just couldn't compete. As driver, once I found a job hauling municipal waste to the landfills, I would sleep in the truck. Then I would line up to pick up the waste in Jamaica, Queens. Drive up I-95 and all the way up past Albany and Syracuse City. And finally, to Waterloo, Upstate New York. The no-season was really scary. In the winter, I saw a few truckers turn over. I don't do the job anymore. I rather stay in the city. Now I work as a food delivery person. I'm also a street photographer. I would like to share with you some photos I took during this pandemic. Going to the beach by myself. And drinking beer outside at midnight. Besties from my childhood who shared my stupidity and fun. Going to a bath house. Writing poems and sharing them with friends. The cultural diversity of my world music band. Fresh bamboo shoots in hot pot. Breakfast stands, yotiao. Homemade kimchi noodle. Sour crab and pork. Family trips and sister chats. Stay close to my mom. My grandma. Mom and dad. Snow that lasts for the whole winter. For Sithya, the yellow flower from my hometown. Chasing grasshoppers, like this. Writing long letters. Feeling confident talking to others. And long phone calls. People smile. Feeling this is my city. Bring them to move and travel. Feeling safe walking on the street. Peace. A good conversation. Making money as a professional. Visiting hospital without worrying about money. Close family members living outside the US right now. Of course, my mom is stuck here because of COVID-19. But we're very lucky to have her here. Several weeks ago I had a big cry. My grandpa is 95 years old and he lives in Seoul. He has this memory loss symptom but it's not Alzheimer yet. So I'm grateful for that. He and I have this routine of exchanging the hand writing letters each other every Christmas and every new year. And I want to keep that tradition going on. It's very special and unique for me. And recently I heard from my mom that he doesn't remember who exactly I am. I'm kind of getting used to it. And he started not sending me letters often. And recently I sent him a letter when I got married here with the photo of me and my husband. And my mom told me that after he read my letter he went outside with the mask on and walked to a pretty far post office to send me a letter back. I just cried for 30 minutes. Just a connection I always forgot about. I was working as a translator for an immigrant service center. Once I took this client to an immigrant office she gave her asylum status and it was applying for her green card. She wanted to go back to her original country because her father was dying. The immigrant officer said, you claim as an asylume and when I'm able to go back to your original country because you fear the serious harm there how can you go back now? She said she's willing to take the risk because she wanted to see her father for the last time. She was crying and crying and begging and could not speak clearly. I was trying to translate what she said into English. The immigrant officer said to me, you shut up, let her speak for herself. In the end, she did not get the permit from the immigrant office. She ended up staying here when her father died. In March, we did a ceremony for my father who passed away last summer. We rented a boat, got some flowers and scattered his ash into the Hudson Bay. That's the funeral he wanted. He said, if you buy a grave and you have to fly over and spend money to visit me. Now, if you look at the ocean, you know I'm there. Actually, that's the reason why my mom is here. She brought over his ash in a suitcase on a plane. My mother is ill in Taiwan. When I found out, she was already ill. She was diagnosed with cancer. I really wanted to go back, but my family told me not to go back. They said, if you come back, it's no use. I was in America at that time. It was very hard to study. I had to work and pay tuition fees. I knew that if I was with her, she would feel very comfortable and happy. But I knew that I couldn't move when I was facing the reality. I was sick for over a year when she passed away. I was in pain. That pain was a 24-hour struggle. When I thought of her, I would cry. My mother left me helplessly. When you knew that my mother had left, there was no place to cry. Because my roommate had to rest. I had to hide in the bathroom. I felt like I was floating in the wind. I don't know where the wind will blow me to Southeast Asia. After many years, I went back to Taiwan. In the spring, someone would scold me. Because they thought that if your mother left, you wouldn't come back. Their attitude was, you are the most unfilial child. What's your relationship with your hometown? My hometown is kind of my fantasy. I still feel I'm responsible for that society and that place. But I also feel powerless because I've been away for a long time. And I'm not sure if I still have a position in that society to do something or participate in something. Well, isn't that the same relationship you have with your best childhood friend? We used to have this amazing bond. But so many years have passed. I read that human bodies replace themselves with a new set of cells every seven and nine years. You're literally a new person. When you sit down together, you have to pretend that you are the person that you were. You have to try really hard. I agree. I want to know about the places we are all from. And we're going to do this together. I have one minute for you to draw something about our hometown. OK, ready? Time's up. The city was built around coal mines and heavy industry. After decades of excavation, most of the coal mines are exhausted. The grand open pit coal mine was turned into a park. Local motive fans from all over the world go there to see the remaining local motifs. They're beautiful, even romantic. Today, it feels really cool to see those and to see the magnificent coal mine park. But for people living there, it also means the city is left behind in economy and in history. Fu Xin. This is what we call a Da Pai Dang in Mandarin. Basically, it means people eating barbecue and drinking the street. It happens in the summer. At a Da Pai Dang, you will see a lot of men with all their shirts drinking and getting drunk and ready to start fights. So when I visit home in the summer, I really look forward to a night out like this because it's just so relaxing to be around people who don't care about Western and social conventions. Bao Di. I miss all the nature in Korea. Do you know that 70% of Korea is mountains? I miss going hiking and skiing. I had a hard time finding a scarier here. I miss this clean and beautiful east sea in Korea. I also miss these yellow flowers in my hometown. It used to be our house symbol since my family had a garden full of these. When I meet my friends, we usually say, meet you around these yellow flowers. So. I miss the humidity in Hangzhou. Everyone's complaining how humid New York is in summer, but I love it. When I feel the humidity from the ground, the couch, the air, the bedding sheet, I can feel my hometown. It feels like I'm surrounded and protected by my hometown again. Hangzhou, one day, a person showed me a picture of a futuristic round building. It looks like a civil ball. I asked, wow, cool, where is it? He said, this is a hometown. I've never seen that building while I was in Hangzhou. Recently, there are so many new buildings. I feel, I don't know my hometown anymore. You have been watching us for a long time now. And we are also curious about where you are and what space you're in. So we would like to invite you to join us and move. Be prepared to move your body and also your devices, no matter it's a laptop, tablet, or a cell phone. If you wanna join, you can use the wrist-hand button at the bottom of Zoom, it might be here or here. Yeah, that button. And also you can type something in Q&A, so we can invite you to become a panelist and then invite you to open your camera so that you can be seen by others. Sometimes there are issues with the Zoom system, so you might get kicked out during this process, but no worries, just use the same link to join us again. Where are you going? Show me your left hand under your ceiling. Show me the cap you are using. Show me an object other people don't have. Oh and kill with some music. Can you let me share the music? you dance with your full body, with your device in your hand. Can you be a co-host? In 1446, in Korea, King Sejong created the Korean alphabet. He thought Korea needed our own writing system so that we are not dominated by Chinese culture anymore. Of course, we had our spoken language, but not the letters. By creating the new alphabet, King Sejong also increased the literacy of people. And thanks to that, Korean people could find the cultural identity and unity. It was 1446, hunger letters were created. Under China's Wang Chao policy, and never thought about it. Most of my friends, families, and classmates are the only child in their families. When every family is the same, I kind of had an illusion that this is only a natural family structure. I never questioned about it, even when my mom had abortion. In October 2015, Chinese government announced to abolish the Wang Chao policy. Suddenly I realized most of my growing up experience are shaped by the government policies instead of natural choices. It was 2015, China abolished the Wang Chao policy. I was looking at my phone day and night when COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan. At the beginning, the local government was trying to downplay or hide the situation. There was only hearsay, but I knew it was serious because I experienced SARS in Beijing in 2003. Later, the US failed to detect or contain the spread of the virus. Different countries reacted to the situation differently. No matter if authoritarian or democratic, human arrogance and bureaucracy are deadly. It's 2020, COVID-19 hits the world. In 1966, Mao started the Cultural Revolution. Millions of people were prosecuted and many died. And my family also suffered terrible loss. I'm still dealing with the transgenerational trauma. It was 1966 when the Cultural Revolution began. One morning, I was working in one of the luxury center buildings, run up and down to a different office. I got along well with this receptionist girl. Well, I was in the basement. Something was on fire, but I was only thinking about finishing my work and go home. I keep working. Then the elevator shut later, people were run out of the building. I don't know what happened. I followed them out. It was dark outside. There was smoke everywhere. I worked and worked until I arrived home in Canada. I was very tired. I slept for the whole day in the evening. I discovered on TV, the building was melt like a chocolate. My body was poisoned by the smoke for years. It was hard for me to take care of myself. I couldn't work. When I finally recovered, I started working again. I need to stand on my own feet. It was 2001, 9, 11. It happened near my community. Almost no one wants to talk about money publicly, but it is important and political. I will ask questions. I'm studying questions that you can answer with your fingers from one to five. One is the lowest. Five is the highest. When you were in your home country, how rich did you feel about yourself from one to five? When you are in New York City, how rich do you feel about yourself from one to five? Important is money in your life from one to five. Could you rate the importance of saving from one to five? What are you saving money for? In your house. Visiting Berlin. Having kids and paths. Giving it to my mom. Giving allowances to grandparents. Taking care of my parents. Hey kids back home, but I'm really able to save any money to feel secure In terms of money, what has surprised you in the United States? A lot of people with paycheck by paycheck People use so much cash And they still use checks The education tuition and insurance are insane So hard to read coins here And the tipping culture is too complicated. Yeah, I'm surprised that it exists When you go back to visit your home country, do you feel this perception of money has changed? Yeah, for sure. I definitely feel more poor when I go to China I've been here for 10 years and in the past 10 years a lot of my friends called the wave of economic boom Well, I was picnicking as prospect perk. So they got rich and I still think twice before getting a cup of Starbucks coffee They can afford all kinds of fancy things for their children that I cannot I Feel I don't know the appropriate price of value of every product because my memory is still five years ago Now the price changed so fast in China I just feel outdated there people yourself want to pay in the restaurant You don't have to go to see a waiter. You just order online. I didn't know that they were like, who are you? Did you come from a cave or forest? I feel both Seoul and New York are a high price of high consumption cities A little different categories though. Each city has different values on different things US housing Educational tuition and entrance transportations are way more expensive than Korea But Korea has way more expensive electronic devices fruits coffee or fashion brand clothes What's your identity? I'm a musician and artist Other than that, what's your identity? I'm Korean and American Other than that, what's your identity? I'm a daughter, wife, granddaughter Other than that, what's your identity? I'm a person of color and a woman and human being Does skin color matter? Yes, kind of a lot on this planet People judge and have expectations for your color What are stereotypes about your race? Humble, acceptant, very naive, very kind and very hardworking Does citizenship matter? Yes, dual citizenship is very interesting to see how different countries see it differently In Korea, I was felt jealousy I'm ready Should the government help people in need? Yes, if they still require people to be taxed What's the purpose of a social welfare system? So we don't kill each other? Should the system help people who are temporarily struggling? Yes Should they help people who are always struggling? Yeah Have you ever been to an ER? Once, I cut my finger a bit deeper than I usually do I was bleeding really badly, so I went to the nearest ER There were so many people waiting, I sat there for hours and I realized I stopped bleeding So I went home Have you ever been to an urgent care? What's the difference between ER and urgent care? Do you have healthcare? Yes What change would you want to make to the healthcare system? To make it free and available to everybody Do you think doctors are making too much money? I think this should be well compensated for the work they do It's where the money comes from matters Do you think nurses are making too much money? I don't know how much nurses make here, but American nurses are very nice And they treat people very well I know in China, nurses get treated very poorly and treat people very poorly Do you think insurance companies are making too much money? I think private companies will always prioritize their profits There's nothing wrong with that But I think the US government has made enough money to take care of second poor But they're not doing enough Just turn to me What do you own in this country? A MacBook, an iPad, an iPhone, a Kindle, a bicycle, electric scooter, a DVD player, two humidifiers, 50 books, a lot of clothes, and some shoes What do you want to own in this country? My own loft in Lower Manhattan with a dryer and a washer What can't you own in this country? A permit to work any job, come back to the United States without applying for a new visa every time Unemployment insurance Do you own real estate property? Yes, I own an apartment in China Should everybody own real estate? Not necessary What makes the rich people rich? Their families, their social class, their personal choice, career development, and investment And what separates the rich from the poor? Race and social class And should the rich bear more social responsibilities? Yes In what countries are people more equal? The countries with the better social welfare for everybody Do you want to pay tax? Absolutely no That one, turn to me Do you care about the environment? Yes, but I'm not doing much Do you believe global warming? Yes Do you care about animals? Yes Do you eat animals? Yes Yes What animals do you eat? Pig, sheep, cattle Duck, chicken, fish, shrimp Maybe a couple more What do you think about mass international tourism? I used to really enjoy it But it's not sustainable, it hurts the environment And I'm not sure if it's making the world more equal or less Is it okay to lie to immigrant office? Yes Have you lied to immigrant office? No, I didn't have to Are you a liar? Yes Why do people migrate? Some people don't have other choices And sometimes people get bored or get hurt So they move Where do immigrants belong to? I don't know Maybe their families themselves Should first generation immigrants go protest on street? Do we as immigrants have to choose one culture over another? What do you think about assimilation? Do you feel you're a New Yorker? Did you ever have deep relationship in New York City? Did you ever have long lasting friendships in New York City? Did you ever regret coming to US? Did you have other choices? Did you get what you wanted? What kept you here? What have you lost? Did you think about a loss before you came? Do you think it was worth it? There's the stress caused by social isolation And being out of your cultural environment You have to deal with the emotional pain caused by being so far away from home What does home to me mean? What does home to me mean anyway? I missed so many birthdays, weddings, funerals I didn't get to say goodbye to my grandma before she passed away And for the rest of my life I have to deal with it There are lots of things going on really well in my life My family, my daughter, my job I love the city, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else But I think my life wouldn't necessarily be worse if I stayed in China I'm losing the beautiful part of Chinese culture Here, I write in English so more and more I think in English I feel I'm losing the ability to write artistically On the other hand, living in a place other than my home country really allows me to understand different perspectives of looking at the world Also, as an artist in New York City I found so many resources that can help me grow Back in my hometown, I feel only stuff was so natural I own this, I own that But here, I take myself as a device I keep absorbing things and losing stuff It's a natural process But I become a happier and more powerful person Because I receive constant help and support from my friends They keep believing in me even when I don't believe in myself Now I feel I have a power to help someone else Home in this, the loss of family connection Being different than being a foreigner here feels really lonely If I achieve something in career or if I celebrate my birthday or holidays it looks always smaller But I believe living here, I definitely got matured I do better self-management life Taking care of myself and taking responsibilities of my life better Maybe I know better how to live as an artist I'm away from my family Not being able to see my parents for a long time Since I came here until I went back for the first time That was more than seven years Here I am able to interact with other cultures Learn from other cultures, other religions Also learn other languages such as English and Chinese And learn the art I think it was worth it I am single That's good I don't feel great But I don't feel so bad I feel like I need to do more exercise Back in Taiwan, I had a lot of friends here in New York I'm on my own There is no winter in Taiwan So I got to experience winter in here When I was forced to move out my place On Christmas Eve Cold winter would make my peers who want to sit down You always do something Not for comparison Thank you for being here with us today Now we have 15 minutes for a casual chat So if you have any thoughts, any comments or questions for us Or for one another Please stay and join us And you can still use the wrist hand button To let us know you want to speak And we'll invite you to speak And it's okay if you don't want to start your video You can also type in Q&A part And I'm sending out our Facebook, Instagram link And link to Lucky Kesan Thank you Thank you And as I'm moving people into panelists I want to invite our performer, Jose To share a poem with us Jose Good to see you Good to see you So I'm going to be reading a poem by Rocket Dalton Rocket Dalton was in Salvadoria He saw art as a revolutionary art He wrote this from the original version in Spanish In English it's called like you So it's because like this Yo Como tú Amo el amor La vida El dulce encanto de las cosas El paisaje celeste de los días de enero También mi sangre buye Y río por los ojos Que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas Creo que el mundo es bello Que la poesía es como el pan de todos Que mis venas no terminan en mí Si no en la sangre unánime De los que luchan por la vida El amor, las cosas, el paisaje y el pan La poesía de todos It was written a while ago But it's so current nowadays That's why You want me to read the English version? I would love to hear it because I don't understand Spanish Okay, I'll do it Thank you Like you I love love life The sweet smell of things The sky blue landscape of January days And my blood boils up And I laugh through eyes That have known the buds of tears I believe the world is beautiful And the poetry like breath is for everyone And that my veins Don't end in me But in the unanimous blood Of those who struggle for life Love, little things Llamas, cakes and bread The poetry of everyone Rocked alto Thank you Beautiful Anyone wants to just chat with us? It's really the time for all of us to chat a little bit Oh, I see Two people raised their hand Yeah You're still muted Josh, you muted Great, yeah, we can hear you We're just trying to Hello There are people out here Hi Hi Allison, hi Jess Hello I could do a spontaneous poem Wow Ja Wen Charades Thanksgiving Money Real job Artists make money Fresh bamboo shoots In hot pot Like flute Watch drawing Crumpling Identity Chair Coins Wow, it's really beautiful Thank you for the poem Yeah, thank you for all the tension For our words from the performance Yeah One question that came to my mind Was about the scope of immigration Because for people from New York Or you know people who are New Yorkers Like at this point I think you probably consider yourselves to be New Yorkers I think we all know that the city is not really connected to the rest of the country So you're immigrating to New York City as a completely separate country But I'm not sure how that awareness came through in the dialogue or trilog or quadrilog Quintilog I can say something I can absolutely identify what you said about New York being somewhere else So I was writing my bicycle down in Brooklyn I went somewhere that had to drive through My mind was like, what is a drive through? I've never seen that in New York So I was so surprised because it was so unique But I just think Even within New York City we have our own Segregations and Separations Different layers of people who don't necessarily see each other So one of my favorite things about Being here, working with these people is I got to meet Jose and Gloria And hear their stories But I do think about How immigrants is almost like a pseudo concept Because there are so many different types of immigrants that come from everywhere with different backgrounds, resources and privileges And I do think about how within the scope of this project, what are the things we can do to problem-tize that And yeah, it is something that I do think about I can also share some of my experience because I was applying for my visa And I saw me in my case in April, that time quarantine just started And now I've never thought about should I stay here until now And I feel like now as Jorge said, I feel like separate from my home country And I got stuck here, I cannot go visit my mom and my mom cannot come visit me And I have a lot of doubts for my choice staying here And I think that our thoughts got reflected in our last chapter Was it worth it? Now we're thinking about our pain, our gain And yeah, we keep thinking like it's the right choice we make And who are we in the future? So I think it's like this constant path for me to explore And I don't know the answer yet, but I'm glad right now I have this question in my mind And stop thinking, oh, I need to stay in the United States because I can get everything I want There's a lot of challenges and pain Yeah And I think because we developed this performance from the project we have at University Settlement So all these experiences mainly come from our interactions and engagements with people Who are participants in University Settlements Adult Literacy Program And their senior center and their other programs So I think for most of us and people we know from there I think only a portion of us really made the choice of coming to New York City Most of them just came to the US but they end up at a place, it's New York It's different and it gives you more opportunity, more freedom, make you feel more protected But at the same time many things still remind us that it's still a part of the US Because we have all kinds of people, all kinds of opinions in New York City But we do feel blessed that we end up being here I think that's something we have in common while we were developing this And Aine Is it early morning for you? Welcome Thank you for coming Good morning here, my name is Aine I met Jen last year already in a class at New York University And I am right now in Tokyo, Japan Because my husband lives in Tokyo and I was in New York by myself I'm also dual citizen So I was like half immigrant, half US citizen But mainly I'm Japanese It was a wonderful show I have to admit that I started watching in my bed And so many, like the stage setting I would say, online stage setting was very interesting And also the multiple stories always constantly ask myself whether I want Because currently I'm looking into the ways I will be able to go back to the United States Or be out of Japan again so that I can present my works as a woman artist And it's really hard to do it in Japan So I really want to continue my path as an artist And I kept asking myself, is it worth it? I will be away from my family again So, thank you Thank you for sharing Thank you Someone in the audience wants to talk You can raise your hand, I see Ursula May I invite you, Kristin? I was going to type in the chat saying congratulations for this inspiring I'm beautiful and very honest show about your own experiences I mean, but also as artist and human being And I was going to, my internet, it's very like it's unstable That's why I kind of logged out before I was going to ask how did you came up with the script and this structure? Was it like based on what you had done throughout the workshop? Or so yeah, that was my question Do you want to answer this, Jarwin? Oh yeah, so this project started from last October And we had a partnership with the performance project at University Settlement And first we did a lot of open workshops We first go to the $1 classes and do some theater activities And then we invite people to our open workshop And then we have different themes for the workshop And then we developed what we really wanted to do for the performance And we invite our participants to join our ensemble workshop to develop our script together And all those scripts came from the theme in the past workshop And also through our conversations, our interaction with the participants See what people are interested in And we did a lot of theater activities And we recorded a lot of, we have a lot of recordings and videos And we tried to use people's authentic words in our performance So we are all telling our own stories which we shared in our workshop And as for the structure, I think Jean you can share a little bit about your thoughts Yes, basically all those themes come from our workshop themes And those are things we discovered were interesting for people from the community And also interesting for us, so we did a lot of exploration around that And then after that was just building a performance Yeah, and I want to also share some comments we received from Q&A Paula Weiss wrote, we thought those questions you all posed were really interesting Thank you for saying that because we really only can speak for ourselves Not for people we have been working with So what we were trying to do is to bring up questions People from that community find interesting, find meaningful So I really appreciate that you noticed all those questions we posed And also from Susan Macalester, am I pronouncing that right? Thank you for sharing your personal experiences with us My apologies for not staying for the whole chat, that's okay And also one more comment from Kristin I just want to say congratulations to seeing this through during a pandemic I loved how you explored stage pictures and music through Zoom And thank you for saying that we are really lucky to have two musicians in this ensemble But we are also not lucky because we have more performers from the university community who cannot perform with us Because they need to work more than before during this pandemic And even Jose had to work and couldn't join all of our rehearsals So we ended up making videos but I find those videos really amazing Thank you Jose for making those My pleasure Yeah it's time so thank you everyone for coming and for your thoughts for talking with us Thank you, I hope we can catch Thank you for joining