Fervent hands / making holy artefacts

We are locked off from the centre of our culture: our language. We are outsiders to our birthright.

and me, fighting for arm space with a businessman using the term “Kafkaesque” for the fifth time in one screening.

We need to have conversations about strategically and systematically destroying colourism and the practices born through it.

There was something deeper than skin tone: I needed to think of myself as Syrian-Jewish instinctively, beyond what white men had defined in books.

For every ‘mamasita’ I’ve ever received I have an equal number of ‘cochina’—balanced like Rosary beads, and a prayer I hear everyday.

Even you get fed up with your own inconsistencies.

The more challenging an audience, the longer I hold my pauses. It’s exhilarating.

The conversation turned to Chileans. “They’re all liars! And perverts!” one attendee observed. “Oh my god, so true,” another contributed, a New Yorker.

It’s a basic gesture of dignity: I see you as a human, thus I will learn your name.