spanish on her tongue
Deep down, hidden beneath my crafting, drawing and painting skills I always suspected there was a director/editor waiting for me to find her…and she has surfaced! I loved! making this video, much more than I expected/suspected. I loved it because it gave me the opportunity to explore love. I chose love specifically because I wanted to involve my family in this project and I knew out of the theme ‘love, hope and optimism’, love would be the easiest to ask them to talk about both because I would be interviewing two young children and because in dealing with issues of language love felt like the easiest to communicate/translate. This process allowed me to get to know my family a little better. It opened us up to talking about our lives, feelings and beliefs. It gave us the beautiful experience of communicating in our/my truest language…Spanglish. It highlighted the challenges, privilege and wonder of living between two languages/cultures. Though I was the one who created the final version of spanish on her tongue, I need to acknowledge this is a piece about working together. For me, it is especially humbling to know that when and if my family can help me out, they do…faces and hearts smiling.
So, the recording begins…Having had some difficulties with the Canon FS11 prior to visiting my family, I decide to bring a flip cam with me, just in case. Was I ever grateful for this last minute decision. Difficulties ensued with the Canon so I ended up shooting all the interviews on the flip cam (sorry Janis, no white balance). The interview process went smoothly as all the “actors” were ready and willing to talk about love, of course with a little probing at times. Once I reviewed the footage I realized that I would need to be the connecting dot between my mother, my father, my niece and my nephew. Although I was prepared to be on camera I was unclear as to what exactly my role would be. Having asked them to talk about love in front of a camera I understood I also needed to do this. Whatever I am asking others to do for the sake of art, I need to be able to do myself. I want to make art that speaks to/of my lived experience...be it through painting, video, writing, etc.
Recording myself proved to be quite the challenge as I had to have enough material to connect the dots, but not too much that the connection got lost or boring. I knew re-reading the work of Gloria Anzaldua and Chrystos would be helpful because it would focus my vision for this video. Anzaldua speaks very eloquently about the experience of living between two languages, which is something I certainly relate to. “Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accomodate the English speakers rather than having them accomodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate” (Anzladua,1987). Chrytos writes from a place of such raw truth that her words authenticate her experience in profound ways….this is how I want to be able to communicate, write and create. In addition to reading the work of these two womyn I also did some probing around online, specifically on YouTube. Listed below is a list of some videos I found helpful and inspirational;
Ana Castillo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJehE_95Q8g&feature=related
Swell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfYT1vrCrRg&feature=related
Erika Marie Garza Johnson (aka La Erika)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpPXhUO-94Q&feature=related
Joy Harjo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCNFmqwKTN0&feature=related