...but America never ends - A new work on immigration

Earlier this year, I was tasked with creating a work with extra-musical inspiration. I searched and searched for poems, artwork, even nature, but nothing quite stuck. For some reason, a particular scene from the wrongfully-cancelled tv-show For the People flew into my memory. The episode is called, This is America, and it focused on a young boy who gets separated from his father who was undocumented. I won’t spoil the story, as you should really take time to watch that episode along with the entire series yourself, but the story brought up two interesting prospectives about the matter.

The show is about the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Federal Court. One defense attorney, Jay (Wesam Keesh), who is an immigrant, learns of the situation with the boy and his father, and is obviously troubled by the matter at hand. He seeks comfort from Tina (Anna Deavere Smith), the clerk who happened to be looking after the boy when she realized what had happened to his father. Tina just so happens to be black. Out of frustration Jay asks Tina “What country is this?” and she answers, “This is America.” Her answer may have seemed blunt and cold, but what she says afterwards sheds a lot of light on today’s America.

I watched this video with a white man and he pointed out an interesting fact about the two character’s positions. He said one was an immigrant who wanted to be in America, and the other was a descendant of immigrants who were forced to be here against their will. When I started drafting out ideas for this piece, I was originally going to write about a foreign set of voices that enter a larger, more familiar set of voices, but ultimately gets rejected by the larger group as a way to symbolize the treatment of immigrants in America. As a black American whose parents are first generation immigrants from Haïti, this scene, the Black Lives Matter movement, the comment about African Americans experiencing different histories as other immigrants, but also receiving mistreatment, and everything happening in America these past few weeks (months, years, decades, CENTURIES), however, made me want to also shed light on that dark past and present.

This new work will be a suite of pieces for different ensemble sizes. The first piece will be a trio emphasizing the “dream” to come to America and the fear that ensues as the foreign family enters the border. I want to create a folk song that will serve as a motif throughout the suite. In the larger ensemble, which will represent America, that motif will be embraced, altered, and then ultimately rejected; a reflection on cultural appropriation and the rejection of the people to whom this culture belongs. The third and final piece will be a lament using the folk tune motif as well as African American spirituals. I want the lament to end with a similar sense of hope that the first piece began with. I want the message that while some people are filled with hate, the rest of America is listening to ring strongly throughout the suite. “This is America now, but America never ends.”

This piece is looking to be completed for late 2020 or early 2021 when live performances can hopefully resume.