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Apologies to all the people in Palestine
Sat, November 22, 9:45 to 11:15am, Puerto Rico Convention Center, 201-A (AV)Abstract
I have a poem about Palestine from my perspective as a (Filipina) American. Themes include: genocide, empire, complicity, and systems of oppression. I talk about how living within the center of empire necessarily means being complicit in genocide. It takes its inspiration (and references directly) June Jordan's "Apologies to All the People in Lebanon." The poem's outline is as follows: starting off with a nod to The Hunger Games and realizing how accurately it captures the current state of affairs. I then talk about how what I do - resignation of positions, protests etc - is nothing, the bare minimum compared to what's happening and that my reality (home, kids, life) are only possible because I live in the center of empire. I note how it doesn't discount the violences I've and others experienced, and then discuss state-sanctioned murders of Black people, systems of oppression and how capitalism is a death machine. Next, I reference June Jordan, and how systems are designed to turn our focus inward but these cannot be excuses to look away. I then discuss how resistance and violences didn't begin in Oct 2023, referencing the UN. I discuss how I can't sleep and despair, but by what right do I have when myself and my family don't have the worries Palestinians do. I apologize to Palestine and end with the distorted life I live, where everywhere around, Palestinians do not exist, their lives don't matter - as US guns, bombs, soldiers murder, kill and commit genocide. The poem's themes are repeating. For the conference, I'll read the poem and elaborate on the themes.
Biographical Information
Victoria Reyes is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She is author of Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope (2022) and Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines (2019).