IF THEY COME FOR ME
IN THE MORNING 

ABOUT

If They Come For Me In the Morning examined the generational impact of state violence through five weeks of performances and conversations with Native American artists and activists, African American historians, Japanese American incarceration camp survivors, Holocaust survivors, and people who are today threatened with deportation. 

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

The recent U.S. policy of separating and jailing immigrant families strikes at America’s image as a champion of diversity, democracy, and human rights. But the practice is not new, and it evokes historic episodes of state-sponsored xenophobia and bigotry. Today, as the deportations continue and the fates of scores of immigrant children remains unknown - and as America braces for a White Nationalist rally to be held across the street from The White House - it is worth asking: What can we learn from past traumas when political leaders used corrosive remarks and the power of government to define entire populations of people as security threats, noncitizens, or less than human?

“What can we learn from past traumas when political leaders used corrosive remarks and the power of government to define entire populations of people as security threats, noncitizens, or less than human?”

Native Americans bring sharp perspective to the issue, given 100 years of federally sanctioned abductions of Native children. The Boarding School Era began in 1879, with Capt. Richard H. Pratt’s fixation on forcibly “civilizing” kidnapped Native youth by cutting their hair, forbidding their use of Native language and customs, and severing their family bonds. Pratt’s motto – “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” – informed almost 150 such schools that followed, until they were closed in the 1970’s after years of abuses. From 1941 to 1967, the Adoption Program saw a third of Native children stolen from their homes to become adoptees or foster children to white families.

On the current forced separation of immigrant families, the National Congress of American Indians has said the practice “is simply immoral” and “harkens back to a dark period for many Native American families.” What is the status of Native families today? How can their knowledge guide us in understanding events today, and demanding different outcomes tomorrow?

Some African American historians have received increased media exposure in response to startling comments about America’s past, particularly on matters of race, from white politicians and other prominent figures. These include remarks that America was great “when families were united, even though we had slavery;” that Blacks may have been “better off during slavery;” and that the cause of the Civil War was an insoluble mystery: “Why could that one not have been worked out?” 

Historians again spoke out during events that seemed borne from those ideas: the fight over Confederate symbols, the march of White Nationalists, and the tearing apart of immigrant families, which has recalled the decimation of African American families from slavery through to mass incarceration.  What is the ethical role of historians in speaking out on current affairs, when facts are discounted and history itself is called into question? 

“In recent years, the last generation of witnesses to two very different events – Japanese American incarceration camp survivors, and Holocaust survivors – have voiced concerns that have much in common.”

In recent years, the last generation of witnesses to two very different events - Japanese American incarceration camp survivors, and Holocaust survivors – have voiced concerns that have much in common. Political rhetoric that vilifies people on the basis of ethnicity or religion, they say, and government policies to detain, deport, or ban people as a group, have conjured past episodes of state-sponsored xenophobia. 

Some find the analogies hyperbolic, cautioning that America’s constitutional protections and ethnic diversity make it a vastly different place at a very different time. But others express unease and even anger that with the march of torch-burning Neo-Nazis, the wave of mass deportations, and the criminalization of asylum seekers, the history they experienced is being swept aside.

What can those survivors tell us about America today? Will be different for them – and us - if the lessons of history are lost? 

Today, government-led bigotry has fateful impact on people threatened with deportation, including countless Green Card holders, naturalized citizens, and asylum seekers; 3.6 million Dreamers; more than a quarter-million Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Hondurans, and Vietnamese in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status; and countless others who have lived and worked here for decades. The statistics convey nothing, however, of the human cost of mass deportation, or what this latest rending of families means for America’s identity.  

How do these events measure against the arc of history? What can people living in fear teach us about the imperatives of democracy? As Americans, what is our moral response?   

- Brian Tate 2018

PROGRAM

What Will Be Different for Native American Artists & Activists?  
The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
Noel G. Altaha + Diane Fraher + Muriel Miguel + Brian Young
Moderator: Dr. Sandy Grande | Remarks: Rick Chavolla | Performance: Martha Redbone

What Will Be Different for African American Historians? 
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Co-curated with Novella Ford
Jennifer L. Morgan + Robyn C. Spencer
Moderator: Gina Belafonte | Performance: Felice Rosser

What Will Be Different for Japanese American Incarceration Camp Survivors? 
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
Takeshi Furumoto + Suki Terada Ports + Joan Shigekawa + Madeleine S. Sugimoto
Moderator: Becca Asaki | Remarks: George Hirose | Performance: Mike Ishii

What Will Be Different for Holocaust Survivors? 
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
Rabbinic Pastor Dr. Aliza Erber + Stephen B. Jacobs + Sonja Maier Geismar + Ilse Melamid
Remarks: Desiree Nazarian | Moderator: Audrey Sasson | Performance: Morley

What Will Be Different for People Threatened With Deportation? 
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
Maria de Los Angeles + Hüsniye Çöğür + Ravi Ragbir + Naïscha Vilmé
Moderator: Cristina Jimenez | Performance: Ani Cordero