Over the last few years, a popular joke from the 1995 movie 

 by Mathieu Kassovitz has come back in style. It goes like this. “Have you heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he keeps saying to reassure himself: ‘so far, so good … so far, so good … so far, so good.’ How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land.”

For many in Europe the full descent into fascism and the inevitable death splatter has not happened yet. But for those in Belarus, fascism’s boot has been pressed firmly on the neck of the country for nearly three decades. Censorship has become 

, while artists and journalists are routinely imprisoned, often for charges as oblique and ill-defined as “offending the fatherland.” Foreign non-governmental organizations operating in the country

such as those supporting women’s or queer rights—are barred from accepting foreign cash donations, leaving very few options for young Belarusians who desire change within the country. Trending toward complete authoritarianism, many in the landlocked Eastern European country have had enough.

In August 2020, tens of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to protest an election that United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights, Miklós Haraszti, described as “neither free nor fair.” The protests erupted days after President Alexander Lukashenko was ushered in his 6th term in office. With an estimated 250,000 taking to the streets, and the world watching, the self-described “last dictator of Europe” swiftly and predictably ordered police to violently repress the demonstrators.

In the ensuing months, Lukashenko made international headlines by forcing a commercial jet flying over Belarusian territory to land so that police could arrest and imprison an opposition journalist. He has ordered the arrests of hundreds more, including Vitold Ashurka, a politician who died while in police custody in May 2021. But with the world transfixed on the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan and ongoing security threats from ISIS, it seems that many in the West are overlooking the bleak reality that many Belarusians face on the very doorstep of Europe.

The events taking place in Belarus today will lay the foundation for the next generation, but for many who remain in the country change in regime could not come any sooner. In addition to gross mismanagement and economic stagnation, the former Soviet republic has tried to play both sides in post-Cold War Europe by offering concessions to the West and the EU without alienating its most important and reliable partner in Russia. During the last year, however, Lukashenko has done plenty to alienate EU and Western partners thanks to his decision to violently quash protests and arbitrarily jail opposition figures, actions which have led to new sanctions against Belarus.

The struggle for visibility within the country’s art and cultural sector is of course very minor compared to some of Belarus’ domestic and geopolitical problems. Nevertheless, if one takes the Breitbart Doctrine at face value––the idea that "politics is downstream from culture”––it follows that some of the country’s leading artists and intellectuals may have some interesting, critical, and perhaps even revolutionary approaches to art.

In May 2021, nearly 100 artists, theorists, activists, and grassroots organizations from Belarus and its diaspora came together for an exhibition entitled КОЖНЫ ДЗЕНЬ: МАСТАЦТВА. САЛІДАРНАСЦЬ. СУПРАЦІЎ [Every day: Art. Solidarity. Resistance] at the Mystetskyi Arsenal gallery in Kyiv, Ukraine. The exhibition drew inspiration from tactics of resistance, ranging from street art and graffiti to protest and performance art, and functioned as a collective expression of opposition to Lukashenko’s rule.

The sprawling exhibition and post-exhibition reader highlighted how oppositional artists in Belarus are operating today. The exhibition glossary and concept was co-curated by Sergey Shabohin, Maxim Tyminko, Antonina Stebur, Marina Naprushkina, Andrei Dureika and Aleksei Borisionok, who were driven by a shared desire to look at the political power of art as a vehicle with which to spur social awareness, political change, and new models that could function in opposition to existing political power structures in Belarus and elsewhere.

A central element of Alena Davidovich’s work is the popular slogan for the women’s and feminist movement “Fight Like a Girl.” Davidovich has said: “The wall painting was made to draw attention to a new creative approach in non-violent resistance where the game changers were mostly women.”

The common slogan shouted at protests across Belarus is “Everyday.” Similarly, the works displayed at the exhibition “shout” their dissent from the walls. Upon entering the gallery space in Kyiv, the first thing one hears are sounds of protest blaring from the speakers. The exhibition being intentionally bereft of headphones was a curatorial decision, says Borisionok, intended to create a cacophony of protest chants and noises. “We wanted visitors to hear the sounds of protests as they entered the gallery, to feel the sounds as a visceral connection to protest movements in a way visitors could instantly connect with and relate to.”

With the sounds and video displayed in the gallery, the exhibition effectively employs the documentation of violence to address the mechanisms of state security. In doing so, they position art within its archival function, allowing visitors to see, hear and understand the mechanisms of Lukashenko’s brutal state violence.

The notion of protest choreography is one of the exhibition’s key themes. It refers to tactics used by artists and activists with their body as the main medium. This can be solidarity chains or single-person demonstrations, assemblies with thousands of people, walks around residential neighbourhoods, parties, concerts or a combination of these forms. “Unlike the passiveness of political language and monologue,” the organizers write, “an important feature of protest choreography is shared bodily experience.”

One of the crucial phrases underlying and giving voice to this definition is used by activist Nina Baginskaya, who repeatedly says “I’m walking” when stopped on the street by riot police. Or the phrase “I’m going out!”, the last text message sent by Raman Bandarenka, the 31-year-old Minsk-based artist and activist who died at the hands of Belarusian authorities during demonstrations against Lukashenko in 2020. The tragic circumstances surrounding Bandarenka’s murder was not lost on those who attended the exhibition, many of whom have come to see him as a martyr for the Belarusian cause.

Bergamot, one of Belarus’s most iconic performance art groups, Volha Maslouskaya and Raman Tratsiuk installed a video that reverberates through the halls of the Arsenal as a way to directly address the troubling and often terrifying tactics employed by the country’s shadowy security apparatus. In 

a three-minute video shot during a residency in a village close to Brest, the group unveils how detentions are often carried out by masked officers in black, with no identification, recorded only via phone cameras.

Jana Shostak, the Warsaw-based Belarusian artist, initiated interventions using only her voice. Shostak gained fame after her one-minute performance 

 was broadcast across Polish TV and popular culture––an action she does in order to draw attention to the blatant misconduct of Belarusian authorities. Shostak employs the scream to comment on the hopelessness and despair many continue to experience in Belarus today, galvanizing communities and the media to stop, pause, and reflect for one-minute. The performance has become legendary for the manner in which she infiltrates political, social and media spheres.

Nadya Sayapina's multimedia installation 

 depicts the artist and her cellmates’ personal experiences in the Akrescina and Zhodino pre-trial detention centers. It was not only an experience of fear and frustration, but also solidarity, caring, and “quiet” tactics of resistance. Caring for each other, empathy, interpersonal relationships, support systems and sisterhood––forming lines of solidarity where weakness opposes strength and imagination becomes a political tool.

КОЖНЫ ДЗЕНЬ: МАСТАЦТВА. САЛІДАРНАСЦЬ. СУПРАЦІЎ [Every day: Art. Solidarity. Resistance] sheds light on how new tactile forms of resistance are taking shape online. One example is 

(2019-2021) by the collective eeefff, which encapsulates how code-based computer algorithms can create networks of resistance that double as art. The project grew out of their research into outsourcing––the hidden labour supporting many platforms and IT companies. eeefff created a fictional space in which labourers can discuss themes like alienation and the possibility of “algorithmic solidarity” among the so-called “digital proletariat.” They take the installation of an office fun zone to blur the boundary between work and play, effectively deaccessioning IT from its capitalistic deployment.

The exhibition also includes archives and protest imagery from pan-European comrades Dan Perjovschi, Nikita Kadan, Karol Radziszewski, as well as Slavs and Tatars artists. But what makes the exhibition distinctive is that it is tactile provocation of activist struggles in Belarus and an example of how art can function politically.

 (2021) refers to the current protests in Belarus, political struggle, and state violence through the discourse of fascism. The topic of fascism and victory over it has for a long time been central to the contemporary state ideology of Belarus. Since the start of the uprising after the 2020 presidential elections, both the state and the protestors accuse each other of fascism. In turn, these positions are criticized by the academic community for historical untruths. The video, part of the 

 project, traces this symbolic struggle and the political, social, affective, and symbolic effects it produces.

The ability for Belarusian artists to develop creative new ways to resist is one of the other keys emanating from the exhibition. In an installation by Sergey Shabohin, the artist, curator, activist, and founder and chief editor of the portal of contemporary Belarusian art, 

, reveals layers of paradox and irony installed on the streets of Minsk. Shabohin’s installation consists of an archive of a 20-day procedural exhibition and a multimedia installation that refers to the metaphor of “social marble” — a cheap marble-patterned plastic film that municipal services in Belarus use to cover up graffiti on real marble. The work includes texts, photographs, terms, quotes, documents printed and glued on the wall from dozens of activists who contributed to the 

. What makes the project so unique is its tactile relationship to activist struggles in the country, an example of how artists are utilizing different media to undermine state control over information in public space.

While the basis of direct action may seem palpable to some, especially in response to the Lukashenko regime and the massive protests that have been erupting as a result, other artists in the exhibition take more subtle approaches to intervening in discussions around art and politics. Andrei Dureika’s wall painting displayed in Arsenal, for example, was initially an attempt by the artist to understand the situation in Ukraine. In 2015, he painted the phrase “There are no words…” on a street in St. Petersburg in response to Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine. The work, now displayed inside a gallery in Kyiv, along with dozens of other Belarusian artists who are now in the midst of a political crisis of their own, seems especially pertinent today. With Belarus and Ukraine both seemingly in free fall, it’s anyone’s guess what the outcome of this may be.

perhaps the only words left are from the one falling from the skyscraper. “It’s how you land.”

“A Gift for the President” is one of the most famous actions of contemporary Belarusian political art. It was a reaction to events in the country, including the end of Lukashenka’s first term as president on July 20, 1999.

The artist went to the square in front of the Presidential Residence,

dumped a cart of manure onto the asphalt, put devalued million ruble banknotes, the new constitution, and an election poster with Alexander Lukashenko on top, and stuck a pitchfork into the pile with a banner saying “For five years of fruitful labor!” There was also a Belarusian red and green flag on the bottom of the cart. The flag and coat of arms used in the action are symbols of the regime and of Soviet restoration and refer to 1999 & 2021.

Replica of the object used in the action “A Present for the President ‘For Five Years of Fruitful Labor!’” held on June 21, 1999 at 38 Karl Marx Street in Minsk to the dramatic turning point in the modern history of Belarus — the 1995 referendum, after which the national symbols (the white-red-white flag and the Pahonya (“pursuit”) coat of arms) were abolished and Russian became an official language.

Ales Pushkin was detained almost immediately afterwards. The court sentenced him to two years of probation and five years of deprivation of rights. 17 years later, in 2016, after the exhibition “ZBOR. Belarusian Art Movement” at Izolyatsia space in Kyiv, Belarusian customs officials confiscated the photo of the action that was displayed at the exhibition and the work was declared extremist by the court.

In her work “Amusing Pictures,” Mitrichenko describes her experience in Belarus. This is a picture diary, a report on one day in the life of the artist. But at the same time it is also a record of the emotions felt when experiencing from a distance events that cannot be influenced. According to the artist, “Cultural heritage, the history of art, big social turbulences, global political and cultural shifts, they are just patchworks sewed together from a huge number of small peculiar stories, little insignificant events, family tales and personal anecdotes.” In sewing together this patch-work blanket out of visual quotes from contemporary and classical works, and fastening them with notes from her diaries, the artist turns reflections about censorship in art, professional activity and political crises into fascinating comics.

In this work, artist and activist Sergey Shabohin refers to the metaphor of “social marble” — the cheap marble-patterned plastic film that municipal services in Belarus use to cover up graffiti on real marble. “In this symbol is the capacious image of the political structure of modern Belarus, where caustic ‘capitalist’ aerosol pigments are so deeply absorbed into ‘Soviet’ marble that they can’t be washed off and all that remains is to cover them up with Chinese-made film.”

The archive documents how civil society in Belarus was born, with key prerequisites and dates; how protest moods emerged and were transformed; and how everything resulted in an organized, peaceful revolution. The documentary materials include a timeline of the rise and development of protests, as well as a glossary of the new civil society.

There are also texts, photographs, terms, quotes, references and dates in the form of documents printed and glued on the wall. Contributors: Vika Biran, Aleksey Bratochkin, Volha Hapeyeva, Mikhail Gulin, Yuliy Ilyuschenko, Andrei Karpeka, Alexei Kuzmich, Marina Naprushkina, Nadya Sayapina, Antonina Stebur, Irina Sukhiy, Nikolai Khalezin, Vladimir Tsesler, Olga Shparaga.

The video refers to the current protests in Belarus, political struggle and state violence through the discourse of fascism. The topic of fascism and victory over it has for a long time been central to the contemporary state ideology of Belarus. Since the start of the uprising after the 2020 presidential elections, both the state and the protestors accuse each other of fascism. In turn, these positions are criticized by the academic community for historical untruths. The video traces this symbolic struggle and the political, social, affective and symbolic effects it produces.

 is a traditional Belarusian shirt with decorative embroidery. Artist Rufina Bazlova fills this method of embroidery with political context: she literally embroiders the history of the Belarusian protests, documenting and coding it without using traditional written narrative. Embroidery was always on the periphery in the hierarchy of the arts — the way the women who created the designs were excluded from history and deprived of their vote. For Rufina the use of embroidered is not only a return to a traditional Belarusian craft but also the inclusion of those excluded or deprived of the right to vote. “Weak” groups — women, pensioners, people with (un)limited abilities — play an important role in the Belarusian protests. As it turns out, a majority of the population are excluded from the political sphere. Embroidery was traditionally a collective practice: women gathered together to embroider and share stories. Embroidery is a practice of solidarity, both in terms of execution and from a formal perspective. The red crosses on the fabric are a metaphor of networks, coexistence and coupling. Finally, Rufina uses a play on words in the title of her work. In Belarusian, the words 

 [to survive] rhyme and differ by one letter. “The History of Belarusian 

” underscores the unprecedented level of state aggression against protesters.

was curated for ArtsEverywhere by Nikolay Oleynikov.

Global

Freefall Off a Skyscraper

Sixty thousand Sri Lankan Army troops are currently stationed in Mullaitivu District, which means there is now at least one soldier for every two civilians. Reports by the Tamil Guardian state that Sri Lanka's Department of 

has reportedly had a heavy hand in "inventorizing" heritage sites this area, having claimed 400 acres of land around holy Kurunthoormalai

 home to the historic Athi Aiyanar temple. With the aid of a local NGO, we visit a small village in an area decimated by itinerant bombing, which still has very little in the way of structures or homes.

Mullaitivu East: Now How Do I Grieve Them?

They sit all four to a bench, facing me, each in a different colourful dress. They eye me suspiciously as the translator speaks about my interests in the region. Slowly, they answer my questions, reserved and staunch, not wanting to show too much emotion. I am keenly aware of the trauma these mothers have faced, this being one of the worst hit areas of the conflict. They don’t have much to say about land occupation, or the military, though they are answering my questions as politely as they can.

Then something happens that I have witnessed many times on this trip. Trauma spills out all in a jumble from someone’s lips, as though it was waiting all along—all these past 15 years to be heard—to be remembered.

The woman who speaks is small in stature and older than the rest. She is dark-skinned with deep lines streaking across her face. Her bare feet rub against each other anxiously. She tells us that three of her children are buried on the other side of the local army barricade. All three were taken against their will by the rebel militants. With very little training, they were thrust into the fighting, where each one fell, one after the other. The army bulldozed their graveyard and built a military base on top of it. This I have heard throughout my journeys all over the North & East: the cemeteries of fallen rebel soldiers being razed as soon as the war ended, as though the death of a loved one could ever be forcibly forgotten.

She fights back tears as she tells us, repeating over and over: 'Now how do I grieve them? Now what do I do?'

The other women remain quiet, they choose not to share their secret pain on this day.

Northern Province: Erasing The Past To Preserve The Future

Upon arriving in the Northern Province, we speak with a local artist about 

, impermanence and erasure. Having lived just outside of Jaffna for the entirety of the war, he believes that 

 is an art that has been practiced here since long ago, but there is a reticence to acknowledging that history, perhaps due to a well-worn survival strategy. I am reminded of a conversation I had with my grandmother, who was forced to hide any identifying Tamil symbols during the Black July pogroms of 1983. She took out her gold nose ring, stopped wearing the Tamil 

’ and ceased adorning her hair with flowers—all traditional symbols of Tamil womanhood—to survive the times and limit the risk being killed. This gradual erasure of Tamil practices and customs has become a way of surviving discrimination and violence.

My mind begins to spin when the artist offers an explanation, 'Erasing the past to preserve the future'. I wonder, what proves existence? And what forms does it take when it is dormant? Perhaps existence can be held through word of mouth and community care, these acts becoming an active and almost invisible resistance to oppression.

We are recommended to visit this area by a local journalist, and told that we don’t need to ask questions from anyone, just to go and see with our own eyes.

We drive the unpaved road, staring out the window at house after house occupied by the military. Even the shells of houses destroyed by bombs have signs of military life: a uniform hung out to dry, an armed guard dozing out front. These shells betray the long-ago grandeur of this area with its huge villas and expansive gardens. I ask the driver to turn down a small road because it feels like the eyes of the military are all around us.

As we drive we come across yet another bombed out house. Three Tamil workmen are chopping down a very large tree out front. We stop and in typically Tamil fashion launch into a familiarity that allows strangers to share intimate details with one another immediately upon meeting.

We learn that this plot of land is part of the 100 acres recently released by President Ranil Wickremesinghe. In a bid to resurrect his waning popularity, Ranil released a meagre 100 acres of land for redevelopment from the approximately 74,000 acres of state land and 6,400 acres of private land that has been "occupied" since the war. Unsurprisingly, the land belongs to the wealthiest members of this community.

A couple of weeks after the release, the Tamil owner of this property hired a team to clear the land and get it ready to sell. The property boasts two huge banyan trees, sacred to Buddhists. These trees are common on temple grounds and Buddhist holy sites, often accompanied by a ruling that forbids them to be cut down.

We stand and watch as the Tamil workmen mercilessly hack at the Buddhist holy trees under direct orders from the landowner to cut them down and remove all trace that they ever existed.

Jaffna Town: Every Day It Refreshes My Mind

Back in the town center we visit with another local artist and musician, a woman who hosts a music school in her house. As we sit with her and her adoring son, the haphazard sounds of children learning to play violins emanates from the next room.

We were directed to this woman, having been told by many that she is an expert on the art of 

. She speaks to us excitedly about her private practice, something she undertakes every single morning at the threshold of her home. At first she tells us that she draws to welcome visitors and to protect the home. She loves the fact that it forces guests to slow down and proceed with tenderness, so they do not disrupt the energy of the house. After some time, she admits that her main goal in the practice is that it eases her troubles and centers her mind. She tells us that the knots in the pattern change according to her mental state, on some more troubled days there are more knots than usual. She believes the pattern is a gift, not only to herself and to her family, but to the people who pass through the pattern during the day. They take a little bit of her gift with them on their feet, as do the birds and insects, and in this way she is offering protection and connection to the world at large.

She isn’t bothered by the impermanence of the art, in fact she says "every day it refreshes my mind, my home and my life to create these patterns." I am taken by her unattachment to the outcome, and by the willful, intentional impermanence that she undertakes every day. Perhaps there is some solace in the control she wields, as the sole creator and destroyer of the pattern.

Our last destination on this journey is the sacred island of Nainativu, known as Nagadeepa by the Buddhists. The small island is home to the Hindu Nagapooshani Amman Temple and the Buddhist Nagadeepa Purana Vihara, places of pilgrimage for Buddhists and Hindus alike. The ferry we take to the island is tiny and packed full of worshippers of both faiths. We sit on the steps and stare out at the bright blue waters with the approaching shrines in the distance. The boat stops and as I begin to disembark the Tamil boatman stops me. He says, 'This Nagadeepa'. I nod because yes, I want to go to Nagadeepa/Nainativu. I try to disembark again and he stops me again. 'This NAGADEEPA', he says forcefully. I look at my guide and we both shrug. I turn back and say 'Nagadeepa, Nainativu, same same' with a shake of my hand. His smile turns downwards and he begins to look angry. I slink back into the boat, not sure what mistake I’ve made. The ferry springs to life with a lurch and the boat turns towards another corner of the island. It’s only in that moment that I realize my error. There are two docks to disembark, one long wooden dock leading to Nagadeepa, the Buddhist shrine, and another about 200 metres away leading to Nainativu, the Hindu temple. I feel sheepish having unwittingly offended our Tamil boatman. He does not act kindly towards us for the rest of the trip.

The Amman temple at Nainativu is renowned as a place to worship fertility. Around 1000 devotees come daily from as far away as India to pray for a baby or to thank the god Amman for giving them a family. We see Hindu Tamil devotees and also quite a few Sinhala Buddhists visiting the shrine to ask for help. It’s a beautiful place with a rich history involving a supposed visit from Lord Buddha himself, who came to solve the dispute of the local Naga kings. Over the years both temples have been destroyed and rebuilt by colonizers, rebel militias and war. Still, it’s a peaceful place with many visitors of all faiths intermixing. When we leave, I stare back at the two temples, standing side-by-side, imagining them existing this way for millennia.

Religion often gets instrumentalised in political warfare, but perhaps an adherence to ancient religious practices and their principles are a gentle form of resistance to that phenomenon. With structures coming and going depending on the occupier, the sacredness of these sites is never broken. The community does not forget, despite being pushed to reform their identity to conform to the occupying state. It is ever-present, and yet largely unseen unless sought out.

, unfolding as it is created, also uses the transient energy of nature to tell its own narrative upon the earth. It works with the changes and is not concerned with impermanence, which is ever-present in the mind of its creator.

This road trip is one of many that I have taken in the lands of my ancestors, but this time has felt markedly different. Although the Tamil population has been through many traumas, and the world has witnessed them all, now the oppression has become silent and insidious. A wily snake that weaves its way throughout the Tamil homeland, overrunning history with its own new, false narrative. It will not stop, despite the resistant efforts of the people. It seeks to overwrite the sacred history of this land and further disenfranchise the Tamil people. What does impermanence become when it has nowhere to go?

*Completed with the assistance of the Chalmers Family Fund and the Ontario Arts Council

Eelam, Sri Lanka

Impermanence and the Present Moment, Pt 3

*Some names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of those interviewed.

One of my first memories of my homeland is walking through the ruins of a bombed-out temple near the holy bathing waters of Keerimalai. I was barely an adult, having been brought to the northern tip of Sri Lanka to meet my grandmother, who had refused to leave during the island’s decades long civil war. As my parents chatted, I wandered through the sandy remains. I remember feeling like I was walking through a movie set, my unformed opinions not able to grasp the totality of destruction I was seeing. Shyly running my fingers along the decimated walls, I discovered a bullet hole is exactly the size of my finger. Touching the rubble that day brought me full force into the reality of the present moment.

The temple was targeted multiple times by Sri Lankan Air Force bombing raids in 1993, which killed 180 Tamil civilians, including five infants. The surprise attack was carried out despite the conspicuous presence of temple flags planted at the four corners of the sanctuary. Priests fled in horror and disbelief, only moments before the shells dropped.

Hinduism and Buddhism both originated in India and share many common precepts. Both religions hold fast to the idea that impermanence is the only constant, and that we must embrace the notion of change to ever feel truly and fully at peace. In Sri Lanka, you will often see a small statue of Buddha in Hindu temples; and in similar fashion you will almost always see a Hindu icon in Buddhist shrines. The crossover suggests that there is a common bond in one’s search for divinity.

For years, the ancient holy places of Sri Lanka co-existed peacefully, with various religions sharing space. Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonizers failed in turn to occupy or subsume these spaces. It was during the 30-year civil war that holy sites began to be targeted by civil forces acting on orders from leaders of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers).

The Eastern and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka are traditionally Hindu areas, considered the homeland of the Tamil people, the largest minority group in the country with a population of around 3 million. The predominantly Hindu Tamils have long suffered oppression by the Buddhist Sinhalese government—a legacy of segregation that stretches back to colonial times. Eight years after independence, the government instituted the Sinhala Only Act, making Sinhalese the official language of the country. This was only one act amongst many that instigated a series of violent ethnic pogroms which left Tamil communities in terror, catalyzing several armed resistance movements, including the most infamous of them all, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.

The decision to “end” Sri Lanka's 30-year civil war in May 2009 reflected the violence of its origins, as then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered a surprise attack by land, sea, and air on Mullivaikal—a thin stretch of coast that had been designated a “no fire zone.” The United Nations estimates between 40,000-70,000 Tamils were killed during the Mullivaikal Massacre, an incident that continues to haunt Eelam Tamil people to this day.

Today, the predominantly Tamil North and East of the country remains heavily militarized, with the North alone boasting 40 naval bases manned by 5,000 personnel. In the 14 years since the end of the war, there have been reports of what Tamil NGO Pearl Action calls "State Sponsored Sinhalization," with Tamil land being forcibly taken and religious sites torn down, while any protesters are silenced and beaten. In the eyes of the Sinhalese government, Tamils grieving the losses of war are unequivocally prohibited. Today, I embark on a trip through these areas to see for myself whether the claims are true.

A dear friend who is a seasoned traveller, a Hindu devotee, and a fiercely independent woman with a slow gait and gentle demeanour, joined me as a fixer and translator on this journey. Together, we begin by taking a train from the capital, Colombo, to the eastern coast, before driving up through Trincomalee and Mullaitivu. Our last stop will be in the Northern peninsula of Jaffna—known to Tamils as Yalpanam. Despite the languid pace and reflective nature of Sri Lankan travel, we know this trip will also tear open the wounds of our past. With every step we are committed to healing our psyche of the generational traumas of war, while bearing witness to the stories of the people we encounter.

Our first stop is in the eastern town of Batticaloa where we visit a well known Tamil painter. Batticaloa is an area that feels somewhat forgotten by time. Its relaxed pace and warm smiles hide a history of trauma, group massacres, and bombings.

We arrive at the artist’s house in the morning, ripe mosquito time. His orange and yellow hued home is sparsely decorated, fully dedicated to the long standing artistic practice that he hones every day. In simple sarong and ancient glasses, he invites us to sit, always to sit, before we begin any lessons. Swatting away mosquitoes, we speak of the weather, the land and slowly, as with many people in this area, he touches upon his knowledge of sacred sites that are being occupied by the Archaeological Society. He tells us of a site at Kokkadicholai, as well as one high up on a hill, the Kusalanamalai Kumaran temple. Finally we prod him to the task at hand and he rises slowly from the broken chair on which he sits.

He produces a small bowl of soft rice-flour. Cleaning off a well-worn painting table, he begins to drip the flour finely between two fingers to form a thin and perfect line. He says very little as we pepper him with questions, but proceeds to draw perfectly straight and wavy lines, circles, and more. He steps back quietly and in this way we know that he wants us to mirror him. Our lines are haphazard and poorly executed, but we all giggle. Composing himself to draw again, he eyes us solemnly and says "Practice, practice." We spend all morning following his instruction.

He creates detailed geometric patterns for us, and when asked, he provides very little discourse on the matter. Having survived war, economic crises, a tsunami, and many other traumas on the east coast, I guess he feels no need to elaborate, only to draw and create to his heart’s content.

I ask him, “Why do you like these patterns? What draws you to them?”

He replies simply, “Beauty and peace.”

Hoping he will open up, I prompt him further, “Are you bothered at all by the transient nature of the work?”

Without looking up, he responds without wavering, “No. Everything comes and must go.”

As we draw, he speaks less and less, perhaps remembering his days as a youth studying classical art in India. The patterns, however, become more and more complex, and we marvel at the skill and precision with which he executes them. After each bold attempt, he quickly wipes the art away with a well-worn rag and begins again. No holding on, no preciousness about his art, just one swift movement with his hand and all is lost forever to memory and time.

As he continues to teach us the gentle art of 

, I begin drawing a line between the impermanence of occupation and this time-worn Tamil practice. 

 is a transient art, created each morning only to wash away at night. It offers protection and peace in the fleeting moments of joy that one must relish under occupation.

It seems that no one knows when the Tamil art of 

 came to Sri Lanka. It has been practiced and passed down through family lineage for as far back as anyone can remember. Some believe it was brought to Sri Lanka by Indian workers from the north, who still slave away in the rice paddies of the hill country. Others believe it was always here, hailing from a time when Sri Lanka was connected to South India by a thin strip of land still visible from space. It is a beautiful and intricate art, often practiced daily by the female head of the household. Many designs are derived from magical motifs and abstract designs mingling with philosophic and religious iconography.

The element that draws me to this art is the temporality of it. Intricate patterns are drawn every morning, sometimes taking one or two hours to complete. Over the day they are stepped upon by visitors, washed away by rain, eaten by ants or wind-swept. The purpose of the pattern is to be used, to be discarded as the day winds along. It is in the act of creating the pattern that the artist finds peace, never tied to the outcome.

As we leave the artist’s home, we know where we need to go next. Research in Sri Lanka takes its toll, as we hold space for people releasing untold sadness. Visiting temples is a sort of respite, a place to release our own fears for the Tamil people. We prepare ourselves for the bumpy ride to an ancient temple on the top of a mountain.

The World Will Always See Those Who Lost As The Villain

Sri Lankan history is consistently in dispute. Even with ancient inscriptions and records, the facts shift and change according to the current ruler. We have seen the world over how capitalism/colonialism relies on no absolute truths. Forced impermanence always plays a heavy role in the will to dominate others.

Cursory research on this temple tells us that a Sinhala prince lived on this site, and that the archaeological department has begun unearthing artifacts to support this claim. However, Tamil locals tell us that this is an ancient Hindu site built in the 11th century. After a deeper search on some forums and land surveys, I find details confirming its Hindu origins.

Early in the morning, we all pile into a small green rickshaw, too small to fit the entirety of the family at whose home we are lodging. And yet, fit we do. After some time, the road turns to dirt and the father carefully navigates the giant rain-filled potholes as we bump along for miles and miles. A group exclamation occurs as the mountain comes into view, looming beautiful and serene against the treeline.

As we approach, the land begins to feel tinged with magic. This is an ancient place, founded around a cave temple which soon became a worship place for the jungle god Murugan, a deity that is much beloved by Tamils across this tiny island. The God of War, but more specifically the war you wage within yourself, Murugan is prayed to when one is struggling with something formidable, that requires help to overcome it. There are reportedly inscriptions in this temple that date back 1,500 years.

The climb up is treacherous and steep, a thick metal rope our only assistance to guide the way. At first, it seems impossible, yet we persevere and make it to the top, barefoot the whole way. The view is stunning, the energy palpable. I’m moved to tears more than once, as I give my heart and my struggles to Murugan.

As we descend, the stone is violently hot and sears the bottom of my feet. I run haphazardly down the treacherous hill, and as the others lag behind, I spy some newly placed stones around the bottom of this site. Upon further investigation, the stones are markers placed by the archaeological department. Written in Sinhala language only, they read "Archaeology."

We leave this place and decide to go and look for the priest; perhaps he has more of a story to tell about these stones that seem completely out of place. Although we stop a few times along the road to inquire about the priest, no one wants to help us. Finally we obtain his phone number from an unassuming young man who clearly tells us that he does not want to talk about the holy site. The priest reluctantly agrees to meet us up the road. We wait and wait in the shadow of a fiercely hot day, and yet he does not arrive. A spritely older man on a motorbike stops, grabs the phone and tries to convince the priest to speak to us. He says, "it’s our duty to speak about this, to tell outsiders what is happening here." While he is talking, the father of our host family says the priest "seems scared." Not long after, the priest finally asserts that he will 

The man on the bike, Manu—with the whitest teeth and biggest smile you’ve ever seen—begins to talk. He says many people are afraid, but he is not because he is a Hindu and he believes in his right to worship. He says he will fight until his dying breath to see these sacred places preserved.

A small contingent of locals are fighting encroachment by the Archaeological Department. They push back mainly through the Hindu concept of

, which means non-violent protest. This small group have succeeded (for now) to stop the occupation of their ancient Hindu lands. We find out from Manu that this is just one of 38 lands around the area that are marked for redevelopment and archaeological investigation by the department. Villagers have fought against each one and managed to stall the process for years.

We find out that the Archaeological Department claims this ancient Hindu site to be of Sinhala Buddhist origins, and has been digging to find artifacts to support this claim. While local people have indeed found ancient Hindu artifacts, these are dismissed, and fresh holes are dug from where newly-made Buddhist "artifacts" are then "pulled" from the ground as though they had been there all along. Our new friend Manu asks, "Do they think we’re stupid? Money wins, justice never wins. Right thought, right action never wins." This sentiment is shared throughout the North and East of the country, where Tamil people have faced erasure for nearly 100 years.

Before he leaves, Manu tells us that he doesn’t know why he stopped his bike to talk to us, he feels he was led by the gods to stop. He says, "The world will always see those who lost as the villain." I think about all of the Tamil people I have met who have lost so much more than their reputation, who have lost entire families, their homes, and now, their sacred right to worship.

On June 2, 2020, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced the formation of a new Presidential taskforce to administer Archaeological Heritage Management in the Eastern Province. The taskforce was entirely Sinhala in its composition, despite the Eastern Province being majority Tamil. Included in this task force were several Buddhist monks, who are among Sri Lanka’s most notorious hate-mongers. After some complaints, the president appointed one Tamil and one Muslim representative to join the force. A report by independent online newspaper 

 states that the taskforce has only vague mandates and a lack of Parliamentary oversight, nor any requirements for public reporting on their activities. The Chairperson of the taskforce has even published a book which claims that "99.9 percent" of archaeological sites in the East are Buddhist, despite thousands of years of history positing the opposite.

Back at the homestead in Batticaloa, we practice 

 with the young women of the family. Sitting barefoot on the front verandah we gently draw with desiccated coconut—delicate patterns which start and end without a break in the lines. This continuous detail is thought to be for the protection of the home; if the line remains unbroken no harm can enter as evil spirits will be trapped within the pattern. I feel the days' events wander away as I draw, a gentle peace descends in the waning sun. Crows stop to watch us curiously as a line of ants slowly forms, eating away at the pattern as we draw it. 

 is formed by placing a series of dots down first, and then connecting the lines over and over to form an undulating pattern. The pattern never ends. You could potentially repeat them upwards and outwards forever. In this way, I feel centred and graceful while performing the act, as though there is some order to the universe despite the chaos of the day.

As we leave the next morning for our trip up the coast to Trincomalee, the pattern is still there but has changed form. Some lines have been broken, some have been eaten by ants and other creatures. The smear of coconut pieces feels like a loss, and I struggle to accept that our efforts have been changed in this way. The others step over the pattern with ease.

*Completed with the assistance of the Chalmers Family Fund, the Ontario Arts Council and ArtsEverywhere.

Impermanence and the Present Moment, Pt. 1

In a city as old as time, a Buddhist statue sits at the centre guarded by a chain link fence. At 2,000 years old, the ancient port city of Trincomalee has a Hindu history far preceding the Buddha statue that was placed here in 2005. It is one of the oldest known Tamil settlements in Asia.

A man is watering flowers in the garden. We ask him if we can enter through the small, locked gate. He assents, his red-rimmed eyes and apathetic smile subtly warning us against staying too long. The pristine white statue sits untouched. No flowers or traditional offerings have been placed upon it. We ask the attendant: "Why the gate? Don’t people get to freely worship here?"

He tells us that shortly after the statue was built some Tamil radical militants threw a grenade at the statue, blowing up a part of it. It had to be rebuilt, and after that the fence was added for the statue’s security. I ask him if Buddhists worship here and he eyes my Tamil adornment with suspicion before replying, “Of course.”

He tells us that during the time of the bomb attack, there were frequent protests by village locals who strongly opposed a symbol of Sinhala nationalism being placed in a primarily-Tamil area during a civil war.

When asked what happened to those protestors, he reluctantly says, "They were all killed." And when pushed for details, he eyes us suspiciously again and only offers, "They were taken out to sea and killed. The sea took them."

After a few wrong turns we travel down a lonely, dusty road to the Kali temple, which seems unusually quiet. After a brief stop to ask for directions, we find the young priest of the Kovil at home in a small hut with his family—a lively wife and three sweet-faced children, shy and docile.

Our conversation with the young priest eventually leads to rumours that the government is preparing to take over the sacred site. He says that he hasn’t heard of any plans to claim the Kovil, but the land around the temple has been claimed by the Department of Archaeology. He estimates about 10 acres. He is reticent to answer more questions, but the silences are quickly filled with shouts through the kitchen window from his wife as she cooks dinner for the family. We listen to her silhouette as she describes how another temple nearby (Semmeeswaran aalayam) has been claimed by the army, and they have stopped any Tamils from going to worship there. A Buddhist stupa has been placed there so the local army soldiers can worship. She eventually emerges from the shadows and enters the garden, serving us ginger tea, fully sweetened.

She continues to talk, while her husband looks sheepishly on. She speaks about how special that Shivan temple was, it was a beautiful place up high on a rock that many locals flocked to because of its special energy. She seems frustrated and upset that they cannot go there anymore. Her husband, in contrast, just shrugs his shoulders and says, “‘What can we do?”’

We ask if they have heard of the government appropriating other temples in the same way. The wife nods her head excitedly and points in multiple directions, naming 

that has been claimed. In one area, which we had noticed while driving in, she says there was a sacred and ancient Ganesh idol on the side of a cliff facing the ocean. The army knocked the idol into the ocean and placed a Buddhist stupa there instead.

By the end of the conversation we all sit silently, feeling thorough disdain for what we all know to be true. We pass a brand new stupa on the way out with a fresh coat of cold white paint gleaming in the sunset.

Kanniya Hot Wells: The Gods Must Be Angry

Walking towards the holy hot springs, we see a small, newly-built brick structure with a sign written in English that reads: "Sivan Kovil." We are confused because Hindu Shiva temples do not normally look like this—encased in brick, with no fanfare. Our driver tells us there used to be a Shiva temple up above where we're standing, and when we follow his hand gestures our eyes fall upon a giant gleaming white Buddha statue in its place.

The current Shiva "temple" is poorly blocked off, allowing us to swiftly evade the broken fence and launch towards the building. We are curious to take a peek inside the darkened windows when a police officer calls out to us and informs us that we’re not permitted to go any further. When pressed, he explains there is an open investigation with the Department of Archaeology and no one is allowed to observe the site until the case is resolved. We are desperate to look inside, to have our eyes fall upon what we can only assume are the dusty, damaged remains of the revered God of destruction and rebirth.

I am reminded of our conversation the day before with the priest's wife. “The Gods must be angry," she'd said. "Their retribution will come.”

The seven hot wells renowned for their healing properties are very busy, with Tamil locals and Buddhist monks sharing the space. Bucket after bucket of hot water is poured over heads and shoulders, the drops glistening in the sunlight. A flash of orange catches my attention and I see an elderly Buddhist monk watching over the scene. While it all seems friendly, there are no other Sinhala tourists there. Only the monks, who have a showy presence—likely to enforce the changing of hands of this Tamil site.

The older monk then escorts a lone British tourist around the area, explaining how this is an ancient Buddhist site of healing. She believes him, eyes wide with respect. And why shouldn’t she? A quick google search tells us this same narrative, with many websites being updated recently to accommodate the new "findings." Only locals to the area continue to pass on the origins of this site, from person to person, mouth to mouth.

Before we leave, we encounter two Tamil youth who tell us that this site once housed the grave of a revered Tamil sage, and many people used to come here to pay tribute. Soldiers from the army destroyed the grave site and covered up any signs of its existence.

The night before we are set to travel north, I dream of 

 patterns. The never-ending lines of symmetry, precision and complexity swirl together in a vast universe of stars, outwards and upwards. I awaken and begin drawing, enraptured by these line-filled drawings which can be seen not only in Hindu mythology, but throughout history in Islamic, Greek, and Pagan philosophies. What is it about patterns that help us find God? Perhaps it is to seek control in an uncontrollable world

Impermanence and the Present Moment, Pt. 2

This essay is dedicated to the memory of my brother-in-law Dean Hedani. A founding partner of the San Francisco law firm Hedani, Choy, Spalding & Salvagione, he will be lovingly remembered as the father who ensured family continuity with the passing of his partner Melainie. Dean was a big sports fan of the Warriors, Giants and 49ers, however, this enthusiasm was unmatched when compared to his passion for the 2022 Hedani family pilgrimage to Topaz, which is recounted below.

“We rode through seventeen miles of alfalfa fields and greasewood-covered desert...the Central Utah Relocation Project was stretched out before us in a cloud of dust. It was a desolate scene. Hundreds of low black barracks covered with tar paper were lined up row after row. A few telephone poles stood like sentinels, and soldiers could be seen patrolling the grounds.”

Citizen 13660, discussing the bus trip to the “Central Utah Relocation Center,” the euphemism for the Topaz Concentration Camp

Part One: Salt Lake City to Park City to Delta

The last time we visited Salt Lake City was in 1975 during our cross-country road trip relocating from the Bay Area to the Big Apple. Already young veterans of the definitive 

movement, we were radical community activists rooted in the Chinatown, Manilatown, and Japantown communities. With New York’s Chinatown in our line of sight, we were excited, nervous, and full of anticipation for a new life in an unfamiliar place.

Of course, this uprooting came with trepidation: What kind of impoverished environment would play host to a gang called the Crazy Homicides? 

 I thought that having encounters with Chinatown street youth and other “close calls” would be enough preparation. (Some of those days, some of us would be armed.)

My sister saw us off from our hilly alley flat on Bernard Street, just north of Chinatown. Janet and I got into our 1973 Datsun 610 and crossed the familiar Bay Bridge, making short requisite stops in Oakland and Sacramento to say goodbyes to our families by way of Interstate 80 and its tributaries. Janet would always be teary-eyed leaving her close-knit 

 (Japanese American) family. And then off we went, straight east. Although she and I had traveled to Phoenix to see my mother’s family after we had married, I had never traveled beyond Nevada that far north. At the time, I-80 was the northernmost West-East cross-continental highway in the United States and it would eventually lead us to New York City. I opted against traveling the more southerly transcontinental route because the South in those days was still very much 

. My gas mileage was about 20-odd miles per gallon, and memories of the 1973 gas crisis were still fresh. We were guarded, yet felt relatively comfortable. Still, as Asians, we often felt like oddities at gas stations, restaurants, and truck stops.

After crossing the Sierra Nevada (and the infamous Donner Pass), our first proper overnight stop was Salt Lake City. Arriving late in the evening from the west, looking down on the Great Salt Lake as rain danced on the windshield and lightning flashed in the distance. Burning the brakes down the mountain road, the eerie panorama of a well-placed movie scene. In those pre-GPS days one used an AAA Triptik for precise directions. Janet and I were amidst our own journey of a lifetime, just like a movie, and with dramatically placed distant lightning at that!

To make a long story short, our road trip and arrival to New York City indeed was a memorable experience replete and populated with stories of struggle and activism. Janet and I homesteaded ourselves in the Lower East Side and became New Yorkers. Our relationship with our families in the West was never broken while we expanded our own family on the East Coast.

The flight from JFK landed two hours later than scheduled at Salt Lake City International Airport due to a forced layover in Denver after all the onboard restrooms failed. Picking up the rental car at the airport, we traversed the Wasatch Back region of the Rocky Mountains, towards Park City, a ski resort community 32 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The old mining town sits at an elevation of 7,000 feet above sea level, but these days it’s most well-known for Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival. By the time we arrived, Bay Area members of the 

 side of the family had already arrived and settled into their rooms at the hotel.

This trip was a four-year effort in the making—a pilgrimage to the site of the Topaz concentration camp, euphemistically named by the U.S. government as the Central Utah Relocation Center. An endeavour spearheaded by our daughter, we were ultimately able to meet up with our extended family of 

, Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese from Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and various points in California. The gathering was a highly anticipated opportunity to commemorate my 

Part 2: A Desolate Memory on a Foundation of Dust

Four years ago, before the pandemic, bringing up a family journey to Topaz would inevitably trigger a series of conversations ricocheting between the East and West coasts. There always was a quiet persistence when the topic was broached by our adult children. Topaz concentration camp is the site where both of my wife’s 

 (first generation) grandparents and her 

 (second generation) parents were incarcerated along with over 7,500 other people of Japanese descent.

Around that time several of Janet’s younger cousins, along with comrades and veterans of the Asian American movement, had recently passed. Always in the background of any family conversation was an understanding that Asian American demographics had significantly changed since the 1970s, as well as the recent unsettling rise in violent anti-Asian sentiments. When it came time for things to manifest there was an unspoken resonance to the significance of a pilgrimage to Topaz.

Pulling it off would be an achievement of logistical tenacity weighed with profound emotional and historical gravity. Excitedly, I shared the plan with my colleagues, my doctor, and others as I prepared to retire from professional life. Of course, that was in the months before the pandemic.

It is a disturbing reality that, to this day, most Americans are unaware that after the Japanese attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. government openly violated professed constitutional protections and cruelly targeted persons of Japanese descent. This manifestation of an imperialist, geopolitical struggle between two empires—the Japanese and the American—contesting Indo-Pacific dominance, would irreparably scar the Japanese American people.

In 1942, over 125,000 Japanese Americans residing along the West Coast were interned under Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The majority were native-born U.S. citizens and their 

 parents, who were forcibly removed from their jobs and schools, then suffered the indignation of having their farms and businesses confiscated, and their community and faith institutions shut down, before being herded onto trains and disappeared into the desolate wilderness of the internment camps.

The forced displacement and incarceration were accompanied by racist, virulent demonization in the mainstream press coupled with rabid, physical attacks on persons and property. Much of the hatred was 

inflamed via William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire

, which had historically agitated the threat of “Yellow Peril” using a carefully curated assault of editorials, columns, articles, and political cartoons that “cultivated vicious hatred of the Japanese.” Racial hostilities made the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans not only possible but a crushing reality when Roosevelt authorized 

This waking nightmare left indelible impressions on future generations of documentarians, authors, artists, and social scientists who eventually emerged out of the dust of Topaz. Among the survivors were children’s author Yoshiko Uchida, artist Miné Okubo, author and illustrator of

 poet Toyo Suyemoto, and sociologist Harry Kitano, who brought living testament of the indisputable narratives from Topaz camp and contributed to the rich body of work about the incarceration through their own experiences and creative catharsis.

As the coronavirus pandemic began to wane and spike as it mutated into new variants, the various households within our family diaspora made sacrifices to ensure they would all be able to attend—the baby boomers and their spouses, as well as the 

 (fourth generation) children, their spouses, and children. Months in advance, the various families were juggling life, rearranging schedules, and confirming dates across the continent via group emails and video chats. I was anxious to make sure that our New York and Philadelphia-based branch of the family would be in good condition for this emotional journey after several bouts of COVID.

Collectively, we were cognizant that anti-Asian hate and violence agitated by and reverberated from the pinnacle of U.S. political power (Let’s call it out: Trump and his fascist minions) was running rampant from coast to coast. We were disgusted and alarmed when Michelle Go, a young Asian woman was pushed in front of an oncoming subway train and killed in New York. Her murder was but one of many news stories of verbal abuse, unprovoked attacks, and random acts of violence inflicted upon Asian people from both coasts.

Living in relatively self-contained Asian ethnic communities in San Francisco or Oakland during the 1960s left a disarming feeling once you stepped out into the world of work or school. When I attended Oakland High School in 1969, it was 20 percent Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino). But being conspicuous didn’t insulate me from being continually reminded that anti-Asian agitation had deep historical roots in white supremacist traditions. It’s not easy to shake off the experience of being a 14-year-old Chinese kid getting chased off a North Beach basketball court by a bunch of white kids hollering, “Get off the court, don’t you know who won the war!”

Even during my college days, in the heat of the Indochina war, I remember classmates who made a point of packing heat when traveling those few miles to “remote,” white East Bay enclaves like Fremont and Hayward, or even to the South Bay city of San Jose, which had its own Japantown. Can we even say: “Those were the days...?”

Fast forward to recent times: 2022 Park City, Utah.

To get to the Topaz camp from Park City, we had to travel through Delta, Utah, a backwater agricultural and industrial town in the middle of the desert and home to the top-notch Topaz Museum. The Topaz site was so named due to the pale blue, golden brown, yellow and orange variants of the gemstone found in the surrounding mountains. The desert has changed only as deserts change. Of the campsite, acres and acres of abandoned land, retaining only the skeletal remains of the prison colony, lay desiccated in the sand.

Neither Topaz nor mass incarceration is a notable feature, let alone mentioned, in any of the tourist materials. If you consulted an AAA guidebook today, Delta is not mentioned at all. And what of Topaz? It didn’t warrant any recognition in America’s most comprehensive roadside travel guide either, even though a U.S. Park Service monument stands at the foot of the entrance to the preserved site.

Yoshiko Uchida, who documented and processed her experiences through children’s books, painted a most distressing picture of the bus ride to Topaz after disembarking the train in Delta in her 1982 post-internment memoir 

Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family

...after a half hour...there was an abrupt change. All vegetation stopped. There were no trees or grass or growth of any kind, only clumps of dry skeletal greasewood…In the distance, there were mountains rising above the valley with some majesty, but they were many miles away. The bus made a turn into the heart of the sun-drenched desert and there, in the midst of nowhere, were rows and rows of squat, tar-papered barracks sitting sullenly in the white, chalky sand.

Our seven-vehicle caravan drove deep into Topaz towards Block 27-42, where my wife’s family once “resided.” Sparse patches of sagebrush poking out of the ground provided minimal texture to the desolation. We planted our feet on the gravel roadway, and then to the pebbled, crunchy ground. Just beneath the topsoil, thousands of nails, nuts, bolts, and pieces of wood lay embedded in the dirt. Isolated signage identified where the different lots were positioned around the barracks, canteens, and communal bathhouses. Canvassing the area freely, we listened intently to the solemn insights of our tour guide, Jane Beckwith, a board member of the Topaz Museum and a wonderful resource on the history of concentration camps.

My sister-in-law, Barbara, aptly described the landscape and ambiance. "No buildings remain...but a dedication monument and a map showing where buildings were located. We saw the foundations of buildings and the outlines of entryways to some of the barracks and communal bath and restroom facilities and mess halls... What we could feel…and see is how desolate the location was, the clay soil with dust storms during summer and thick, deep mud during winters.”

Yoshiko Uchida concluded the epilogue of her 

 with the value of passing on her experiences. “[A]s a writer of books for young people, I often speak at schools about my experiences... celebrating our common humanity... I tell them about the 

 who persevered in a land that denied them so much. I tell them how our own country incarcerated us—its citizens—during World War II, causing us to lose that most precious of all possessions, our freedom.”

 reminds us that the loss of liberty could have mortal consequences. Incarcerated as a 30-year-old, among the revolting experiences she documented was the killing of James Hatsuaki Wakasa, a 63-year-old chef who was shot and killed by an MP while walking his dog inside the Topaz barbed-wire fence on April 11, 1943. The 

 reported that Wakasa had been shot while trying to climb through the fence. An error that was never corrected. James Hatsuaki Wakasa's murder is remembered and observed every year in Salt Lake City and at Topaz.

Today, Asian Americans continue to straddle two cultures simultaneously. Whether we are conscious of it or not (or even several generations removed from Asia),we are communities in deep angst, continually concerned about our place in these United States.Long regarded by the dominant culture and its media as a “model minority,” the convergence of recent events—the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the January 6th capitol riots—has thrust our community into convulsive contention.

The onset of the pandemic in early 2020 marked a sharp rise in anti-Asian violence agitated by then-President Trump’s overtly racist, tasteless, xenophobic hate speech. His continued use of pejorative propaganda like “China Virus” and “Kung Flu” served not only to manufacture suspicion about the Asian American connection to COVID’s source, it inflamed long-simmering fears of China’s emergence as the primary global competitor to U.S. imperialism.

In the summer of 2020, a surge of protests swept across the nation in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. The scenes in the streets stirred an emotional and moral conflict within Asian communities over the persistence of anti-Black prejudice in Asian ethnic and immigrant communities. The conflict was all the more poignant because two of the four officers convicted of abetting the murder were 

Art + War