“If You Don’t Know Who You Are, You Don’t Know Where You’re Going”
“First Name Known,” (2015) Monoprint and Screenprint, Varied edition
Historically, the loss of one’s name has been a common, painful experience for many immigrants upon arriving in the United States. Because Sara’s father worked in Afghanistan with Americans he was able to secure visas and green cards for his family to move here. When he went to do their paperwork in Afghanistan, the family’s name, Sharaf, somehow was not recorded. Instead, each person received the designation “Fnu,” which stands for “First name unknown.” Due to another mixup, Fnu ended up in their paperwork as the family’s last name; each family member’s Social Security card reads their first name, then Fnu. Further complicating things, the school district understood what Fnu stood for, and thus thought her last name was Sara, and that her brother’s last name was Abdullah: Fnu Sara and Fnu Abdullah in school records.
Sara says, “When we went to get our passport and when we said our last name they forgot it and then the passport was already done. This happened in Afghanistan before we moved to the US. All my family doesn’t like Fnu, just me. It’s very nice and very little. I feel good about that because I didn’t like my last name in Afghanistan. My mom feels very bad about it because she lost her married name, and my dad and brother feel really bad also; they want their last name. But because we all have green cards now we can’t change our name.”
“Three Weeks Before I Came Here,” (2015) Screenprint, with gouache and ink, Varied edition
Sara is a tenth-grader at Oakland International High School. She and her family moved to the US from Kabul, Afghanistan, in early 2014.
Sara says, “I think here in US is very good because in Afghanistan there’s the Taliban. In Kabul, they put bombs in our city and they killed people. Three weeks before I came here they killed 30 girls because they think girls should not go to school. My father was an engineer. Here he works in a gas station. No, I don’t want to go back. Maybe. I don’t know. First I wanted to be a dentist but now I want to be an artist—together.”
“Free Palestine,” (2015) Monoprint and Screenprint with gouache Varied edition
Mousa is a 10th-grader at Oakland International High School. Mousa’s family is originally from Palestine but has been living on and off in Jordan for decades. Mousa was born in Jordan and his family moved to the US in 2011, along with a half dozen other Palestinian families. He has three sisters and three brothers, ranging from ages 2 to 24. Mousa’s two older brothers also attend OIHS. His three sisters are older and are all married or about to be married. For a long time Mousa has known that when he is older he will marry his dad’s sister’s daughter, who still lives in Jordan. The girl is 12 now, but when she turns 18 Mousa and she will marry, here in the US.
Mousa says, “When I am married and have a son or daughter and when they are 20 or 25, I will go and fight in Palestine because I will need an adult in the house and I will go and fight for my country. Two or three of my friends were killed by Israel, when they used to be 14 or 15 years old. I’m not going to give up. Last year my dad’s friend called and told us my friend was shot running away from the police. Kids threw rocks at the Israeli police, so they came to the school to catch them, and the kids were running and my friend was shot.”
“Always Looking Forward,” (2015) Monoprint and Screenprint Varied edition
Mousa is a 10th-grader at Oakland International High School. Mousa’s family is originally from Palestine but has been living on and off in Jordan for decades. Mousa was born in Jordan and his family moved to the US in 2011, along with a half dozen other Palestinian families. He has three sisters and three brothers, ranging from ages 2 to 24. Mousa’s two older brothers also attend OIHS. His three sisters are older and are all married or about to be married. For a long time Mousa has known that when he is older he will marry his dad’s sister’s daughter, who still lives in Jordan. The girl is 12 now, but when she turns 18 Mousa and she will marry, here in the US.
Mousa says, “When I am married and have a son or daughter and when they are 20 or 25, I will go and fight in Palestine because I will need an adult in the house and I will go and fight for my country. Two or three of my friends were killed by Israel, when they used to be 14 or 15 years old. I’m not going to give up. Last year my dad’s friend called and told us my friend was shot running away from the police. Kids threw rocks at the Israeli police, so they came to the school to catch them, and the kids were running and my friend was shot.”
"Separated Past" (22" x 26") Monoprint and Screenprint, Varied Edition 1/2, 2014
Helen is a freshman at San Francisco State University. She graduated from Oakland International High School in 2014. Helen and her family are refugees from Eritrea. Helen was four when she and family members migrated to Sweden, where they lived in a refugee camp. Helen’s father immigrated to the US in 2001 and her brother to Sudan. Helen lived in a refugee camp in Laxå for five years. “I was lucky because Laxå was not a refugee camp like the ones in Kenya,” she says. Helen moved to Stockholm in 2006 and came to the US in 2012, where she was reunited with her father and brother.
Helen: My past was unbalanced. My dad and my brother were in different places—Oakland and Sudan. They’ve taken down the refugee camp in Sweden since I lived there. It was really old and worn out with lots of bugs. Around us were Swedes living in their pretty houses. You’d be noticed and people would stare at you. Inside the refugee camp there was a basketball court, a store, fruits and veggies, and lots of different foods and spices. There was an account at the store. They would calculate what you need each month. But how do they know? They decide.
Detail; "Separated Past" (22" x 26") Monoprint and Screenprint, Varied Edition 1/2, 2014
“Welcome,” (2014-15) Monoprint with hand drawing, Varied edition 2/2
Helen is a student at San Francisco State University. She graduated from Oakland International High School in 2014. Helen and her family are refugees from Eritrea. Helen was four when she and family members migrated to Sweden, where they lived in a refugee camp. Helen’s father immigrated to the US in 2001 and her brother to Sudan. Helen lived in a refugee camp in Laxå for five years. “I was lucky because Laxå was not a refugee camp like the ones in Kenya,” she says. Helen moved to Stockholm in 2006 and came to the US in 2012, where she was reunited with her father and brother.
Helen says, “In my future I want to run an NGO that has something to do with helping people, creating stuff, or with soccer. If you’re happy about how you feel inside then you have health. I want people to have a place where they can feel remembered. I want to create this for people to have something like a family—close to normal but not normal. More like a real family. I want it to have the warmth of a refugee camp and people will be coming by and I want people to have a place where they can make things and share it. It will be my house but it will be for everyone, with an open door.”
"I Prayed Every Night," 2014 Monoprint and Screenprint Varied edition
Mahlet graduated from Oakland International High School in 2015. She is from Ethiopia. She experienced many problems when she was young that led her to move to the US.
Mahlet says, "I believe in forgiveness and in not giving up in life. I have big troubles here too. English makes me feel invisible because I can hear but I can’t understand. I am Mahlet, a young woman who can handle happiness and sadness at the same time. I am Mahlet, who cares a lot about other people and loves to have diversity around me. I am a musician and a dancer. If you don’t know who you are, you don’t know where you’re going."
Detail; "I Prayed Every Night," 2014 Monoprint and Screenprint Varied edition
"'My Future is in Your Hands,' says M." (22" x 30") Monoprint and Screenprint, Varied Edition 1/3, 2014
Mahlet graduated from Oakland International High School in 2015. She is from Ethiopia. She experienced many problems when she was young that led her to move to the US.
Mahlet says, "I believe in forgiveness and in not giving up in life. I have big troubles here too. English makes me feel invisible because I can hear but I can’t understand. I am Mahlet, a young woman who can handle happiness and sadness at the same time. I am Mahlet, who cares a lot about other people and loves to have diversity around me. I am a musician and a dancer. If you don’t know who you are, you don’t know where you’re going."
Detail; "'My Future is in Your Hands,' says M." (22" x 30") Monoprint and Screenprint, Varied Edition 1/3, 2014
"Lay Your Back Beside the Lockers," 2014-15 Monoprint and Screenprint Varied edition, 1/3
Miguel is a 12th-grader from El Salvador at Oakland International High School. He arrived in Oakland in 2010.
Miguel says, "There is a moment when we are not emotionally okay—we take a part of the moment to think of something that can make us feel okay, but there is nothing, only the impediment of these emotions. So, we seek for something new to feel okay, something we haven’t tried before. As we try, we realized we just found something new that makes us feel okay. This is how I found poetry. Through time, I have collected my thoughts, ideas, and emotions in paper. I am not a talkative person; I prefer to speak my words through writing. While writing, I often put myself aside and think of every individual out there carrying a heavier bundle of pain and suffering. Poetry led me to feel passionate for music. I believe music has the power to unite, heal, and create. Think of a table piano, its black and white keys supported by the brown wooden table working together to create new songs that can heal both, the player and the listener. Music has that power; it unites and heals people, it helps create new things. I look around while walking the streets, and I see people sleeping under bridges and pushing overloaded shopping carts. I realized that I am lucky to be living the life I have. There is a map I want to explore in the future. In this map, there is a place reserved to help these people and people suffering everywhere worldwide. In this same map, there is another place for art, music, writing, education, and more dreams to come. My name is Miguel and I am okay."
"Letters Living in Jars," (2014-15) Monoprint and Screenprint, with gouache Varied edition, 1/3
Miguel graduated from Oakland International High School in 2015. He arrived in Oakland in 2010 from El Salvador.
Miguel says, “There is a moment when we are not emotionally okay—we take a part of the moment to think of something that can make us feel okay, but there is nothing, only the impediment of these emotions. So, we seek for something new to feel okay, something we haven’t tried before. As we try, we realized we just found something new that makes us feel okay. This is how I found poetry. Through time, I have collected my thoughts, ideas, and emotions in paper. I am not a talkative person; I prefer to speak my words through writing. While writing, I often put myself aside and think of every individual out there carrying a heavier bundle of pain and suffering. Poetry led me to feel passionate for music. I believe music has the power to unite, heal, and create. Think of a table piano, its black and white keys supported by the brown wooden table working together to create new songs that can heal both, the player and the listener. Music has that power; it unites and heals people, it helps create new things. I look around while walking the streets, and I see people sleeping under bridges and pushing overloaded shopping carts. I realized that I am lucky to be living the life I have. There is a map I want to explore in the future. In this map, there is a place reserved to help these people and people suffering everywhere worldwide. In this same map, there is another place for art, music, writing, education, and more dreams to come. My name is Miguel and I am okay.”
Artist Statement
How do teachers and students build relationships? How do I as a teacher learn, respect, and come to understand the lives of the young people in my classroom? How do I bridge my own art-making with my commitment to education? This series of portraits is a beginning look at how I might make artwork about and in collaboration with my students.
Here I have interviewed and made work about my immigrant students at Oakland International High School. In many cases the young person has given input and critique. In one case my collaborator has come to the art studio and worked on drawings to be burned onto screens. All of the young people are represented through two portraits—their PAST and their FUTURE, marking their high school years and the present moment as a transition.
I see this work as research that informs my practice as an educator. It gives me deeper insight into the lives of my students and the contexts from which they’ve emerged, which in turn allows me to better design experiences and curriculum. It also allows me to develop empathy. By meditating on the stories of these young people while making art, I develop a greater connection to the root of why I became a teacher—social justice—and it helps me to stay committed to the challenging and sometimes overwhelming profession that is teaching.
These works are a combination of monoprint stencils, screenprints, and gouache. The slow laborious process has allowed me to work large, experiment, and push myself as an artist and teacher. They are full of what a master printmaker might consider “mistakes,” but I see the off-registered prints and accidental marks as evidence of struggle and process.
Thank you to Miguel, Helen, Sara, Mousa, and Mahlet for generously letting me into their worlds and teaching me what a teacher needs to learn. Each of you is an artist in your own right—from a dancer to a photographer, you are all full of vision and have so much to offer the world.
These works were made while an artist-in-residence at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California, from July 2014 to April 2015.
Exhibit photos by Alexa Hueng.
