“Embedded in our collective mother tongues is the wisdom of our ancestors. We know that their dreams for us are what we carry in our voices today.
“With that, our voices belong—in the discourse of justice and collective liberation. Whether said in the hundreds of languages we speak here in Queens, created in our art, or through acts of community service—these different ways we express ourselves belong.”
Speech Delivered on Sunday, April 11 at Bowne Playground, Flushing, Queens
My name is Jaclyn Reyes. I am an artist and designer who works at the intersection of community education and social justice. And I am a proud Filipina.
We, the organizers, activists, and artists, of Little Manila in Woodside, Queens have been building the visibility of our community for decades. This past year has made our work more urgent.
We saw Filipino healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic, and dying at a higher rate than any ethnic group. Meanwhile, at home in the Philippines, the drain of our healthcare workers has led to disproportionate access to quality care for those most vulnerable in our community. Today, we are seeing this in many of our home countries, where vaccine rollout is only for people in some countries, instead of all countries. Though we come from different places, we are community.
In the Filipino community, we have also seen our kababayans brutally attacked. People like Noel Quintana and Vilma Kari, who have lived here for decades.
We know these attacks have affected all of us in the AAPI community, across the country. We have been harassed and attacked. We have been told we don’t belong.
We know this is not true and this is why we created the community banner-making project to say “We Belong.” We invited our friends who speak different languages to translate this message of belonging. Even when the words may not translate easily, we find poetry in the gaps. For our Mandarin translation, we received the message: “cross a river in the same boat.”
Embedded in our collective mother tongues is the wisdom of our ancestors. We know that their dreams for us are what we carry in our voices today.
With that, our voices belong—in the discourse of justice and collective liberation. Whether said in the hundreds of languages we speak here in Queens, created in our art, or through acts of community service—these different ways we express ourselves belong.
Our ancestors’ and communities’ experiences and contributions belong in our shared understanding of history.
And lastly, our hopes and dreams belong in the imagining of a better society.