A reading from Magdaragat

Come meet me and 16 other contributors to @magdaragat_anthology next Wednesday at Ben McNally Books, 6pm! You can register at the link in my bio- and get your books signed!

I’ve always preferred communicating in text- so this reading feels both very vulnerable and very empowering to me. I have a lot of mixed feelings around sharing this!

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Video description: A video of Kaia Arrow reciting an excerpt from her piece in Magdaragat in a dark room, reflected in a round mirror. Kaia is a Filipina with long dark hair, a dark top, and a pink & gold malong worn as a skirt. She has silver finger braces that flash in the light.

Text:
I am privileged
That my survival
Depends on Asking Questions
Instead of Swallowing them down.

This is our intergenerational wealth.
Passed down by parents who survived on a steady diet of silence.
My body is an act of defiance
That I’m an un/willing accomplice to

Sometimes I revel in how uncomfortable it makes other people.
Sometimes I have to, to keep going.

They “play along” with our personhood until it’s too much work, too tiring, too challenging. They “tolerate” and “allow,” these so-called allies of anti-racism and anti-colonialism. They tell me (token Brown woman, token crip, token queer) about their token learnings, as if they’re gifts I should be grateful to receive. As if unlearning white normativity, capitalism, and colonization isn’t work to free us all.

I dream of celebrating in tandem with our ancestors once again, to sing their songs and write new ones.

Kaia excerpted in MindaNews review of Magdaragat

Image description: A quote from Karl M. Gaspar’s review of Magdaragat, in bold “Kaia M. Arrow brings back the lamentation of a people who have lost so much owing to colonization in her piece – Dreams of Pinoy Joy: Decolonial Rage and Disabled Resistance in the Diaspora:” and in regular text, ““I grieve what has been taken from us. I don’t know what holidays my ancestors celebrated before Spanish galleons broke the horizon in 1521. I don’t know what songs they sang, the rituals they had, or the lives they lived. These stories are systematically destroyed by the Spanish colonists, American imperialists and Japanese occupiers. I don’t imagine some pre-colonial utopia. There is precious little left to imagine at all.”” The cover of Magdaragat and header for Karl’s column, “A Sojourner’s View” top the image, while the logo for The Willow’s Work is stamped at the bottom.

How incredible to have my piece excerpted by socio-anthropologist and author Karl M. Gaspar! Check out his review of @magdaragat_anthology in MindaNews, a part of the Mindanao Institute of Journalism.

Don’t forget to register for Magdaragat’s Toronto launch event at Ben McNally Books, next week Wednesday March 10th at 6pm. Link in bio!

(And my piece is still on display at @TextileMuseumOfCanada until April 28th!)

PilipinxPages: @TheWillowsWork in Magadaragat

Image description: A quote from Kaia Arrow’s piece in Magadaragat created by @PilipinxPages, “They “play along” with our personhood until it’s too much work, too tiring, too challenging. They “tolerate” and “allow”, these so-called allies of anti-racism and anti-colonialism.” In bold, “They tell me (token Brown woman, token crip, token queer) about their token learnings, as if they’re gifts I should be grateful to receive.” In regular text, “…The destruction continues every time whiteness is positioned as normal, as unquestionable, as standard’ when whiteness receives the benefit of the doubt, while the rest of us are subject to scrutiny.”

Thank you to @PilipinxPages for these beautiful words on my piece in Magdaragat! Our Toronto book launch is NEXT WEEK! Come join us at Ben McNally Books at 6:30pm on Wednesday, March 20th and get your copy signed by 17 contributors including yours truly. Register at the link in my bio!

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I’ve been dealing with so much white fragility this year, that this whole piece by Kaia spoke what’s been inside my heart and what has been impossible to explain to people who don’t have a clue what their blindness feels like.

The last lines of this piece had me floored. I wanted to post those words too but then again, you need to read it in full.

In all its imperfections, I’ve been still reading @magdaragat_anthology . This piece comes from the anthology if you’d like to read it in full!

Kaia & Crip Art Collective exhibit at the Textile Museum of Canada, in Secret Codes

@textilemuseumofcanada opened “Secret Codes” by @banns1992 on Saturday, featuring miniature tactile interpretations of quilts on display by members of @cripartcollective .

It was a joy and an honour to witness the beautiful community David Woods has nurtured through fostering Black arts in Nova Scotia. These quilts tell incredible stories, through time and textile.

I loved creating a miniature version of @3rdstoryworkshop Amelda’s Prayer, based on David Woods’ sketch. In Amelda Soars, what bursts beyond the confines of the quilt binding is up to your interpretation. Whether in dreams or in waking, Amelda’s Prayer soars larger than life, in miniature.

Thank you to @armando_museos and @raveneleuthera for this amazing opportunity.

Video description: A slideshow of the opening of Secret Codes at the Textile Museum of Canada, showing Crip Art Collective, Kaia Arrow, a series of quilts, and Amelda’s Prayer interpreted in miniature quilt as Amelda Soars. This quilt shows a dark skinned woman, hands folded in prayer, surrounded by bursts of colour and light all rendered in fabric.