9:00 a.m. — Anticipation. 

While it’s drizzling outside and twenty degrees colder than we out-of-staters expected it to be, summit organizers gather in Pigott Hall at Seattle University to discuss last-minute issues before registrees arrive. Maya Santos and Jojo Gaon, a soon-to-be married couple from isangmahal, and Anida and Marlon Esguerra of Two Tongues dictate changes as we scribble down notes. The hall fills with an assortment of faces and backgrounds hailing from all corners of the East—Taiwan, India, and Vietnam, just to name a few, as well as a nonasians. Journalists weave their way through the crowd to record the expectations of attendees. When asked about they want from the summit, most people respond that they simply want to connect.

 

3:00 p.m. — Northwest Asian American Theater (NWAAT), Chinatown.

Attendees rally with the “Collective Jaywalk” on 4th Street in downtown Seattle, where earlier this year, police officers detained and harassed a group of APIA students for jaywalking. Afterwards at NWAAT, isangmahal and Two Tongues embark on an hour-long, back-to-back performance. From backstage, nervous poets watch Jojo, overcome by emotion, welcoming the attendees: “We are psyched to … show our brothers and sisters what kind of unity is out there.” As the performance unfolds, there’s no doubt what kind of unity is out there — as poets perform pieces ranging in topic from their grandmother’s cooking to growing up in America, the energy spills from stage to audience, who react with enthusiastic cheers. The ambiance is set for the rest of the summit — this will be a weekend of sharing and of affirmation.

 

7:30 p.m. — Mythic proportions.

After the performance, attendees begin their first project: to create an APIA myth and present a group piece tomorrow morning. My group consists of a mix of high school students and college teachers, who embark on the difficult task of creating art with virtual strangers. Our group debates on whether basing our myth on the concept of “Snow Whitey” is a good idea. Johneric, a Filipino American organizer from Echo Park, Los Angeles, finds the idea humorous. Michelle, a member of the Philadelphia-based spoken word duo “Yellow Rage,” argues that she doesn’t want to use tales of Western origin for this project. “I want to be able to pass something meaningful down to my children,” she says, and after some debate we redirect our efforts into a writing session on how we would tell our grandchildren about our lives. After agreeing on using the unifying line, “So I want you to listen,” our group disbands without any concrete idea on what we will perform tomorrow morning. We decide to leave it to fate.

 

Sunday, July 29

9:45 a.m. — Sparking creation.

As we often joke, almost everyone at the summit is on “People of Color Time,” so I’m not surprised when only one other person is awake when I arrive to rehearse our group piece. Every group presents an incredibly polished piece for only having had a few hours to prepare. One group dissects the myth of Columbus. One tells the story of how Asians came to have black hair. Even our group’s piece takes on a surprising cohesiveness of its own. My part reads:

“Listen to me when I tell you this story / You were not always a color as bright as this / Once upon a time we lived as transparent as ghosts… / Then one day we heard singing, from workmen’s chants to morning prayers, hip hop songs to karaoke / Dance dance revolutionaries stomped their boots to flatten ghosts that had been haunting us / So I want you to listen when I tell you this / Before these words become tomorrow’s myth.”

It’s incredible to see what’s sparked between these people by a few simple writing exercises.

 

7:30 p.m. — The masses push back.

Afterwards, summit attendees finally get a chance to showcase their talents at NWAAT. Emerging spoken word groups Feedback Poets (NYC), Yellow Rage (Philadelphia), 8th Wonder (San Francisco) and Mongrel (Minneapolis/St. Paul) deliver intense performances that have the audience jumping from their seats. One after another, poets deliver pieces with themes running the gamut from sexual violence and racism to love and family stories. Expression takes on all forms: from rage to tenderness, from modern dance to a Rahzel-esque beatboxing routine. Even though almost a hundred people are cramped into the stiflingly hot theater, people pay attention as if they can’t bear to miss a word. Audience members laugh, cry, and hold each other as if for dear life. Murmurs of agreement, calls of “tell it, girl!” ring out from the seats. Even when the theater closes and we’re forced to move the performance outside onto the street where traffic is noisy and the night is bitingly cold, all eyes and ears are focused intently on the performers. Two police cars pull up and watch on the suspicious street gathering of poets from afar. After the last poet, the entire group — these seventy-odd strangers who have all just shared something incredibly personal — comes together en masse. It’s oddly reminiscent of a religious revival retreat, with an unlikely combination of individuals — optimistic activists, jaded skeptics, tough b-boys, preened high school girls. We sway under the energy of each other, quietly chanting what has become the isangmahal and Two Tongues’ anthem: “Ikalat muna—pass it around.” We have passed our stories around, we have passed our energy and art around, and it is nothing less than beautiful. As a line from the “mosh-pit” poem of one performer, Robert Karimi, says: “We push the masses, and the masses push back.”

 

Monday, July 30

10:30 a.m. — Revitalization.

The residual feeling of having shared something significant last night pervades the Pigott Hall as attendees shuffle in and greet each other with morning hugs. To complete the ethnographx project, attendees write significant events in their lives onto a giant cardboard timeline. Historical events such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, immigration dates, birth and death dates are posted alongside each other. One post reads, “My grandfather survives the Bataan Death March.” Another reads, “First time I popped Two Tongues’ CD into my stereo.” Some attendees lead workshops with such titles as “Isolation, Relocation, Displacement, and Invisibility” and “Imperialism 101 + Resistance 199.” As the summit comes to a close, what seems to be revitalized hope for the APIA community and its artists — combined with major sleep deprivation — manifests itself in the tired but eager expressions on attendees’ faces.

6:00 p.m. — Because we love.

In the sky flying somewhere over Idaho or Montana, overlooking webs of tiny city lights, I find a Polaroid photograph, clipped in my journal. It’s an aerial view of Anida, Marlon, Dennis, and me (Two Tongues) putting our heads together in a moment of thanks after Sunday night’s performance. There’s no doubt why we continue to perform, to struggle, and why this weekend was so necessary to our existence as APIA artists. Jojo captured it all in the welcoming performance: “F*ck suffering. Love is love, and love is love, and love is love.” This is why we do this.

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For more information about this year’s APIA summit, visit www.2tongues.com/summit2001.