Routes on Routes on Routes

Josefina Báez

ROUTES ON ROUTES ON ROUTES1

Signs: Yield-Give Away-Roundabout-uneven roads. Roads. Choice of U-turns. Many ways. (Senegal, San Cristobal & NYC) A gratitude note.

Pedacito de mi alma,

La historia te escribió para que camines sola. Y en el camino nutras a muchos más. I never wrote this letter. Instead, I planted in your lerí, tu cabeza, bopp, your altar, your head, your crown, brown kernels. I planted a seed of life for life. Yours. Many. I planted a seed of life, even knowing that your journey thru life redefines life itself. Life as we knew it changed in the midst of the ever. What could I give you to take to uncertainty but life itself ? What could I give you to take from Africa to the new land? If new? If land? I never wrote this letter. Instead, I sent rice to a land that will be yours. If land? If yours? Share our rice and our know-how. And we will be there with you. Always. In the sharing. Always. We will be there in every grain planted. In every pregnant rice tree. In every harvest celebrated. In every song sang in the field.

I never wrote this letter. This letter is a fact. Already sealed in its forever.

1 Poem written and performed as part of the Art of Rice. Produced by Center of International Performance CIP 2003.

Before and after. A poetic act. Yes. Rice first came to America from Africa in the braids of my child Amina. Yes.

See you always in nurturing dear. See you always, pedacito de mi alma.

Love, siempre.

Madre

Madre-nieta -muchas veces- finds herself/themselves & Amina, again and again.

Meeting again at the First Blacks archive manuscripts, related resources and eye opening and heart confirming conversations for more routes.

Meeting the tribe. Builders of the new colony. Recognizing Me/We in every transcript. Meeting first hand in primary documents. Again.

Migratory patterns acknowledged. Recognized. Lived. Living. El Ni E’ is envisioned. El Ni E’ is crafted. El Ni e’, a genuine state of mind that witnesses existence, from the glorious sovereignty of the self as unit and its community, moving, living; not shying away from life harsh and unjust passages but grasping the Is regardless; resilience its middle name, holding the global mirror and gaze in its current waves. El Ni E’, the migratory dynamic found even in some souls migrating from day to day, apparently without passport, visa, ticket or any known desire to migrate. Madre knew. Madre nurtured. Madre is the is where always dances.

Me/We. The First Blacks in the Americas. Blacks from the first blacks in the Americas. Both guided by blacks before the first blacks in the Americas.

Attaya afternoons or any sweet tea substitute available at the same abode located at Calle Gregorio Luperón, San Cristobal, DR, 156th Street off Broadway, NYC and/or/by Rue Ndiaga Gaye, N’dar, Senegal.

I am listening and co-creating mainly with the women at the First Blacks in the Americas archive. Let me here present you an exquisite segment of the route. A Maria Cota le dieron ‘lo papele’. 59

Manuscript 038. http://firstblacks.org/en/manuscripts/fb-primary-038-manuscript/2

Then, ‘Lo paise’, los Dominicanyorks, ‘lo papele’, aquí y allá, ‘me largo coño’, ‘le llevo unas chancleticas a mi ahijada y unos pantalones blancos a…’, El Ni E’, even Juanita, proved themselves to have a rooted history and moving feudal lord.

I am too, back and forth the First Blacks, the blacks before first blacks in the Americas and the blacks from the first blacks, Americas and beyond. Possibilities, dreams and facts forged during, -before and after too, the known routes taken, are being embroidered to grant various stories and formats to be shared to the public at large soon. Here, feet wet at shore, I started to share my routes notes.

Gracias a Ramona, Sarah, Jhensen, Lissette, Anthony and Greysi at the Dominican Studies Institute (DSI). The DSI Fellowship Program is making the routes possible. Thanks3 .

Jërejëf, Amina, family and friends.

2 Visit: http://firstblacks.org/en/ 3 La autora se refiere a Ramona Hernández, Sarah Aponte, Jhensen Ortiz, Anthony Stevens, Lissette Corniel y Greysi Peralta.

Josefina Báez (República Dominicana/USA). ArteSana, cuentacuentos, performera, escritora, directora de teatro, devota. Entre sus textos más destacados se cuentan Dominicanish (2000), Comrade Bliss Ain’t playing (2008) y Yolayorkdominicanyork (2010), que han seguido creciendo como diálogos interdisciplinarios en los proyectos Levente Visual, Comrade, Bliss/Comrade Bliss y DominicanishING. Báez es la Fundadora y directora de Latinarte/Ay Ombe Theatre (abril 1986) y es alquimista del proceso para vida creativa Autología del Performance (práctica basada en la autobiografía y bienestar desde la consistencia del hacedor/a; en vida, enfermedad y proceso de muerte).