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Storytellers and attendees gathered Tuesday to share their stories as part of the first National Day of Racial Healing.
In the A.E. Building at Civic Space park, seven speakers presented their stories of conflict and healing. Each discussed personal experiences of social, economic and racial divide in America.
“Once you hear someone’s story, once you take in and let yourself be changed by that, it transforms you. I’m hoping people will commit to reconnecting, to interrogating their own biases, their own stories, to be open to hearing the stories of the perceived other and to reach across to someone new,” Lloyd Asato, executive director of the Asian Pacific Community in Action, said.
The W.K. Kellogg’s Foundation initiated a program called Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation to engage communities in conversation about the issue of racial hierarchy. After its launch in December, roughly 500 participants pledged their support to the TRHT enterprise and called for a day dedicated to healing a divided nation. This led to the creation of the first National Day of Racial Healing.
Phoenix hosted one of the 130 events held across the country, according to Asato. He hopes this first day of reconciliation will begin a yearlong effort to bring people together in equality.
“I was born during the civil rights movement. The battles that were fought those 50 some-odd years ago shaped my experience, and this is my opportunity to… learn from the veterans of that movement and in the little, the small ways that I can, play my role in healing this country,” Asato said.
For two hours, seven speakers told their stories of dealing with inequality in Arizona. Fernanda Santos, Phoenix Bureau Chief for the New York Times, told the audience about the time a man told her to speak English; she spoke in Spanish to one of her children’s babysitters over the phone.
Kathy Nakagawa, a professor at the School of Social Transformation at ASU spoke about a subtle side of racism. Kristin Payastewa, an activist for indigenous awareness and Native American justices, spoke of overcoming the alcoholism of her mother and of herself.
Two ASU students also spoke at the event. Guadalupe “Gabi” Bueras, an ASU freshman and first-generation American, talked about both the acceptance and the difficulties she faced when she came out as bisexual to her family. Bueras’s mother was the most resistant.
“Racism is still out there, you know, there are still a lot of people who are homophobic… if we don’t talk, if we don’t speak upon it then it’s just going to continue to happen,” Bueras said. “And we’re fighting something that’s been going on forever now, and you know what, our generation’s going to change it.”
Fellow ASU student and first-generation American, Katherine Valdez recounted her fear and concern when her father, undocumented, was in jail.
“That night we were eating dinner, and I make a joke about the food… he laughed a little bit about it but then he started crying…,” Valdez said. “He explained later to me that he was really happy that I would never have to go through what he did.”
Audience members gathered listening solemnly to the speakers stories.
Asian American Community in Action prevention outreach specialist, Clottee Hammons shared how, as a girl of color, a woman demanded to know why she was near a church – one that Hammons attended – and twisted her arm behind her back.
“We have to grow to heal,” Sue Ellen Allen, founder of the non-profit Reinventing Reentry, said. “We have to open our hearts to heal. We have to care to heal… if we don’t, we will not bring about the change we want in America, and I believe in all of us.”
The first National Day of Racial Healing ended with storytellers writing messages of encouragement on whiteboards with the hashtag, #TheDayToHeal, on the bottom, with phrases like “We are the future! We are the change” or “there is power in me, there is power in we.”
“I think that events like this are a way for people to learn about other people… It was intimate, and I cried, and that’s always a good thing… if people are evoking that kind of emotion,” Stacey Champion, who helped organize the event, said. “That will be a catalyst of change: to let people feel empathy on a more regular basis and connect with people.”
Contact the reporter at Katelyn.Finegan@asu.edu.
