This thing happened to my family. And really we don't talk about it much. There are a lot of people who say we shouldn't talk about it. (Sometimes i have been one of them.) That it was long ago, or that there's so much more pressing and now to talk about. All while, we have pictures in our pockets of people who did the thing to my family. All while, we watch as the effects of the thing, like any abuse, rage and ripple through generations. The kid talking hatred to themselves on the subway, the laws passed in the name of a culture that wasn't ever ours. All while, the people who do such things, study the manuals written about how to do these things, and do it again and again. Recently, I was asked to talk about the thing. With some other artists. To hold it, in communion and conflict, with Rhiannon and Michael and Kaneza. To disagree and agree with how and when and how much and and...to talk about the thing that happened to us, in the languages we know. Music, voice, lyrics, theater... For my part, design- what the conversation looks like- yards and yards of fabric, each designed to hold voices across generations- wood- rope the materials of labor. Handwriting from a hundred years ago, defining, retelling- talking to now.With the able hands of Amy, Micheline, April. I still don't know how to talk about this thing that happened to my family. Or that i need to in any kind of public way again soon. But I hope people do, talk past the obvious things, talk about how it remembers itself, the peculiar institution, in our hands and hearts...and talk about it this way, in community with others, who we agree with and disagree with and more than anything- as big as an opera- and that we talk about it like a family.