The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Monday, February 20, 2017 — 3A

25-year project of interview-
based performances. The five 
speakers of the event shared 
diverse experiences of being 
Muslim in the United States, with 
a common thread of coming to age 
after 9/11 in New York City.

“I think the urgency of the 

xenophobia that is rampant in our 
president’s new administration 
makes it very important to 
have Muslim people speak for 
themselves across this country,” 
Chong said. “These are real 
Muslims, 
they’re 
not 
actors. 

These are people who actually 
lived their lives in that culture, in 
that faith.”

The 
75-minute 
production 

has 
been 
performed 
more 

than 50 times nationally and 
internationally. Though the show 
was accompanied with music and 
choreographed for timing, hand 
gestures, etc., the script is based 
solely on interviews of the five 
speakers.

LSA 
sophomore 
Marilyn 

Schotland 
reflected 
on 
the 

performance after watching.

“These stories are so eloquent 

in the way they intermingle and 
intertwine, and the way they tell 
it on the stage,” she said. “I think 
about how I present my identity 
to other people and it’s a very 
interesting conversation to have.”

Sara Zatz, associate director of 

Ping Chong + Company, co-wrote 
Saturday’s performance. In a 
Q&A following the performance, 
she spoke about reaching larger 
audiences and using the show as a 
call for action.

“It’s really easy to think that 

we’re in a liberal bubble in Ann 
Arbor,” Zatz said. “It’s really easy 
to think you’re a liberal bubble in 
New York City ... Right now, the 
call to action is to take the next 
step beyond being sympathetic 
and being an ally, and being 
someone who is standing up and 
fighting — whether that is making 
sure your campus is a sanctuary 
school ... People need to go beyond 
being sympathetic and to being 
advocates and activists.”

One of the performers, Maha 

Syed, is a human rights and 
gender equity advocate. She spoke 
about working in social justice 
and protesting every day in New 
York City.

“I’m seeing Black Lives Matter 

turn up for the Muslim ban,” she 
said. “I’m seeing Muslims turn 
up for the ICE raid bans. It’s 
amazing and it’s the thing we’ve 
been in lacking for so long. To 
work in social justice, you have to 
believe in the goodness of people... 
People are starting to see the 
intersections of these systems of 
oppressions. If we all got together 
and did this together, we could 
change the way this works. So 
I really hope that is the shining 
light that comes out of so much 
pain.”

Syed said the performance 

gives a small sample of what the 
human experience looks like, 
particularly 
highlighting 
the 

diversity despite belonging to the 
same faith. She spoke about the 
performance an opportunity to 
reach out to Muslims, as well as 
non-Muslims. 

“All of these things need to be 

examined inside and out,” Syed 
said. “There are issues within 
the Muslim community on racial 
diversity, on tolerance just like 
every other religious or small 
community. Everyone needs to 
hear from everyone else.”

LSA senior Josephine Tan also 

reflected after the performance.

“I really like the intersection 

of identities. When you first read 
it, you think, ‘Oh, they’re just 
Muslims.’ But when you hear 
the stories, you know they are 
African American and Muslim, 
a feminist and Muslim, all of 
these different identities, and 
it’s really interesting to hear the 
intersection of these identities.”

LSA senior Brittany Chew 

echoed Tan’s remarks on the 
boundaries of identity.

“You 
see 
how 
everyone’s 

experiences are so different and 
it’s based on all of these different 
identities you hold. It shows it’s 
not additive — your identity is so 
much more complex based on the 
intersections of it,” she said.

Jim 
Leija, 
UMS 
director 

of education and community 
engagement, 
spoke 
about 

wanting university and high-
school students to start more 
conversation after the show. He 
reflected on his own education 
and said the performance allows 
for younger generations to have 
a dialogue on Islamophobia, 
identity and other issues.

Music, Theatre & Dance senior, 

Tsukumo Niwa echoed Leija’s 
sentiments. “Being an artist, 
myself, I see how difficult to 
put yourself out there,” she said. 

Niwa also discussed wanting 
to maintain dialogue of the five 
performers to spread word on 
campus.

“We don’t have to rely on these 

five folks to keep telling their 
stories and wear themselves 
down,” she said. “We can’t always 
have this space. We, as spectators 
in this performance, learning just 
a little more about their identities 
and their stories — it’s really 
important for us to keep the story 
going.”

One of the five speakers, Amir 

Khafagy, is a Muslim of Arab and 
Puerto-Rican heritage. In the 
Q&A, he discussed how much the 
increasing salience and meaning 
of the performance to him.

“It’s very important to tell 

your own story — the more you 
continue to allow other people to 
tell your story for you, to speak on 
behalf of you, or about you, you 
lose some sort of power,” Khafagy 
said. “I think doing this show, it 
gives the general public that Islam 
is not just this one thing — it’s 
diverse.”

He also talked about inaccurate 

media portrayal of Muslims in 
the United States. During the 
performance, he spoke about the 
difficulties of assimilation.

“There comes a point when 

you get sick and tired of a seeing 
a Muslim on an airplane, and 
people thinking he’s about to 
blow it up, (rather) than just go on 
a vacation,” Khafagy said. “Every 
time you turn on the news, we’re 
the bad guy, and that gets so tiring 
and you come to hate yourself. 
Growing up as a kid, as I talked 
about in the story, I hated myself.”

Chong agreed with Khafagy’s 

ideas of Muslim identity. “There 
are Muslims who wear chador, 
the headscarf, and there are 
Muslims who don’t. There are 
Muslims who are feminists, there 
are gay Muslims — it’s just like 
anybody else,” he said. “I want 
them to see the human faith of 
people who are Muslim and to 
see that it’s much more complex 
than a cardboard idea of what a 
Muslim is.”

Chong’s use of light, projection 

and sound — both musical and 
clapping — allows for a unique 
intersection of the artistic and 
political to intersect.

“I feel it’s important as an 

artist to facilitate some sanity 
into the discourse.” Chong said. 
“Sanity — meaning stability, 
meaning not creating lies about 
people.”

CHONG
From Page 1A

it that we’re enduring right now,” 
McCoy said. “What is at stake in 
this current storm that we’re in? 
Who are you? What do you bring? 
How can you feel centered not just 
in yourself, but in what about you 
preaches outward? A stand I have as 
an activist is not just what does our 
tradition say, but does it preach?”

She also explained the truth of 

Judaism was to stand up for racial 
equity and justice, and to speak out 
against xenophobia, homophobia 
and transphobia. At the end of the 

dinner, McCoy talked about how 
her Jewish identity informed her 
activism in the form of finding truth 
and justice in the world.

“My lived experience as a Jew is 

equity and justice,” she said. “That 
means that when I think of Torah 
— which is our Jewish tradition, 
our system of law — I define Torah 
as the way we understand what it 
means to go out into the world and 
stand for what is true.”

LSA sophomore Alona Henig 

said McCoy gave her a new 
perspective on the connection 
between Judaism and activism.

“I do think about my Jewish 

identity, but not in terms of when 
I’m doing social justice work,” 

Henig said. “But that was a new 
way of seeing it, with tradition 
and culture and community, in a 
way that I haven’t seen in Hillel 
before.”

In the workshop following 

the dinner, students answered 
prompts asking what emotions 
they 
felt 
most 
and 
least 

comfortable expressing in the 
contexts of home and social 
justice by standing next to posters 
in the room labeled with what 
McCoy called “core emotions” 
such as sad, mad, joyful, powerful 
and peaceful.

HILLEL
From Page 1A

such as the Flint water crisis, 
Enbridge Line 5 pipelines and the 
Great Lakes nuclear waste dump.

Another 
common 
theme 

throughout the rally was the 
promotion of the reality of climate 
change and the statistics used 
to argue for its existence. Ann 
Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor 
explained that with an increase 
in average warmer temperatures, 
at night and during the day, there 
has been a nationwide increase 
in precipitation and shorter 
winters.

“We have more precipitation 

over the last 60 years, 45 percent 
more precipitation each and every 
year,” he said. “That is dozens 
of Michigan Stadiums filled 
with water that we have in our 
community because of climate 
change, and it’s something we 
have to address.”

According to Taylor, the city 

has been working to promote 
environmental awareness and 
protection with methods that 
include increasing solar energy 

use 
throughout 
Ann 
Arbor 

and improving transportation 
infrastructure to help reduce 
emissions. In 2012, City Council 
unanimously passed its Climate 
Action Plan with the hope 
of reducing greenhouse gas 
emissions and the long-term goal 
of seeing a 90 percent decrease by 
2050.

With the efforts of local 

governments like the one in Ann 
Arbor, speakers urged attendees 
to strive to create even more 
change. They explained the 
importance of coming together 
to rally, to organize and to 
promote issues like protecting 
the environment.

During 
his 
presentation, 

state Rep. Yousef Rabhi (D–Ann 
Arbor) asked citizens at the 
rally to look at the American 
flag waving behind them on 
the Diag and to understand its 
multifaceted 
importance 
in 

promoting all people and causes.

“That flag does not stand 

for greed, it does not stand for 
pollution, it does not stand for a 
climate that is warming,” he said. 
“That flag stands for our national 
parks. That flag stands for clean 
air and clean water. And someday 

soon, I know that that flag will 
stand for the nation that will take 
a lead in climate change fighting 
in this world.”

This sort of leadership is one 

that is encouraged at events such 
as Saturday’s rally, and one that 
often begins with the individual. 
Business senior Anna Norman 
explained how crucial it is all 
people take action to promote 
ideas they are passionate about.

“It’s definitely a time for active 

engagement,” she said. “I think 
a lot of us say that we care about 
these issues, but unless you leave 
your house on a Saturday and 
participate, you’re not really 
doing your part.”

Following 
the 
rally, 

participants were invited to 
participate in advocacy activities 
in the Dana Natural Resources 
Building. 
Participants 
were 

given prompts to make phone 
calls 
and 
write 
letters 
to 

legislators, and in another room 
a large chalkboard with the “5 
Pillars of Waste Reduction” was 
available for attendees to write 
statements about what they will 
do to improve on the pillars of 
refuse, reduce, reuse, repair and 
recycle.

CLIMATE
From Page 1A

hard-working people from all 
over the world that come here to 
educate themselves … please don’t 
be discouraged by what I hope is a 
hiccup in American history. Please 
realize that we’re committed to 
you as members of our community, 
and we’ll do all the things we know 
how to do … to support you and 
your education.”

As a citizen of one of the 

seven banned countries herself, 
event organizer Mina Jafari, a 
Rackham student, expressed 
her own confusion about how 
the ban inspired her to bring 
information to her peers.

“I’m from one of those 

seven 
countries, 
and 
this 

whole situation, especially the 
weekend after the executive 
order, raised lots of questions 
and concerns among people 
affected and even people who 
are 
not 
directly 
affected,” 

Jafari 
said. 
“It’s 
not 
just 

international 
students 

from those seven countries; 
the 
entire 
international 

community is very worried 
about what’s going to happen 
next.”

Panelists aimed to satisfy 

this need for knowledge by 
speaking about the legal and 
administrative aspects of the 
executive order. Each stressed 
the complexity of the issue and 
encouraged students to reach 
out to any of their offices for 
individualized assistance in 

navigating the ban.

Cynthia 
Wilbanks, 

University 
vice 
president 

for 
government 
relations, 

spoke about the University’s 
collaboration 
with 
other 

organizations and officials like 
the Association of American 
Universities 
since 
the 

introduction of the ban. 

“These 
activities, 
one 
on 

their own is not sufficient, but 
collectively, in ways that we try to 
join the other interested and very 
seriously impacted organizations 
helps us to amplify the messages 
we want to be sure are heard,” she 
said, explaining the collaboration 
aimed to advocate for students’ 
rights under the order.

BAN
From Page 1A

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

space for them to speak, the media is 
just perpetuating stereotypes.”

Saturday’s production is a part of 

a series, “Undesirable Elements,” a 
25-year project of interview-based 
performances. The five speakers of 
the event shared diverse experiences 
of being Muslim in the United States, 
with a common thread of coming to 
age after 9/11 in New York City.

“I think the urgency of the 

xenophobia that is rampant in our 

president’s 
new 
administration 

makes it very important to have 
Muslim people speak for themselves 
across this country,” Chong said. 
“These are real Muslims, they’re 
not actors. These are people who 
actually lived their lives in that 
culture, in that faith.”

The 75-minute production has 

been performed more than 50 
times nationally and internationally. 
Though the show was accompanied 
with music and choreographed for 
timing, hand gestures, etc., the script 
is based solely on interviews of the 
five speakers.

LSA 
sophomore 
Marilyn 

Schotland 
reflected 
on 
the 

performance after watching.

“These stories are so eloquent 

in the way they intermingle and 
intertwine, and the way they tell it 
on the stage,” she said. “I think about 
how I present my identity to other 
people and it’s a very interesting 
conversation to have.”

Sara Zatz, associate director of 

Ping Chong + Company, co-wrote 
Saturday’s performance. In a Q&A 
following the performance, she spoke 
about reaching larger audiences and 
using the show as a call for action.

PROTEST
From Page 1A

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

