Majele - Venomous

I wake in the depth of night. When I close my eyes, I feel something is blocking my view. I can‘t breathe deep or stand up from my bed. It feels like something is holding me down. I try to turn my head right or left, but it is impossible. I try to scream. I can’t find my voice. I think maybe I am dead, but I still feel that I am breathing. The dead don’t breathe.

I start to pray as millions of questions pump up my mind. I ask myself, have I done well in this world? What should I have done better? All the while my bed and pillow turning to a swimming pool of sweat.

 Then suddenly a breeze blows and everything changes. I become myself again. I wake up. Am in a 6’ x 9’ rectangle with a metal rods and a door padlocked. I look at my right someone is standing in another 6’ x 9’, so also on my left. This pattern continues ahead of and behind me. What has happened to me? Have I become an animal in a cage? What day is it? What month, what year? I ask, but the only response I get is tears.

 Then a voice suddenly says, “You are going back to where you come from. You are being deported.”

 I ask again, “Where are my wife, my kids? Can I say bye to them?” No more answers. All I continue hearing is the song of tears from the men, women and children around me in other 6’ x 9’.

 You are in a place where there is no way out, nowhere to go. It is your day to have the worse day of your life. When it hurts too much to move, I am here to be the first one to help. I am here to stand between you and chaos. I am the first responder. What you see as you look into the mirror is your guardian angel.

 It is a blessing to have another chance to see the sun again, another opportunity to right the wrong.

 This exhibition looks deep into the immigration issues that plague our society. It has become a big bone that has stuck in our throat, difficult to chew or swallow. It is a nightmarish, poisonous trauma that has stained our history forever.

Where do we go from here? What will those children that they took from their parents think of us in decades to come?

This exhibition is not to criticize anybody, but to create dialogue to find ways to correct our wrongs; to see how we can come to a better existence with our neighbors. How can we heal the wounds, drain the venom, and live together in mutual respect and dignity? Please work a mile in my shoe.