USA Projects

Growing up in Chicago, the most segregated city in the American North, reality was black and white.  For us children of immigrants, life was a permanent borderland and we were invisible—ghosts before our time.  Wandering Chicago—I first began to imagine Tree City, the city within the City, invisible underbelly of steel and glass cathedrals, hidden reservoir of stories.  I wandered with it, learned from its shattered hopes and muted dreams.  It troubled my sleep.  It changed shape but kept an immutable center.  When I was on tour with I Was Born With Two Tongues it was a poem.  When I hit the road with Typical Cats it was 3 verses and a hook.  When I was on Def Poetry it was anti-war screeds in Phat Pharm hoodies.  When I was repairing ratchet wrenches at the Sears in Fremont it was quiet, lurking, waiting for an angle.  It was bowed but unbroken, sullen and balled up like a fist.  It was shattered stained glass.  It was our life stories with no one to believe them.  It was like you, and like me. 

The versions I began to write told of Korean gangster fathers shot down in backyards, brothers who died before their time, cats who sang so sweetly the streetlamps bowed in obeisance.  In 2008, when I thought no one was listening, my friend Marc Bamuthi Joseph, USA Artist Fellow, playwright, director, and educator extraordinaire, encouraged me to amplify the stories into a full-length theater work.  Since then, the stories have become a play with an extraordinary cast and crew.  All we need is extraordinary supporters—like you.  Our entire ensemble and crew are children of immigrant families.  Our stories and bloodlines are from Korea, the Philippines, Japan, the Czech Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Haiti.  We are the thousand shades of brown between black and white, epic stories of an unseen America.

Tree City Legends is a theater work chronicling the life of an immigrant family in the flux of Diaspora. It is a love story to a reality that so far, only we have seen.  But I pray that others will see and believe as well.  I’m asking for your help. The money you donate will be used for artist fees to feed for the exceptional actors, musicians, and visual artists associated with the project and to procure the equipment to document this unprecedented event.  Please be a part of this—we literally will not be able to make it without you.