Événement

What to the Refugee is the 4th of July: Long Table Conversation/Installation

"What to the Refugee is the 4th of July: A Long Table Conversation and Installation" will be held on Friday, August 16, from 6:30-9:30 pm at Gallery Seventy Four. It is an event of At the Crossroads: Activating the Intersection of Art and Justice - presented by 21st Century Arts in collaboration with Refugees Helping Refugees Rochester. Registration is $5.

This isnt American is a statement often heard said by politicians or pundits when referring to asylum seekers held in cages in US border towns or for-profit detention centers, which dont provide immigrants basic human needs. Or when refugee children as young as infancy are forcibly separated from their parents. These actions and conditions might not live up to what we profess to be characteristic of American values, but the current crisis is not an anomaly. Rather its another phase of American injustice in a continuum that spans centuries in which our values are mutable and allow for the dehumanization of the other. Most often, the other being non-white or ethnically distinct from the dominant American culture (religion, language, etc.).

One of the most relevant interrogations of hypocrisies in American society, doctrine, and the constitution came from Frederick Douglass in a speech he delivered to the citys Anti-Slavery Society on July 5, 1852 at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. At the What to the Refugee is the 4th of July event on August 16, Rochester-based actor David Shakes will recite Douglasss "What to the Slave is the 4th of July" speech. This powerful oration will provoke a contemporary conversation at the Long Table - centering the voices, experiences, and perspectives of area immigrants and refugees on this centurys old condition.

About the venue:
Gallery Seventy Four is located at 215 Tremont Street, Door 3/Floor 3, Rochester, New York 14608. It is a community arts space with free parking, a wheelchair ramp, and elevator.