Belonging Belonging Collective

“How would things have been different if we’d been able to talk about all this sooner?”
-Maya Wanner
During a discussion with Erica, Maya Wanner, a documentary film graduate student at Northwestern University, emphasized the significance of having conversations about complicated topics sooner rather than later. Maya played an audio documentary that she produced, which detailed a field trip she took with her grammar school classmates to learn about the underground railroad through a simulation. Following the documentary, Erica and educator Ayesha Al-Shabazz talked about practical methods for teaching "hard history."

Is It Freedom? is a song featured in Episode 06: Where Do We Go. The song is the result of a unique collaboration between Jorie, Erica’s niece, and Larii, a young Chicago-based artist.

Erica‘s quest to advocate for her niece, Jorie, hits a wall when Jorie’s teacher doesn’t respond to an offer to learn about the history of Juneteenth and visit nearby Eatonville, the first all-Black municipality that Erica‘s family established. To support Jorie’s critical consciousness, Erica guides her in writing a letter expressing her feelings of exclusion in school, and knowledge about her people’s history. But due to the anti- “critical race theory” legislation in Florida and across the country, Jorie‘s mother does not want Jorie to deliver the letter. Through a unique collaboration with a young music artist in Chicago, Jorie‘s letter becomes a song and a shared call to action.

What happens when students’ identities are not reflected in the curriculum? Erica connects with an Asian American mother concerned with the lack of representation of Asians in the curriculum. The mother questions her own child’s teacher in Brooklyn, and students from a tiny school in Colorado who brought the local history of Chinese exclusion to light, and want to learn more about Mexican-American local history. These stories examine how culturally affirming curricula that offers students “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” reduces racism and bias.

Erica pauses programming and encourages us all to think deeply about Independence Day and what it means to be free.

Erica reconnects with her third grade teacher, and tells her that her classroom was the first place she felt she belonged in school. The idea of a “homeplace” is further explored with an educator in Queens who established a Black affinity group at her school, and with three students who are part of that group.