On Wednesday, activist and performance artist Ignacio Rivera performed at the event “All of Me” in the Student Center Auditorium at Eastern Michigan University. Topics included racism, sexism, homosexual/transgender issues, sexual liberation and more.
Born female from the city of Brooklyn, NY, Ignacio Rivera is a Black Boricua, who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” a kind of “gray area” with gender, identifying as gender-queer.
“I don’t see myself quite as a woman or quite as a man, and sometimes both,” Rivera said.
“They” did poetry and skits, a compilation of work done by Rivera now and throughout the years.
Rivera’s first poetry reading derived from the speaker’s personal experience with sexual abuse and incest. Rivera described it as being “a part of me. It’s a part of who I am today, and how I see sex, love, and relationships,” they said.
Raw, expressive and emotional, this piece was full of rhythm and sound, while expressing the pain and confusion one feels from this type of abuse.
“I liked putting all this stuff together because throughout the years, things have shifted; in terms of, for me, my identity, gender, sexual orientation, who I am as a person,” Rivera said. “And I wanted to combine all these things to show kind of this progression of the things I’m talking about.”
The second piece was derived from a show Rivera has been working on called “Violence in Motion.” It relates to growing up in New York and all the violence that takes place there, particularly around the train stations where, according to Rivera, the most violent things happen.
It is a multi-media performance piece that focuses on an individual’s reaction, as well as the public’s inaction to specific forms of interpersonal violence on or around the New York City transit.
Rivera said, “I thought about different stories throughout my life, and it’s interesting because the stories that I chose are five different times in my life where I’ve identified as a different person, in terms of sexual orientation and gender.”
The piece was both nostalgic, making the audience laugh at times, but mostly it addressed a very violent and very real incident in Rivera’s teenage life.
The third reading describes an incident on a bus, where Rivera witnesses and makes the tough decision to intervene in a violent situation, after no one else reacts as if nothing happened. In the skit, Rivera shouts “No! Leave him alone!” at the violent man as he returns to hit another older man on the bus.
“I yelled at him from my gut like they told me to do when I was a woman.” Rivera said in the reading. “Why did he listen to me? He could have punched me all the same. Why did he listen? I looked at him and I think I realized maybe today I was seen as a woman.”
The struggle of racial identity and acceptance for the speaker was presented in Rivera’s fourth piece: whether to speak Spanish or English, discovery and education of the self, and America’s “discontent.” As with the majority of Rivera’s performances, the reading was rich with culture and musical rhythm.
Another poem Rivera performed was inspired by the TV-movie called “Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson: An American Love Story.”
Rivera laughed and said: “Here we go again giving history how it wasn’t. How it’s portrayed, it’s a lie. So to portray that as a love story, it pissed me off and this is what came out of that anger.”
This poem addresses oppression, white male dominance and sexual abuse inflicted upon black women during slavery. It expresses how the American media had called this incident love when it was really rape of a child by a man.
“People get mad at that one,” Rivera said as the audience applauded after hearing the emotionally charged, raw performance.
The night continued with other political poetry dealing with issues of discrimination, such as police brutality against minorities: black and brown people, homosexuals and trans-women.
Rivera lightened the evening with a poem about her daughter entitled “Hands.”
“I always have to bring my daughter into the mix, she’s my best friend,” Rivera said.
In this poem, the speaker tells of the tender mother-daughter relationship they’ve had from infancy into adulthood—the growth and letting go, but always being there for your child. Rivera describes their relationship as very open.
“Having my daughter in my life really shaped the person that I am today, and we’re really super close. I love her to death,” they said.
Ignacio Rivera is currently in the process of writing several books and has created a ten-minute film called “They” where Rivera interviews their parents and the struggle with Rivera’s mother, in understanding her child’s orientation.
“I don’t think she truly understands what that means. My mother is one of those people, basically like ‘I love you if you’re happy, you don’t even have to explain it to me,’” Rivera said.
Amie Gene Jackson, 25, is a recent graduate from Eastern Michigan who studied Theatre Arts and Communications. She identifies as heterosexual, and expressed what she took away from this event.
“I thought the event was very informative. The speaker was great, a unique person I learned from with a very distinctive life. Ignacio is very blunt and I think both men and women alike can learn a lot from this speaker,” Jackson said.
“My favorite piece was probably the one where she defended the man on the bus. I think that was very heroic in an everyday situation, because most people wouldn’t get involved out of fear or apathy—that gives me a lot of respect for Ignacio,” she said.
Jackson went on to say that “Ignacio’s life story helps me better understand why she is the way she is. I think her experience has made her strong, courageous and inspirational.”
Christine Cook, 42, is an EMU student, currently majoring in Criminal Justice who like Ignacio Rivera, identifies as gender-queer.
“It was incredibly powerful,” Cook said. “I identify a lot with where she speaks in terms of gender-queer. That just really hit home.”
With suicide rates currently rising among homosexual men and women, Cook went on to express her feelings about the discrimination these individuals are facing today.
“It makes me really sad and it’s really hurtful,” she said.
Cook concluded by saying, “Teach love. Teach love and acceptance. There are so many differences in people in terms of gender, identity, race, class, whatever. There are so many things that we hate each other for—teach love. Teach love and acceptance.”
