Category: Arts and Culture

“Unapologetically Radical”

The New Haven Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and Music Haven presented the virtual event “Unapologetically Radical” on Feb. 20 to promote anti-racism through arts and culture.

From the press release: “Unapologetically Radical is a one-day virtual event created to address, amplify, and activate anti-racism in arts and culture. This is a safe space for truth-telling and ground-breaking conversations around dismantling systems of racial injustice and applying immediate and direct change.

“….two unique tracks will explore themes around hip-hop & culture as a tool for activism and social change, preservation of black and brown culture, truth and reconciliation and busting the myths around what allyship looks like, just to name a few. This day is designed for Black, indigenous and people of color, community activists, community artists, and arts and cultural organizations doing anti-racism work.”

At this time, we do not know if any of the virtual event will be available on YouTube or Facebook. The website is https://unapologeticallyradical.splashthat.com. For more information, e-mail info@unapologeticallyradical.com to find out about availability of viewing this event “after the fact.”

Trouble in the Connecticut Suburbs: Revolutionary Road

by Andy Piascik, activist, author

Connecticut’s Fairfield County has cities that, even in their bustling heydays, were places rife with poverty and despair. It is also historically a place where the well-to-do and richest of the rich live. Both have been the subject of much literature, and Richard Yates’s 1961 Revolutionary Road is one of the best novels about the latter.

Set in 1955, the novel is the story of Frank and April Wheeler. Frank commutes from Fairfield County to Manhattan where he is employed at Knox Business Machines. Though well paid, Frank feels diminished by his job and regularly makes fun of it.

Similarly, Frank and April mock their neighbors. They see something hollow at the core of the suburban dream, and it becomes important they believe they are better than their surroundings. Out of their unhappiness comes April’s idea that they move to Paris.

Their neighbors and Frank’s colleagues resent the fact that the Wheelers make clear what they all seem to know: their well-constructed lives in the Connecticut suburbs have not produced happiness. Frank is never as enthusiastic about Paris, however, and the plan soon unravels. Heated arguments and recriminations ensue followed, ultimately, by tragedy.

No Escape From Unhappiness

As is true today, the Fairfield County suburbs are depicted as the ultimate badge of success. Problems are supposed to be absent or at least easily solve-able. While it’s likely no one ever believed that, the toll unhappiness takes is greater because of the promise.

Yates also dissects the emptiness of life in the United States at what is often viewed as its apex. Fairfield County represented all that the country aspired to be in the 1950s, yet the people in Revolutionary Road find it is seriously lacking.

Because not so much has changed, Revolutionary Road is still powerful and relevant. Parts of Fairfield County are wealthier than ever, yet unhappiness, perhaps especially among the young, is an ongoing problem. While those problems are not on the scale of those in Connecticut’s poorest cities, they remain a blight on the American Dream.

What distinguishes Revolutionary Road from contemporary Fairfield County novels with similar themes like Sloan Wilson’s The Man in The Gray Flannel Suit and Laura Hobson’s Gentleman’s Agreement is that it ends in tragedy and defeat. It is perhaps for that reason that neither the novel nor the film adaptation that starred Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, no less, were well-received.

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Bridgeport native Andy Piascik is a long-time activist and award-winning author whose most recent book is the novel In Motion.  He can be reached at andypiascik@aol.com.

A version of this article was published at connecticuthistory.org

The Bridge & Tunnel Crowd Newsletter: Monthly Shmata of the Metropolitan Area’s Huddled Masses

by Win Vitkowsky, Publisher, B&TC

The Bridge & Tunnel Crowd Newsletter is seeking to publish (or re-publish) oral histories for “Seditious Aliens: Histories of Class Struggle in the Tri-State.”

Areas of interest include (but are not limited to) anecdotes and stories about:

  • Actions around public transit
  • Public housing and tenant organizing
  • The Workers Circle [aka Workmen’s Circle] on Legion Avenue (or any ethnic and social circles)
  • Town-Gown conflict
  • Interesting sub-cultural happenings from the past
  • Instances of multicultural or cross-ethnic cooperation and collaboration

Any and all pitches are welcomed. Photos, recorded stories, written memoirs, or brief memories all welcomed.

Previously in The Crowd’s “Seditious Aliens” Series:

#1 Anarchistic Italians, Hanged: an interview with Jean P. Moore, the great-niece of two Italian immigrant anarchists from New Britain, CT who were hanged right before the first Red Raids of 1919. [vol.1 no 6]

#2 A timeline of class warfare in the USA 1900-1919, illustrated by Jersey City’s DISTORT with  Jean P. Moore’s research for a family memoir. [vol. 1 no. 7]

#3 The Labor Spy Racket: snapshots of union busting tactics from 1937. [vol.1, no. 9]

#4  The Dynamite Express or how I learned to stop working and love the bomb: poet Dave Morse’s hot relative halted a train full of scabs to break a miner strike.  [vol. 2 no. 2]

Help the Progressive Community. Become an Active Part of the PAR Newsletter Team!

To Our Readers:

The Progressive Action Roundtable is looking for someone who knows how to write clearly and has a good command of spelling and grammar. This person must also be interested in talking to local organizers about their groups and plans, and writing a couple of short articles (of approximately 300 words) for the monthly PAR newsletter. A small stipend will be available.

In addition, we would like more of our readers to become involved in working on the newsletter. We want to expand our Planning Committee and Production Team. Enhancement of our Facebook presence is also needed. Would you like to gather articles about local activities? Can you help with graphics? Are you a good proofreader?

If you’re interested in helping the PAR newsletter provide news about New Haven-area activism, please send an e-mail to parnewhaven@hotmail.org and let us know what you’re able to do to keep PAR promoting the work of the many wonderful progressive organizations in the New Haven area.

Thank you!

Call Goes Out to Families of Victims as Homicide Memorial Opening Nears

by Rabhya Mehrotra, New Haven Independent, Nov 11, 2020

Marlene Miller-Pratt (at podium in photo) is asking New Haveners for help in finding the families of victims of fatal gun violence.

Rabhya Mehrotra photo

Standing in the shadow of West Rock on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Miller-Pratt spoke at a press conference with Mayor Justin Elicker, announcing the near completion of the New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing she created and led to construction.

“Our goal is to get out the word to moms,” she said.

Along with a core group of fellow mothers of homicide victims, Miller-Pratt led the creation of the garden in West Hills. The garden honors homicide victims and provides a peaceful place for their loved ones to remember them…

Now construction is almost done: Urban Resources Initiative (URI) director Colleen Murphy-Dunning estimates that it will hopefully end before the start of 2021, although COVID may cause further delays.
Before the garden opens to the public, Miller-Pratt wants to extend an invitation for families affected by gun violence to come for a private viewing. They’ll be scheduled in advance for COVID safety, and last for 30 minutes. She’s especially focused on finding the families of victims whose names are on the Magnitude Walkway, which has a brick for each homicide victim from 1976-2000.

Over the last two weeks, Miller-Pratt has been going around the city with a poster, filled with the names of the victims. She has focused on Newhallville, while Celeste Robinson-Fulcher [whose daughter Ericka was killed in a nightclub shooting], and Pamela Jaynez (another member of the core group) have been going around Fair Haven.

When she stopped at corners, “I was ignored sometimes,” she said. But people spoke up “after they saw what that poster represented and saw how many names were on them.” One person, she said, turned straight around. He came back with four parents whose children were on that list. Another person saw the list and then lifted his arm to show his tattoo, which had his murdered cousin’s name. Yet others looked at the list and saw old friends.

Miller-Pratt gave out her phone number: (910) 975-2054. Any and every person who would like to schedule an early visit can contact her.

[Read the whole article at https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/visit_homicide_memorial_soon]

People’s World Amistad Awards on Saturday, Dec. 12

by Joelle Fishman, Connecticut People’s World

This year’s People’s World Amistad Awards will take place on Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020 at 4 p.m. as a virtual concert program, with printed greeting book mailed out to participants. The theme is United for the World We Want: Celebrating Resilience, Solidarity and Vision.

This year’s awardees are:

  • Barbara Vereen, staff director Unite Here Local 34 and Unite Here Black Leadership Group;
  • Rob Baril, president SEIU District 1199 New England;
  • Jan Hochadel, president AFT Connecticut; and
  • Councilwoman Wildaliz Bermudez, Working Families Party, Hartford.

We pay tribute in the fight for the rights of essential workers and all workers irregardless of immigration status during the COVID pandemic, the rise of the movement for Black lives, and the fight of our lives in the 2020 elections.

For information about logging on to the virtual concert or tickets, please email ct-pww@pobox.com or call (203) 624-4254.

Day Of The Dead Honors Murdered Women

by Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent, Nov 2, 2020

Dressed in floral crowns, face paint, and brightly patterned woven shawls, two dozen immigrant rights activists marched through the streets of Fair Haven to remember Lizzbeth Alemán-Popoca and other local missing and murdered women. (Thomas Breen, NHI)

That parade-turned-protest took place Monday night in celebration of the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.

The event was organized by the Semilla Collective, and saw marchers bundled up in the late fall cold walk from Quinnipiac River Park on Front Street to Chapel Street, Ferry Street, Grand Avenue, and Blatchley Avenue, before winding their way in the dark back over to the parade’s riverfront starting spot.
The parade’s participants walked in the middle of the street—often taking up both lanes of traffic—behind a flat-bed pickup truck decorated with a sunflower-strewn altar to Alemán-Popoca.

A 27-year-old Mexican immigrant, young mother, and East Haven resident, Alemán-Popoca was found dead in mid-July by a dumpster outside of a Branford restaurant. A medical examiner subsequently determined that she died as a result of “‘homicidal asphyxia.”

Yaneth Alemán, 24, who lives in New Haven and who immigrated to the United States with her older sister Lizzbeth over a decade ago, said that she turned out to Monday’s parade to keep the public’s eye focused on Alemán-Popoca’s still-unsolved murder.

“After four months, she still hasn’t received justice,” Alemán said. “To have someone so close .. it’s not easy to deal with.”

She said that the Day of the Dead is traditionally a time to remember, mourn, and celebrate the lives of those who have recently passed away. Though only three years her junior, Alemán said that she looked up to her older sister as if she was her mother.

“She took care of me,” she said.

Ben Haldeman, who joined Alemán in carrying a cloth banner decorated with sunflowers and a picture of Alemán-Popoca, said he showed up to Monday’s parade because “people do not treat violence against women with the gravity it deserves, particularly when those affected are not white.”
Semilla Collective organizer Vanesa Suarez, who led the march, said that that theme—of taking seriously the lives and deaths of women who have been disappeared, murdered, and then forgotten—was the driving force behind the Day of the Dead event.

“We’re going to honor our sisters because while the rest of the world is very quick to forget them and erase them, we will not.”

[Read the whole article at https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/semilla_day_of_the_dead/]

Indigenous Day Shifts from Columbus

by Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent, Oct 12, 2020

Richard Cowes lifted a wooden bear claw filled with smoldering white sage up to one side of Gary Tinney’s face and, whispering a prayer for peace, wafted the fragrant plume of smoke with a hawk feather.

Cowes and Tinney were celebrating Indigenous People’s Day along with 50 people late Monday afternoon on the New Haven Green.

Both Cowes and Tinney live in West Haven. Both are members of the Golden Hill Paugussetts. And both braved the blustery cold not just to celebrate Native American history and culture with a community of peers, but also to reflect on an extraordinary year of symbolic shifts.

In New Haven as elsewhere around the country this year, many of those changes have centered around a reappraisal of the legacy of the 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus, with an eye towards the role he played in a white, European settler-led genocide of Native people.

Those local changes have included the Board of Education’s vote to rename Christopher Columbus Academy on Grand Avenue; the tumultuous removal of the Christopher Columbus statue from Wooster Square; the ed board’s renaming of Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day; the Board of Alders’ renaming of the second Monday of October as Italian Heritage Day; and the alders’ formal recognition of racism as a public health crisis.

“This struggle has been a long one,” said Norm Clement, a member of the local Quinnipiac tribe. “It’s been 528 years since colonization in this country.

“But we’re starting to win back who we are. We’re starting to be recognized. Some of the mascots are disappearing. The statues are disappearing. That is all part of the decolonization of this nation. We have to continue to celebrate who we are and what we represent and to do that in a good way.”

Read the full article here: www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/indigenous_peoples_day1.

State Launches $9 Million Arts Relief Fund

by Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent, Oct. 19, 2020

Arts nonprofits that have been pummeled by the COVID-19 pandemic have a new $9 million state relief fund to turn to for support in helping pay staff, cover student scholarships, and generally stay afloat during the ongoing economic downturn.

State Director of Arts, Preservation and Museums Liz Shapiro announced the imminent launch of the new financial aid effort Monday morning during a press conference held on the front steps of Neighborhood Music School on Audubon Street.

Flanked by Gov. Ned Lamont, Mayor Justin Elicker, and a host of state legislators and New Haven arts leaders, Shapiro said the COVID Relief Fund for the Arts will provide a baseline grant of $5,000 each for eligible recipients.

The fund will also provide a matching grant worth up to $750,000 each, as calculated at 50 percent of total private donations raised by an eligible organization between the start of the pandemic in early March and Nov. 1.

“Is this going to fix all things for all people?” asked Shapiro. “I don’t think we’re in a situation where we can fix all things for all nonprofits, all arts agencies, or all businesses. Is this going to help? Yes. Absolutely.”

The fund—which is made up of federal CARES Act money allocated by the state and which will be open to applications starting Friday and ending Nov. 3—is reserved for three specific types of arts nonprofit organizations: performing arts centers, performing groups, and schools of the arts.

Eligible organizations must show a documented loss of earned income of at least 20 percent year-to-date as of Sept. 30 in comparison to the same period last year. They have been established by Oct. 1, 2019. And they must have at least one full-time paid staff member, either salaried or contractual.

The complete article can be read online at https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/state_arts_grant.

The Library Is Dedicated to the New Haven Community

by Sharon Lovett-Graff, New Haven Free Public Library

Although the New Haven Free Public Library is closed during the pandemic, here are some ways we are serving the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. The library has long served as a “second responder,” stepping up for the community during times of need. It has operated as a warming center when freezing weather struck and as a cooling center during heat waves. From weather events to school closings, the library has provided shelter, computer access, and social services as well as arts entertainment and cultural activities for adults and children in these times of need.

Librarians as “Maker Movement” leaders have quickly responded to the COVID-19 crisis. Our Tinker Lab staff have been putting the library’s 3-D printers and sewing machines to use manufacturing masks for the Yale New Haven Health Centers and the Public Works Departments of the City of New Haven, as well as for staff and volunteers serving meals to the homeless at the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen and St Thomas Moore Chapel. Although closed to staff and public, the library had some of our 3-D printers and sewing machines moved temporarily to the homes of staff in order to print shields and masks. The library is donating its labor and the materials to this effort, including making sure makers and what they are making comply with specifications for the production of shields and masks.

Although library branches are currently closed, library staff are working hard to be a resource and continue to support the needs of the community. Staff have regular contact with patrons via phone and email, making sure that everyone is stocked up with things to read, watch, listen to, learn, and do. Below is a quick “top ten list” of all the services the library is providing at this time, just to give you a sample.

Top 10 Ways to Use NHFPL from Home

• Social distancing? Your electronic library card is your key to a world of online learning and entertainment for free! Questions? Need an e-library card? Call us and leave a message at (203) 946-8130 or email refdesk@nhfpl.org. For Young Minds and Family Learning call (203) 946-8129 or email youngminds@nhfpl.org.

• Get absorbed in a great story. We’re all in need of some escapist fiction these days! Ebooks, audio books, and graphic novels for adults, children and teens are all available on OverDrive, RBdigital, Freading, Hoopla, TumbleBooks, and TeenBookCloud.

• Enjoy a family-friendly movie night. Tons of films are available for free download with your library card using Kanopy and Hoopla. All you need is the popcorn!

• Start a daily art practice with Creativebug. Learn to sketch, draft a pattern for a new dress, embroider, knit, scrapbook, and so much more.

• Seek help with job hunting. JobNow provides many valuable resources including job coaching, resume preparation and live interview practice.

• New Haven time travel by perusing historic images of our city in the Local History digital collections.

• Research an alternate career path or gain new skills. Take a free course on Lynda.com and learn to be an Excel expert, digital marketer, bookkeeper, graphic designer, screenwriter or comic illustrator. The offerings are endless!

• Exercise! Hoopla contains workout videos, including yoga and aerobics, and dance lessons. Learn to fox trot, salsa or rumba!

• Meet (virtually) with a local entrepreneur! Our Entrepreneur-in-Residence Sammi Williams and Collab partners are offering one-on-one virtual appointments to support your small business or non-profit start-up.

• Need more family fun activities? Plenty of virtual engagement to explore with Young Minds and Family Learning! View Story Times with stories, songs and fingerplays, take a tour of the San Diego Zoo or Boston Children’s Museum, and get reading recommendations and homework help for all ages!

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