SlatePhoto Series
20236 Artworks

MIGRANT MANIFESTO

Assimilation is violence.

It is to make us strangers to the ancestral knowledge that has run through our veins for centuries. It is the active erasure of our pasts in order to fit someone else’s vision of the future.

It makes us strangers to ourselves— and each other.

We arrive and strive to be like them…

… only to discover that we can never be anyone else than ourselves.

My work is dedicated to those hidden in plain sight — the migrants — it is a reminder of our royalty that once was, and still is— the beauty in our color, the poetry in our narratives and the song in our accents.

If we are not honored by others, then we have the power to honor each other.

My work is dedicated to (you/us).

Alia Ali