2018, 7 minutes (2-minute excerpt) Full version of video available upon request.

Brazil became the last country in the world to abolish slavery in 1888. Between the late 19th and mid 20th centuries, the government enacted the initiative of embranquecimento  (whitening) as a means to melhorar a raça (improve the race). The immigration wave from Europe that ensued served to racially reconstruct a predominantly black nation.

2017

Some of the most violent gestures enacted on the body begin with language. 

Sometimes it is taught at home, and sometimes it is taught in the hallways of your school. Sometimes it happens down the street on your walk home. You learn to be complicit. You learn to smile and say thank you between two tongues. Because a rejection in either language weighs just as much. 

The process for this performance started with the object of the pink cue cards. I tried to find a way in which they could be used interactively. I remade them on a bigger scale, wrote a script, found a dress at a thrift store, and created a character that channeled my 2nd grade English teacher in Brazil. She made us repeat the same phrases in English, even though I was already fluent.  

My 9th grade English teacher in America would force us to say “thank you” when we were called on to speak. If you forgot to thank her, she would  silence you and call on someone else. It became a privilege to  express my voice and ideas. I slowly stopped speaking out of fear. 

2017, Experimental Animation 

**Please contact to request a private link to the film**

Lighter than a Brown Paper Bag, but darker than a diner napkin, only slightly warmer than a standard flesh-tone Crayola crayon. My mother says the winter has turned me yellow. But not before she insists that I too am white (and far too American).

Narrated in Portuguese with English subtitles.