Who am I?
I come from a long line of
wanderers, people uprooted and left searching for an identity -- 17th
century Huguenots and 18th century indentured servants, westbound
pioneers and Choctaw Indians. I am all and none of these things: an American
amalgam of conflicting cultures set in restless motion 350 years ago. In 2006,
I resolved to set out in search of the lost histories that clarify not only who
I am, but who we are as Americans. I traveled cross-country for eight months
Looking for Lost America, a research
project of the
Roadside Show & Tell,
a trip that laid the foundation for
Beautiful
Possibility, my current traveling project. This solo journey takes the nomadic
experience of itinerant explorers and traders and the traveling culture of
Medicine and Wild West Shows as inspiration for engaging others about what it
means to be American.
“Before we find a cure, we must know what ails us.”
My
work posits that the root of our ailments as Americans can be found in the
identities we left behind. Beautiful Possibility imagines an America unashamed
to look at our past and the cultural devastation of a Eurocentric Manifest
Destiny, and to imagine the multi-cultural potential that lies within us for
creating a more perfect union within ourselves, as a nation and for the world.
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