Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven (JVPNH) and Southern Connecticut State University Women’s and Gender Studies (SCSU-WGS) invite you to join us at the Palestine Museum US and at SCSU, on the land of the Quinnipiac people, to honor and celebrate indigenous peoples.
Jennifer Kreisberg - Tuscarora, North Carolina - is mother, singer, composer, producer, teacher, and activist, and comes from four generations of Seven Singing Sisters through the maternal line. She is known for fierce vocals, soaring range and lilting, breath-taking harmonies.
Ali El-Issa - Palestinian American - is the President of the Flying Eagle Woman Fund, named in honor of his wife, Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa. Ali works on guaranteeing the rights of indigenous peoples across the globe. He is on the Board of the Rigoberta Menchu Túm Foundation and is a principal representative of Ms. Menchu Túm to the United Nations.
Through song and word, Jennifer and Ali will celebrate indigenous peoples at the Palestine Museum US in Woodbridge (Sunday Oct 13, 12:00-1:30PM) and at SCSU (Monday Oct 14, 6:00-7:30PM, Engleman Hall A107).
Indigenous peoples - Palestinian and Native American - have endured parallel attempts to destroy their cultures. Stereotyped by European settler colonists as savage, not worthy of occupying the land they occupy, easily relocated, dislocated, eliminated. Walls built which divide their communities and lands, surveillance technology tested against one people and then applied to the other.
One need only look at the surveillance towers built by the U.S. division of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest military company, tested on the Apartheid Wall in Palestine and now used to surveil the border lands of Sonora and Arizona, home to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Elbit, which in November 2016 offered a system of wide-area persistent surveillance sensors to police monitoring Dakota Access pipeline opponents.
Through all of this pain, but with resilience, sumud (Arabic - steadfastness), and celebration, these indigenous peoples come together share their culture, their art, and their stories. Join us for this special occasion.