#CIDLoveLetters 2.0: "COVID-19 Grand Opening" by Lisa Ha

I believe that learning our histories, stories and presents is a form of revolutionary self-care. It is healing to recognize how colonized the bodies of knowledge and ways of knowing that are imposed are and with that, learn what should have been taught to us. To care for ourselves and our identities, is to be resilient. Resilience is honoring our personhoods, joys and struggles even whilst stuck operating within white supremacist systems that work to keep us working as “productive model minorities.”

In the pandemic, I define resilience as still proudly claiming our identities and stories even as we continue to be erased, colonized, and oppressed. Our stories and cultures are taken from us to be commercialized and sold while other parts are deemed as disgusting and strange. Our identities are cherrypicked only to shape us into the “model minority” myth that is forced upon us by systems of white supremacy. For me, art is that self-care that heals me and allows me to process generational, past, and present racial trauma. With this group of art pieces, I expressed the emotional journey I had from graduating a very diverse high school to starting college at a predominately white institution. I struggled with the lack of people who looked like me in the hallways of my dorm building, the textbooks of my classes, and the stories of who gets to be heard. Ultimately, I intended to visually translate my experiences and portray my reflections for the viewer to observe."

Website: https://halisa.github.io/portfolio/ Instagram: @artofha