What does it mean to write poetry when you can be criminalized, incarcerated and deported at any moment? This is the reality for many undocumented, refugee, asylee, and migrant creators. This art talk centers Alan Pelaez Lopez’s relationship to poetry as a refugee in which to process state-violence, but also a place of contestation because if the artist says too much, their family and friends can also become targets of the state. Ethical cultural production will be at the heart of this art talk as a way to de-center productivity, a measure that is by default anti-black and anti-migrant.

Co-sponsored by Office for Undocumented Student Support, DREAM Action NIU, Center for Black Studies, Gender and Sexuality Resource Center and Center for Latino and Latin American Studies.