Fatmata's Song
| Accessible Plain Text Transcript
[voice] at some point you gotta decide for yourself who you gon' be can't let nobody make that decision for you even though I couldn't see past what was going on I kept going this is hard for me but my mother taught me to use my voice even when it shakes to be proud of who I am & to live unapologetically that journey is not linear & I know that words hold no volumes unless spoken with conviction my mom's from Cape Verde & my dad's from Sierra Leone Cape Verde is where I was born I grew up in Jersey City I was under DACA because you know I am all of those things at the same time I pray to paint stars on the insides of your eyelids so you'd never have another nightmare the art of gathering I hope when it comes time to say goodbye your mom has a harder time than I do we were just looking for answers to the questions you were too afraid to ask identity & gender & sexuality are not cut dry like perforated kitchen towels there is no black & white because the sky is light blue & sometimes pink & orange & gray & purple nature doesn't give a care because she knows that change & diversity are beautiful & the first caterpillar to have turned into a butterfly must have been like holy shit guys! even though I couldn't see past what was going on I kept going this is hard for me but my mother taught me to use my voice even when it shakes to be proud of who I am & to live unapologetically that journey is not linear & I know that words hold no volumes unless spoken with conviction when I wrote that poem right after that I went to my first Pride that summer I went to my first Pride with my then girlfriend and um, I thought about the poem & how much this issue like meant to me & if I'm sick I'm going to start calling in queer to school "hello, this is G, how's Fatmata doing?" "oh she's still gay, she can't stop thinking about boobs again" part of like my healing process just embracing the grittier parts of ourselves & maybe humans are the only creatures that have an issue with homosexuality because we have such shitty hearing that poem was I think like the start of me starting to feel better about like who I was you know, if it inspires one person then it's, then it's gonna be worth it even though I couldn't see past what was going on I kept going this is hard for me but my mother taught me to use my voice even when it shakes to be proud of who I am & to live unapologetically that journey is not linear & I know that words hold no volumes unless spoken with conviction when you share with people through art it generates intimacy to see the profound effect that it has on someone five, ten, fifteen years later how much love & commitment that we had to this little community that we built that focused around like art & storytelling do you necessarily have to, you know, write a certain way to be able to be considered literate? how can we learn in a world where only the young & dumb are honest? so after I did my first poem on stage & let it all out there that's when I felt like yea, I got it I think like for me healing looked like being kinder to myself that's when you get to know your students really intimately through their writing it will be the intro to the song we sing to the children even though I couldn't see past what was going on I kept going this is hard for me but my mother taught me to use my voice even when it shakes to be proud of who I am & to live unapologetically that journey is not linear & I know that words hold no volumes unless spoken with conviction I was just like, wow we did something really incredible
Keep Going: Humor, Identity, and Resistance
Fatmata is hilarious. We get a glimpse of her dry, sarcastic sense of humor in this song, but it doesn't do justice to the brilliant ways she used humor in her poetry to lighten the mood and make us laugh. Laughter is one of my favorite sounds. It's an elixir. And Fatmata made me laugh often. At the same time, she was going through a lot during her teenage years. As an undocumented child of immigrants from Cape Verde and Sierra Leone, she was under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program during high school. During our interviews, Fatmata recounted how stressful it was to worry about getting deported and having limited access to resources like financial aid for college.
Additionally, Fatmata was struggling with her mental health during high school and trying to make sense of her own sexual identity. During one of our conversations, we spoke about intersectionality and the overlapping systems of oppression that she experienced as a gay, Black, undocumented woman. She joked that if people wanted to hate her, all they had to do was "pick one" of these identities. Certainly, Fatmata uses humor to cope, process, and deal with the harsh realities she faced—although she told me she is in a completely different space today. There were very emotional moments in our conversations, times when I wasn't sure if I should continue asking her questions because I didn't want her to reexperience trauma for the sake of research. Then she would compose herself, make a joke, or turn our attention to a joyful memory, of which she had many.
When I asked Fatmata what she was most proud of about the younger version of herself, she stated, "I'm most proud of the fact that even though I couldn't see past what was going on, I kept going." While I knew about some of the challenges she faced in high school, others I was unaware of, including her dyslexia. I didn't have Fatmata in my traditional English courses during the day, so we only worked together in an extracurricular context after school through the slam poetry club. I wasn't invested in "grading" her writing or assessing it in a formal sense. She asked, "do you have to write a certain way to be considered literate?" as she reflected back on her challenges with reading and writing.
Fatmata described having trouble spelling, writing, and trying to memorize poems. She recalled that I "never pressured" her to memorize a poem to perform on stage. Fatmata insisted she could "read and speak really well." Even in progressive educational spaces, we can limit the brilliance of young people with artificial restrictions that prevent them from bringing their full selves to the classroom. If I had pressured Fatmata to memorize her poems, a common practice in some youth poetry spaces, she may have never found the courage to get on stage and share her poetry with us. Fatmata's story pushes us to reimagine what counts as literacy and who gets to be seen as literate.
Writing, Pride, and Claiming Joy
One of the most memorable poems that Fatmata performed during her time in high school was called "Princess Charming," which addressed her concern about gay marriage—which at the time was not yet legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court. She asked, "what am I supposed to do? / get on one knee and ask / will you civil union me?" We spent a great deal of time talking about the importance of this poem, which infused humor and social commentary in a way only Fatmata could. At another slam, she shared a love poem addressed to her girlfriend of the time. Today, they are legally married.
When Fatmata recalled her poem about gay marriage and sexual identity, she talked about going to her first Pride (The New York City Pride March) the summer after she wrote it. While she was at Pride, she was thinking about the poem and how much it meant to her. She told me the poem was "the start of me starting to feel better about who I was." As she shared this story with me, I thought about the power of creating learning experiences that are so deeply personal and relevant that young people are thinking about them outside of school while invested in activities that matter to them. I reflected on the significance of that poem, at that particular moment in history prior to the U.S. Supreme Court decision, and how Fatmata was writing and archiving history through her poetry. When she spoke about marrying her partner and eventually getting her green card, she was filled with a joy I could see and hear in her voice. In this project, Fatmata's poem becomes part of a living archive that contributes to a growing canon of youth-authored texts that challenge notions of authorship, literacy, and composition.
The Sounds of Healing
When Fatmata described the process of "starting to feel better about who I was," she talked about healing as a "journey [that] is not linear" or binary. We are not either (a) healed or (b) broken, but perhaps always somewhere in between, which she said is true of gender and sexuality as well. Fatmata suggested a spectrum of healing. She explained that "part of my healing process [was] just embracing the grittier parts of ourselves." When I asked about this, she explained that our study of Hip Hop and spoken word enabled her to "be proud of who I am and to live unapologetically." Fatmata told me she was healing from "what I projected onto myself and what society was projecting onto me." This is a powerful insight that demonstrates thoughtful introspection, emotional literacy, and sociopolitical consciousness.
I shared with Fatmata about my own struggles with addiction and mental illness, describing what my healing process looks like. Her process, she told me, "looked like being kinder to myself." Fatmata and I found so many points of connection and identification that reminded us of our shared humanity, dignity, and self-worth. I began to understand this research project as a form of sonic healing for me (and hopefully for my participants). WAVEFORMS is a collection of sounds that I will carry with me forever.
Memory Remixed
One of the most fascinating elements of this study has been the nature of doing sonic retrospective work and hearing our experiences from new vantage points. All of my collaborators pointed out the power of looking back and considered how those experiences shaped us. Fatmata, in particular, commented on the "profound effect it has on someone / five, ten, fifteen years later" as she thought about the impact of our work together. When I showed her a video of herself performing a poem as a teenager, she lit up with excitement and said, "I'm so proud of little me!" What happens when we reintroduce ourselves to ourselves—to a younger version of who we once were? How does sound activate our senses and transport us to other dimensions—to other worlds, both familiar and unfamiliar? These lingering questions, among others, have propelled me through time as I consider my own past, present, and future as a teacher-educator, scholar-artist, and multimodal researcher. These conversations seemed to return me to myself with a deeper resonance as we reassembled ourselves into new forms, new modes, and new futures.
