Living Gallery: Jana Lynn (JL) Caldetta Umipig

“Altar: The Raising of a Colonized Child” is a multi-media play that pays homage to the relearning of spiritual practice by women, who were born in the US and have ancestral backgrounds that make them indigenous to another land territory. The play uplifts stories of people who have upheld spiritual practices crucial to survival in the face of oppression and the cultural erasure of migrant peoples and tells these truths through the raising of a child by her grandmother. This excerpt speaks to the relation of the young womxn to her grandmother through the body and the notion that our ancestors live in every part of our physical selves. The body in this case is an Altar that carries remnants, fragments of ancestral being and that are honored here, by honoring the memories of exchange between the young womxn and her grandmother.