Echoes (2 channels)

On July 4, 1917, President Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech titled “One Hundred Percent American” to over 3,000 people at Station Square in Forest Hills, Queens. Footage from the event is available at the Library of Congress and a copy of Roosevelt’s speech is also available at the Theodore Roosevelt Center website. Today, Forest Hills is a neighborhood populated by thousands of immigrants, much like the rest of New York City.

As he had done before, Roosevelt spoke against the notion of “hyphenated Americanism” and defended a strict ideal of Americanism and loyalty. While he condemned discrimination against naturalized citizens, Roosevelt said that day that “we must have in this country but one flag, the American flag, and for the speech of the people but one language, the English language.

With that history in mind I created “Echoes,” a two-channel video installation featuring testimonials from several first-generation queer immigrants juxtaposed with conversations with historians challenging prevailing notions of nationalism, belonging and citizenship. The video also tackles the meaning of the Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt, which used to sit in front of the The American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

As historian Erin L. Thompson says in the film, monuments “are billboards for the rewards of radical assimilation. They are stocked solely with white men born in America […] reminding you constantly that this is who you should inspire to be if you ever want to get anywhere in America.”