We Won’t Back Down:

7 Days of Conversations

with Communities Targeted

by the Travel Ban

Held as White House lawyers pressed the U.S. Supreme Court to approve the second Muslim Travel Ban, We Won’t Back Down presented a week of public talks with an array of thought leaders who were directly impacted by the policy. Together they examined the historical, political, cultural context of the ban, as well as what it meant for America going forward. Presented at seven cultural spaces in seven neighborhoods over seven consecutive days.

2017 November Pop Culture Collaborative, Judson Memorial Church, Museum of the Moving Image, Performance Project at University Settlement, Greenlight Bookstore, Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn Historical Society, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, and Unbound Philanthropy, NY

Curator and Executive Producer Brian Tate
Production Jenny Tibbels
Production Trevor Exter
Audio Recording Adrian Taverner
Social Media Holly Ajala
Photography Ed Marshall

“Brian Tate will definitely fill the seats with people intent on learning and acting in the name of social justice. If you're interested in where the arts are headed, this is where you should be.”

Danny Simmons, Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation

About the Art

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

The U.S. Supreme Court has now approved implementation of the travel ban, and the evolving policy is the subject of fierce litigation and debate. But what are the consequences for those Americans who are among its targets? What does it mean to be American when your ethnic identity has been branded with terrorism?

These seven forums will explore what the travel ban, and the narratives at its core, mean for Iranian Americans, Iraqi Americans, Libyan Americans, Somali Americans, Sudanese Americans, Syrian Americans, and Yemeni Americans. Each forum will relate the perspectives of a given community through conversation with its people - from fields of law, medicine, academia, the arts, and more - to help put the question in personal and historical perspective, while also mapping a path forward.

Brian Tate 2017