Jefferson, Janel

Janel Jefferson
Austin, TX

Untitled
Brick, Mixed Medium

Acrylic paint, Pastel pencil, Dried flowers, raffia.

Every history class I took, as a child, covered Ellis Island. Then from the teacher that infamous question; “Where is your family from?” Students named with pride the countries from where their people immigrated. When it came to my turn, all I could say was, “I have no idea.”

The year I entered high school the television series Roots came out and for a week it captured the attention of America. It caused me to have an epiphany. With simple math, I considered, the age of my Grandmother’s parents and the year the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. My Great grandmother was 9 years old. Her parents came to the United States through “forced immigration.” My ancestors where brought over on slave ships.

The reality was heartbreaking. We have no glorified stories of seeing the great lady with a torch, for the first time, welcoming them to the land of the free crying tears of joy as they imagined the possibilities of their future.

The tears shed by my ancestors where of pain. The “passage” was heartrending. As their shackled hands and feet touched the “land of the free” they had no idea where they were but knew they would never return home and they had little hope of being freed.

This nation was built and made financially solvent on the trade of enslaved people. They served as collateral for loans and mortgages. They tore farms, houses, churches, cities and roads out of untouched wild land for their owner’s comfort and pleasure. They planted and harvested crops to feed this nation.

Even though families were torn apart and sold like cattle, Black women bred to produce more free labor suffering the shame of bearing Mulatto children sired
by their masters and black men made to feel hopeless and helpless in protecting their women and children, we survived. We built a nation.

That is the blood that runs through my veins. It is what makes me strong. It is what made my father strong so that when he served his country and came back to Jim Crow, he kept on striving towards success. When he is thanked “for his service,” I smile, because I know what he went through to protect this country and our freedom.

Immigrant families come to the United States by many ways. Some by
Slave ship; some by ocean liners, some through an illegal border crossing, some through visas, long expired. It doesn’t matter. We, the people make America
Great and the words written on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…” bind us together as one.