last night i had the honor of being invited to speak at the 50th anniversary celebration of asian american studies my alma mater, uc davis! like everything else in this moment, it was hosted over zoom, and below is a transcript:
what’s good class of 2020!? my name is adriel luis, class of 2005, and it’s my true honor and pleasure to congratulate you as you step through this next portal in life. shout out to robyn rodriguez and angel truong for organizing such a beautiful event. i see theresa montemayor who supported me in beginning my art collective ill-literacy, and wendy ho whose asian american gender studies class i took and was my introduction to intersectionality, and bobby roy who really taught me how to lead with love. and definitely shout out to dr. isao fujimoto – my junior year i received a small grant named after him to spend a summer in chicago, where i discovered my calling to dedicate my life to art – so being here and honoring uc davis asian american studies is so special to me.
i want to begin by acknowledging the patwin people as the custodians of the ecosystem known today as davis, california. the patwin have called the area home since at least 500 a.d., through 1800 when they were mostly wiped out by the smallpox pandemic, and still today as people continue to cultivate their culture and language. so as we commemorate 50 years of asian american studies, at a university that was established 115 years ago, it’s vital that we, as scholars of history and culture and community, honor the deep history and enduring soul of this area, that runs two millennia deep.
i’m so proud of the real work i’ve seen over the years among asian americans like us who move toward liberation by also aligning with the liberation of black, latinx, queer and trans communities. and i encourage you as davis alums, and as asian americans, to also tune yourself by native contexts and concerns of davis, and of all the places that each of you will call home in your lives moving forward.
i know that as we’re all showing up tonight, there’s a lot of heaviness in the country and the world, and in our own lives. so in this moment of great uncertainty, i wanted to just offer one consideration that has been a helpful guide for me throughout the past 15 years since i’ve graduated –and that is to really challenge and even dispel a myth that so many of us have carried with us through our entire lives: the myth of a stable future.
like many of you, i grew up in an immigrant household that has endured hardship, trauma, and unspeakable uncertainty. and i know that oftentimes when asked why someone would go through all of that, the response is so that you, so that i, can just live a stable life. but one thing that this particular moment has underscored is that nobody can promise stability. no industry, no job, and no country. i know that this desire from our families to find a stable job, live a stable life, is a true expression of love, which can make any kind of dream or ambition or diversion from that path toward stability seem like a rejection of that love. but once we recognize the truth of the fact stability isn’t anything you can ever promise to anyone, including ourselves, we can instead focus on what we can be rooted in.
for me, those roots have included ensuring that everything that i do is in the spirit of nourishing my community, deepening my understanding of my culture, and never compromising my creative spirit. learning and cultivating these roots have allowed for me to find consistency and groundedness, even in the absence of stability. and by each of us considering what keeps us rooted, and by resisting any false notion of stability, we might find new opportunities to take risks, to widen our experiences, to expand our communities, and to learn from our trials.
because when stability inevitably gives out from underneath us, it’s what we’ve learned in moments of openness, vulnerability, and uncertainty, that will guide us through, and ultimately, what will define who we are.