Fuad, Fairouz, and Yasmine Foty Interview, October 17, 2020

INDEXED CLIP TIME: 00:00:00.00 --> 00:00:00.000 SEGMENT SYNOPSIS:Fuad, Fairouz, and Yasmine Foty sat down with the Humanities Truck for the 2020 Indigenous Peoples' Day celebration in Malcolm X Park to discuss solidarity, music, and activism. SUBJECTS: Indigenous Peoples' Day; (Washington, DC)

If you could each just like introduce yourself - so just give like your name? That would be great.

Okay - go ahead Yasmine.

Okay, my name is Yasmine Foty. I'm in six-seventh grade and I play guitar and I sing and I've been playing guitar since I was four years old and I just started playing the tabla...

Hello, my name is Fairouz Foty. I'm a member of Foty Fusion - I'm a cellist and a opera singer and also the artistic director of Quartertonez Music which is our music academy that's associated with Foty Fusion.

And my name is Fuad Foty, I am a father of both Fairouz and Yasmine and I'm the-a member of Foty Fusion which is a family band. And we've had it for years to go, of course the member, y-you know are adults and they're out of the country sometimes and and this is the remaining of Foty Fusion for now and I'm also the art-the Arabic music specialist at Oregon's Music which is a music school here in Washington, D.C.

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:30.220 So each of you can just say yes, but um do I have your permission to record this interview?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Alright, so what brought all three of you to this event today?

So we were invited by Lucy Murphy we've been involved with the activist community in D.C. since we were kids from our grandparents and my, to my parents, to us and now Yasmine is the-the fourth generation and we've always been part of-of an activist struggle that that talks about all issues across the globe and us being Palestinians and being indigenous people and knowing how it is to-to experience colonialism and oppression and occupation we especially identify with indigenous people because of everything that they went through so we are very honored to be part of this event.

So, would you mind kind of elaborating on kind of the relationship you see between Palestinian and Indigenous experience?

Sure, sure. So I think now, you know, especially with, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement and many different movements kind of coming up there seems to be a-a decompartmentalization of these movements where you know in the sixties and seventies it was a real connection between struggles and it was really - especially the Black Power Movement - it was really connected to the African liberation struggle and to you know, you know, issues of-of justice all over the world so as a Palestinian, you know, being in a land that was taken from us, you know, by a by a colonial entity - which is Israel- we identify with with-with a-a colonial force taking over what you know our own land. So which is very similar to what happened to the Native Americans - I understand Native Americans don't understand ownership of land in the same way that maybe, you know, Palestinians identified with that - because they don't believe in ownership of land - but it's a similar struggle because you know if anybody owns the land it would it would be the Native American because they were here first. So, to see like a systematic genocide of these people and then appropriation of their culture and the dehumanization of them and then subsequently taking their land and creating a whole new country on top of it - is very similar to what happened to us in Palestine. The appropriation of our culture, the taking of our land, the genocide of our people, and then creating a whole new country on top of our country and-and you know denying our existence that we were ever there, which is very similar to what-what we learned in American U. S. history textbooks here. So, we always find that very strong connection between what happened to Native Americans and what happened- what continues to happen to the Native Americans - and what has continued to happen to Palestinians. Would you guys like to elaborate?

I would like to also say in terms of the Palestinian. If you look at the, what was proposed before Israel became a state in 1948 was kind of like a 2 state solution, where the Palestinian have so much land and everything and you could look at the map - in fact, there is a map that's amazing actually - that shows how they just kept on eating, I don't know if you know the - what is it Pacman? - okay eating, eating, a little pieces here and there and so on and then Israel was only just a little sliver right there next, next, next to the sea I mean the settlements, ya know, and we know here the settlements kind of similar, you know? They just came in, and took, and kept on growing and growing and growing. And now, if you look at it, they-they actually advocating in having like "Little Gaza" even not even Gaza, the Sinai area would be Palestine. And in fact, there are some Israelis who are actually advocating for such a thing.

Very similar to Manifest Destiny. You know, like pushing out of-of the Indigenous people and it it's just, it's very important to show, to show, the commonalities in the struggle because if you really look at it there's every single issue of injustice we can, we can, come together to fight together because the majority of people are, are, being, you know, pushed out - are suffering - and if there is a mass movement that really speaks to this then it would just connect all the struggles all over the world. So, we love to support all of these different movements all over, I mean, in D.C. there is there's so many movements that we've been a part of, um, and now the Native American/Indigenous struggle is one of them.

So I know that you guys are a band so how to you feel that like music and activism can be connected?

Yasmine, do you want to talk? Okay, I would say one thing about actually our music academy. So, our-our school is called Quartertonez Music and every semester we focus on a different genre or different-different theme and actually this semester we're focusing on American protest movements through song. And so, so it's ah for it's a perfect segway for your question! So, one of the songs that we taught our students and they actually perform that for Indigenous Peoples' Day through a virtual choir through the-the People's Music Network that Lucy Murphy invited us to. Is called "We Were all Wounded at Wounded Knee", which is a song by Redbone. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's, it's, it's Redbone Wood is native rock band from the seventies and they actually created this song in five days when they were on, they were inspired to create it, especially with what was going on in the Lakota reservations - that I believe is the Pine Hurst reservations - and they created this song and they tried to-to have it, you know, here in the United States and United and they said "no we will not have the song" - so they actually went to Europe and it actually blew up in Europe and that's how it became very popular. And so, what we're trying to teach our students is that music has always been a very integral part of social justice movements and we're-we're focusing on the United States but we have always been taught by our dad and by our family that music is a way of-of touching people and, and, moving people to think about issues, in an emotional way, so that they're more open to actually thinking about the more political issues. So - Yasmine's phone.

Adding to that - I think that, you know, the whole idea of the children learning history behind the music - sometimes you can have a nice song going, everybody likes the beat or something like that. That's all good, but to actually see songs that have a message that kind of inspires them, resonates in their mind, and they would want to sing it again and again. And I think what Fairouz has done - which is really actually a very good thing is have all the kids kind of uh, you know, written er as a choir, you know, the all, you know, helping each other out and singing the same song over and over again actually can go a long way because these kids when they grow up they're going to think about that. They going to see what happened, you know, with people who were wronged, you know, in in in life. Not just the Palestinians, but the Native Americans and other people around the world and that's why I think that's a really good, powerful thing that Fairouz is doing.

And-and we're trying to really focus on underrepresented peoples. So I'm, I'm, I'm a classical musician I, I, I'm, I'm an opera singer so I'm very much you know entrenched in the Eurocentric classical and I'm not saying that, you know, I don't want our students to learn classical music and everything, but we find it very important to represent other genres that they wouldn't necessarily get exposure to and that there's a strong historical component to their education. So they're not just learning new songs in isolation, but there is there is a history that is taught to them before we have representatives from, from different groups like where we're actually very excited to have the Uptown Boys come and do a drumming workshop with them on neck - everything is virtual right now so on zoom - and we're really just trying to expose them. It's, it's not, it's just an initial exposure because it's not exhaustive by any means, but we want them to know that there's other types of music and that music it's not, you know - especially with music getting defunded so quickly in schools - that, that music is very powerful and it can be used to really, you know, promote change and that their voices matter and so by being part of these virtual choirs they see how they can their voices really do matter in the long run and how they can continue to use their voices in a, in positive ways.

That's wonderful!

Thank you.

So, last year the D.C. government officially replaced the Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day - why do you think that that change happened when it did?

You know, I don't know, I'm just very I'm very happy that it did.

I have, I have an idea. I think, I think in general, you know, we were we were almost in a-a - during the Obama era and everything - oh yeah, we got rights for this or that like maybe we gay rights and other rights and everything. Then I think of it more, more like a pendulum, you know? Sometimes it swings to the left and sometimes swings to the right. Well we are in the midst of the - it swung to the left really badly - I mean, I think, and then it's about time that people that are and also the politicians have to follow the people eventually. You know, not right away and what's happening because of the bl-Black Lives Matter and other, other issues that are progressive you know in this country and also you know even, even that climate change is a big deal and it is a progressive the idea and it is everybody's affected. So, people are changing in a very dynamic way and then they would, that would explain why ah, D.C. government would want to go along with the with what people really want, you know.

What do you think Yasmine?

Well I just - I remember constantly being told in school about Columbus Day and "celebrate Columbus" and then just recently it stopped and just, it just shows that how people don't - history isn't really the truth and when people refer to history they're referring to one person's perspective of history. And I don't think, basically, like the past is the truth but we don't really have any documented information, so we'll never know of the truth of the past. Of, yeah.

What are your thoughts on the language change?

On - I'm sorry?

What are your thoughts on the language change?

On the lang-? Oh the language. Oh-oh, I think it's a very good thing.

What is it - lang?

To change to Indigenous Peoples' -

Change the name of it to Indigenous...

Language change, okay I understand, sorry. I mean I think it's a very - well what do you say Yasmine? What do you think about changing the day from Columbus day to Indigenous Peoples' Day?

Well, I'm not really sure.

Do you like the idea?

Well yes I like the idea.

For the same reason why the Redskins should change. You know what I mean? Because if we stay with these old ideas "oh Redskins okay" or call some Black person the N word or something like that. It's not acceptable anymore. So, what will happen is that, yeah, a little bit at a time and apparently what happened is that there is a movement that made this happening for the Redskins. For the Indigenous People Day, yes, I think Virginia followed through. You know and so Virginia, D.C. follow, a Maryland might follow, and then the other one must follow and there is some kind of a tipping point where-where things will just boom everybody wants to do. And I think it has to start somewhere and it takes a courage to move from point A to point B. so that we can have that tipping point.

Yeah, I think it's a start. I don't think that by any means it's like, you know, I-I think a lot of times when-when labels change people think like, you know, "we live in a post-racial society we're good like everyone is being accepted". I think it's a really great start because a lot of people didn't even – were-were kind of surprised by the fact that it was changed Indigenous Peoples’ Day and so they started learning more about who these Indigenous people are and there's some really great resources for students like on the Howard zen project and so I think I think that it's a great start and it's a-and, but it needs to continue needs to really, we really, need to change the way the U. S. history is taught to include the people that were massacred in this country, the people that are continued to be to, to, to be massacred all over the world, so I think I'm very happy for the start, but I really don't want to stop there.

Anything else that you'd like to talk about or say?

No, we would love to share with you the "We Were all Wounded at Wounded Knee" the virtual choir, if you'd be interested in, in seeing it, and we would invite you to come to our final performance where we will I-I we've narrowed it down. It was supposed to be ten movements, but it's a little ambitious so we made it seven movements now, where we're going to have seven different virtual choirs so we would love for you to attend, over zoom, if you're interested in coming. And thank you so much for having us! 42 00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:19.520 Thank you.