WEBVTT

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(suspenseful music)

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- The name came to me very naturally.

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I was in Oaxaca and I had a dream

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that kind of shook me up.

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I remember seeing a lot of butterflies

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and lightning bolts together in the storm.

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And that morning I got
up, I was at a red light,

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and there were two abuelitas,

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and they were talking about

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how this healer would often
come and heal the town.

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Her name was Mariposa Relámpago.

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That's when I said, "Oh, wow.

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I just had a dream about
butterflies and lightning bolts."

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That's where the name comes from.

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"Mariposa Relámpago."

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(wind whooshing)

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(harmonica blowing)

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This is spirits playing right now.

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(gentle harmonica music)

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Sound is really powerful.

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There's a universal way
of experiencing healing,

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and it's by using sound.

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And everyone feels it.

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Everyone that's alive feels
it. The plants feel it.

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The animals feel it. The babies feel it.

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I think everyone needs to heal something.

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(bell chimes)

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What's happening in the
border in the United States

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is a major impact in who I am.

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I was an undocumented unaccompanied child

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coming from El Salvador,
escaping the Civil War.

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I migrated here in the '80s.

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For me, the border is not
just the physical wall

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that's separating Mexico
and United States,

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but a whole journey that
asylum seekers take.

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(dramatic music)

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A lot of the work that
I have done for myself

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is to actually confront
those cities and those towns

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that I traveled as an
undocumented unaccompanied child.

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(suspenseful music)

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The bus culture growing up in the '80s

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was really big in El Salvador

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because we would have these blinged out,

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formerly American yellow school buses.

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I was fascinated by these buses

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because they were highly decorated.

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And I was obsessed with
looking at all the details,

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all the shiny objects,
all the handmade things,

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all the absurd things.

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So the whole idea for
me came that I wanted

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to bring a school bus from El
Salvador to the United States,

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and I wanted to have
the same migratory path

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that I had as a kid.

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(suspenseful music)

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In order to turn it to a gong,

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we have to first flatten it out.

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Like it has this giant ding here

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and a few imperfections there,
but I think we can get it.

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(birds chirping)

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For me, it's always been important

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to make my own instruments.

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Even when I'm making sculptures,

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I'm always really thinking about

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using recycled materials for them,

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and repurposing objects.

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Thinking of animism and the energy

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that these materials
hold is really important

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to what I'm exploring.

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(birds chirping)

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When I was a student in New York City,

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there weren't that many role
models that I could look up to.

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I realized that my teachers didn't know

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what I had gone through and how important

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healing was for me.

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The main influence that
I had was looking back

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at my ancestry, the Maya, the Curanderos.

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Okay, go for it, Billy.

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They were the healers.

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They were the ones that could
write and draw and sculpt

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and also create rituals.

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Directly connected to them,

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I was like, "I want to
make healing rituals."

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(gentle harmonica music)

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It's a vibrating bus.

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It's a vibrating healing instrument.

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"Mariposa Relámpago"
has around 700 objects.

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Every object has a meaning for me.

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Part of the work is to
actually find the objects.

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(bell chimes)

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I was in Mexico City

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and I saw a pair of
metallic silver slippers,

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and it looked like a
child had been walking

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for a lot of time.

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I almost got emotional when I saw it,

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and I felt the energy of the walking

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and all the unaccompanied,

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displaced children that
were traveling with me.

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There's been thousands of people

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that have experienced "Mariposa Relámpago"

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in all these different cities

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that it's traveled through.

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I really wanted to bus to tour the border

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as much as possible.

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(gentle music)

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(crowd chattering)

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Everyone, thank you for coming.

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Think of being in the
park or being by the ocean

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when you sit there and
just listen to the birds.

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You don't have to be
an expert in meditation

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to feel the experience.

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Just listen to it.

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(gentle ambient music)

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When I'm doing a ceremony

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and we're producing sound,

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it doesn't feel like I'm
even playing an instrument.

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Sound can be used in different ways.

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The power of "Mariposa"
can be felt around the bus,

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but also inside of the bus.

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You can sit or lay on the bus

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and feel the vibration

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and the healing qualities that it has.

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I had so many mixed feelings
going to the ceremony.

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(gentle music)

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It was open to the general public,

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but also we had border patrol agents

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on the bus during the ceremony.

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Being in Marfa, an
environment that is similar

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to the same lines that I
crossed when I was a child,

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I think I was in tears at some point.

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And it's a very scary space.

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There's certain roads you gotta show ID

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and tell them that you're a citizen.

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There's actually a blimp
that travels in the area

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looking for refugees to
arrest them and deport them.

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My community sees them
as very threatening,

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but I realized that I
wanted to do a ceremony

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for border patrol agents

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because it's not just about healing those

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that have been hurt,

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but also healing other more
complex situations as well.

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(gentle ambient music)

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- [Irlanda] The camp
that I was working at,

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it's a place where unaccompanied children

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that cross the border,

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first, they go to the
border patrol center,

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and from there, they get sent to a camp.

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They are just kids,

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so it makes it very
hard to see them worried

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so it makes it very
hard to see them worried

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and see their sadness.

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They are some of the most resilient kids

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I've ever met in my life.

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I was on the phone with my coworker

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and I'm telling her about you.

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"Dude, this guy, he's a grownup version

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of the kids we were taking care of."

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- It's funny that you said that

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because yesterday,

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I was talking to law enforcement
that works at the border.

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When she started talking to me,

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she was talking to me like I
was that 8-year-old little boy

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that she encountered, you know?

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She was like, "Yeah, I
wanted to embrace you,

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I wanted to hold you, but I couldn't."

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(bell chiming)

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(wind whooshing)

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(waves splashing)

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(gentle harmonica music)

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As a child in El Salvador,

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I would be constantly drawing
the New York City skyline.

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So when I look at that skyline,

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it just symbolizes the journey
through the United States.

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That journey still continues to this day.

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Healing is gonna be happening
for the rest of my life.

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Sound is medicine.