Remember Your Connection

Introducing Phase 2 project team member Milton X. Trujillo, an East Elmhurst-based Queens community leader who dreams big dreams for radical collective autonomy and solidarity in his neighborhood and beyond with , a local intergenerational and volunteer run community center where out-of-system networks and responses are built and nourished. An undocumented artist and organizer who was raised in Corona and Jackson Heights after migrating in 1999 from Quito, Ecuador, Milton has been thinking about a plant from his childhood, eucalyptus, which was not native to the Andes, and yet came to surround the landscape and eventually became an integral part of healing, cleansing and protection practices. He’s also trying to figure out his personal connection to dandelion and lessons to learn since he was visited by this plant. Milton admires dandelion for being a purifier when consumed in balance, for its ability to grow wild mostly anywhere, and how its individual seeds can hold each other in beautiful super-structures but can also gracefully fly on their own for miles. Consider, what lessons can certain plants teach us about how to exist and move in a multispecies world?

Introducing Phase 2 project team member Lynda Brillant, a NYC-based community activist with and advocating for and to and . The great-niece of Nicolas Noël and granddaugther of Julio Nérée, Lynda was born in Haiti, a Caribbean country that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. She is inspired by performing artist, scholar, and social activist Katherine Dunham's work and spirit to transform American society. Lynda understands plant relationships to be part of her heritage. She recalls, "I would walk with my mother and she would start picking leaves from the streets and say this is so-and-so and it is good for this." Consider and comment below: What plant wisdom did you learn from your female relations?

Introducing Phase 2 project team member Chun Ae Hannah Lee. Hannah is the President of the Parent Teacher Association at the Woodside Community School, PS 361Q, building a supportive and welcoming environment for multicultural and multilingual families. Hannah's relationship with plants begins with toddler memories of her family growing vegetables on their roof in South Korea and her father's love and care for a banana tree. "He would surround it lovingly with bubble wrap in preparation for the winter." Consider and comment below: what plants were part of your environment growing up? 가훈을 기억하라 @ Queens, New York