FreeBushwick
My name is Anthony Rosado and I am a Bushwick, Brownsville, and Jamaica, Queens Native. I am a multidisciplinary artist creating collages, installations, and performances via themes of ancestral legacy, identity, and systematic forms of oppression on non white peoples. I am a community organizer building bridges between native residents, gentrifiers, artist groups, and community supportive organizations. I am one of two (Yasmin Colon of Bushwick Vendors Market and Educated Little Monsters is the other) Native Bushwick core members of Arts in Bushwick since its inception. I am a the Dance Academy Instructor for high school and middle schools girls via Girls Inc.
I am one of five. My mother is one of thirteen. My family used to all live in Bushwick. We are now dispersed between boroughs of NYC and random states in the USA.
Anti displacement is at the forefront of everything I do, from physical displacement and cultural erasure to oppressive displacement via a public school's lack of artistically expressive resources.
I have been displaced twice from Bushwick. I look forward to living in BedStuy, so as to not face the traumatic hallmarks of colonialism in my everyday: sounds of construction throughout the summer; clouds of dust billowing from gutted homes; the shiny jet black of that new gate outside of what was the bodega glimmering in the warm sunshine; averted white eyes along Knickerbocker, the avenue that was the Mecca for congregation and love between the 70s and 90s; sights of construction and For Sale signs and cafes every two to three blocks; less and less Puerto Rican flags decorating windows; a Starbucks; less and less cars with speakers in their trunks blaring Reggaeton and Hip Hop and R & B; bars filled with white folk as Natives pass by unconsidered and uninvited; less and less consideration and activism for fellow residents experiencing landlord terrorism and rising rents; white people in patagonia walking golden retrievers on Wilson and Halsey; less and less students filling classes, causing public schools in Bushwick, Ridgewood, and other gentrified neighborhoods to close down; a luxury residence called Colony 1209 on Dekalb and Bushwick Ave; my abuela peering from her window on the third story of a building she has lived in for eighteen years, throwing me down the keys so that I can go upstairs and drink some of her perfectly concocted cafe bustelo con leche y azucar.
If you are here because you want to expose your art; to experience New York City; to seek a community of peoples like you; to start a business or collective; to find your dream job... please ask yourself if your existence harms more than helps the community.
Do you work in the community?
Do you circulate your money within the community?
Do you support local Native owned businesses?
My abuela is here because she intends for her home to continue to be a resting place for any of our many family members when we need.
My friend Jaz (Yasmin Colon) is here because she raised her family here and will continue to support Native Bushwick youth via art expressive programming.
My friend Nicole Brydson is here because she is supporting the web platform and organization of Arts in Bushwick, an organization currently revamping our mission statement in effort to consider all residents of the many communities of Bushwick.
Why are you?