A Story of Belonging

For Profile 007 of Where We Belong, we had a conversation with Yasmine Tiana, a documentary filmmaker, organizer, and yoga instructor. Brooklyn-born and raised, Yasmine tells us how her background inspires and informs how she connects people across the African diaspora – and how her background helps her foster her own personal sense of belonging.

–

Jalen:
So – you are a documentary filmmaker, an organizer, a yoga instructor and more. How did your background inspire you to do all these things?

Yasmine:
My dad was born in St Lucia and my mom was born here, so I've always been super inspired by the differences between them. They're both Black, but like, from different parts of the world and different understandings. And I think that caused me to see my environment a little bit differently. I think that's what documentary filmmaking is– observing your environment and observing the changes in your environment. Being a yoga instructor takes that a bit further. I think organizing, as well, is a way to bridge the things that disconnect us, as well as challenge things in society that just aren't right.

-

Jalen:
Your parents – as you mentioned – are both Black, but from different backgrounds. How does that blending of identities shape yours and how you identify?

Yasmine:
That's a really interesting question because I always struggled with it. I think I've always been challenged by the fact that they're from two different places, but are both still under the umbrella of being, you know, Black in society. I'm a Pan-African, so I believe in unity of black people across the diaspora, no matter where they are. I believe we should all be united. I always say my dad was born in Saint Lucia, and my mom was born in America, but I'm an African because I understand my roots and where I come from.

Jalen:
I think there's something really interesting about having a shared background, shared experience, or shared heritage. Even if you live in different places, you come from different places. You all have that shared background.

Yasmine:
I believe so much could change if we were united on our different issues across the diaspora. If we didn't see our differences as something, you know, to separate us but as something to connect us. Because there's always like a link. We may just have different names for things or different experiences, but we're all connected. I feel like you can see that in food and culture, but even more in our lived experiences.

Jalen:
I think it's cool seeing those overlaps and connections between different people within the same diaspora – even also across different diasporas. I've seen a lot of overlap – with my experience and my background being Filipino – [with] Black people, Latinos, and [others]. I think it's really cool to explore and identify the connection between different diasporas.

-

Jalen:
What does home mean and feel like to you?

Yasmine:
This is such an interesting question, and I found myself thinking about it a lot, because home is something that's more than a place. You know, home is more than just a place where you live. It's so much more. And I learned this actually, like when I was abroad, seeing the ways that people care for people who are refugees n Italy.

Home is more than a place where you live. And I think it's it has to do with like your roots of course, and feeling able to be connected to that, but also a shared space. Community. A sense of belonging. Like it's...it's a question that I think about a lot, because even though I've lived in a lot of places in my life, I still feel very connected to every place that I’ve lived.

And I think it's because I have divorced parents. Like my parents split up when I was five years old. So I've lived like in Flatbush, I've lived in Bed-Stuy, I've lived, like, literally all over Brooklyn. And even traveling, I feel like I leave places of leave parts of me in places, but they're always with me, you know? So I feel like I carry each place. And this is why I made my documentary, because even though I no longer live there, I still feel like a part of me is there, and that a part of it is with me. So I always get really emotional when I go to Bed-Stuy.

Jalen:
That makes sense. I think it's, I think kind of cool – not having to deal with that sort of thing – but I think it's cool to be able to have that sense of belonging and home and all that sort of stuff, and all these different places. Because, yeah, you know, to your point, I think a lot of times we kind of conflate home with a physical location. Which can be really important, of course.

But, you know, when that home changes – when you've experienced that physical, you know, brownstone being under different ownership now or that neighborhood just being very different in terms of who's there and what it's like – you know, sometimes that can leave it feeling more or less like home. But at the end of the day, you still feel like you belong.

Yasmine:
I can tell you what home is not. It's not a commodity. Like I can tell you what it is necessarily in one sentence, but it's not a commodity. It's something that everybody deserves to have. And people don't deserve to be displaced. Whether you're in Brooklyn or whether you're in Palestine. It's all the same. People deserve a home and they deserve to be able to live there at a rate that they can afford.

-

Jalen:
In Bed-Stuy, in Italy, wherever you choose to be – what helps you feel like you belong in those places?

Yasmine:
So I was thinking about when I went to Saint Lucia last year for my birthday in August, and I hadn't been back since I was eight years old, but my family is still there and like half of my family lives in Saint Lucia. Like my dad was the only one from his family to, like, immigrate to the States. And I still, like, it took me a while to get adjusted because it's a big cultural shift, like it's completely different than living in New York. But I think it was being able to feel embraced by the food, the culture, and really fully taking up space in a place where, you know, half of my lineage has lived for like hundreds of years at this point. I just felt really at home during that time, and I felt kind of disconnected from that part because I always feel like I'm not Saint Lucienne enough.

Especially because my cousins, they all have this Saint Lucian accent, they all like, you know, grew up there. When I go to Saint Lucia, I don't speak. Like when I'm talking to the locals. Like if we're going to the beach because then they’ll try to charge me crazy. It's not like they can’t tell I’m not from there. They can tell, like, when I speak. They're just like, oh she's a Yankee, you know. So I let my cousins take the wheel on that. But I’m still able to go with them, and I still have like, a little Saint Lucian accent that I practice sometimes, but it's not good. It's not as good because I didn't grow up there. But even though I didn't grow up there, I still feel like a sense of home and community. Whenever I tell people like, “no, my father was born here,” it's like a different level, you know, of community and belonging. And I think that still resonates in Brooklyn even more so because I was born and raised here.

Like, I feel very protective of Brooklyn. So I think that's why I do lots of work on gentrification, because I think it's very unfair for people to be displaced from a place that they've called home for so long, and to see the neighborhoods change so much – like in the past, like even five years – to see Brooklyn change so much and to become like this commodity has been insane because growing up, like it used to be, people used to consider it so dangerous, and now it's like a trendy location.

People want to live in Bushwick, in Bed-Stuy, and these places where, like, nobody wanted to live there because the people who lived there were, you know, undesirable or like, poor, you know. Nobody wanted to live there. So I feel very, like, protective over this space because I'm just like, how can you now consider this place trendy and want to move here – and displace people, at that?

Like, I have no problem with people moving someplace. I actually had this conversation with somebody who came to my yoga class, who watched my documentary because she felt like, she was like, “I'm a part of the problem.” I teach at a yoga studio in Bed-Stuy and I was like, no, I don't think it's an individual problem. I don't think it's like, sure, individuals can take responsibility and, you know, make sure they're not displacing people.

But I think it's something that's systemic, that's bigger than one individual. And everybody needs some place to live. And people are just going where they can afford, like we're in a, you know, housing crisis.

Jalen:
Exactly. Like the building in your documentary, right? Like the people that are tenants aren’t the ones that necessarily bought it. It's like, you know, a real estate company or whatever like that, that buys it and, you know, renovates it or flips it or whatever they do, and then sells it off.

I mean, sometimes I guess people come in and just scoop it up and buy it right? But yeah, those people wouldn't be, you know, doing that if there wasn't a market for that. And then at the same time, they also wouldn't be moving into those places if other people hadn't had the idea to, you know, basically undercut these local residents and then flip their homes to other people for like three, 4 or 5 times whatever they bought it for. So I see what you're saying as far like it's not an individual thing. It's like a broader, more systemic issue.

 

––––

To watch the full interview, visit us @dspraofficial on Instagram and TikTok.

To learn more about Yasmine and her work, visit @yasminetiana_, @uprooted.documented, and @yogabyyasmine on Instagram and watch her documentary 222 Macon Street on Youtube.