Jennifer Pagán explores how healing work has transformed her organizing and protest.
By JB Bergin
(Photo: Isiah ThoughtPoet Veney)
This profile is part of our How a Community Heals series.
It is 2:59 p.m. and I close my eyes to breathe: in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, out for five seconds. When I open my eyes, it’s 3 p.m. and I press the call button on my phone to talk with Jennifer Pagán, and the next hour feels like a wonderful, needed, deep breath.
Pagán is a Chicago-based artist, educator, cultural worker and one of the co-founders of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, an alliance of artists, activists, educators and healers who have used their creativity to imagine and build toward a world without police and prisons since 2014. Over the past year, healing has become central to Pagán’s practice.
The summer of 2020 witnessed not only the crisis of the pandemic but a critical mass of lethal police violence that erupted into national and worldwide protests. On May 31, Pagán and others were beaten and arrested by the Chicago Police Department during a protest action in Hyde Park. “In that event and in being abused, and, you know, what we experienced, I think that really thrust me into a healing practice,” she says.
A crucial component of #LetUsBreathe Collective is its #BreathingRoom space in Back of the Yards. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the space hosted a monthly open-mic event, blending performance with political education. Before each performance, the collective would offer a variety of free services to the community: meals, guided meditation, childcare and a free store, to name a few. “We have to have space to be able to breathe,” Pagán says pragmatically.
Once the pandemic rendered in-person events impossible, #LetUsBreathe Collective shifted its work to mobilize resources and provide relief. The Stimulus Package for Humanity commissioned art “at the intersection of justice and pandemic,” distributing $9,500 to about 80 artists who submitted original poetry, dance performances, music performances and more. The program was in partnership with FreeWrite Arts & Literacy, Kuumba Lynx, artEquity, the Envisioning Justice Network, and Illinois Humanities.
Rooted in ancestral reverence, using Afro-Indigenous healing traditions, yoga, meditation and developing a practice of breathwork, Pagán says healing is a process of standing in one’s power.
“To work and live in the communities that I do, I must center and prioritize my own care. It’s paramount,” Pagán explains. This internal work has blossomed into community-driven actions, such as leading a meditation at the beginning of a Defund CPD Campaign meeting, or facilitating a grounding exercise at an Everybody Eats herbalism, gardening and culinary arts event. She says that the response from others is affirming; they are grateful for a small moment to spend with themselves.
Pagán believes that history moves cyclically and healing is what pushes us to improve as each cycle repeats itself: “We literally move at the speed of our healing,” she says. When asked about what that looks like to a community, she responds, “Healing is a continuous process. When I think about a community healing, I think about a community thriving.” She elaborates that communities heal by recognizing pain and by having the space to breathe and to imagine. In order to heal, communities require “resources and access to spaces, tools and people that support them in determining their own lives.”
Near the end of our conversation, she pauses before saying, “What this moment, this unique intersection in history has taught me is that we and I have to build preemptive practices of spiritual care.” One of the cunning tricks of capitalism is that we become convinced we don’t have room for relationships, connections or this depth of care.
Pagán sees relationships and connections as the core of her organizing in Chicago: “That is really, really our currency.” She observes that often models of care are understandably crisis-response, but the work of #LetUsBreathe Collective supports a practice of slowing down, of taking time to nurture and care for oneself, “so that I can show up to organize, so that I can show up to create and imagine and build in ways that I need.”
Pagán’s “dreamiest of dreams” for #LetUsBreathe Collective is to make what they already do more tangible, on a larger scale, and in a more sustainable manner, while facilitating others’ leadership. “We’re at a unique juncture in time and in our access to resources and to space where we can more tangibly align with our values and with our vision,” she says. Pagán imagines a future that involves food and land sovereignty, healing justice work and activating their space to provide an accessible path to holistic health for their community.
JB Bergin (they/them) is a writer, film photographer and musician currently living on occupied Lipan Apache, Tonkawa, Sana and Comanche lands in so-called Austin, TX.
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