“I dare to exist in the most unapologetic self in all the things that I do because why not?”
– Geena Rocero, Award Winning Producer, Writer & Director
How is liberation reflected in language constructs? How do we express our freedom through our identities?
Geena Rocero, Award Winning Producer, Writer & Director, touches on liberation as a framework for her many identities – transgender activist, Filipina, and immigrant while in conversation with Stephen DeBerry, Henry Crown Fellow, Founder and Managing Partner, Bronze Venture Fund.
Growing up in the Philippines, Geena has had to learn to “decolonize her own mind” and embrace the ethos of pre-colonial identity and how it didn’t originally operate in the gender binary.
When our cultural identity merges with another, we tend to embrace these assimilated values as our own standard. It’s crucial to remember that diverging from what our culture now reflects isn’t our rejection of it but often times a return to it – in its most authentic form.
Geena shares, “Who I am now, as an artist, as a storyteller, but more so, as I move around the world, that knowledge of pre-colonial richness and history, and sense of pride and sense of beauty and resilience. That carries me forward and that’s my motivation in all that I do.” Geena reminds us that our best form of activism is existing as our true selves in everything we do and everywhere we are.
More from the Action Forum: Watch more talks on leadership, bridging divides, and driving positive impact from the 2024 Resnick Aspen Action Forum.
