Program Notes

September 1, 2021—it was solidified that I will never be able to permanently live in Texas again. Nearly all abortions have been banned in Texas, making no exceptions for incest or rape. The state deputizes citizens to sue clinics and others who violate the law, awarding $10,000 or more per each illegal abortion reported. It is simply too unsafe for a female to live in this state, both figuratively and literally.

In the weeks following this announcement, I felt ashamed to say I was from Texas. Living in Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic was a daily battle, as Governor Abbott seemed to want people to contract the illness and die with the lack of safety legislation enacted. I felt gaslit by my local leaders and community each day that I continued to wear a mask and socially distance—it was like most Texans had completely removed coronavirus from their consciousness by May 2020. Any time someone would ask where I was from once I got to California, I would say something along the lines of “Houston, but I hate it there, and LA is so much better”. I started writing Secession in this period.

It started with my discovery of Steven Kimbrough’s recording of the folk tune “I’m Going to Leave Old Texas Now”, simply titled “Texas Cowboy” on Songs of the Wild West: The Art of the American Song. The song could not have fit better with how I was feeling about my relationship to Texas. I’ve likened the speaker’s situation to my own, where we both have lived in Texas for a very long time, but the people there are unkind and overwhelming to a point where we must head West for a better life.

The tone of the piece is intended to mock overly prideful Texans as well as reflect my own ambivalence towards my home. The piece’s title, Secession, is a reference to the everlasting but never succeeding movement of Texans who desire the state to split off from the U.S. and rebirth the Republic of Texas. The title also references my own “secession” from the “union” of Texas. The subtitle, “Don’t Tread on Me”, is a reappropriation of the text that appears on the bottom of the Gadsden flag. The flag’s image of a rattlesnake, which originated with the American Revolution, has been adopted by the far-right, appearing at the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. However, in wake of the Texas Heartbeat Act, the symbol has been used by feminists as an act of rebellion, with some flags redesigned so the snake creates the shape of the female reproductive system.

Ultimately, I want Secession to be something that appalls the people who hold the ideologies criticized in the piece. I want a chronically online Republican to post a picture of Ella Kaale to Facebook with the caption “she is a shame to our state!”—This piece is everything I want to say to the government that oppresses its citizens and the people who made my existence in Texas a living hell for years.