Often referred to as Boston’s “Ellis Island,” East Boston has long been home to immigrant communities who are crucial to the development of the social, economic, and cultural life of the neighborhood. The intersecting histories of migration and community-building will be the subject of a dialogue between Matt Cameron, Co-Director and Public Policy Advisor of Golden Stairs Immigration Center, which provides life-changing legal services to vulnerable non-citizens, and Patricia Montes, Executive Director of Centro Presente, which is dedicated to immigrant rights, community organizing, and basic services for the Latin American immigrant community of Massachusetts.

…first in thought, then in action
The ICA invited Boston-based artist, organizer, and educator Anthony Romero to create …first in thought, then in action, a project that expands ideas, questions, and provocations beyond the museum’s walls. Romero has developed the project over the past year, with a focus on East Boston, organizing a series of listening sessions and community gatherings to collect local histories of activism, migration, and displacement from East Boston perspectives. At the ICA, he premieres a new sculpture and sound piece as well as a corresponding series of public talks, conversations, and performances with local organizers and community members that touch on gentrification, housing, and displacement.

Anthony Romero’s …first in thought, then in action is supported, in part, by Robert Nagle, a Live Arts Boston grant from the Boston Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.