Heirlooms: An excerpt from an interview with Kathrin Bizzarro
[I am interviewing Kathrin Bizzarro, a UMBC Theatre student and actress of Egyptian descent, at around 11:15 pm. We are alone in the lobby of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building at UMBC. About halfway through the interview she absent-mindedly pulls up the sleeves of her jacket.]
— Um, I noticed you pulled up your sleeves. You’re not wearing your, uh, bracelet, that you wear a lot of the time.
K. Bizzarro No, I’m not.
— Um, can you tell us a little bit about that bracelet?
K. Bizzarro Yeah, sure. Um, I had a gold bracelet that had been passed down frommm the women in my family, and this is going back to my great-grandmother, in Egypt, you know I come from a line of very strong women, s — uh specifically Coptic Orthodox people,
— Mmm.
K. Bizzarro And Coptic Orthodox just m-mainly means that you’re an Egyptian Christian and you know, being a Christian in a Muslim country they’re, my people for thousands and thousands of years have been, uh, persecuted and killed be — for their beliefs.
— Mmmhmm.
Anddd um you know this, this bracelet that I had that was uh, and, uh that is, uh, a family heirloom of mine, ummmm, had been passed down, traditionally from one woman to the next. So like when uhhh, a mother would haaave a daughter, when it came to her twelfth birthday, the… bracelet would be passed down, and so on and so forth. But umm, my older sister when it came to her twelfth birthday, umm, the bracelet was, uhh, too small for her hand, so then it went down to the next oldest daughter, which was me. And on my twelfth birthday I got my bracelet, eh — uh, the family heirloom, and I hadn’t taken it off since. And then when I cammmme tooo dooo The Amish Project you know Amish, uhhh, people, uhh, for the sake of the show — Amish people do not wear jewelry whatsoever, because uh that is considered part of like vanity and they do not take part of
— Mmhmm.
K. Bizzarro any such activities and such. Annnd sooo I was told that I had to have it taken off, now, I was completely fine with… taking it off, uhh, as long as it was not cut, becuuause that was the wishes of my mother and I wanted to fulfill, uhhh, her wishes and, you know stand by my culture and stand byyy the respect that is given to that family heirloom and to my mother because this is, you know… from her side of the family from herrr, uh, people in Egypt who, you know. my mother hasn’t gone back to Egypt since like… Nineteeeeen…Ninetyyyy…Five?
— Mmhmm
Kathrin Bizzarro comes from Lusby. Lusby is small, southern Maryland town about two hours south of Baltimore. It is a predominantly white area, and her high school’s population reflected this. As such, Kathrin’s identity as half-Egyptian has always been complex. One aspect she has always been certain in is her Coptic Orthodox faith. In our interview, as well as our previous conversations, God and Faith come up a lot. Family is also a frequent topic. We don’t often discuss race or ethnicity as it doesn’t seem to be quite so vital to her identity.
As such, this part of our interview holds significance. Here, she describes an heirloom that holds religious, familial, cultural, and ethnic symbology. It is an object that is deeply tied to her life on many levels. We can see the importance it holds to her, as it took very little prompting to get quite a bit of information out of her. One question and she was off to the races. Throughout this portion, we gained insight to her as an individual. Throughout the interview, she referred to her mother as Egyptian, not herself. But when talking about her Coptic Orthodox faith and the bracelet, it suddenly became “my people” and “we.” It was about her family’s lineage of strong women, about her continuation of that line. Most significant was her concern about cutting the bracelet. She says she doesn’t even see the bracelet as her own. It’s bigger than her as an individual. It’s about her persecuted people, her family history. Hell, this bracelet itself has been passed down from her great-grandmother. It is a literal, physical manifestation of her family’s history and identity. To cut it would be to disrupt it, to disrespect and break an unbroken circle. And the department asked her to cut it.
It’s not an uncommon request for the department. They often have to ask actors to remove jewelry or conceal body modifications. Actors have to put makeup over tattoos, take out piercings, recolor their hair. Kathrin herself admits that she understands why they wanted it off. However, this object holds more value than an average piece of bling. This object is part of Kathrin’s identity. The lack of care she goes on to describe the department having about it is disturbing. Is it about the way they handle it, or the removal itself? I kept thinking about if the department would ask a Muslim actor to remove her hijab. I ask, is that is within their right? Where can the line be drawn? When does it stop being a simple request for the production? When does it become an alienation of an actor’s humanity, a lack of care about their beliefs, their identity, or their history?
