Welcome everybody. Happy Sunday. Thank you for choosing to spend it here. Many of you are the artist and readers. This is going to be an exciting event. It is going to be filmed, so it will be on YouTube to share with folks later. So just a couple of announcements, as you see going by, we are celebrating One City One Book, which is our largest literary campaign. And that will be, this is Ear Hustle, Unflinching Stories Inside Prison Life. And they are an amazing team, Nigel and Erlan, and have been just spreading the love. We have lots of events that align with this program, so please pick up a brochure in the back and please come to the main event. We want to recognize that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ram Yutush peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland, and as uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples. We wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ram Yutush community. And we'll give a big shout out to the Sigourte Land Trust from Oakland, an all-women-led land back organization who just successfully secured five acres of land from the city of Oakland. So small but possible, it is possible. All right, we are here today to celebrate the launch of Uncommon Ground, BIPOC Journeys to Creative Activism, and edited by Shizaway Siegel, who is the founder, director of Right Now SF Bay, which has supported San Francisco Bay Area writers and artists of color through workshops, events, and anthologies through since 2015. And Shiz is just amazing. She rounds up the most amazing humans, and I'm so happy to have her here and joining us. And she is just a relentless worker, and I'm thankful to be associated with her in any kind of way. Shiz, take it away. All right, well talk about a relentless, dedicated worker. Anissa Malady from the library is just amazing. She makes all of this programming possible, which she's an amazing, sweet person. So anyway, welcome to the book launch for our Right Now SF Bay's fifth anthology, Uncommon Ground, BIPOC Journeys to Creative Activism. For this book, I asked a bunch of established writers and artists to trace their creative trajectories through prose, poetry, and or visual art. I asked over 30, but only 22 were able to respond because this has been an unusually busy year for many of us. But I felt like with the social isolation of the pandemic, it was important especially for emerging artists to get an understanding of what does it take to become an artist and to sustain a career. There's a lot of people who want to do it, but to actually do it and to have those psychological, emotional, cultural, historic reserves to draw from to make great art, it's not that easy. So I feel really fortunate to be working with all of you. Each of you is unique and has an amazing voice. So some of the questions that I asked were, what inspired you to pursue art, creative writing, and activism? Because it's not just about making something pretty, it's about touching the soul, about helping us heal and transform society. And I think all of you bring that in your work. Um, so what cultural and spiritual and community values did you grow up with? What sustains your creative practice in turbulent times? And I have to say when I was reading the, um, the submissions, I was amazed. And I think it was hard for a lot of you. It's really hard to say, you know, who am I? What am I about? You know, what do I want to write about in 10 pages? You know, what are the salient points I want to make? So I want to appreciate all of you. I really learned a lot and I was inspired by all of you. So we're going to go pretty much in alphabetical order by last name, although I screwed up at the beginning. Adrienne Arias is going to go first, followed by Salma Arastu and Avacha, if she gets here. And then I'll be announcing, um, the reading order from, um, from the audience. Um, so take it away, Adrienne. Hello. Hola, todos. What an honor to be here and inside of this beautiful book that is, uh, that, that is, this book will be legendary in the future. It's like a, it's an amazing group of incredible poets and visual artists. And yes, uh, we as artists, uh, we are also healers. Um, we create with medicine like my ancestors, the Mochica people. This is a design of Mochica. It's in the north of Peru. And yeah, I will start talking about how Mochica is an incredible influence for me. If, uh, you can check my art recently, you can experience some kind of the black and white, the colors, how the primordial elements came together. And also because they inspired me to, to, to work with dreams. They used to work a lot with dreams. And this is a very old image. Uh, when I was working in Peru with, uh, my partner Susana Aragon and we get together as an Arias and Aragon. And we, uh, we start doing several multidisciplinary shows, uh, body painting installations. You know, it's, uh, it's in the next slide. Yeah, this is a couple of dancers, actors, having a performance in a room that we create around 30 years ago. And that was in Lima, Peru, international Biennial. And we start doing these kinds of things. And after that, when I started living here, maybe like 10 or 15 years ago, I received a book and it's like, oh, talking about Arias and Aragon. It's like, oh, they recognize that we are doing something that is completely different, like a broken song patterns and start working with dreams. That was a continuous inspiration. Later, when I started working here, I met the incredible Maestro René Yáñez and he invited me to do Altar's installation for Day of the Dead. And I did this first one for mujeres de Juarez. Um, at that time with my dear friend and comadre Silvia Parra, Mama Cuatl, uh, we start studying what is happening in Juarez. It's like a more than 800 names came. And I put it together in that and in the first, and I start working also with video installations. And if you can see at the bottom, there are TVs that are connected with the dresses and showing part of the bodies and scenes. And later in 2010, my mom dies. And I put this because this feeling of how several women disappearing in Juarez, for some reason, when my, my mom was dying in front of me in a hospital in Madrid, that was some kind of very strong connection about this feminine, incredible right to, she give me life and now she's going. And I put this suspended bed, no? And another dream, more like a nightmare, but dreams. And also, well, at those years, I create this show named Illusion Show. I work at the Mission Cultural Center. They give me the opportunity to create a show and inviting like a 40 or 50 artists and work together in a gallery completely covered with white paper. And they just have the freedom of do art for five hours. And this is several, and this is very recent. It's like a mini Illusion Show at the Red Poppy House. Because, you know, with pandemic, we start closing scenes and suspended events. It's supposed to have several events that never happens, but suddenly Red Poppy and the small plays start opening and we start doing again things. Oh, this is here. This is exactly here in this place with the incredible Nina Serrano dancing one of my poems. Can you believe Nina doing this? Amazing. And my friend Rupa, Marja, with cellies, that's an event that they are playing or performing my poems. And I was so happy with that. That's at the Yam Museum. I was invited to do an artist in residence in 2010. And I create several book objects with all that I found on the streets. And that book I found it in Berkeley because they have incredible fancy books put in on the streets. And it's like, my God. Yeah. Well, another of my things or ways to work in art is live painting. And there's several images that I do in that corner up is Phyloli. And I really thank you, my dear friend, Kim, that is here because she invited me the first time to paint when she was reading. And that was, this is start an incredible relation with that place with flowers, with love. Yeah. Thank you, Kim. Well, some of my drawings, small and large scale, sometimes that Frida also came from a dream. This is the Frida that is cutting her hair and suddenly have huge butterfly wings in my dream. And I need to, I need to listen my dreams. Yeah. And as a performer, I started studying how to move my body in Lima, but in and out. But when I came here in 2000, I started connected with Anna Halperin, an icon in the movement of art and teaching me for the last 13 years until she passed. And I, I really appreciate that she included me in that performance that is one is the iconic performance. Okay, we are all naked, but dancing with papers is so incredible. It's so amazing. And there's other images that I did based on my dreams. Yeah. Thank you, Anna Halperin, all around. Some of my drawings, there are also here, some of there in this book. Thank you, G3 for this is an incredible opportunity to show my art in this and to, you know, being more transcendental in life, because this is amazing to have in a book like this. Well, drawings in pandemic like that crazy, remember this for washing your hands, but isn't the head murals in pandemic. Yes, I suddenly I get very busy in pandemic. People start calling me to do murals or things and like the black light matters and the pavement that was in Petaluma or that's Mission Theater. Hi me for doing like three or four ephemeral murals. It's like a pandemic. That's an incredible time for me as expressing, you know, with mask, several times. And later, again, coming back to day of the dead, this tradition that start with my, my dear, my strong friend, but later with Rio, we continue. And yeah, I dedicate, I start dedicating time for my artists to people that were killed, especially by police brutality in those years. And suddenly in 2000, in May 16, 2020, I have this dream. A person is reading me a tarot. And I asked her, Oh, wow, those, those cars, who paint those cars? And she told me, you paint those cars. And it's like, when I wake up and say, Yes, I have a project, I will do a tarot by myself, but it's not possible to paint like a 78 images. It's like, and I start asking my friends and asking, can you do this? And finally, we get the tarot thanks to J.K. Fowler from Nomadic Press, another of my heroes. He was like in love with the project and with the help, incredible help of René Baldoqui. We did it. Yeah, René is a very good friend and alive with this. This is a mural that I accept to do at Google that like the devil Google is sometimes it's very good. And yeah, and as an artist being considered to be at Google with one of my personal stories, because this is talking about how members and my grandparents love story. Yeah. And well, I have this other mural at the tenderloin. I know some of you know this is in the corner of Turk and Hyde. And that was a project that suddenly came up. But for me, that was like a six months working with the community until we get it. Okay. In this corner, in the 50s, 60s, we have a jazz club, the Black Hub Jazz Club. Miles Davis and Billy Holiday were playing there. And also it's time for Black Lives Matter. You can see the letters. And this is a river going to the sky because it's the water that is underground. And it's from the ancient times and it's honoring Oloni people. And yeah, also Magic Theater commissioned me to do a mural. And I feel like we need to put also the indigenous women and reproductive rights. Because when I saw all this march, I say a lot of white and black people, but not indigenous. And it's like, what is happening? We need to do something with my people. It's like a and this is the more recent world that I have alters at Somarts at the San Francisco Symphony. And that's in progress at the Mission Cultural Center. The blue deer is dedicated to this which all incredible legend about the creation of the universe. And the book, the most beautiful product. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. All of you for coming here this afternoon. And Shizue, thank you so much for including me in this beautiful book. It is legendary. It is historical moment. Thank you. Thank you all of you for coming for this afternoon. And I must thank Shizue for including me in this beautiful anthology. And I'm grateful. And grateful to be here and to share my some story and my poems and my paintings.  Where do I come from? So my family was originally from Sindh, Pakistan. My father was a physician and had his own practice there. During partitioning, my parents were forced to leave their home and other positions traveled with their eight children to India by train. Initially they lived in refugee camps and ultimately settled in Ajmer, Rajasthan. I was born in Ajmer, a small desert town in Rajasthan, northwest of India. I was a last child and I had nine older siblings. My father died when I was only 10 years old. My mother was very spiritual person. Though she was a practicing Hindu, but she believed in oneness and she transferred her belief in all of us and often said that we are the children of the same God. I had complete faith in what she said. And later in my life as an adult, it has become my aim to bring the whole world together through my artwork and poetry. I was born without fingers on my left hand. And before I could become aware of this deformity, she managed to make my faith so strong that I became confident and grateful as I grew up. Painting became my need at very early age. I feel blessed because I was born with two wings. One was love to create and other was love for God. And these two gifts have been sources of eternal joy for me and a constant flow of positive inspiration in my life. Born into the Hindu tradition in my native India and accepting Islam later on, I have enjoyed the beauty of these two distinctive traditions firsthand. I lived in Iran and Kuwait after marriage and continued searching my identity, exploring new techniques, raising family and traveling, the new vistas which I was coming across with merged and emerged with my different cultures and has added much texture and art, texture and color in my art. In 1986, we immigrated to USA and landed in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Later in 2006, we moved to San Francisco, East Bay Area. Through my lifetime work as a painter and poet, I have arrived at the beautiful concept that oneness was not ordained among humanity alone but we must achieve oneness connecting humanity, soil and soul. And that's my purpose in my work that I want to bring together humanity, soil and soul. So these are some paintings from my calligraphy series, Arabic calligraphy. These are verses from Quran and I try to do them because I wanted to bring the positive of Quran to the mainstream and these are very verses of unity and connection and friendship and love and beauty. So it's a beautiful book and this is my inspiration from my Hindu bank background. This is the Lord, I mean blue God and that is the Lord Krishna surrounded by so many I mean devotees and as I show in my line is my main strength, the line is leading my story. So calligraphic line of celebration also Arabic calligraphy brings out these humanity together. Like in one stroke, I try to bring all groups of humanity together in my work. So and this is like a story from again from Quran, the verse from Quran, that we return to same God. So that's the theme of this particular painting and so basically I'm trying to bring together as I said humanity and soul and soil. So this one is again a praying together and it's a group of women or group of people connected with each other and praying together and this one was something I was in during pandemic. There was so much happening around me that I was, I couldn't believe that how we are killing each other. So this was the slogan, you know, which I think our president said that time and this is we can't breathe. It was a very difficult moment for me to go through those, to witness all the pain which we all went through and even these fires around California really affected me and these are very large paintings. I do very large paintings. They are 72 inches wide and this is 72 by 72 I think and then later on I have been influenced by the verses from Quran which speak about how we are supposed to take care of our creatures, other creatures embracing all communities. It's that was my main theme that we have to accept all, we all live together, we all share together this earth. So this verse at the bottom says that earth was spread for all of us, for all creatures, not only human beings. It's animals and plants and everything in the nature is part of this humanity. So this is my new work which is inspired from Mycelia. This is a new hope which is for regeneration and regenerating our nature and climate, the planet. So these are like really interesting works. I mean again my line is main again as you will see, they are all linear and they are basically showing my strength in the line telling this story. So and then I think the next one is about my, I live on the bay in Emeryville. So this is something I watch every day the birds and the waves very often you know. So this is an inspiration from nature and now I'm moving towards this series which is about the microbes like you know how tiny creatures, how tiny creatures are our sustainers. So that is my new work and I'm really grateful for again that she's here for bringing me in this book and thank you so much. Really appreciate. Thank you. I'm so sorry I hope I didn't miss anybody but the Civic Center Bart station, the elevator wasn't working so we had to take the Bart back to come here and then anyway I don't know what to do but I'm here and I'm grateful that I'm here and everybody else should be here. They don't know what they're missing. This book is beautiful and I'm really honored to be part of it and in it. What can I say about me in seven minutes? Okay I was born in New York Caribbean family. My mother and father were dancers and I was I guess what people considered a very weird kid. Other kids were doing a little game things in the hopscotch etc. I was not interested. I was hearing music at everything which made me nuts as far as people were concerned. Fortunately Papi understood what was happening with me and said if you accept this gift, if you accept this gift you have to let nothing turn you away from it and you have to improve on it and improve on it and improve on it and you make your lifestyle your prayer by improving on this gift that you have but if you don't accept this gift one of the teachers here these wonderful one-liters who say there's nothing more dangerous than a frustrated artist.  I can give you a whole bunch of heavy weight if you check what happens if you have this kind of gift and you don't use it strange things happen and it uses you that's all Hitler wanted to do when he was a kid was paint and anyway so I was hearing music in everything the L trains that were going by dripping water etc and finally my mother of course wanted me to be a dancer because that's what girls are supposed to do me and the tutu did not get along and then so then she had me take lessons with this creature I was supposed to call Art Lucy who taught with a ruler that didn't happen and I'm very sad because now at 81 years old I'm studying keyboard harmony because it's easier to write on the piano you know so a lot of my compositions uh the people in my band have to transcribe for me because I am not complicated enough to put them down yet but thanks to SF state and city college I will be able to do that pretty soon so anyway I'm part of this book one of the things in this book uh I wrote about was uh when I came from New York to California I was living in a LA and the musician junior was unbelievably racist and the work in LA I mean the musical the musicians in LA were wonderful except you wound up working at these studio gigs which are hate which mean you have a little box of drummers in the box over there and the pianos in the box over there and the singers in another little box I like to feel a sweat I want to be close to artists that was not working plus they weren't hiring us except for these studio gigs a few and far between so a wonderful guy called Horace Tabscott, N.A. founded the UGMA which was the underground musicians association which is almost like a black and and mexicans union uh there was only one of two mexicans but they were there anyway uh and I became part of it so I wrote a thing in here because everybody knows about Horace but very few people know about the thing that made Horace work Horace was an unbelievable incredible uh uh dreamer and uh that's what I say was a dreamer and he had these unbelievable visions and he thought about this organization where you did not just join you were chosen everybody who was part of that was picked by somebody else uh either him or this woman I'm gonna talk about Linda Hill or other musicians in the UGMA I was honored to be part of it and we were everywhere we didn't make much money but we shall play some of the greatest music and for those of you who know me I'm the poet uh in residence of the uh California Jazz Conservatories electric squeeze box orchestra I love big bands and so Horace is one of the reasons that helped to turn me on to the big band what I like to go back to Billy Eckstein's band but as far as playing in them I love the big band sound because something magical happens when you melt into 17 or more pieces that doesn't happen otherwise so this is in Linda's house and I hope it takes you there because people don't really understand how much work goes into becoming who we become in Linda's house the world of our queen mother Linda Hill the first lady of the house of UGMA penis composer arranger community activist Horace Tab Scott was an undeniable brand catalyst for change and an innovator of the highest order Tab Scott was an ingenious musical magnet but Linda Hill was not only his main disciple she was his right arm and his friend she was always the one who was always there and the organizer behind the organization Tab Scott say she was the most talented woman he ever knew and called her lino I say she was an unavoidable power source and an off the rick the scale piano players pianist Linda was a strikingly beautiful big born dashiki were in head ball as the babies behind an example of the african-american pride I always remember her wearing the biggest hoop earrings I had ever seen Linda scared most folks to death but she introduced us to the true interdependence of life life. Linda was a for real amazon she was also a no-nonsense straight shooter and an unassuming motivator it all began in a small apartment her place was so full of music and big dreams that we never thought of it as just an apartment it was the center of existence it was our umbilical cord home was always lino's pad and it was her house and her dedicated quiet brilliance that was the true glue that held us all together and believe me I tell you she was no ordinary glue she was a one-of-a-kind type of sister she was a professional nurse and a full time mother and that background manifested itself in every move she made even though she was not much older than most of us and a lot younger than some of us she was our mama. Linda was stronger than metal and as soft as was necessary whenever it was necessary to be soft the woman was tough she had to be a we would have never survived because we were one strange unlikely group of characters a whole lot of anything you want her we came to LA from everywhere and everything we were high class middle class and a whole lot of no-class music the word the dance our art was our religion and the sacredness of sound was our only common denominator and music our music was everywhere music bounced off every thought and actions I said our every thought and action we played music before we ate while we were eating and then had to have some more music for dessert music was our one and only reason for being alive it crawled all over the ceiling and was the floor we walked on it lived in between every board on the floor came in out of every corner rolled in melodically off rooftop drifted like magic like a magical spell out of every window. Linda's house was alive with our music and we lived to immerse ourselves in its beauty a beauty full of the mysterious unfolding and enchanted of the rebirth of ourselves. We were obsessed a wild bunch of creative fanatics we had been deliberately handpicked a select crew of chosen people some were chosen by fate some by Horace others by Linda eventually by other musicians there were so many great artists that came through UGMA it would take forever to mention them all but a few of my favorites were Leroy Brooks Drums, Black Arthur Byth, Alto Sax, Jane Cortez Poet, Adele Sebastian Flute, Red Calendar Basin Chiu Tuber, Brothers Butch Morris Coronet and Wilbur Morris Bass, Bobby Bradford Trumpton Coronet, Ray Draper Tuber, John Hurd Bass, Ricky Kelly Vibes, John Newton Flute, I mean James Newton Flute, E.W. Wainwright Jr. Drums and Multi-percussion, John Corder, Alto Sax and Clarinet, A.S.R. Lawrence Saxophones, Lester Robinson Trombone, Michael Sessions Saxons, David Murray, Tenor Saxon, Bass Clarinet, Percy Smith Audis, O'Janke Poet and Every Brown Jr. Drums. I was brought into the family on the sly by my friend and brother Drummer Bill Madison. I can still see and hear us when we had two guitars, three basses, two full sets of drums, a couple of pianists, a tuba, a flute, a singer, a dancer, and several saxophones and trumpets on stage at the same time playing our hearts out. Arrangement straight out of heaven. Sound and tight like we were one instrument. We were no joke. We were a whole brand new breed running away from the massive but lucrative boredom of Los Angeles studio trivia and a racist musicians union. Some of us were hoped to die traditionalists taking that tradition to a whole new level. Others were coming straight out of the avant-garde and playing unconventional musical masterpieces on traditional and not so traditional instruments. All of us were rebels in search of our own voices. We took our music out into the streets, the parks, into public schools, libraries, community centers, and churches. We played everywhere the people were, including a number of festivals and nightclubs, but we always came back home. Home was where the action was. We made music every single day, nonstop on soda bottles, played intricate poly rhythms on Linda's kitchen table and her pots and pavilion boxes and anything else we could get our hands on. And music bounced off everything. Crawled up out of the alley and back in her house and fell out of the sky like comets and shooting stars. And like clockwork, amazing tunes came racing out of the uncharted universe of our imaginations. Music was the language of our souls, the blood and our veins. Our music was a life force, all its own. And Linda's house. As Linda's house was the center of our existence, the home of the Pan-African People's Orchestra of the House of Agma, the Underground Musicians Association. Linda's place was a nursery, and it gave birth to all, and even when we outgrew that confines, excuse me, the confines of Linda's small south central apartment, we moved over to Percy's wonderful large house on Figaro. Linda came and remained our matriarch. Everybody talks rightfully so about Horace Tabscott and the Agma, but none of it would have happened without Linda.  Linda, Linda Hill. Linda, the high priestess of the Pan-African People's Orchestra and Agma. Linda, an Ebony Queen who opened her heart, soul, and home to a musical movement. A woman whose faith, love, and home gave us a home and helped create a dynasty, an unstoppable wave of brave new school musicians. Yes, it was the strength of Horace's dream, the magical pull of Papa Horace. He was the magnet that pulled us in, but it was the music and the organizational magnitude of our matriarch, Linda. Linda, that was the loving glue that held us all together and kept us whole. Thank you will never be enough. I'm still just another hard-working artist, a musical poet, just another number in a long parade of the multitude she helped to create. I have nothing to repay the debt all she gave, but this gift of this short story is my way of making sure the world will never forget her and her contributions to the history of this great American art form called jazz. It was from the womb of her house that a musical history was disemboweled and reformed and traditional miracles bathed in pride were reclaimed and reborn. The healing powers of music ran all over the ceiling of Linda's house like it ran all over our lives and was poured into her hearts with every sound from the streets that brought us to her door and a brand new seriously dedicated army of music musicians, music makers was forever changed. Anyway, for Linda Hill. And I think it's really important that we forget these things. Everybody, we have these heroes and it's like this is one of everything. Like we just passed a couple of days ago. Is the time just right now? Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna say this real quick. A couple of days ago, we didn't know that on the 19th is El Dia del Pueblo Negro Afro-Mexicano, a guy called Yaga, the Nat Turner of Mexico, freed a city which is still in existence in Mexico, freed it 200 years before Haiti was responsible for a whole string of revolutions, black revolutions started there, moved to Colombia, wound up in Haiti, and you don't even know about him. Like you don't know about Linda. Please do yourself a favor. They're heroes that need to be so shouted out, call their names. Thank you. Oh, I have books. I have books in the back. Get one of mine to get one of these. Thank you. Next up is Lorraine Bonner and after her will be Carla Brundage. Okay, I want to thank the library for hosting this event. I want to thank Shizue for organizing it, relentless efforts, which I won't say we're tireless because I know she was tired quite often. What I'm going to say is a summary of what is in the book. I have a long piece in the book and a lot of pictures, so you have to buy the book in order to get more detail and more pictures. And also what I'm going to say at the end is not in the book. It's brand new, but it is available to be seen in San Francisco. Oh, I can see it right here. That's cool. This sculpture is called Studying the Perpetrator. I have been studying the perpetrator for over 30 years, beginning in the mid 80s when I began recovering memories of extreme sexual abuse in my childhood. I did all the things that one does. I read everything I could. I tried to find a competent therapist and I attended groups. One of the groups I attended used the term perpetrator to mean a person who is supposed to be trustworthy but who betrays that trust. Among the group members it might be a father, a grandfather, a coach, a babysitter, a priest. I thought a lot about that term perpetrator and about the idea of trust and trustworthiness. Shouldn't a child be able to trust all adults? For that matter, shouldn't we all be able to trust one another? Trust seems so foundational to human society. People who are unable to be trustworthy are called sociopaths and their betrayals traumatize everyone they come in contact with and spread like a pandemic. Within a few years of the eruption of the memories I began to work in clay. The clay became my teacher and gradually expanded the scope of my thought. I made this piece after 9-11. Untrustworthiness between individuals is only a smaller dimension of untrustworthiness between national and international economic and political powers. I remember reading about the futility of the port of Oakland trying to inspect the thousands of containers that pass through every day and I wondered how had we gotten along before? But of course before we that is our sociopathic rulers had trusted that despite their theft of land and wealth their overwhelming capacity for violence would protect them just like my father did. After a while the clay took me to an even larger space using clays of different colors to represent the deepest to the palest browns of human skin. Like everyone I wanted to hope to imagine that we could somehow recognize ourselves as one species interdependent enjoying the diversity of our appearances genders cultures abilities languages music art dance food delighting in one another and enriching one another's lives. I had hoped that we could mend our brokenness and create even greater beauty with our mutual healing. I hoped that we could go beyond the tired binaries of capitalism versus socialism to a social organization based on trust reciprocity respect and mutual care some might say I wanted the old to become new again but one of the strengths that I developed as a result of the severe trauma of my childhood was the ability to compartmentalize or as the therapist would call it dissociate. So while I still hold this hope of recovery I also fear it may be too late this is my most recent artwork an installation for Dia de los Muertos at somarts cultural center here in san francisco it's right next to Ariane's piece the altar is based on my deep concern regarding the climate crisis the shredding of the web of life which supports us and the terrifyingly real potential for human extinction the disruption of trust by rape and violence in families and by exploitation and enslavement in economic and political systems has its larger echo in the unimaginable trauma inflicted on the earth and her creatures the installation consists of 10 handmade and glazed coffins each with an item of our life on the planet here are some examples there is also a three panel collage oh let's look at these slides first there is also a three-part collage connecting the theme of the exhibition which is to love and be loved in return something that will not happen if we go extinct here's the information about the somarts exhibit which is right down 8th street from here at brennan so i hope you'll all visit that and also please buy the book thank you carla brendage is next and after her is ck thank you shizue and the san francisco public library for having me here um this particular piece um turned out to be sort of a mosaic for me in response to the prompt why do you write growing up mixed race and hua i sounds like a cliche except for my particular mix hua i in the 70s um being part of black and being part black and part white was far from the normal melange of exotic combinations that are part of the western psyche found in the remote pacific while there is a traditionally excluded in the inclusion of popolo black folks oh excuse me while there is a word commonly used in hua i for this mixed heritage which is hapa this term has a traditionally has traditionally excluded the inclusion of popolo which is black folks but as a child i was unaware of this and for a bit i identified as hapa eventually it emerged that being hapa included either asian and or hawaiian and white so my basic tagline growing up was i was one half black and one half white i did not account for any shades or remnants of miscegenation i did not account for the subtleties of ancestry most people wanted to know why i was brown and also why i was not super brown so this mathematical solution seemed to put all inquiries at rest eventually i learned that there was a term for my specific combination mulatto i've been asked why i do not identify as hawaiian simply put i am not hawaiian hawaiian people are the descendants of indigenous inhabitants of the hawaiian islands who trace their ancestry to tahiti my family is from alabama via slave ship via west africa and the congo and upstate new york via germany and the protestant reformation i have a number of ancestors originally from the palhatan territory now known as virginia maybe this is why i became a writer i was always asking being asked so many questions in the sixth grade i began to call like a bird in class i would suddenly become stiff and stare into space and then my mouth would open and i would shout ca ca like a raven this phenomena had many impacts on my identity and how i was perceived my neighbor who was 11 at the time recently arrived from samoa believed that i was a witch this was an identity i loved and also embraced we spent hours wandering the rugged mountains collecting popolo berries which created a purple dye mashing them up with a red berry which we called red berries along with other fruits like pomegranate making potions and bottles we found on the beach that floated over from distant lands such as japan and china the teacher sent me to the principal's office the first couple of times but later i realized i did not remember what was happening one day the calling stopped and my eyes rolled back into my head and i had the first of many grand mal seizures i can remember my teacher dragging me by one arm to the principal's office as i kicked and screamed after coming to consciousness my life's goal began to be became to be seen as normal maybe this is why i write could be but also because of my parents my mother is also a poet professor and political activist historian life inspired me kathryn marie waddell brandage tukara daughter of ladi one young and william henry waddell the fourth grew up in tuskegee alabama my father spent the last my father spent the last 40 years of his life writing and rewriting a memoir about his marriage to my black mother in the 60s as well as the rise of the counterculture generation and finally his decision to leave society completely and live off the grid his memoir does not mention me at all however he always told me that he felt a part of his decision to marry my mother and have a mixed race child was to participate in the creation of a new race effectually to change the world was this my burden or his before i was born however my mother's divorce my parents divorce began to take shape my mother who was an only child had gone to elementary school the historic little school in tuskegee in attendance were carol laurence linel richie and cathleen cleaver who would soon be the wife of eldridge cleaver of the black panthers although my mother's family had always been of the mindset to change from the inside very much like booker t washington this would change for my mother in 1966 while she was still abroad in france that was the year her first cousin sammy young junior was shot in the head for using a white only bathroom maybe this is why i became a writer i started writing when i was at vassar college it was a 1980s hip hop was called rap i think and in new york it was everything madonna was wearing a bra in public morc was saying nanu nanu we wore overalls and truly believed that nuclear war was imminent south africa had not been fully divested in the war on drugs and the crack epidemic were in full swing i mostly started writing because when i got to vassar college i began to realize i was black or thought about this half half black half white concept i had never really been forced to choose in hawaii i had never really been forced to choose my race all my life i had been choosing but not to choose my race one parent or set of relatives over another some parts of the decision were easy like choosing my maternal grandma and papa over the strangers on my father's side who had refused to acknowledge my existence but at vassar the stakes seemed to increase to say i was black meant that i was entering a geographical cultural territory i had little experience in black america being black meant somehow some kind of behavior or way of being that maybe i had not learned to emulate just as i had not spoken pitch in english i had not spoken black english or attended black churches i only knew two other black people in my high school and one of them um and one other from elementary school choosing black to me felt both natural as carnally i had always embodied my black self historically i understood my place in the world and my mother and father had both shared in their own ways um that i certainly fell legally into the category of black by blood quantum but to choose black what did that mean to my day-to-day to choose white however felt completely impossible i definitively and concrete have always known that i'm not white so it was an impossible choice thank you all right so next up is uh ck ita mora and after her is terita a mckel and um let's try to keep to our seven minutes if possible hi everybody um i'm gonna start by saying thank you so much to shizue for including me in this uncommon ground project and some of your other projects too so thank you so much suey thank you also to the san francisco public library for having us all here and allowing us to read our stories and thank you to everyone else in the room um for coming to hear those stories before i start reading um a section from my essay because i only have us uh enough time to stay on track um to read a section of it okay so um i do want to say that in the process of writing this essay um i had um and and shizue had kind of given us all prompts to um to select from what we might want to create something and i created a new um uh essay for this particular um anthology and so um i had to dig really deep into my memories um to think you know does my japanese ancestry in any way factor into the fact that i'm an artist now um i'm an interdisciplinary artist but does i have anything to do with me being japanese um so as i was combing through memories i realized that i actually know a lot of japanese words and phrases um that i had used early on in my life and i completely forgot about them because i haven't used them for decades and decades um and i used a lot of them in this essay and in case you don't speak japanese um i actually created a little glossary called the yonsei glossary and i put some bookmarks down here and there's some bookmarks on the back table so when you get your copy of the book be sure to pick up one of these because on the back of it is a qr code and a website that has link to the glossary for the japanese words that i use in this essay um so without further ado here's a small section of my essay securities paths of the yonsei i'm a child of sesame street the electric company the lone ranger and zoom a television show for kids that has nothing to do with video conferencing and everything to do with being your own cool and interesting self i am also the child of hello kitty speed racer ultraman and zato ichi the blind swordsman who is a sort of gambling zoro-esque massage therapist and i am also yonsei no not beyond say yonsei the japanese as the japanese diasporic term used particularly in north america and latin america to specify the great-grandchildren of japanese immigrants perhaps you have never thought of japanese people of having had a diaspora and have never considered what being of japanese answer history means now over a century after the opening of japan to the west and the big migration but many of us keep track ichi ni son shi go one two three four five is say ni say son say yonsei go say first second third fourth fifth generation my parents both son say or third generation grandchildren of japanese immigrants influenced my path to the arts in very different ways my dad's expectation of me were i suspect heavily influenced by the losses he experienced early in his childhood the forcible removal of his family from their sacramento valley home the loss of their farming livelihood all of their belongings and their community in 1942 executive order nine zero six six forced my four-year-old dad and his nine-year-old brother his mother and father and all other americans of japanese ancestry living in california and along the west coast to be incarcerated in the camps with only one suitcase of their belongings each he and his family remained in tuli lake for four years until 1946 dad was eight years old and his brother 13 when they were released from the camp the two of them grew up farming peaches with their parents always at the mercy of how weather insects and all variety of fruit tree fruit tree disease might affect the blossoming growing and harvesting seasons the family had no benefits no financial security from season to season and no guarantee from year to year that things would eventually turn out okay okay throughout it all his parents my grandma and grandpa discouraged him from speaking japanese and insisted that he speak english instead because he was an american and they lived in america years later in order to prove his family's americanness he put his own and to put his own patriotism on display he his brother and so many of their peers enlisted in the united states marine corps after serving and being honorably discharged from the military he worked a string of odd jobs doing watch repair working as a graveyard shift janitor and owning his own small one-man barbershop before getting married having three daughters and eventually achieving his dream getting a job working for the united states postal service he believed wholeheartedly that working for the us postal service was the best job in the world my dad made it abundantly clear to me money was not to be wasted on going to college rather i should get a job with the united states postal service as he did good pay overtime pay double time for working on holidays paid sick amplification time medical insurance insurance and pension he would enthusiastically repeat to me countless times when i complained that i didn't want to work for the us postal service and i tried to explain that i wanted to go to college and learn how to be an artist instead his reply was always the same okay okay if you don't want to work for the post office ups is pretty good too and you can still save all your money for emergencies so to find out how the rest of the story is it goes get the book and be sure to pick up a bookmark thank you very much next up is terita mckell and after that hosue rojas wow that was it's been amazing i mean wow what can i say she's away thank you thank you for inviting me thinking just thank you san francisco public library for hosting this and uh well let's get started time is moving and uh uh i'm gonna try this i'm gonna try and see if it will uh there we go on a timer we're good okay okay um yes when the when the prompt was what got you started i i had to really um there's just a myriad of things but i hear various stories every time we listen to each other there's a bit of there's a bit of there's a bit of every one of us here together so um i wrote a piece called uh i come from and i'll be reading sections of that i come from starbird bees honeysuckle nectar apricot fruit trees schwen bites and the wonder flowers opening and closing at night i come from family fishing on berkeley pier before laws needed to make the bay a garbage dump i come from watching mama be afraid of snakes on tv living room dances with daddy i come from her cooking canning magic i come from mama warning me when i was 10 like for you may not be peaches and cream i come from witnessing mama's slow death a sheep among wolves dying of lupus a wolf disease depriving her body of oxygen i come from daddy losing his mind leaving three baby girls behind she's gone home the church ministers say i come from watching little sister's eyes stare at the door waiting for mama's return but she was not coming back to the side of the veil i come from daddy being haunted by mama seeing her in every room of our home moving from east oakland to north a new secret harbors rape death threats becoming obese stuffing my body yet feeling empty alopecia balding aphasia infusing to speak i come from child protection services i come from bell's palsy my body making a decision without me left side of my face paralyzed from the first night of cps dropping us off at the cottage i come from information overload i come from the cottage chapel where the old english proverb says children are to be seen and not heard suffer little children who come unto me bible verse i come from finding a place among other girls 11 to 15 years old confused as me one black one latin one jewish one white recalling their abuse dipped in boiling pots birthing fathers baby mother forcing daughter to be father's lover and father having sex with three of his four daughters i come from foster home's alma mater thrones san francisco turbulent 60s the irony of bell's palsy staining my face court separating me from younger siblings soul sore misery sores living in rat infested alley between webster and filmore i come from shades of family skin judged at sin of ham i come from learning the race game i come from poetry rising up out of me war and violence sign of the times changing i come from survival young teen dazed amazed under dark heavy hazed i come from new strength breaking death sentence holding on set free speaking up for myself finding my social worker refusing shit from foster mother or anyone else i come from finishing high school by myself because foster mother enthused by her foster care wealth needs me to babysit her flock of cps and stable of women children owned by pimp i come from the government that spends 19 million dollars on toilets in space to keep shit from floating in the sky i come from dr king saying sometimes you must break the law to uphold justice i come from never giving up and the song searching i'm searching i'm searching i'm searching i'm searching i come from wanting to make a home meeting my daughter's father and knowing that the act of giving birth is an act of war i come from attending lainey and merits rage first raised fist for human rights panther 10 point program black power staying it loud i'm black and i'm proud i come from immatill four little girls blown up in the church malcolm x mega evers martin luther king jfk and kennedy murdered it's the kkk and elder says i come from witnessing san francisco state agents of change i come from music that kept me moving war huh what is it good for don't call me nigger white a don't call me white a nigger i come from had to get sly and sometimes stone hot fun in the summertime motown stevie wonders living for the city i come from fighting to live and living to fight termites killing my family softly day and night i come from moon to healing my circle broken i come from the audacity of hope supplying artillery's artistry i come from the black panther clinic i come from the tribune calling asking how many guns did you have at the black panther clinic how many services were provided no didn't ask any of that i come from ptsd got to keep it moving dropping the bs trust in kwame terry's message education in this country makes you stupid but what is worse it makes you arrogant in your stupidity i come from nissy black butterfly sail across the waters tell your sons and daughters with the struggle brains and if you want to hear the rest by the book thank you okay next is jose rojas wow um that really blew my mind um that was powerful thank you to all um to all the artists actually i want to give a huge shout out and a hand to all the artists that um have contributed and stepped up and are speaking um it really um i hadn't seen the book until until today and so it really uh brought home um kind of why i'm an artist so thank you all who were here and shout out to the ones who also couldn't be here thank you she's way for uh you know inviting me to be a part of this and uh thank you to the sf pl i haven't been on this podium watch you the first time i was on this podium i was 17 years old and i was reading i was one of the first uh i was part of the first class of youth speaks uh kids and we used to meet we used to meet uh in some cutty little office they didn't even have a youth center really that much then this was 1997 the fall and i was a senior in high school um so it was a really great uh really great moment um i'm just gonna tell you a little bit about me i'm i don't even want to like you can read the thing and you know you can learn what's in there but you have you know i'm here now so you can i'm just gonna kind of go off the cuff and sort of speak um i am sorry i just really uh was blown away because you know um you you put these things far back and you wonder why you're an artist you know and um but yeah a lot of stuff war you know domestic violence um just witnessing beauty you know and just being hungry to communicate and so i just tried to put all that into my work really quite simply um i mentioned youth speaks because sfusd uh my wife is educator sfusd at least in the 90s really failed me um i was really hungry to be an artist and um and to do art and do creative stuff and i had to go all kinds of after school to make that happen so that was youth speaks that was um that was perceived as a mural art center that was finding my own mentors uh finding my own kind of relatives in the community and so i was really lucky to have that one person that was always a strong uh next to me i guess it's just gonna kind of click you guys everyone got a clicker i'm just gonna it's just automatically clicking for me just hold it oh cool we can keep it on that one for a little while uh that's my mom um wearing wearing uh wearing an apron and uh when i first started doing murals and doing art i would show up completely covered in paint back home i come back home covered in paint and she'd be like like did you just go off the deep end like what's wrong with you like you you know you look like a crazy person and i don't think she really kind of got it uh and then that later became like oh wow you're you're finding ways to like sustain yourself doing this and then that became like oh wow you're getting paid to do this and then that became oh wow it's pretty cool you're doing this and then that became can you teach me how to do this and then that became you're not leaving that you know you're not leaving to this next project without me and so you know when we do uh projects a lot of times um she's there with me and she's one of uh one of my big supporters and and helpers and aides and that's one of the fun moments that um she's actually caught me in so she uh we was caught red handed making this mural on balmy alley and uh she got this really candid shot of her um yeah really really um actually i'm not even paying attention to time sorry um really really an amazing fun and creative person this next one um i guess really kind of shows um a little bit of a big mix of my interests this i was invited to be in the uh we are bruce lee exhibit that was curated by the wonder twins who run the african-american art complex but we're invited to do this this kind of city-wide art show at the the chinese historical society of sf the chsa um and so i just really wanted to show how bruce lee i wasn't even really alive when he was um but just to see some of those movies and to see how that he represented the bay that he was so kind of international and sort of intersectional and that he was funky you know that was you know he represented just funk and general bad assness uh one little um a little known fact about him is he was a cha cha cha champion of hong kong so he was avid dancer and he had um he had some ritmo as we say uh he had some rhythm and so i just wanted to just kind of um give kind of a latinx take on bruce lee um and that was my contribution to that really um i'm marrying a bunch of different stuff in my work it's just a big hot mod podge of you know um growing up with volcanoes um and being born in the land of volcanoes i'm from in salvador um loving cartoons loving old americana mixing that really trying to challenge racism um thinking about those intersections so a lot of times my work will have a broken up dismembered um confederate sort of flag or confederate imagery trying to steal that imagery um and break it up i also put in some um uh full caloric imagery like uh the salvador and little houses and stuff um so yeah uh i try to just marry the streets and um and find art painting that's a lot of what i do in my work um yeah here's another good one um again just mixing some of that uh mission activism with um some fun um old americana and old sort of latin americana uh imagery um yeah i don't know what else to say other than i'm really blessed uh i've been really blessed by everybody here adrian um abadka really kind of speaking to me like really giving me some some church moments just the idea of that we've been given this gift and you know walk in the walk and sort of building the practice really is a prayer and i just you know there's moments where um you know i was painting a mural i was this this season has been kind of crazy because i went from running a non-profit to a historical legacy non-profit axio latina i talk about it in the book to really do in my own independent independent practice and really it was the first time in my life really doing it full-time um and trying to survive off being an artist and so yeah thank you it was the scariest shit so thank you thank you to all of you for for for for doing that you know and um i went from being up on the side of like a ten story building harnessed up you know on the swing stage to buying some knee pads and being on the ground painting the ground at golden gate park and everything in between and um really just shedding those tears just crying as i'm doing all of this talking to god and just really having this really spiritual moment and i don't know you guys the poets really articulate it way much better than the visual than at me at least i'll speak for myself than than i could so thank you all for uh for this really special moment and um i heard something really powerful being said it was i think it was a meme it said um in a world where you could be anything be the person that ends the meeting early so i don't know i don't know if my seven minutes are up but that's really all i gotta say i love everybody thank you so much keep it keep it out so uh next up is uh to me the con that i forget her in the i skipped her in the thing and then after her is uh is me and then kim shuck uh but i don't have to say one thing about host way i had to chase a lot of the people in this book because a lot of people have been very busy this year uh and you know i would like i would keep trying to call him and call him i finally get hold of him at 10 o'clock at night i could hear him eating at 10 o'clock at night he's been painting all day long so i'm really grateful that you you were able to find the time to write and contribute to the book you know and the rest of you as well i know a lot of you were really busy and had to dig deep and really think about your story so i really appreciate that from all of you including to me now talk about it all right uh salamu alaykum everyone bismillah arman raheem um shizway thank you for chasing me um and you know and and and you know chasing this essay out of me it was challenging it was it was um this is a hard one to write um i'm really grateful to the public library always grateful to the public library and to be here on ramay tush unseated ramay tush aloni territory um i took a comedy workshop a couple weeks ago with my friend and um uh zahra norbach and it was called uh decolonizing comedy and uh and she says perfectionism is the tool of white supremacy and um and i'm a recovery i'm recovering i'm constantly recovering from this tool of white supremacy um so i'd like to um read uh an excerpt of of this essay it's called becoming a poet a love story december 15th 2021 dark and cold outside i'm sitting in front of my classroom i'm sitting at the front of my classroom while the students take their final exam we've been reading bell hooks all about love and have been exploring what love looks like to each of us it's complications and contradictions we've learned to see love as a verb as something we practice with intent bell hooks states that love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth the students are creating their final exam in any form they like they can draw write a poem write a letter create a collage or write an essay we've been meeting in person masked and distanced while most of the college is still online for the past 18 weeks we have talked about family dysfunction cycles of abuse strict parenting addiction and career paths bell hooks tells us that the will to power and the will to love cannot coexist so we consider how can we choose love in the face of power we share poems songs and images we have brought our loved ones into our day of the dead remembrance in which one student told us about her late husband who died a died of cancer at the age of 22 another told us about friends killed by the military in berma only a few months ago I am thinking about all that we shared about their stories about their own inquiry into love about the growth and expansion of their writing and by extension mine one by one students finish and leave as I begin packing up one of the students gives me the news bell hooks died today I feel my world's been rapidly and go still we study love together in pandemic times in masks dark outside light within 1988 I began reading bell hooks talking back she writes as a black feminist claiming her own voice naming the white supremacist patriarchy as a young Indian Muslim child of immigrants I have been thinking about where my story connects with history I am thinking about colonialism immigration and racism in her books I see my own struggle I see my own heart coming out of a childhood of silence and alienation I see a way forward for me my words my voice 1967 zena not tired the last words my older sister speaks before she withdraws into herself she speaks of herself in the third person zena nah for Zarina we call her zeno we will call her zeno she stops speaking as I am born I am the newborn no one worries over 1969 early flashes of memory take me to northern Ireland where we live for two years a red dog a trailer where we live temporarily roses I do not know which memories are mine or which are constructed from what my parents tell me Ireland becomes a place of the imagination a secondary place of belonging my parents find themselves outsiders to the beginnings of the troubles a conflict not theirs this also will capture my imagination 1970 I do not know what autism is I only know that I talk and zeno does not she is older and bigger than me my parents have hired a speech therapist who comes to our apartment in Salt Lake City and sits with zeno trying to teach her to repeat sounds zeno and I go to preschool together I make two drawings one for her one for me one afternoon I watch my preschool teacher write on a piece of paper I take a piece of paper and draw zigzags in red crayon intrigued by the mystery bound up in lines on the page I am told that I learned to talk and never stopped but I am also shy I don't say anything to new people especially adults I use words but she does not what does this mean what does she want to say 1972 I take the bus from University Village where we live to Beacon Heights Elementary two of my friends Mocha and Mojib write the same bus we are all in kindergarten my teacher is a tall white woman who wears dresses and shoes with heels she says my name in a weird way she asks me to say something in my language and for Mocha to say something in her language to see if we understand each other even though we are from different countries with different languages we read we learn to read a book about Dick and Jane and Spott she tells me I call her too slowly zeno goes to a different school for special kids I think this means a school for kids who don't talk I am not special I talk the bookmobile comes to University Village and I go there to get a library card I am with other kids and no grown-ups I check out books I am not sure how I choose them mommy reads me books read books reads books to me every night I love reading books with her zeno sits with us too but does not understand books and freedom a window to another world curled up with my mom 1972 we have Islamic school in the small community center at University Village Tharik uncle recites Sures and we repeat after him I like the sounds of the Sures my son auntie teaches us to say the sounds of the Arabic alphabet I like to say off and I'm sounds that come from the back of the throat I like it when we all pray together Tharik uncle tells us that there are angels on our shoulders we can't see them but they're there they watch us and write down all the good and bad things we do if we are good we will go to heaven and in heaven we can do anything we want what would you like to do in heaven he asks us some kids say they want to fly others want to swim like a fish I want my sister to talk I say will she talk in heaven who am I would zeno what does it mean to talk to not talk thank you so after me will be Kim Shuck and then Kimi Sugioka Elizabeth Travelslight and Andre Lamont Wilson and we'll also start a slide show that will show the artists that weren't able to come tonight today I squeezed so much thing into my chapter it's ridiculous so I sort of am doing a sort of a quick run-through burden of imagination this painting is one of my favorites it's a self-portrait from the late 1970s when I was a single parent trying to figure out how to make a living so is the sound okay okay I wanted to be an artist but what was the artist's responsibility to the blank canvas what should I paint from the top corner Emmett Till's mother an Appalachian storyteller a hundred-year-old former slave a nun in charismatic prayer a bird and a monkey that the dominant society seemed to care more about than the Amazonian Indian there were no Asians in the picture because I couldn't find any scrap material on newspapers and magazines we were invisible we still are in many ways growing up Japanese-American it was hard to claim my voice my father and I disagreed about everything he'd been incarcerated at 22 and spent the next 25 years trying to prove his loyalty by serving in US military intelligence I was born a few months after the camps closed but it was hard for any of us to escape their shadow my father was constrained and classified in every aspect of his life as a little boy of color in racist Stockton as the son of a strict immigrant father as as the editor of the camp newspaper or in the military in Japan or the US my mother's family farmed the central coast since 1910 my grandfather died during the great depression leaving my grandmother with four young children and 140 acre farm when they were incarcerated they lost the farm and their farmhouse was burned down they were imprisoned in the searing Arizona desert when my grandmother was released she started over in her her fifties sharecropping strawberries for driscolls my parents tried to leave it all behind by becoming part of the model minority they made it to the middle class but they were haunted by memories of incarceration and by the devastation that my father witnessed in war-torn Japan firebomb Tokyo and nuclear devastated Hiroshima I was raised to be quiet and polite and studious pinned down by my parents expectations and also by how Asians were perceived by the dominant society belittled fetishized sexualized tokenized everyone's invisible servant it never seemed to occur to people that Asians might need help or appreciation too as a teenager I saw the innocence of children all over the world being destroyed as the world struggled in unending conflict I had nowhere to put my pain and anger except to turn it against myself I rebelled in senior year of high school by taking an overdose of sleeping pills and that was a ticket to the psych ward I spent 18 months in and out of letterman hospital refusing to talk to the psychiatrist and being subjected to two rounds of shock treatments it was a painful time but it forced my parents to finally let go of me just in time for the summer of love I married the wrong man just to get out of the house and moved hate out to Frederick and Ashbury and discovered psychedelics and my own kind of spirituality I began to use art as a way to explore my heritage to reach past the language gap I had with my grandparents and understand them in a new way there was a majesty in their humility and within their own world their selflessness was respected and reciprocated they lived in a world that works because everyone gave a little bit more than they took they were cut off from Japan by distance and from America by language and discrimination but they lived in harmony with nature within a strong community that they rebuilt after the war but their American-born children left home for the middle class and the model minority many of them cannot articulate the values that once sustained our community the Buddhist prayer says I am in a link in Amida's golden chain of love that stretches around the world I must keep my link bright and strong we are part of a continuum that connects the past and the future to the present without this sense of history and culture and spirituality we become a simulation assimilated to a hollow self trying to define itself through things now closed with a poem that was I was inspired by a class from kim shut elegy for the valley now silicon the old ones drift away petal by petal young ones dropped like cameo the heads in full flower we used to gather for weddings and births now the concho mostly tolls passages of death like moths drawn by a guttering candle we flutter around the light of memory the valley no longer awash in spring white fallowed fields entombed as parking lots a brave new world away from mudscrapers creaking windmills banging screen doors we won against the short handled hoe bent backs over strawberry fields grandchildren graduated to clean jobs in sparkling malls ripe for another shooting next up is kim shuck hey everybody so I brought stuff to read and I'm clearly didn't bring it up with me I'm not going to do it um I get asked a lot how I became an artist how I became a poet and the answer changes in every room I'm in I'm looking at a bunch of people that I love and have worked with and a few people I don't know but that's a very few people there are people in this room I've studied from that I've taught that I've battled side to side with that I've published things with that who've published me and uh I think you don't become a poet or an artist I think that happens over and over and over again it's a constant decision I just had to check to make sure it wasn't anything of mine that was by me on the screen so I was born in San Francisco and my story really starts fundamentally with being raised in uh Ramatish territory for which I am really grateful um my dad was from northeast north is from northeastern Oklahoma um was military career military um Cherokee boy and my mother was a hippie polish potter girl also born in San Francisco and there was no way I was ever really going to be like anybody else unless I chose the weird to be with the strange I've spent my entire life having people ask me to prove that I'm who I am um Lorraine is telling me to be louder I have some bad news for you baby I read a whole chapter of Melville with the backdrop of the surf and this is as loud as my voice goes today so that's going to be something that somebody else has to adjust I can't um my dad when he found out I wanted to do art as a living which I've been doing for quite a while now he told me that he would not pay for that and I said fine we didn't talk for a while and I paid for my education myself I have an MFA um and I raised three kids while doing it and I'm not focusing on the bad stuff because my life has been blessed I call a lot of you friend and that's a great thing I'm blessed my first art teacher was Ruth Asawa no kidding right um my first poetry real poetry teacher was Carolee Sanchez no kidding I have been very lucky um and I you know I just can't tell you how much I respect everybody's work in this room and so I'm going to just get off the stage if you want to read the version of my story you're gonna have to buy the book okay Kimi Sugiyoka and then Elizabeth travels light thank you so much she's away library human beings artists I really appreciate you I'm grateful for you um I um I took the part here and I've noticed that I've been avoiding the part and I think I've been avoiding the part because people are being pushed off of platforms and hurt or stabbed or whatever people of color specifically and I know it's I have I don't really think that's going to happen to me but I noticed it was just like this little bit of fear I had to overcome I have to overcome I'm trying to overcome and I think that goes to my um my writing my expression and then you know I'm off I've often tried to overcome fear many fears fears of being seen fears of being heard um and I actually want to read one poem oops that I wasn't going to read but that I thought of because of this it's called obsidian and jasper and I wrote it after the atlantic killings of the um the women restless in trouble the moon hisses and recoils above massacres hewn in the covenants of conquerors see how she weeps in cuddled acquiescence blood memories of a man's hunger for yellow meat how he anticipated this body this flesh trophy this bedpost notch the merchant marine told me that every ship was plastered with pinups of exotic asian girls like erotic evitations at every island port they all look like you he said now I am old enough to be disregarded soon old enough to be knocked down and kicked America just another bone to chew on in this vein false and brutal mythology you spawned in your depraved necrophilia ex splicing of all asia of all africa of all earthen colored people but we do not pine and bleed for the affection of our coloners colonizers we hold forth hold on hold out when dismissed when defiled when attacked we are not your fetishized sexual lies to femme fatales no we of obsidian and jasper are here to stay on this or any land that isn't yours that you carved into profiteering parcels that we do not accede to america we are armed cocked loaded and ready to rumble ready to hold cradle and lullaby all who are persecuted for the color of their skin thank you um so i'm just gonna read a little bit from the beginning of this i was born in the southern comfort of chapel hill north carolina into a mixed race family japanese scott's irish i was relatively comfortable until age seven when my world when the family broke in two moving to berkeley california in 1965 shifted my world from the quiet rural south to an urban revolutionary powder kick it was not unusual to see tanks on telegraph avenue it was not unusual to see cops striking peaceful protesters with their batons as they silently walked by i also experienced school integration and began to be alternately harassed and accepted as one of the few members of the cultural melting pot it was during this pivotal time that i learned what it meant to live between two worlds it set the stage for the rest of my life and became the fulcrum of my artistic expression half privileged half japanese half scott's irish half upper middle class coca cola in the fridge tempura or roast beef on the table apple pie in the oven half neglected garbanzo beans olives or popcorn scavenge because my mother was too broke or broken to shop or cook half north carolina demure half california dissident half exotic lily half merchant marine pinup girl half loved half privileged to go to college get by inherit enough for a condo down payment half terrified of not being able to pay the mortgage but making sure to buy 20 pairs of socks for my son so he wouldn't get the bleeding feet i had as a child because of the one pair of socks i wore all week half self-absorbed and self-indulgent half plagued by madness depression and guilt half nihilist half optimist half stubborn half acquiescent half brilliant half broken half penitent half impudent half teacher half poet half sinner half seraphim half you have me half otter half tree half salmon swimming out to sea as a mixed race woman i never felt safe or at peace in either world or in any world really though i did not realize it until i began my peregrination treading waters between cultures when i moved from chapel hill to berkeley in chapel hill i felt more or less accepted as a member of the only japanese american family in residence racist antagonism appeared to be reserved primarily for black people as that niche was already filled we became objects of curiosity as opposed to targets of hatred my father had become highly acculturated a post world war two america he had never been to japan and i believe because he was so mistreated did not feel compelled to share the culture of his heritage i was not aware of this until much later in life when i became close with one of my aunts she was a an ikabana master who communicated love and respect for familial japanese traditions my exposure to an impression of japanese culture was initially gleaned from the movies of kurosawa and the novels of obata and michin ma okay so if you want to read more buy the book thank you everybody okay up next is elizabeth travels light and then last but not least andre wilson hi thank you um gosh it is such an honor to be included in such incredible company like truly thank you shes um i'm just gonna read a couple excerpts um the first is about me and the second is about this place called the san francisco art institute maybe you've heard of it the never-ending contradictions and subsequent friction of being mixed reveal that all being is traversed with fault lines where stability cracks the surface we call identity as a shifting layer of facades rubbing against one another over a fluid molten mantle tectonics are the source of forces from which earthquakes and volcanoes erupt and seas and mountains emerge any solidity to being is a matter of time and perspective like the earth we are more liquid and dynamic than we tend to presume i spent years of my childhood roaming daily city where the san andreas fault slips into the sea countless hours scampering across buckling sidewalks knocking on doors ringing bells picking flowers collecting rubber bands buying candy climbing fences digging for bugs chasing waves pulling ice plants and breaking things with remarkable impunity i was a stray string of code run wild indulges candy colored mid-century fantasy a rectangular world a rectangular world blanketed in gray fog a cold palm tree on every lawn if i describe my upbringing as middle class it's to acknowledge the middle of class as another constantly shifting ground where economic stability is is as accessible as it is ephemeral i was raised in a tumultuous middle made steep and precarious by unhinged neoliberal policies that deregulated the american economy in the decades after i was born i am always a little afraid that whatever i have accomplished through luck effort skill legacy privilege and or proximity could evaporate at any moment in a tragic act of chance or carelessness the fear may also be a family legacy spanish and american empires in the philippines left a wake of inequality and desperation so pervasive it inspired my mother to cross an ocean to marry a handsome stranger combine this with the toe holds of wealth provided by my white fathers i find myself situated on a sliver of privilege placed at the maw's edge of destruction where living becomes a dramatic dance of survival dreams and calculated risk i have called the san francisco peninsula home my entire life it is my friend and my teacher it is my most favorite familiar shape my best answer to uneasy questions of how to be the san francisco art institute already heavily debt laden and cast strapped buckled instantly under the stress of the early pandemic the gilded radical veneer instantly dissolved to reveal pure white sub-preservation underneath the administration announced a suspension of operations they began to lay off staff they requested that every student transfer out they served notice to every single teacher adjunct and tenure tenure-track faculty alike the tower had become a death trap in the earliest confusing throws of a lethal viral pandemic the board and administration started throwing community members out denying them their livelihoods their health insurance and their homes those with access and power telling confused saving the school with securing their own high salaried positions above all else it was the most tragic and revealing failure of imagination and leadership i have ever witnessed and i found it unforgivable if i had any wonder left about the mysterious logic at the heart of their art it was now extremely clear preserve white privilege at all cost and above all else i understood then how privilege destroys courage and imagination and how illegitimate hierarchy smothers intelligence i saw how white i saw how white mediocrity thrives in white affluence and i understood why so many of our institutions are stuck these people seem to know how to do only one thing protect and enrich themselves even while others face death i won't be fooled into thinking otherwise ever again be aware of liars and cowards when you're in by january 2021 the school was in such a dire financial circumstances the board discussed selling sfai's famous Diego Rivera mural the making of a fresco showing the building of the city i did not expect to be so emotional there's a lot of love in the room so thank you what follows is an excerpt from the public comment i made to the san to san francisco's land use and transportation commission in support of landmark status and protecting the mural from removal we are here because careless philanthropists failed to follow through on a promise to raise 19 million dollars for san francisco the for the san francisco art institutes campus expansion to fort mason they gambled their fundraising goals on a loan leveraged against the school's chestnut street campus the building the artworks and the livelihoods of its community members their failure to follow through on this promise first left students in faculty to shoulder the burden now they want to remove and sell a landmark work of art to compensate for their shortfall this reckless so-called philanthropy needs to be stopped and the site specific mural must be protected from their negligence students have paid the price for this debt by covering high tuition with student loans faculty have paid the price by enduring stagnant salaries and the indignity of part-time precarious adjunct positions year after year and sfai's ongoing inability to support and retain significant representation of faculty and staff of color has been an unacknowledged loss for san francisco's entire arts community these so-called trustees left a gaping hole in a deeply important institution of learning gutting a community that has served san francisco and the creation of art around the world for 150 years only they know why they abandon and now try to obscure their fiduciary responsibilities someone should really investigate that 70 adjuncts laid off 300 students forced out and now the removal and sale of this monumental work of art these are considerable costs for philanthropic hubris this mural is a testament to the purpose of art and the importance of essential workers by one of the world's most celebrated artists of color to use it to cover and compensate for their elections of duty by sfai's trustees is unethical and it's an unforgivable slap in the face to every artist of color that has ever called san francisco home i've recorded these events to set down my rage as a guide a memorial to what went wrong for whom and why to remember where in a crisis it was possible to find strength and imagination courage and care the heart of the matter is not an ivory tower it is a mystery dressed in molten lava earth sky stars and tides my mother was a bridge in planning ahead i strive to be more present to handle the future like a newborn wild gentle fragile and strong how to be this is what i hope to remember most so to set a little context elizabeth went back to grad school to get a degree after standing on the roof of the the san francisco art institute and saying i want to teach here so she taught math for how many years did you teach she taught math to art students by coming up with these great assignments to get artists to understand that yes math is important and uh she was there and witnessed the death of this place so yep so next up is andre lament wilson thank you elizabeth that uh powerful reading and uh thank you uh shesway for inviting me to contribute to this anthology uh thank you to all the poets writers and artists who contributed and thank you to uh sf pl for hosting this book launch i'm going to share with you an excerpt of my essay trajectory introduction in 2019 the alexandria quarterly held its first line poetry contest for a poem inspired by the first line of a renown poem the contest chose as inspiration that year williams carlos williams poem dedication for a plot of ground which opens with the line quote this plot of ground unquote i can find no plot of ground more worthy of dedication than a plot at the corner seventh and brush streets in west oakland where my mother's family's apartment once stood i am keely aware that she lived in oakland when her family worked in the shipyards during world war two long after moving away from west oakland mom frequently asked me to conduct research at marcus books or at the african-american museum and library to help with her writing i wrote my own dedication poem which the alexandria quarterly editors selected and published as one of 11 finalists this plot this plot of ground at the corner of seventh and brush streets in west oakland welcome to my mother nicknamed yellow gal whose family of texas sharecroppers migrated to work in oakland shipyards during world war two this plot of ground provided the first home for that little black girl outside of the gym crow south a one bedroom apartment where her family also slept in the kitchen and the hall while yellow gal and her sister slept in the closet this plot of ground offered this little girl a closet window so high she stood on her bed to look out at the sailors shipyard workers and nightclubbers who walked up and down seventh street to visit the bars blues clubs and jazz joints this plot of ground bid farewell to this girl and her family who moved to the segregated harbour homes housing project next to more shipyard before returning to texas after the war when shipbuilding slowed this plot of ground witnessed the bulldozing of its buildings including the girl's first apartment in the state to make way for i980 leaving nothing but tree saplings and ivy seedlings behind the freeways chain link fence this plot of ground watched the son of this girl now grown visited tried to surprise her for christmas with a photo of her first california home only defined there's no there there so he photographed the green and white street signs at the corner of seventh and brush and gave her that this plot of ground observed the son of this woman now dead make pilgrimages to it to walk on his mother's footsteps around the block to peer through the chain link fence at the homeless encampment amid the trees and ivy where his mother's apartment once stood and when he passes it on his way to san francisco for his poetry readings he waves for her blessing thank you uh afterward frequently doing the award season be it oscar grammy or tony several winners will inevitably hold their shiny trophies aloft look to the ceiling with tear for eyes and say something to the effect i wish my mom and dad were here to see this i know you're looking down at me this one's for you thank you the audience gets all choked up knowing that the departed parent never lived to see their child achieve a dream they hope that if there is a heaven the parents will look down on their child with pride and joy such sentimental moments at award shows are so familiar that they are almost cliche body get what the award winners are saying and feeling whenever i get published or win an award i think i wish mom were here to see this where absence makes my publishing or winning a bittersweet because the one person who inspired me is not here to see my accomplishments if i had my brothers i would give up writing if i could have my mother back but that is not the trajectory she imagined for me she knew she wasn't going to be around forever the best that a parent can hope can do as they go to their grave is to plant a seed and hope after my mother died i became suspicious about why ports and writers magazine started arriving in my mailbox suddenly when i never subscribed to a reddit i had a hunch and called the company's subscription department and palm coast florida i asked did jesse wilson of sun valley california gave me a gift subscription to ports and writers the clerk checked her computer and said yes when did she give it to me on december 30th 2011 i immediately thought my mother had made a new years eve's resolution for me to resume writing thank you i said for hanging up stunned that my mother knew she was dying way back then and through a hail mary pass to get me to write again maybe she had mentioned the gift subscription to me and i didn't pay attention but when i learned that her dying wish was i began to dust off and read the growing pile of magazines ultimately i began to write and submit sometimes i published more work in one year than she did in her lifetime but i know i will never be a fraction of the port writer educator and activist she was after she lit my ignition the best i could do was go as far as possible with my writing that would have made her happy when her gift subscription ran out in december 2012 i renewed thank you very much and thank you thank you thank you buy the book buy the book and fill out a survey before you leave because i write all these fucking grants that all have grant reports do and they want the demographics how old are you what's your ethnicity do you have any comments about the program so elizabeth can you pass out the or okay uh could you start passing out the forms uh and um please the the writers as well and artists please fill out the forms i need to prove that we're bodies here buy a book buy a book fill out the survey and thank you anisa and mike and the rest of the library crew thank you so much and thank you all thank you all very much for being here and artist poets always a pleasure always


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