FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2009

11:15am – 12:45pm

Arab Resource Organizing Committee (AROC), Arab Youth Organization (AYO)

Facilitated by Lina Ereikat, Samha Ayesh, Hanan Areikat, and Hadeel Areikat (youth interns and leaders of AYO, the youth arm of AROC)

Youth facilitated interactive workshop on the history of Palestine.  Together we’ll “draw” a changing map of Palestine with images relating to the history and current events on the land.  Everyone will then work together to draw a map of Oakland using the same symbols.  We will draw on current examples such as the recent uprisings against the police murder of Oscar Grant, and resistance against the recent invasion of Gaza.  In this way, attendants will make connections to state violence, occupation, gentrification in the Bay Area and in Palestine, as well as making connections to our common struggles for liberation.

A film by Eric Tandoc (Anakbayan-Los Angeles, Habi-Arts, SAMA SAMA, Mass Movement)

The workshop will screen the new 40 minute documentary, Sounds of the New Hope, which focuses on the life and music of Filipino emcee Kiwi Illafonte and the growing use of hip-hop as a tool for social change in the Philippine movement for genuine freedom and democracy.

* * * The filmmaker will not be present at this screening.  Attend the screening on Saturday, Aug. 1 from 11:15am – 12:45pm for an included Q & A session and hip-hop workshop activity facilitated by the filmmaker. * * *

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Mangos With Chili, June Jordan’s Poetry for the People)

Want to quit your day job and be a full-time writer or performer, but have no idea how? All the full time “artists” you know have trust funds? Sigh and say, but I don’t want to starve a lot?   Having a hard time breaking out of gigs that want to pay you in gift certificates? Trying to figure out how to get paid, still be community based, and write the next Oscar Wao?  In this interactive workshop, working artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha will help you break down the roadblocks to carving out productive art work time and share strategies for building your ability to earn money and advance your career as a working- and paid- community-based artist.

Sahra Nguyen (Boston Progress Arts Collective, Artists for Humanity, Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth)

Reading and writing is a critical skill for success through high school, higher education and post-grad careers (SAT writing exam, CAHSEE writing, essays, college papers, statements, etc.)  High schools no longer have an integration program for ELL students and recent immigrants.  These students are tossed into the regular curriculum and expected to tread through an unknown system.  This workshop is based off of a mini field study/research where I worked with 6 recent immigrant (from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) ELL students at San Gabriel High School.  I developed a 10 week young womyn’s empowerment creative writing series.  The pitch was for them to learn how to become better writers and readers of the English language.  I used the creative writing process to navigate through their experiences, strengths and insecurities before they can begin to tackle the technical—grammar, structure, vocabulary, etc.  In this workshop, I will share research findings, curriculum ideas for educators and invite folks in the room to cypha about their experiences and knowledge in the subject.

Christine Ahn (Korea Policy Institute, National Campaign to End the Korean War)

Terry Park (National Campaign to End the Korean War, UC Davis)

On July 27, 1953, the U.S. signed an armistice agreement with North Korea to temporarily halt a destructive war that claimed 4 million lives and divided 10 million families. All foreign troops were to leave Korea and a permanent peace treaty secured. Yet, despite the adamant desire of Koreans, Korean Americans, and peace-loving people throughout the world for reconciliation, 28,500 U.S. troops remain in South Korea, and a peace treaty has not been signed.

Today, relations between the U.S. and North Korea are at an all-time low.  We are again in a very dangerous moment that could, at any moment, spark a full-scale war on the Korean peninsula. As one Korea expert recently put it, “We are sleep walking to war.”

Even James Laney, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea recently said in Seoul, “One of the things that have bedeviled all talks until now is the unresolved status of the Korean War. A peace treaty would provide a baseline for relationships, eliminating the question of the other’s legitimacy and its right to exist.”

In this workshop, we would like to inform the APA community about the truth behind US-North Korea relations and the need to finally end the Korean War, which has militarized the peninsula and the East Asian region. We want to foster dialogue on the impact of the war on our communities, and begin to inspire others to be more critically engaged in the direction of U.S. foreign policy in Asia and our motherlands. This workshop will combine critical intelligence about the root causes of the current conflict, artistic contributions that help de-colonize the mind and concrete steps we can take to realize peace on the Korean peninsula.

Jason Bayani and Joshua “Mesej1” Wheeler (Proletariat Bronze, BAY09 Organizing Crew)

The Workshop Workshop is not only a workshop, but it’s a workshop about workshops. Did I just blow your mind right there? The workshop is a critical part of creative development for any writer, whether they are fresh faced and just starting out or are an old embittered writer who spends most of his days drunk at the horse racing track. However learning how to workshop effectively is a necessary skill not only for you but for the other writers you will hopefully be working with. It’s about building trust, building a team and understanding that the act of writing isn’t always a solitary act. We will be discussing how to make an effective critique, boundaries and how to create a safe space within the workshop, and we’ll also be doing some actual workshopping of poems so make to sure to bring something in to read.

Michelle “Mush” Lee (Youth Speaks)

The debate over what kind of national history public schools should teach has been good, bad and ugly. In recent years, history textbooks have undergone few significant changes. Yet they are still “little more than repositories of dates, names, and facts”, and cultural accuracy remains the most serious problem in conventional American history textbooks.  In California, community organizations representing African American, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Jews, and Muslims argued that a Houghton Mifflin textbooks used in California middle schools were bias, events and people were omitted or misrepresented, and the achievements of white were privileged over nonwhites, and racial, ethnic groups were stereotypes.

Present social studies standards and current emphases in multicultural education support a curriculum that promotes multiple perspectives and use of various print, multimedia, and electronic resources yet standardized textbooks are still the primary instructional tools in 75 to 90 percent of classrooms.

*** need workshop title, description and names of facilitators

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2009

11:15am – 12:45pm

Paloma Belara (Papa Lo Down)

In the workshop “Weapons of Mass Promotion” attendees will learn how to create a one-sheet.  A one-sheet is a press kit on one page, a Facebook profile on paper, and a standard industry tool artists use to promote themselves for press and booking opportunities.  Understanding the purpose and elements needed to create a one-sheet will be discussed, as well as an opportunity for attendees to brainstorm and outline their own one-sheet to take home.

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai (Moving Earth Productions LLC)

“What next?” is the question that a lot of folks are asking whether in terms of spoken word, hip hop, or the Asian Pacific Islander community in America.  In this workshop, we’ll dig into the root of what the point of doing spoken word is in the first place i.e. your individual purpose and impact and what it means for you to take leadership (artistic or otherwise) in the communities that are important to you.  All of this will be done through dope spoken word writing and performance exercises designed to likewise get you out of your patterns and writing towards your next level of fresh, visionary, and new.

A film by Eric Tandoc (Anakbayan-Los Angeles, Habi-Arts, SAMA SAMA, Mass Movement)

* * * See Friday, July 31, 11:15am – 12:45 pm for film description * * *

* * * The filmmaker will not be present at this screening.  The screening on Saturday, Aug. 1 from 3 – 4:30pm will include a Q & A session and hip-hop workshop activity facilitated by the filmmaker. * * *

Stand Up: An Archive History of the Bay Area Asian American Movement, 1968-1974

By The Asian Community Center Archive Group

Published by Eastwind Books of Berkeley 2009

Facilitated by Harvey Dong (Professor UC Berkely Asian American Studies, manager of Eastwind Books of Berkeley)

Panelists

Victoria Wong, Asian Community Center (ACC) Archive Group, former Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), and Third World Liberation Front member

Bea Tam, ACC Archive Group, Eastwind Books of Berkeley

Wayie Ly, APEX Express KPFA Radio Moderator

History of AAPA, Third World Liberation Front strikes 1968 and 1969 at SF State College and UC Berkeley, and community movements in San Francisco Chinatown-Manilatown, from the International Hotel fight against eviction to the ACC

Craig Santos Perez (Achiote Press, Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley)

This workshop will discuss contemporary poetry written by native Chamorus from Guam and the diaspora. We will explore written work that is currently being gathered into an anthology of Chamoru literature, as well as spoken word poetry emerging from the Sinangan-ta movement on Guahan. In addition, we will familiarize ourselves with the social, political, and cultural contexts of Guahan and the Chamoru people, focusing on how issues of militarization, colonialism, and self-determination become articulated through poetry.  Finally, we will try our hand at responding to some of these issues by working on some poems of our own.

Committee For Human Rights in the Philippines

Facilitated by Rupert Estanislao and Ryan Leano

Since Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came into office in 2001, the Pilipino people in the Philippines have been forced to live in extreme government oppression and silent martial law. Over 200 civilians have been abducted & disappeared.  1,013 extra-judicial killings, 1,036 cases of torture and other forms of human right abuses have been committed against activists, journalists, human rights lawyers, church leaders, union leaders, indigenous people, peasant leaders and others. This workshop will uncover the political repression happening in the Philippines and ways we can support justice and uphold human rights through arts, education and activism.

UC Berkeley Southeast Asian Student Coalition: Anthology Committee

Facilitated by Tracy Nguyen, Dat Phan and Son Chau

We, the Southeast Asian students from UC Berkeley would like to share with you a very powerful display of art.  This art, which is a contribution from various generations, speaks to the political history of Southeast Asians and their experiences that tie in with the “Vietnam War.”   Traditionally, art galleries have been displayed by colonizers who have historically oppressed us by materializing and commodifying our history into mere forms of invalid, objective artifacts.  Today, we want to reclaim that display and exhibit our own interpretation of history.  We welcome all folks who are interested in seeing APIA art as a form of reclaiming personal narratives and as a form of reclaiming the exhibition of our stories.

A Film by Tad Nakamura

A SONG FOR OURSELVES is an intimate journey into the life and music of Asian American Movement troubadour Chris Iijima.  Struggling to make sense of their father’s early death, his teenage sons learn that during the 1970s when Asians in America were still considered “Orientals,” Chris’ music and passion for social justice helped provide the voice and identity an entire generation had been in search of.  Through animated photographs, intimate home movies, archival footage of Chris’ introduction to nationwide television by John Lennon and Chris’ own songs, their father’s life takes on bigger meaning than they had ever dreamed of.

* * * Note: The filmmaker will not be present at the Summit.  Workshop attendants will be given questions to discuss after the film is over. * * *

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2009

3 – 4:30 pm

Paloma Belara (Papa Lo Down)

* * * See Saturday, Aug. 1, 11:15am – 12:45pm for workshop description * * *

League of Filipino Students – San Francisco State University

Facilitated by Jessica Antonio and JR Arimboanga

Exploring the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) Student Strike that established Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and inspired student movements across the nation, what issues they faced in 1968, and the current issues that students are fighting for, as well as alliance building between people of color organizations on campus since TWLF.

A film by Eric Tandoc (Anakbayan-Los Angeles, Habi-Arts, SAMA SAMA, Mass Movement)

The workshop will screen the new 40 minute documentary, Sounds of the New Hope, which focuses on the life and music of Filipino emcee Kiwi Illafonte and the growing use hip-hop as a tool for social change in the Philippine movement for genuine freedom and democracy. It will also include a Q&A on the film as well as a hip-hop workshop activity to engage the participants.

* * * NOTE: The filmmaker will be present during this screening. * * *

Committee For Human Rights in the Philippines

Faciitated by Rupert Estanislao and Ryan Leano

* * * See Saturday, Aug. 1, 11:15am – 12:45pm for workshop description * * *

A Film by Tad Nakamura

* * * See Saturday, Aug. 1, 11:15am – 12:45pm for workshop description * * *

* * * Note: The filmmaker will not be present at the Summit.  Workshop attendants will be given questions to discuss after the film is over. * * *

Drizzletron (iLL-Literacy, Pretty Buoyant Society)

DJ Phatrick (Devil’s Pie , Pretty Buoyant Society)

Identifying APIA culture has always been a struggle between API and American cultures, often pegged as too white, too black, too American, not American enough, or unoriginal.  However, with the rapidly-expanding cultural exchange that occurs in our technological generation, can any one culture identify itself without the influence of others?  Drizzletron and Phatrick host a monthly APIA pop culture radio show, where questions regarding identifying tangible aspects of APIA culture are often discussed.  In this forum, we’ll explore some aspects of APIA arts that have been influential throughout history, and open the conversation up to the Summit community.  Where do you see APIA culture?  How do we push it forward?