Kultivating Kapwa: Recent Episodes
centerforbabaylanstudies
This is Kultivating Kapwa, hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig and Olivia Sawi.
In our FIRST series, we sit down and ask Auntie Leny questions about her life, her work, decolonization, academia, ethnoautobiography, her relationship to nature, the land, and all living beings, and her views of the future.
In our SECOND series, we have conversations with members of the community and explore how decolonization has manifested itself in their work, and how they cultivate kapwa in their own lives.
In our THIRD series, we discuss decolonizing parenthood. We explore how decolonization shows up at home and in family, relational to our collective children. We delve into the intergenerational healing that exists in parenting the next generation, that ripples into our relationships to our elders and ancestors, our community, and all parts of our lives.
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.27
"Becoming a Mother - Becoming Your Truest Self"
In this episode, we are joined by Joanna La Torre. We discuss being a new parent as a queer, single, PhD student, how having a child during the Pandemic has shaped how she moves with her child in the world, how becoming a mother has helped her become her truest self, and more.
Joanna La Torre is a genderqueer, queer, multi-ethnic, community-embedded, Filipinx scholar-praxavist and settler from occupied Ohlone territory in California’s Bay Area. Jo is an indigenist researcher and social work practitioner whose work seeks to uplift sovereignty of Indigenous peoples around the world. Joanna’s practice has focused on young people highly impacted by carceral logics and systems including those imprisoned and/or surveilled by criminal legal and child welfare systems.
Currently, Jo is a PhD student and Research Assistant at the University of Washington’s Indigenous Wellness Research Institute and is working on a study about the health and wellness of Native American youth at a residential boarding school.
@marunggay_medicine has been involved with the Center for Babaylan Studies for over ten years and has served with the leadership core since 2016. Joanna’s research is situated within the movements of decolonizing Filipinos and aims to bolster community-driven, culturally-grounded interventions addressing disproportionate mental health burdens of Filipinos in diaspora.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.26
"Raising the Family Lead by the Honoring of Our Emotions"
In this episode, we are joined by Jaisa Sulit. We discuss how an injury led her to a path of mindfulness and decolonizing how she has moved forward in work, how her own self care affects how she parents, the understanding that children are more intelligent than we personally observe or think, seeing her son as a co-creator, and more.
Jaisa Sulit (she/her/siya), her partner TJ Lim, and their son Jasper gratefully live together in Tkaronto, which is on the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. Tkaronto is also home to a diversity of First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples.
Jaisa is the only child of Jaime Chiu Sulit and Luisa Santos Baello. Jaime is from Quezon City with lineages from Los Banos as well as Canton, China and Luisa is from Caloocan with lineages from Bataan. Jaisa acknowledges her privileges as an immigrant-settler and is humbly learning how to integrate acts of reconciliation into the daily lives of her family.
Jaisa worked as a neuro-rehab occupational therapist for five years until she sustained a spinal cord injury in a motorcycle “accident.” This put her on the inward journey where she discovered parts of herself waiting to be held. As such, Jaisa went on to become a practitioner of medical qigong, reiki, Chinese Shamanic Medicine and a teacher of the Mindful Self-Compassion and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction curriculums. In 2018, she published an Amazon best-selling book “Purpose in Paralysis: From Chronic Pain to Universal Gain” which tells the story of how Jaisa learned to walk and stand in her truth.
Since Jasper’s birth in 2020, Jaisa has been focusing full time on motherhood, respecting Jasper as her co-researcher in the learning of life here on mother earth. Until she returns to work in a year or so, Jaisa will be continuing to learn how to meet her own needs in the ways that she meets her son's.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.25
"In Good Relation - Grounding Together in Rhythms and Rituals"
In this episode, we are joined by Jen Maramba and Alex Punzalan. We discuss their practices in finding ways to connect with their children, and also to cheer and champion them, building family rituals, their discussions around discipline, and more.
Jen Maramba (she/they) & Alex Punzalan (he/him) along with their ‘suns’ Kawayan & Kaleo form the Punzaramba Artist Family.
The Punzarambas currently reside on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit and acknowledge their ongoing learning to embody allyship with Indigenous Kin and All Living Beings.
Jen, a Decolonizing Energetic/ Healing Practitioner and Alex, a Music Producer & Digital Projection Artist started their journey together by connecting deeply through the questioning, unlearning and playful co-creation as Filipin@/x artists. Jen and Alex continue to build upon their Filipin@/x identity through arts, culture & healing practices to guide them in their ways of learning + unlearning what it means to be in guardianship and parenting in these times.
@jenmaramba / jenmaramba.com @l3xjunior / lexjunior.com
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.24
"The Returns of Parenthood: Returning Home, Returning to Each Other, Returning to Ourselves"
In this episode, we are joined by Kai Kai Mascareñas. We discuss raising a child in community, her process of learning how to claim her needs and boundaries surrounding her child, tending to her child while being chronically ill and disabled, and more.
Kai Kai Mascareñas (she/they) is a queer, chronically ill + disabled, organizer and educator, and most importantly, mother to Diwa Uju Kalayaan Mascareñas-Lee (28 months old). Born and raised on the ancestral homelands of the Potawatomi people (Chicago, IL), Kai Kai is now based in Washington, DC, which sits on the ancestral lands of the Anocostans (Nacotchtank), and over time neighboring the Piscataway and Pumenkey peoples. Kai Kai is the daughter of Angela "Ging" Agustin and Ramon Mascareñas, and granddaughter of Salome and Procopio Agustin of Bicol and Bulacan, and Josephine and Benjamin Mascareñas of Nueva Ecija and Marinduque. Kai Kai is currently the Program Coordinator of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where they engage and support the largest racial minority group on campus. Kai Kai is dedicated to fighting for national democracy in the Philippines and is a founding member of DIWA - the DC chapter of the International Women's Alliance, a global alliance of grassroots, anti-imperialist women’s organizations. Kai Kai finds joy in movement, dreams about a future in herbalism and body work, and is excited to begin her martial arts journey in kali.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.23
"If You Trust the Children, They Will Be Trustworthy"
In this episode, we are joined by Chris Sabile Gunn. We discuss different ways of communicating to allow freedom, building trust and the complexities involved, modeling intergenerational boundaries, and more.
Chris Sabile Gunn is currently sheltering on the peninsula between the Nich'i M-Wána and Wallamt Rivers that is the land of the Kalipuya, Clackmas, Multnomah, and Chinook and many other peoples now known as Portland, Oregon. She was tubong (born in) Quezon City, Luzon, Philippines. Chris was moved from the ancestral lands and waters of the Tagalog, Ilokano, and Kapampangan peoples to the lands of the Kiikaapoi, Jumanos, Tawakoni, and Wichita peoples at the age of nine. As a 1.5 generation settler on Turtle Island, Chris seeks to be at the service of people who have been impacted by imperial colonization either through settlement of lands or forced economic migration policies that seek to separate people from their embodied ancestral knowledge and sovereignty.
Chris, along with their partner Alan, are the proud parents of Mori Sabile Gunn. Mori is a recording artist under the moniker Baby Soling - an homage to their maternal Lola, Soledad, whose nickname is Soling. Mori's debut album, Evergreen is available here: Evergreen, by Baby Soling
Chris is currently serving as the Special Advisor for Grid Innovation and Justice at the U.S. Department of Energy with the goal of promoting energy justice and addressing systemic impacts on frontline communities during the clean energy transition.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.22
"Loosening and Tightening the Knots of Intergenerational Relation"
In this episode, we are joined by Karen Buenavista Hanna. We discuss various blessings and challenges of having grandparents involved in her child's life, wanting to become a mom to understand her own mom better, wanting positive rather than transactional relationships between her child and her parents, and more.
Hailing from a diverse and loving lineage of ancestors, including those of Hiligaynon, Masbateño, Pangasinense, and Teochew descent, @sophiethecat27 (she/they/siya) is the daughter of Ben and Marlo Hanna and granddaughter of Flora and Florentino Buenavista of Bacolod, Negros Occidental and Tingseng Eng and Sai-Tiang Tang of Chiangmai, Thailand and Guangdong, China. She is also the proud mother of 1-year-old Florentino "Tino," who was born at home after 15 hours of active labor with skillful midwife Andrea Diamond, doula Myla Flores (and Janeé Aiken in spirit), birth assistant Shalawn Facey, and partner Victor Sta. Ana by their side. Together with Victor and Tino's maternal and paternal grandparents and a village of immediate and chosen family, Karen raises Tino and cat Sophie on the lands of the Lenape (Queens, NY), Eastern Pequot, Mashantucket Pequot, and Mohegan people (New London, CT).
Karen, who identifies as queer and chronically ill, is a long-time educator of nearly 20 years and is currently Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies at Connecticut College. There she teaches courses on social movements, migration, queer and feminist theory, and critical disability studies. Prior to her doctoral studies, from 2003 to 2011, Karen was a New York City public school teacher, pre-GED instructor with the Brooklyn Public Library, and community organizer working alongside Filipina/o/x immigrant youth as a member of Ugnayan ng mga Anak ng Bayan and the domestic workers of Damayan Migrant Workers Association. These experiences inform her approaches to research and pedagogy, which center the collective resistance of marginalized people in determining their own liberation. She is fiercely devoted to building queer- and trans-inclusive self-actualized spaces of healing and solidarity for womxn and femmes of color. Karen founded Brown University's first women of color student organization, the Women of Color Writing Circle, in 2002, and co-founded UC Santa Barbara’s Women of Color Circle in 2012.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.21
"Raising my Children through the God in Me"
In this episode, we discuss the awareness of raising children as free, without the burden of the ancestors, the consciousness of reclaiming the strength and beauty of the ancestors, following the spirit of God within the self, and more.
Cisa Payuyo is the daughter of the late Vicente Andaya Payuyo from Isabela and the late Irenea Parong Duque from Nueva Ecija. Born in the Yangna Village of the Kizh Nation, Cisa grew up in Echo Park near Downtown Los Angeles, close to Historic Filipinotown.
Cisa is an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ church, a progressive Christian denomination that ordains women, and people from the LGBTQ Community. She serves at Chapman University as chaplain and a spiritual mentor to students from across the campus.
Before her call to campus ministry, Cisa served as a case manager for Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA). SIPA is a non-profit organization near Downtown L. A. that advocates for and addresses the needs of people of the global majority in its surrounding neighborhood. She also volunteered with the Filipino American Library in various capacities.
Cisa is mother to three adult children – Donovan Buhawi, Nikolas Salatan and Nina Antikena Amihan, and Lola to Nina’s child Kennedy. Her beloved spouse is Ed Ramolete. They have been together for over twenty years.
Decolonization a spiritual practice for Cisa. Some of the ways it manifests in her daily life is in the way she reads and interprets sacred scripture, and in her work as an Anti-Racism trainer for clergy and churches in her denomination.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.20
"Moving Away from the ME, Understanding and Growing from the WE"
In this episode, we are joined by Jyn Rose Aguas Romualdez. We discuss her desire to be a grandmother while being a new mother, and her desire for reparenting in order to bring the knowledge back to her child, her journey with co-parenting, how she wants her child to experience the world, how she has changed most as a mother on her decolonial path, and more.
Jyn Rose (she/her/siya) was born in Makati, Philippines and settled in the U.S. with her parents at the tender age of three. She is the daughter of Mercy and Johnny Aguas, sister to Julian and Jamie, life partner to Martin and recent co-guardian/mama to Marcelo, who is her first born and greatest teacher. Her ancestral lineage includes the provinces of Batangas (mom's side) and Pampanga (dad's side). She currently resides on Ohlone land, specifically the unceded Ramaytush Territory, commonly referred to as San Francisco, California.
One way Jyn is cultivating a healthy, evolving relation to being a new mama, is welcoming the support of her doula, Romina @anakdoula who helps her navigate postpartum life with weekly soul-full connections. Also, with care and guidance from Jen Maramba through womb ceremonies both prenatal and postpartum, alongside sisterhood from all the mamas of the Mother Circles facilitated by JL Umipig and co-faciliated by JL, Jen and guest mothers, Jyn feels seen, heard and held in ways that western modalities cannot offer. Jyn is determined to pass on these teachings to her son and future descendants, trusting this not only will continue generational healing but will grow beyond survival, to thrive.
Jyn is always a student first. She is also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, poet @pinaypoetree, and aspiring (nature) photographer. Jyn currently works as a clinical program assistant in the mental health field, supporting a team of therapists, case managers and consultants to serve children and families within the homeless population. She is committed to and shares the work of decolonization with family and her communities open to listening, as it provides her a sense of healing, expansion and spirituality. Jyn’s kapwa is comprised of her immediate family, extended relatives and chosen kin, human and non-human, as well as known and unknown forces such as her most benevolent ancestors and guides, all who offer direction and protection of her heart, spirit, and whole being.
Jyn is in deep gratitude and inspired by the Love of her kapwa. Giving thanks to Olivia Sawi for introducing her to the Pilipino concept of “kapwa”, which was the beginning of a life transformation, recognizing interconnection with all and the start to embody decolonial practices. She is constantly learning, unlearning and re-membering.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.19
"Tending to the Mental Health, Healing the Whole Child, Healing the Whole Family"
In this episode, we are joined by Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas. We discuss embracing the full spectrum of experiences, how many things have many truths, how making medicine for herself as an act of survival led to Magpie Alchemy, how not one thing fixes everything, especially with medicines, and more.
Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas is an interdisciplinary artist, herbalist, and cultural worker located on Unceded Nisenan Territory. She also is the heart and hands of Magpie Alchemy - an apothecary located in Sacramento, CA/Nisenan land. She is a first generation Filipinx-American and Ilokana. Jamie is a proud mama to Margaret Aminah Cardenas Ives, distiller, natural plant dyer, weaver, potions maker, and film photographer. She is the daughter of Jaime Galinato Cardenas and Angelita Pesquiza Cardenas. Both sides of their family comes from Santa, Ilocos Sur, Philippines. She comes from a line of stewards of the land, of healers, weavers of Abel Iloko, and storytellers. She shares her gift of fiber arts, plant medicine and healing from her Grandmother's ancestral knowledge in hopes of supporting her community with healing, fortifying and celebrating their skin, and helping them stay in touch with their body, lineage and senses with the magic of plants.
Jamie’s love of fiber arts and plants comes from a deep longing for connection to one's self and others. She loves exploring textures and colors, especially the color blue. She sees it as both the color and the feeling. It elicits a very emotional response in humans, much like the pull to look at the deep blue ocean, or up at the beautiful sky. There’s a connection. Jamie sees weaving and natural plant dyes, especially Indigo, as a bridge between her ancestors and those in the diaspora longing to connect to their heritage. And in their studies as a weaver, she has discovered that the symbols and colors used in the art all have specific meanings. Through the learnings of these symbols and motifs, Jamie has come to realize how connected we all are, not just in the archipelago or diaspora, but everywhere. Jamie especially honors her grandmothers, Maria Asuncion Galinato Cardenas and Victorina Borje Pesquiza, who were the very best of friends, and weavers in Santa. Their love prevails even in this realm. Jamie recently learned that their middle name means research and last name means blue. This is no coincidence.
At the core of all of their work is a reminder and remembering, much like in whole plant medicine, we must embrace the full spectrum of being. We are complex, and so are our emotions and experiences. To share our love of community care, she launched The Ayat Project, a sharing of research and musings of plant magic, radical love, art and an affirmation that healing really does happen in community. With The Ayat Project, our goal is to share the science and stories behind what it really looks like to heal in community through tending to our nervous systems and co-regulation. On a biological level, we need each other to not only survive, but thrive. When she's not in circle with her weaving sisters and community, making plant medicine or in front of her big Mama Indigo Vat, you will find her remembering to find space for joy in the form of cooking for her loved ones, foraging for fungi with Maggie, dancing and singing with her family to Soulection, or roller skating.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.18
"The Will to Change: Becoming Your Self Again and Again in Motherhood"
In this episode, we are joined by Vanessa Ramalho. We reflect with Vanessa about what she has learned over this past year of her life in transition, how she has learned to prioritize her well-being and values, how she is manifesting her desire for her children to see her in her fullness, embodying unlimited possibility, and more.
Vanessa Tulop Ramalho is a settler on the lands of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape, aka South Jersey. She is a multiracial woman, the daughter of Joseph Francisco Ramalho, Jr. and Corazon Tulop Ramalho. Her ancestral lands on her father’s side are Cabo Verde, the Portuguese colonized islands off the West Coast of Africa. Her ancestral lands on her mother’s side are Samar in the Visayas region of the islands known as the Philippines. She is the mother of Talia (7), Enzo (5), and Inara (2), and bonus mom to DJ (18), who she helped raise since he was 6 years old. Vanessa currently raises her three children in an intergenerational household in her childhood home alongside her parents while also navigating coparenting with her children’s father, Daniel Rodriguez.
Vanessa is a community educator with a focus in sexual and reproductive health and a wide range of social justice issues and a background in public health advocacy, sexual and reproductive rights, community organizing, and activism. She has also been a birth worker for going on 6 years: She is a Full Spectrum Doula trained through Ancient Song Birth Services in Brooklyn, a Postpartum Care Specialist trained through the INNATE Traditions, a Childbirth Educator trained through Birth Arts International, and a Certified Lactation Counselor through the Academy of Lactation Policy and Practice. Vanessa is also an artist, jewelry designer, student harpist, aspiring farmer and herbalist, and has found a new love in pole dancing. One of Vanessa’s primary goals as a parent is to discover how one can be their fullest, healthiest, most whole and authentic self as a person, and how that expands, enlivens, and deepens her capacity as a mother. She aims to have her children witness her as a multifaceted human being who is alive with thoughts, needs, desires, interests, boundaries, faults, and divinity...and in turn create the space for them to be their fullest, most whole and authentic selves as well. Her biggest inspirations right now are adrienne maree brown and Tricia Hersey of the Nap Ministry, as their work around pleasure activism and rest as liberation respectively have been critical to her healing journey over the past year.
Vanessa is also a Core Organizer for the Center for Babaylan Studies and is immensely grateful to her CfBS family for their unyielding love, support, wisdom, care, and for inspiring her in innumerable ways.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.17
"A Mother's Raising of Suns and the Healing of Patriarchal Wounds"
In this episode, we are joined by Maria Rubio. We discuss how she teaches her children how to show up for themselves, the most difficult parts of raising two men of color, raising children communicative of their needs and wants, navigating the world of dating and romance, and more.
Maria Rubio is a born and raised New Yorker by way of the Philippines, and a writer of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and scripts for both stage and film. Her work explores the complicated, often antithetical and multi-layered nuances of the human experience through the lenses of queerness, decolonization, motherhood, trauma, and joy. She is also a registered nurse specializing in psychiatry, mental health, and sexual assault examination. She currently resides in Brooklyn.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.16
"How Free Can Our Children Be?"
In this episode, we are joined by Lucha Mañalac Alforque. We discuss how she is teaching her children to recognize and acknowledge other people, staying connected and present ot the differences in her children, how she hopes that in the future her children will take of themsevles by witnessing herself practicing self care, and more.
Lucha Mañalac Alforque is a Pinay settler on Canarsie Lenape land, commonly known as Queens, NY. She lives with her husband Dave with whom she is raising and unschooling their 2 children, Christien and Maryam- her greatest teachers. Lucha’s mother is Mila, and her people are from Sorsogon (Bicol), San Roque (Cavite), and Quezon. Her father is Armin and his lineage is of Naga (Cebu) and Guihulngan (Negros Oriental).
She is influenced and inspired by the teachings of various healing practitioners, gentle parents, and unschoolers, notably Akilah S. Richards (@fareofthefreechild) and Sundiata Soon-jahta (@dr.sundiata). Lucha aims to anchor her parenting in love, freedom and autonomy vs. fear, force, and authority. She honors feelings and the ability to witness these in her own self as well as her children. She practices modeling respect, accountability, compassion, and empathy as much as possible. Lucha currently leads a children's playgroup in the community and is a full spectrum pregnancy, birth, and post-partum doula with Ancient Song Doula Services.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.15
"Feeling into Deep Ancestry: Holding my Child While the Earth is Holding Me"
In this episode, we are joined by Kimberly Tate. We discuss her understanding of the nervous system and remembering to re-access joy, raising a baby since the beginning of the pandemic, how this turned out to be the perfect time and how it allowed deep transformative work, the need for mothers and in turn Mother Earth to rest, and more.
Kimberly Tate (she/they/we) is a multidisciplinary embodied truth seeker, teacher, healing arts practitioner, organizer and mother based in Flatbush, Brooklyn (unceded Munsee and Canarsie Lenape land). She is the daughter of Glenda and Dennis Tate, the granddaughter of Alfred & Josefina Pacho Tate and Felipe & Rosario Alibadbad Serrano from the Eastern Visayas of the Philippines. A trained architect practicing between disciplinary boundaries, Kimberly lives and creates, teaches, mothers and performs - to dream, to heal, to make space for grief and joy, to build kinship and belonging, to honor and restore our embodied inheritance and to recover agency in spheres we inhabit and design. Her work emerges in community through installation, performance art, workshops, care circles, natural ink making, textile upcycling and restorative embodied design pedagogy.
She is founder of Studio Galaxxxia, a healing arts, performance and design consultancy that conspires to amplify vibrations of love, healing, joy and belonging in our communities. She is also design faculty at Parsons School of Design at the New School, a K-12 design educator at the AIANY Center for Architecture, a recipient of a Tischman Environmental Design Center faculty grant and a 2020 Create Change Fellow with The Laundromat Project. Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.14
"Enriching a Life through Strengthened Channels of Relation"
In this episode, we are joined by Francis Estrada. We discuss how it takes a village to raise a person, his experiences raising an intercultural child, how he has integrated his experiences as a Guro in Pekiti Tirsia Kali as well as an educator into his parenting, and more.
Francis Estrada's family hails from Luzon– his mother from Pampanga and father from Pangasinan. He was born and raised in Metro Manila and currently resides in Lenapehoking or the "Land of the Lenape", also known as Brooklyn, NY. Francis is an artist and educator with a fine arts degree in painting and drawing, and has taught in a variety of studio, classroom, and museum settings to diverse audiences, including programs for adults with disabilities, cultural institutions, and out-of-school time programs. As an educator, he enjoys teaching about the amalgamation of art and culture through objects and movement. His artwork focuses on culture, history, and perception.
Through his artwork, he interrogates how visual cues found in historical photographs, mass media, political propaganda, and personal archives influence or inflect social or cultural narratives. He is also a martial arts instructor of Pekiti Tirsia Kali, a system indigenous to the Visayan region of the Philippines. Officially founded in 1897 by Grand Master Conrado Tortal, Pekiti-Tirsia was reserved as a family system of the Tortal family until it was introduced in New York City in 1972 by Grand Master Leo Tortal Gaje Jr. He is the co-founder of Pekiti Tirsia Kali Elite, and in the past few years has been able to travel with group members to the Philippines to see various cultures, subcultures, and locations in the archipelago to better understand the culture.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.13
"Birthing Your Freedom"
In this episode, we are joined by France. We discuss how she navigated the system to help her community, all while parenting with her partner, how Pinayism shows up in her parenting, visioning possibliity, and more.
France was born in the Philippines and grew up in Tiohtià:ke, colonially known as Montreal, Quebec, Canada. As an uninvited settler immigrant on Turtle Island, she was raised in a community with limited resources. Despite this, France overcame the challenges that many immigrant and racialized families face. She pursued a Master's degree in Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Spirituality from the universities of Ottawa and Saint-Paul, to serve the needs of immigrant communities. With her grassroots activism background close to her heart, France now works as a mental health counsellor. She is a former political candidate, and continues to champion for equality and justice as a long-time community organizer, and a decolonizing mama to Kalayaan. She strives to nurture a culture of politics that is more attentive, accessible, and exemplary of the multifaceted communities she serves.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.12
"Reflections on the Embodied Surrender of Parenthood"
In this episode, we are joined by Christine. We discuss partners being in transformation individually and in partnership, birthing experiences in a colonized existence, embodied surrender, and more.
Christine Mari Palma Start comes from a maternal line of Caviteños in Imus, Cavite and paternal line from Sta. Mesa & Sampaloc in Manila. She was born and raised on the lands of the Muwekma Ohlone people also known as Union City, California. She is a proud Pinay mama of 4 multi-ethnic children from newborn to teenager: her toddler Luca and newborn Mayari, and step-kids Tavake and Vai. Christine raises her kids with her partner, Sergio and her pamilya. She is a public defender, law school adjunct lecturer and coach for visionary women lawyers and leaders of color. As a public defender, she leads the Wellness Committee and sits on the Racial Justice Committee in her work. Christine is featured as one of nine women criminal defense lawyers in Andrea Lyon’s publication, The Feminine Sixth: Women for the Defense, a book that probes the non-fictional accounts of women criminal defense lawyers across the country.
Christine is the Visionary Founder and Lead Facilitator of the Pinay Powerhouse Conference & Collective, serves as a Wellness Director and serves as an executive officer and boardmember of several bar associations including the National Filipino American Lawyers Association, Filipino Bar Association of Northern California, Asian American Criminal Trial Lawyers Association and the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Solano County.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.11
"Being the Bridge in the Shadows of Parenting- Re-membering Each Other, Re-membering Ourselves"
In this episode, we are joined by marlena. We discuss a spiritual toolkit for emotional regulation, especially for children, finding building, and connecting with community as a parent, dealing with big emotions in tiny bodies, and more.
a triple scorpio with a virgo moon, marlena is a bridge of re-membering and transmutation. she accepts the invitation as an intermediary for liminal spaces within the physical and spiritual worlds. as a cultural worker she could have been found some years ago on Lenape territories hosting and performing in poetry events and art shows. she currently is in exchange with plant medicines as an herbalist and diving deeper into divination practices. marlena is queer, multiracial, and multicultural with maternal kampampangan lineages. she is also a birthing parent to fraternal twins, truth and mayari. they currently reside the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Me-wuk/Miwok, Pomo, and Wappo peoples.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.10
"Hand Over Heart; Finding the Way Back to Seeing and Loving Our Children"
In this episode, we are joined by DJ Kuttin Kandi. We discuss decolonizing systems within relationships, the 3Gs of Growth, Goals, and Gratitude, the harm in seeing things in a dichotomy of good and bad, modeling how to say I'm sorry, and more.
Dr. (h.c.) DJ Kuttin Kandi, who was born and raised in Lenape territory, Queens, NY is internationally known and widely respected as a legendary "People's Hip Hop DJ Scholar." Kandi is a disabled queer gender-fluid femme Filipinx-Pin[a/x]y-American Writer, Poet, Theater Performer, Educator, Hip Hop Feminist, and Community Organizer for over 25 years. DJ Kuttin Kandi is a Global Hip Hop and Cultural Ambassador by Next Level's Meridian International Center, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs where Kandi serves as a Site Manager for Next Level. Kandi is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of Asian Solidarity Collective (formerly Asians for Black Lives San Diego) as well as the Director of Campaigns & Organizing for the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans. Likewise, Kandi has co-founded several other local grassroots organizations such as Families for Justice in San Diego and more. Kandi is also a Co-Founder of the People’s Collective for Justice and Liberation and the University for Justice and Liberation (UJL). Newly appointed by the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors Nora Vargas, Kandi serves on the Committee for Persons with Disabilities. Additionally, Kandi is recently appointed by Mayor Mary Salas as a Human Relations Commissioner of Chula Vista. Kandi is a member of DJ team champions 5th Platoon; Co-Founder and DJ for the Hip Hop group Anomolies; Co-Founder of the famed NY monthly open mic “Guerrilla Words,” Co-Founder of the coalition R.E.A.C.Hip-Hop (Representing Education, Activism & Community through Hip Hop), Co-Founder and Board Member of the DJ Coalition - Freedom Sound DJ's, and Founder, Editor and Host of the podcast Hip Hop Bruha. In 2020, DJ Kuttin Kandi received an Honorary Doctorate in Pinayism for their endless dedication to radical sisterhood, critical praxis, and transformative solidarity.
Kandi first gained global reverence by competing in over 30 DJ competitions such as the ITF Championships and Vibe Magazine DJ Championships which eventually led them to being the first femme DJ to compete in the 1998 DMC USA Finals and winning the 1998 Source Magazine DJ Championships. Kuttin Kandi has been interviewed and featured in numerous magazines and newspapers such as Source, Vibe, Vogue, YM, Rolling Stones, XXL, The New York Times, The Daily News, and the Vibe Hip-Hop Diva’s book. Kandi has performed all around the world with artists such as Bob James, Kool Herc, Jay-Z, Gangstar, LL Cool J, Mya, MC Lyte, the Roots, Young Gunz, Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, Black Eyed Peas, Common, Jean Grae, BlackStar, and punk Riot Grrrl group LeTigre, just to name a few.
Kandi has performed at venues such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Lincoln Center, and Madison Square Garden for WNBA’s NY Liberty. Kandi is a known Pop-Culture Political Essayist, written for several anthologies and blogs and has been a Guest Contributing Writer for Colorlines, Racialicious and etc. Kandi and co-Founder of Krip-Hop Nation Leroy Moore, co-developed the Hip Hop for Disability Justice Campaign and co-wrote "Hip Hop & Disability Liberation: Finding Resistance, Hope & Wholeness" for Disability Visibility Project's anthology. Kandi is also the Co-Editor of the book "Empire of Funk: Hip Hop and Representation in Filipino/a America" and is currently working on new writing projects such as co-editing a new anthology with Dr. Amanda Solomon Amorao and Jen Soriano titled, Closer to Liberation: Pin[a/x]yist Journeys of Possibility and Power which is to be released this Spring of 2022. Kandi is a Midwest Academy Alumni, a 2018 Rockwood Fellow, a 2018 San Diego International Airport Artist-in-Residence with Kristina Wong and Samuel Valdez and has served as an artist-in-residence for U.C. San Diego’s SPACES. When Kandi is not performing they are community organizing, speaking, writing or lecturing. Kandi worked at UC San Diego’s Women’s Center for seven years specializing in social justice & diversity programming and within Student Life at Diablo Valley College in the Bay Area. Kandi is a well-known public speaker and lecturer and has spoken at over 150 colleges/universities across the United States. Kandi is also involved with the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance - San Diego, the Intersectional Feminist Collective, the F.I.E.R.C.E. Coalition, Filipino American Educators Association of California and organizes with various organizations throughout San Diego and the United States. In addition, Kandi is a strong Disability Justice and Special Education advocate with a Dis/Crit practice as they also serve on the Chula Vista School District's Special Education Parent Committee. Today, DJ Kuttin Kandi continues to do community organizing work, organizational development trainings, coaching for liberation and provides various lectures on diversity, gender & sexuality, race, disability justice, Hip Hop Feminism and etc.
Kandi now resides on Kumeyaay territory also known as San Diego, Ca. Kandi hopes this land acknowledgement shows gratitude and appreciation on this traditional land of Indigenous Peoples of past and present, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. This calls us to commit to continuing to learn how to be in solidarity with Indigenous People and to be better stewards of the land we inhabit.
Episode Note: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.09
"Teaching the Principles - Foundations of Education to Spiral Back Throughout Our Lives"
In this episode, we are joined by Bambu. We discuss what it means to be a martial family and the lessons that can be learned, being a community organizer and how it has changed over time, as well as how organizing and music is lived within his family, and more.
Bambu is a father, Emcee and community organizer. Raised all over the city of Los Angeles, as a young boy he experienced a life that other rappers have glorified, but rarely experienced. As he navigated through a turbulent youth, Bambu turned around the destructive energy that surrounded him and poured it into making music. Bambu has been lauded by his fans and contemporaries for his lyrical storytelling abilities and his prolific writing. Whether fictional or autobiographical, his vividly-detailed narratives are characterized by an honesty that is equal parts brutal, thought-provoking and liberating. Bambu music is not for mere performance - he utilizes his music as a tool for a larger goal - to reach and support youth who face similar issues that he did, and move them to question what goes on in the world with the eventual goal of organizing and activism. Bambu epitomizes the “been-there-done-that” list for a Hip Hop artist, and as part of the leadership for Beatrock Music, uses that experience as a coach for the rest of the artists, helping motivate and guide them into long successful careers.
Episode Note: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
**Additional Episode Note: At time stamp 26:57, Bambu gets cut off while finishing his thoughts on the Disney movies Encanto and Moana. The word that is cut off is seen below in all caps.
"...at the same time we have to recognize it's-that's not-it's IMPOSSIBLE..."**
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.08
"The Little Things Become the Big Lessons: Honoring the Child to Better Ourselves as Parents"
In this episode, we are joined by Steph Cariaga. We discuss working through perfectionism, non-violent parenting, parenting and having to stop teaching in classroom during the pandemic, learning about anger, and more.
Steph Cariaga comes from a lineage of fierce Ilocanos by way of Pangasinan and Baguio City. She was born in Harbor City and currently resides in Long Beach -- all land belonging to the Tongva people. Steph has served the wider Los Angeles community for over fourteen years as a teacher, founding member of the People’s Education Movement, and now an assistant professor in teacher education at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her teaching and research draw from radical feminist ways of knowing to examine the intersections between justice, wholeness, critical literacy, and critical teacher sustainability. She is inspired by her best teachers, daughter Laila and son Catalino.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.07
"Stepping out of Lihim (Silence) - Getting Messy to Give Voice to the Heart"
In this episode, we are joined by Dennis Lozano. We discuss allowing himself to be a hot mess as he explores his inner self, the process of acknowledging silence within his family lineage, finding different ways to communicate with his two very different children, and more.
Dennis Francis Encarguez Lozano is a stay-at-home papa to Mateo (age 10) and Dante (age 7). Together with his partner Melissa, they reside on the unceded sacred land of the Tamien People (San Jose, CA). Born in Mandaluyong, Philippines, he immigrated to the Bay Area at 5 years old. He is Ilongo from Panay and Guimaras on his mother’s side and Kapampangan and Ilocano from Tarlac on his father’s side.
Deep in the work of reparenting, Dennis envisions a balance between accountability and self-compassion. He aims to move excess energy -- rooted in toxic masculinity -- towards the sacred. When the energy of the colonizer shows up in us, how do we create a container for safety and lambing?
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.06
"The Art of a Father - Being Led to Create by Life's Greatest Creations"
In this episode, we are joined by Kilusan Bautista. We discuss how he is learning to let his daughters lead the way, building community and finding support in parenting, searching for and creating culturally relevant material for the children, and more.
Kilusan Bautista is a playwright and interdisciplinary performing artist, originally from San Francisco, CA and presently based in the BronX, NY. Creator of two solo multimedia productions: Universal Filipino (2010) and Transcend (2016). Grant recipient from the Brooklyn Arts Council (2014), Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2016) and California Council for the Humanities (2005). Kilusan has worked with historically oppressed communities for over 20 years from California to New York City as a social justice arts educator and founder of the Universal Self Educational Program within the NYC Department of Education (2012). Current MFA candidate (2022) with CUNY – Brooklyn College – Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA), where Kilusan is developing a new immersive theater experience entitled, “PXSO: PhoeniX rising in ScorpiO” to raise awareness about Charge Syndrome and disability rights. Current 'Actionist Fellow' with Social Practice CUNY - a Mellon Foundation Initiative, where Kilusan is developing a Fathers with special needs children support group (co-sponsored by the New York Parent Association for Deafblind). Kilusan is married to Lia Bautista and they are proudly raising two beautiful daughters: Phoenix Augusta (5) & Zora Priscilla (2).
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity. This episode also includes some brief internet connectivity issues.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.05
"Spirit Centered Parenting and the Call of the Here and Now"
In this episode, we are joined by Daphnee Valdez. We discuss raising her child with a focus on spirituality, how she does this spiritual work while proudly co-parenting her child, co-creating with her child in spiritual places, moments of conflict, and more.
Daphnee and her soul child Teyo work earthside to unite and ignite the Divine and Earthly worlds. Daphnee, in service of love and Creator, practices her family’s gift of hilot. And as a level 2 reiki practitioner and student of Babaylan, she incorporates these healing gifts to channel loving spiritual messages for those who feel called to co-create with her. Siya is on a continuous journey of helping guide our humans, egos, and higher selves towards love and joy. Many of her most recent learnings have been in celestial-work with Teyo, that are centered on their hella hilarious, curious communications. They have a deep understanding that Spirit is serious and not so serious. Having grown up on occupied Me-Wuk (Bay Miwok) territory (Concord, CA), currently residing on Nisenan territory (Sacramento, CA), Daphnee is always present with her benevolent ancestors from Bicol, Quezon, and San Carlos, Pangasinan. Their soulwork is to co-lead, co-create and co-love! Hella healing!
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.04
"Native Sol Tribe - When Manifesting Vision Raises Up Family"
In this episode, we are joined by May Salem. We discuss how she has been raising her children aligned with her values while respecting the changing world they are living in, how Native Sol helped her actually have more time for and with her children, how she and her family have been and are challenging the system, and more.
May Salem was born in Malinao, Aklan, Panay, in the Philippines, raised in Nisenan/Maidu/Miwok Territory (Sacramento) and currently living in Tongva/Kizh Territory (Long Beach, CA).
May is a proud mama of 5 that were born at home (influenced by her family’s strong Hilot/Midwifery tradition). She is also the designer/creative director and co-owner of NATIVE SOL and EARTHING. She host workshops, special events, and gatherings at her brick and mortar shop in Long Beach, CA. Her lifestyle is reflected, integrated, and became the inspiration for Native Sol. The emphasis of sustainability, handmade, slow fashion, health, supporting local & Indigenous artisans are some of its foundations.
You can check out May’s creative work on IG: @nativesol @earthing.Earth @mamasoltribe (personal /homebirth )
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.03
"Showing Up Stronger: The Raising of Partners in Parenthood"
In this episode, we are joined by Anna and AJ Calomay. We discuss their different roles as parents and how they make sure they see and support each other, making space for reflection, their journey to becoming parents, their vision of the future moving into the second year of their child's life, and more.
Annamarie (Anna) Villaluz Bautista Calomay (@halfthesun_annab) (she/her) and Arthur James (A.J.) Olmedo Calomay (@ajxy) (he/him) are coparenting on Tongva land (Los Angeles); Anna by way of Chesapeake Powhatan land (Virginia Beach) with ancestral lineage from Bicol and Cavite, Philippines; A.J. was born and raised in Los Angeles with ancestral lineage from Leyte and Iloilo, Philippines. After a 6 year healing journey with womb loss and infertility, their Scorpio rainbow child Raisa Mayari (she/they) was born November 2020.
Raisa Mayari’s name carries the lessons and energy of both the sun and moon. Raisa, as in sun rays, means that our little elder will “raise us up”. Mayari is the goddess of revolution, moon, and night in Philippine mythology, who lost one of her eyes in battle (monocular like Dada).
Anna and A.J. see their decolonization roles as Builder and Storyteller respectively. Builders are needed to practice creating the alternative, visionary, and abolitionist worlds that we deserve to meet our collective needs. Storytellers are needed to tell the many stories needed to shift to life-affirming worldviews.
Anna is a solar electrician and field trainer as the head of construction for GRID Alternatives, the nation’s largest solar nonprofit. Her political home is with Communities Organizing into Liberation (COiL), and her current projects center energy sovereignty (People Power Solar Cooperative), community safety (CAT911), and regenerative land tending.
A.J. is a film producer and IATSE union television editor. His independent projects include music videos for the Black Eyed Peas, Bambu, Native Guns, and Rocky Rivera. His latest action comedy film, "Lumpia with a Vengeance" is currently on the film fest circuit. A.J. found his passion for filmmaking and community at UCLA, while producing videos for Samahang Pilipino and serving as a peer counselor for Filipinx students. He continues similar work in supporting BIPOC folks navigating careers in film/tv.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.02
"Let the Mothers be Held - Trading the Hustle for Wholeness"
In this episode, we are joined by Theresa Navarro. We discuss raising children that were assigned female at birth, reclamation of body and labor, giving birth during the pandemic and surrounding events, being a part of a strong matriarchal line, trading the hustle for wholeness, and more.
Theresa Navarro (she/they/siya) is a Pinay working mama and cultural worker, who is currently based in California raising her young daughters with intergenerational support. She has roots in Ibalon, known today as the Bikol peninsula, and descends from the Waray people through her mother's line. In the 1980s, her parents settled on land recognized as Ohlone Muwekma, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking People, where she was born and raised. Theresa is a Libra who finds joy in dancing and singing karaoke, and peace through her meditation and journaling practice. She holds undergraduate degrees from the University of California at Riverside and completed her graduate work at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
Over the past two decades, Theresa has led projects and public program initiatives for arts and educational organizations across the country. Her recent producing credits include public media series AMERICA REFRAMED, 9-MAN (DOCNYC ’14), ADVANTAGEOUS (Sundance ’15) and FROM HERE (HRWFF ’20). She supports her family by working full-time with a national nonprofit that presents documentary programming on PBS. In addition to her career in film and media, Theresa contributes to public discourse on identity and power by, for and about marginalized folx through teaching, writing and performing. She belongs to BIPOC-led communities of practice and storytelling collectives including A-Doc, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and the upcoming docuseries Kapwa Stories. She has participated on panels, juries and workshops at Allied Media Conference, Australian International Documentary Conference, and SXSW, among other industry and community-based events around the U.S.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.01
"Get Organized - Aligning Rituals and Relations in Parenthood"
In this episode, we are joined by Jollene Levid. We discuss how she speaks to her son about relations with others, how she has integrated community organizing and parenting, challenges she has faced in her own relationships, how she creates boundaries, and more.
Jollene Levid is a mother to her rainbow child Marcelo, age 6. She is a Regional Organizer for United Teachers Los Angeles - the second largest teachers union in the US and was a coordinator for the 2019 UTLA strike. Jollene has been a union organizer, contract negotiator, and former union director for over 17 years in the US education and healthcare industries, and for two organizing campaigns in the Philippines. She is the Founding Chairperson of AF3IRM, an anti-imperialist/transnational feminist organization for women of color, and has been a part of the organization for 19 years, currently serving on AF3IRM's International Committee. She received her BA in Political Science and Asian American Studies at UC Irvine, and got her Masters in Social Work from USC. Jollene hails from Northeast Los Angeles, is a martial artist, and bookworm.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.0
"Reflecting and Visioning Kultivating Kapwa - Introducing Fall/Winter Decolonizing Parenthood Series"
In this episode, Jana Lynne and Olivia have a chance to catch up after their extended hiatus. Olivia gets to ask Jana Lynne questions about Jana Lynne's current journey into motherhood. This episode was recorded in early October, but it is offered to you now as Kultivating Kapwa transitions from the last season, Conversations with Community, to the upcoming season about Decolonizing Parenthood.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community Episode 2.26
"Reflecting and Visioning Kultivating Kapwa - Summer 2021"
In this episode, Jana Lynne and Olivia offer their recent reflections, give updates on what they have been up to since the last episode, offer their plans for future episodes of Kultivating Kapwa, and more.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community Episode 2.25
"Tending to Our Grief: Kultivating Kapwa in All Relations with the Medicine of Vulnerability"
In this episode, we are joined by Shane Bernardo. We discuss grief being his greatest teacher, cultivation of relation to self, others, and the land, how caregiving is a political and spiritual act, visionary organizing, and more.
Shane Bernardo is a co-founder of Food As Healing, a social movement based on ancestral, Earth-based traditions that are critical for maintaining our identities, sense of belonging, health, and wholeness. Shane is also a grower, anti-oppression facilitator, storyteller, and food justice organizer based in Detroit, Michigan that uses food and the stories embedded within them as mediums for healing and decolonizing.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community Episode 2.24
"The Path of a Decolonial Doula: The Sacred Work of Honoring Birth"
In this episode, we are joined by Kei Karayan. We discuss what called her to doula work and how the work has changed since she began, how she is striving to re-member ancestral practices of birthwork, her reasons of sharing birthwork practices to those of the same lineage, a brief overview of what doulas actually do and how things have changed during the pandemic, and more.
Kei Karayan (she/her/siya) is a queer Pilipina/Ilokana/Ybanag/Itawis birth worker of color, doula, community organizer, artist, and chef serving communites on Tongva Land—Long Beach, California— and surrounding areas. Her ancestral roots are from Northern Luzon in Cagayan Valley with her maternal lineage from Gattaran and her paternal lineage from Tuguegarao. Kei's collection of work, Kasama Culture, is an extension of her ancestors' strength, love, and resilience. Kasama Culture unapologetically centers and affirms LGBTQ+, BIPOC, low-income, and marginalized communities. Kei's work is guided by the Bayanihan spirit, resilience of her ancestors, and Earth’s muse. Kasama Culture values building and uplifting the community through reclaiming, remembering, and honoring our Pilipinx identities through activism, birth work, and the arts.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community Episode 2.23
"Navigating Multiplicity and Mixed Identity in Pilipinx Diaspora"
In this episode, we are joined by Jillian Purugganan Werhowatz. We discuss how Jillian has learned to hold the complexity of having a mixed identity, the hardest things she has had to be in confrontation with, finding her place in community, her personal embodiment practices, and more.
Jillian Purugganan Werhowatz is the daughter of Yolanda Purugganan Werhowatz and Andrew Werhowatz III. Her mother is from Quezon City by way of Illocos Sur in the Philippines and her father is American, from Gary, Indiana. She currently resides on Monacan Territory, also known as Fredericksburg, Virginia, by way of Lenape Territory - New York City and Ojibwe Territory -Detroit.
Episode Notes: This episode contains brief instances of profanity. Also, at some points during the episode, the wrong microphone was active on Olivia's device, hence the muffled sound.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community Episode 2.22
"Laying the Groundwork for the Seeds of Decolonization to Grow and Thrive"
In this episode, we are joined by Grace Villarin Dueñas. We discuss how her decolonization journey began long before she was forced to immigrate to the United States, how she found her way through organizing, her queerness, the arts, and plant medicine among other things, lessons she brings home to the Philippines and the lessons she returns with to the United States, and more.
Grace is a student of ancient wisdom, a cultural organizer, and public health practitioner. Grace strongly believes that our indigenous core cultural value of “pakikipagkapwa” is a protective factor for our health and well-being.
She’s been a volunteer with CfBS after helping to co-organize the Babaylan Queer and Allies Circle during the 2010 Babaylan conference; she met Olivia and The Rainbow House family during the 2011 Symposium. Grace is part of Kalingafornia Laga, and is one of the weaving apprentices of Kalinga back-strap master weaver Jenny Bawer Young. Grace is passionate for fresh holistic adventures in the healing arts including photography, ceramics, weaving, seafaring and woodcarving, plant medicine, and permaculture design.
Rooted in the intersectionality of her Southern Tagalog and Western Visayas lineage and queer baklang-tibo sensibilities, she’s learning to live sustainably and regeneratively between re-settling in Kumeyaay land and re-matriating to Panay to re-learn the traditional ways of her Lola Encar’s peoples.
Guided by her Mga Lola Council, she started 2020 by resigning from her work-work of 15 years in order to be able to go home to Pilipinas for six months, and then spent the rest of 2020 building a reciprocal caregiving relationship with herself, her ancestral homeland, and her Teachers who are both seen and unseen.
Please note that this episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Core, Episode 2.21A
"Generative Knowledge Building - The Evolution of Decolonial Work and the Complication and Expansion of Inclusiveness"
During the next few episodes, we will be focusing our conversations with the Core of the Center for Babaylan Studies. We will be bringing our community in to our intimate conversations around our shared and complex perspectives on the issues being faced in the communities we serve and are working in tandem with, adjacent to, or are challenged by.
This is a moment for our community at large to be in deeper understanding about the power of being in complication and expansion as we seek similar visions of justice and liberation. And, for us as a core to share with you all our processes of understanding what movement can look like, even when not everything feels aligned in our communal pursuit. We hope that you will tune in and be in relation to the sacred work and service to our collective community that we are committed to.
In this episode, we are joined by two members of Center for Babaylan Studies Core, Auntie S. Lily Mendoza and Joanna La Torre. We discuss their starting points for understanding decolonization and decolonial work and how their understanding has evolved, tangible ways the work has shown up in their lives, especially regarding climate justice, what they currently view to be the most challening conversations regarding decolonization and decolonial work, and more.
Dr. S. Lily Mendoza currently resides on the land of Waawiyatanong, the original home of the Anishinaabe, Wyandot-Huron, Fox, Miami & Saux, also known as Detroit. Her Philippine homeland is the province of Pampanga, home of the Ayta peoples. You can contact her at lily@babaylan.net.
Joanna La Torre is originally from Ohlone and Ramaytush land and is currently residing on Coast Salish and Duwammish land. Their ancestral lineages are from Nueva Ecija and Ilocos Sur, as well as Wales, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. You can contact them at jlatorre@babaylan.net
Please note that this episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 2.21
"Mothering Self, Family, and Future through Decolonial Work"
In this week's episode, we are joined by Marybelle Mallari Bustos. We discuss Marybelle's remembering and practice regarding her Kapampangan lineage, explore her upbringing and her own journey into motherhood, what is nurturing her now, and more.
Marybelle Mallari Bustos, also known as MB, was born and raised on the ancestral lands of the Tataviam in the San Fernando valley and currently resides on Tongva land, also known as Los Angeles, California. Her maternal lineage are the Sunga and Mallari's and her paternal lineage are the Dizon and Bustos of Santa Lucia, Masantol, Pampanga. Growing up in a large Kapampangan family, she's been able to maintain and appreciate her "amanung sisuan" or mother language. Marybelle’s reclamation of ancestral roots and re-indigenizing journey is expressed through her art and collaborations, through ceremony and motherhood.
Please note that this episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 2.20
"Re-membering Warrior is from the Heart"
In this episode, we are joined by Crystle Diño and JB Ramos. We discuss what brought them to their warrior path and culture, what the warrior arts means to them, how their various histories, backgrounds, and teachers inform how their art manifests in their lives today, and more.
Crystle LiWayway Diño acknowledges that she resides and settles upon the traditional homelands of many Indigenous nations, such as the the Council of the Three Fires - comprised of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations - as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois Nations. She recognizes and is grateful for the original Peoples who laid the foundation for the city of Chicago, and for the diverse Indigenous nations that reside in Chicago today.
She was born and raised in Chicago with deep roots in Balayan, Batangas on her father Benjamin Diño's side, and Poctoy Torrijos, Marinduque on her mother Elisa Diño's side.
To find out more about her work and practice, visit her website at FMA Freedom. Movemeant. Alignment..
JB Ramos lives in gratitude in Tkaronto on Turtle Island on the traditional territory of many First Nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Chippewa, the Huron-Wendat, and home to many diverse First Nations, the Mètis, and the Inuit peoples.
They honor and pay respect to the resilience and strength of Indigenous Ancestors and Elders past, present, and future from all over the world whose journey is to continue sharing their sacred warrior traditions.
You can visit their school online at Combat Science: Warrior Arts of Asia.
Please note that this episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 2.19
"Re-membering the Path of Creation, Rooted in Relation"
In this episode, we are joined by Diyan Valencia and Nicanor Evans. We discuss how their relationships to and presence within community has shifted since the pandemic, what they are creating now, how their paths have changed since they began, and more.
Diyan "BukoBomba" Valencia is tawo of Bikolano ancestry, and was born and raised on Tongva territory from the hood of Historic Filipinotown, L.A. As a d.i.y. multi-media artist, crystal ball solar pyromaniac, musician to community organizer, their work uses creativity as a way of finding freedom from inner pains and colonial traumas. Their creations are intended to empower, activate, inspire, heal and connect us to our roots, our ancestors, and one another as kapwa. Nicanor Evans is Tagalog na Bulakenyong Ilonggo, and is a descendant of Evangelista Angeles Estudillo Sarmiento Doma Obispo. He is an aspiring multi-media artist who receives his inspiration by learning about his ancestral roots and their sacred arts and practices. He creates visual arts, music, and film to express his connection with the divine.
Please note that this episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Core, Episode 2.18A
"Diasporic, Migrant Descendants' Response-abilities and the Struggle to Trace Lineage Back to Indigeneity"
During the next few episodes, we will be focusing our conversations with the Core of the Center for Babaylan Studies. We will be bringing our community in to our intimate conversations around our shared and complex perspectives on the issues being faced in the communities we serve and are working in tandem with, adjacent to, or are challenged by.
This is a moment for our community at large to be in deeper understanding about the power of being in complication and expansion as we seek similar visions of justice and liberation. And, for us as a core to share with you all our processes of understanding what movement can look like, even when not everything feels aligned in our communal pursuit. We hope that you will tune in and be in relation to the sacred work and service to our collective community that we are committed to.
In this episode, we are joined by two members of Center for Babaylan Studies Core, Vanessa Ramalho, and Orion Camero. We reflect on the events of the first week of 2021, explore the reasons behind our land acknowledgements, examine our understandings of our ancestries, complicate what it can mean to connect to indigeneity, and more.
Vanessa Ramalho currently resides on the land of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape, also known as South New Jersey. Her ancestral lineage on her mother's side is from Samar, Bisayas, in the Philippines, and her father's side is from Sao Nicolau, Cabo Verde. You can contact her by emailing vanessa@babaylan.net.
Orion is currently on Yokuts territory and is Pangasinense, Cebuano, Spanish, and Chinese. You can contact them at orion@babaylan.net.
Please note that this episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 18
"Education for Decolonization Starts at Home"
In this episode, we are joined by Liza, Reina, and Luna Quiñonez. We discuss what it is like to be the daughters of a decolonizing mother, how their upbringings differed, the experiences of involving their entire family in their art and business, their thoughts on education versus experience, and more.
Liza was born in Quezon City, Manila. Her paternal line is from Ilocos Sur and her maternal line is from Luzon. Reina was born in Los Angeles, and Luna was born in New York. They are both Filipina and Mexican. They are all currently residing on Lenape Territory.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 17
"Synergetic Creation of Music, Magic, and Love"
In this episode, we are joined by Chen and Charito of AstraLogik. We discuss their creative synergy, what they have learned through their music, how their intention with music sets them apart, their journeys to becoming the people they are individually and how that translated into their relationship, what they are creating now, and more.
Rowenalyn Badiango Conlu, also known as Chen, is the daughter of Luna Perigrino Badiango Conlu and Rhodante Moreno Conlu. They are the granddaughter of Lourdes Perigrino and Baldomero Badiango, and Antonio and Angelo Moreno Conlu. Their maternal lineage is from Cebu, Borneo, Culasi, and Ajuy, Iloilo. Their paternal lineage is from Binalbagan, Negros Occidental.
Charito Verango Soriano is the daughter of Nenita Verango Soriano and Salvador Ballesteros Soriano. She is the granddaughter of Flaviano and Leonilynn Verango, and Domingo and Camila Soriano.
Chen grew up on Guahan, also known as Guam, and Charito grew up in Hayward, California. They are both currently residing in Ohlone-Chochenyo territory.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Core, Episode 2.16A
"Confronting Appropriation of Indigenous Culture- from Capitalist Consumption to Sacred Exchange"
During the next few episodes, we will be focusing our conversations with the Core of the Center for Babaylan Studies. We will be bringing our community in to our intimate conversations around our shared and complex perspectives on the issues being faced in the communities we serve and are working in tandem with, adjacent to, or are challenged by.
This is a moment for our community at large to be in deeper understanding about the power of being in complication and expansion as we seek similar visions of justice and liberation. And, for us as a core to share with you all our processes of understanding what movement can look like, even when not everything feels aligned in our communal pursuit. We hope that you will tune in and be in relation to the sacred work and service to our collective community that we are committed to.
In this episode, we are joined by three members of Center for Babaylan Studies Core, Vanessa Ramalho, Joanna LaTorre, and Jen Maramba. We discuss what comes up most when we talk about cultural appropriation, where missteps have occurred, personal uncoverings that have challenged the CfBS Core, and more.
Vanessa Ramalho currently resides on the land of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape, also known as South New Jersey. Her ancestral lineage on her mother's side is from Samar, Bisayas, in the Philippines, and her father's side is from Sao Nicolau, Cabo Verde. You can contact her by emailing vanessa@babaylan.net.
Joanna LaTorre is originally from Ohlone and Ramaytush land and is currently residing on Coast Salish and Duwammish land. Their ancestral lineages are from Nueva Ecija and Ilocos Sur, as well as Wales, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. You can contact them at jlatorre@babaylan.net
Jennifer Maramba resides on the ancestral lands of the Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. She continues to learn and embody the teachings and sacred contracts of the One Dish with One Spoon Treaty and the Two Row Wampum Treaty. Jennifer honours her ancestral lineage of Pangasinan and Panay Island, from the islands commonly known through the colonial name of the Philippines. You can contact her by emailing jmaramba@babaylan.net.
Please note that this episode contains brief instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 16
"Sacred Shapeshifting - Body, Mind, and Spirit Transformation of Self for Honorable Relation"
This is a special holiday release episode of Kultivating Kapwa, and we are joined by Lukayo Diwata Bitoon. We explore the concepts of love and justice, discuss where their work is landing, examine the rights and responsibilities of being a guest, the continuum of responsibility and wilderness, and more.
Lukayo Diwata Bitoon, or Lukayo Faye Estrella, is of the Bikol people from Mount Mayon in Albay. They were raised in Tkaronto/Toronto, of the territories of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Mississaugas of New Credit, the Huron-Wendat, and the Metis of Ontario under the treaties of the Dish With One Spoon and Two Row Wampum. They currently reside in unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin territory, colonially called Ottawa, Canada.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Core, Episode 2.15A
"Complicating Kapwa - Visioning Solidarity Between Indigenous, Diasporic, and Migrant Peoples Divided by Colonization"
During the next few episodes, we will be focusing our conversations with the Core of the Center for Babaylan Studies. We will be bringing our community in to our intimate conversations around our shared and complex perspectives on the issues being faced in the communities we serve and are working in tandem with, adjacent to, or are challenged by.
This is a moment for our community at large to be in deeper understanding about the power of being in complication and expansion as we seek similar visions of justice and liberation. And, for us as a core to share with you all our processes of understanding what movement can look like, even when not everything feels aligned in our communal pursuit. We hope that you will tune in and be in relation to the sacred work and service to our collective community that we are committed to.
In this episode, we are joined by three members of Center for Babaylan Studies Core, Jen Maramba, Aimee Gomez, and Orion Camero. We discuss, complicate, and challenge the concept and understandings of Kapwa, explore various personal steps to reconciling and healing, discuss these core members' visions and what is seeding their work, and more.
Jennifer Maramba and Aimee Gomez both reside on the ancestral lands of the Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. They both continue to learn and embody the teachings and sacred contracts of the One Dish with One Spoon Treaty and the Two Row Wampum Treaty.
Jennifer honours her ancestral lineage of Pangasinan and Panay Island, from the islands commonly known through the colonial name of the Philippines. You can contact her by emailing jmaramba@babaylan.net.
Aimee's maternal ancestral origins are from MacArthur, Leyte, and her paternal ancestral origins are from Tagbilaran, Bohol. You can contact her by emailing aimee@babaylan.net.
Orion is currently on Ramaytush Ohlone land, and is Pangasinense, Cebuano, Spanish, and Chinese. You can contact them at orion@babaylan.net.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 15
"Surfacing Spirit-Sacred Creations of Self, Community, and Land"
In this episode, Julz and Julay recount how their journeys with ink ceremony began and what sustains their offerings, reflect on the discussions of appropriation, discuss the tools that have bound them to their spiritual work, and more.
Julz Bolinayen's (they/them) ancestry hails from the Ilokano people, the volcanos, and the ocean. Julz is a visitor and settler on the island of O’ahu on the illegally occupied Kingdom of Hawai’i.
Julay resides on the Unceded Coast Salish Territory of the Qayqayt (kay-kite) First Nations and also home to the Katzie (Kat-zee), Tsawwassen (sa-wa-sen), Tsleil-waututh (seh-lay-wa-tooth), Stolo, Kwantlen, Stz'uminus (shoo-me-nus), Musqueam (muskweeyum), Kwikwetlam (cuh-quit-lam or Coquitlam), Squamish (skwo-home-ish), and Semiahmoo (semi-amoo). Their matrilineal lineage is from Betis, Pamapanga who eventually migrated to Makati. Their patrilineal lineage is from Solsona, Ilokos Norte, who eventually migrated to Meycauayan, Bulacan.
Please note that this episode contains instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Special Series - Roots of our Sacred Work
"Introductions to the Workings of Core"
We are transitioning to our mini-series, Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Core. During the next few episodes, we will be focusing our conversations with the Core of the Center for Babaylan Studies. We will be bringing our community in to our intimate conversations around our shared and complex perspectives on the issues being faced in the communities we serve and are working in tandem with, adjacent to, or are challenged by.
This is a moment for our community at large to be in deeper understanding about the power of being in complication and expansion as we seek similar visions of justice and liberation. And, for us as a core to share with you all our processes of understanding what movement can look like, even when not everything feels aligned in our communal pursuit. We hope that you will tune in and be in relation to the sacred work and service to our collective community that we are committed to.
Please note that this episode has a few instances of profanity. Also, apologies for the background noise on Olivia's end due to remodel construction, as well as instances of sound distortion on Jana's end due to internet connectivity issues.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM. If you would like to donate to help us continue this podcast, please do so here: donorbox.org/kultivating-kapwa-podcasts.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 13
"Honoring and Tending to Our Ancestral Relations to Plants, Lands, and the Planet"
In this episode, we are joined by Angela Angel. We discuss re-membering the earth, plants, elements, and all non-human beings as Kapwa, the moments she realized she was called to her path, her most recent lessons from the earth and land, and much more.
Angela is currently residing in Ohlone Territory, specifically the Sogoretea Land Trust. She is Igorota, Bontoc and Ibaloi, Pangasinense and Ilokana. She comes from the rice terraces of the Cordillera Region, the beaches and salt flats of Pagasinan, and shout out to Baguio, her hometown.
Angela is a healing practitioner, gardener, artist, medium/channeler, and ceremonialist. She has continued her indigenous lineage as a young traditional healer (Bontoc and Ibaloi tribes- Igorot, Philippines). Angela received a vision directing her to explore how ritual and our innate psychic abilities can translate in the “modern world” as a step to bridge our ancestral knowledge and to begin healing historical trauma. She has since worked to integrate this directly with her social justice work.
In 2013, she began coordinating free holistic and traditional healing clinics with the Bay Area’s Healing Clinic Collective. Angela is currently a teacher for Ancestral Apothecary, School of herbal, folk and indigenous medicine. She teaches regular series offerings: Ninunong Gamot, Philippine Folk and Ancestral Medicine, and Decolonizing Wellness. She loves tending to her garden and facilitating the connection of plants with people. She is a certified Western Herbalist and integrates indigenous ancestral medicine in her classes. She holds her own healing practice and you can find out more about her work at: Other Ways of Seeing | Etsy - Nature As Muse
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 12
"Teaching Through Creative Justice and the Role of Arts Education in Liberation"
In this episode, we are joined by Renee Floresca. We discuss the use of theatre as an examination of life and inquiry of self, how she turned to books and plays when in search of a mentor, being a veteran teacher and the changes in her approach over the years, being an accidental student with multiple degrees, and more.
She was Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area — namely Hercules, on Ohlone land. She moved to New York City in 2008, and has been on Lenape land since then, coming on 12 years. Her nanay is from Manila and her tatay is from Naguilian, La Union.
Please note that this episode contains profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 11
"Sacred Relations: Building Generative Cross Cultural Relationships"
In this episode, we are joined by Harvey Lozada. We discuss the importance of starting with self, his feeling of responsibility to protect, preserve, and hold ground in San Francisco, being someone who holds space for many of all cultures and ages, and more.
A fourth generation FRISCOPINO, Harvey is an educator, social worker, healer, art curator, and community photographer. He is a son of Filipino immigrants from the regions of Luzon and Mindanao, tracing his familial roots in Ramaytush Ohlone territory, or San Francisco, as far back as the 1920s.
Harvey is a humble culture bearer and descendent of abularyos and manghihilots. Harvey’s healing journey began with his work in social activism and engaging young people in the juvenile justice system. For over 15 years, he has dedicated his life to disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline through youth leadership development and culturally responsive counseling services for children and families throughout San Francisco. As an artist, Harvey curates art shows and makes photographs to document community stories, social movements and aspires to share OUR truths for generations to come.
Please note that this episode contains profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 10
"Sex Liberation Education and the Decolonization of Pleasure"
In this episode, we are joined by Justine Ang Fonte. We discuss the concepts of safety, fulfillment, and pleasure, the platinum rule, body agency, using W.A.P. as a litmus test, and more. Justine is the daughter of Glorietta Zapata Ang from Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya and Samuel Fonte from Romblon, Romblon in the Philippines. She was born on Ohlone Territory, lives on Lenape Territory, and is learning how to indigenize the lands she is on.
Please note that this episode contains a few instances of profanity.
Here is a list of resources Justine mentions in the episode: -Dr. Tracie Q. Gilbert - IG @thembianaiya , Thembi Anaiya Web Page -Melissa Pintor Carnagey - IG @sexpositive_families , Sex Positive Families Web Page -Ericka Hart - IG @ihartericka , Ericka Hart Web Page -Stephanie Zapata - IG @stephaniespeakshere , Stephanie Speaks Here Web Page -Andrea Barrica - IG @andreabarrica , Andrea Barrica Web Page, @odotschool , O-School Web Page
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 9
"Reflections on Filipino American History Month"
In this episode, Jana Lynne and Olivia take a moment to discuss their experiences with Filipino American History Month, what it means to be Filipino, American, and Filipino American, their personal and family histories, and more. In addition, we include a brief message from Orion Camero, a Core Member of the Center for Babaylan Studies.
From the Filipino American National Historical Society national website: "The late Dr. Fred Cordova, along with his wife, FANHS founder Dr. Dorothy Laigo Cordova, first introduced October as Filipino American History Month in 1992 with a resolution from the FANHS National Board of Trustees. In 2009, U.S. Congress recognized October as Filipino American History Month in the United States. Various states, counties and cities in the U.S. have established proclamations and resolutions declaring observance of Filipino American History Month.
In light of momentous historical events and current issues that affect Filipino Americans, the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) is pleased to share the Filipino American History Month 2020 theme: The History of Filipino American Activism.
Across the nation, FANHS Chapters, colleges and universities, museums and community groups, will be commemorating Filipino American History Month with various activities and events to bring awareness of the significant role Filipinos have played in American history."
On a light-hearted note, this episode includes a brief cameo by Kalayo, Olivia's son, as this was recorded during distance learning hours.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 8
"Releasing Artistry as Ceremony and Honoring the Role of a Creator"
In this episode, we are joined by Kimmortal, or Kimberly Bince Villagante. We discuss how their life as an artist has transformed since the pandemic, what it means for art to be ceremony, how musicians are integral to the movement, how their activism is reshaping itself, and more. Kimmortal resides on the Unceded Coast Salish territory of the Skohomish, Musqueum, and Tsleiwaututh. Their ancestry is from Negros Occidental and Pangasinan.
Please note that this episode contains a few instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 7
"Balik Banayihan - Tending to, Growing, and Sustaining with Roots of Relation and Home"
In this episode, we are joined by Maria Marasigan. We explore lessons from plants, complicate the ideas of home, community, and allyship, discuss her experiences in the Peace Corps, Standing Rock, and the islands known as the Philippines, reflect on finding herself back in Rockland County, and more. Maria is currently on Ramapough Lenape land, in Rockland County, New York. She was born in Malate, both parents from Cuenca, Batangas near Mount Maculot and the Taal Lake and Volcano.
Please note that this episode contains a few instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website (centerforbabaylanstudies.org/podcast), Spotify (https://tinyurl.com/KultivatingKapwaSpotify), PodBean (centerforbabaylanstudies.podbean.com), Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 6
"The Pilipinx Radical Imagination in Activism, Academia, Education, and Life"
In this episode, we are joined by Professor Melissa-Ann Nievera-Lozano. We discuss the origins of The Pilipinx Radical Imagination Reader, what a Pilipino/a/x radical imagination can look like today, how her experiences help inform how she walks in her everyday life in academia, activism, and parenting, and more. Melissa currently resides on the ancestral lands of the Tamyen tribe of the Muwekma Ohlone people. Her paternal lineage is Cordilleran, culturally Kalinga, and her maternal lineage is Waray.
You can get more information about The Pilipinx Radical Imagination Reader and purchase your own copy here.
Please note that this episode contains a few instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 5
"A Legacy of Nurturing Imagination for the Movement"
In this episode, we are joined by Frances Lucerna. We discuss her childhood experiences with liberation theology, how she came to embrace her artistic soul, how this led to her calling in education, exploring the question "For the sake of WHAT," and much much more. This is an important episode for everyone to listen to, especially if you want to hear about an alternative framework for education. Frances resides in Brooklyn, New York, and is of Filipina and Puerto Rican descent.
Click here to visit El Puente - Leaders for Peace and Justice
Please note that we experienced instances of internet connection difficulties during this episode.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 4
"Decolonizing Relations with Cross Cultural Solidarity"
In this Episode, we are joined by Sobey Wing. We discuss solidarity, solidarity economics, destruction, accountability partners, rites of passage, and more. Sobey resides on the Ancestral Unceded Coast Salish Territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tselil-waututh peoples currently known as Vancouver BC. He is of Cebuano lineage from his mother’s side and his father is mixed Asian, mixed South Asian, mixed Central American and mixed European.
Here are some resources that Sobey speaks about in this episode: Youth Passageways Accomplices Not Allies - Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex Men's Work - an Initiative of the World Ancestor Concert Team
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Overview Episode
"An Overview to Highlight Previous Episodes"
Jana Lynne and Olivia have taken the week off, so listen to this episode to hear about episodes you need to catch up on! Olivia also gives a brief eulogy for her grandfather, Epifanio Mateo Sawi.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Special Episode
"College of Peers Book Club Discussion with Auntie Leny"
Olivia recently joined a book club which named itself the "College of Peers," where the first book they read was Auntie Leny Strobel's Coming Full Circle, The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans. This episode is a Question and Answer session between the book club and Auntie Leny.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 3
"Expressing and Embodying the Decolonizing Self through Art"
In this episode, we are joined by SAMMAY, Samantha Peñaflor Dizon. We discuss her deeper understanding of the term "practice," movement performance as ritual, certifications for validation, how she is learning to accept, love, and honor her destiny, and much more. SAMMAY is currently a settler on Unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory and is of Bikol, Kapampangan, and Ilokano descent.
Please note that this episode contains a few instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 2
"Re-membering Ancestral Practices and the Spiritual Self"
In this episode, we are joined by Verma Zapanta, of Hilot with Verma. She explores how her career in education led to her path of healing her self and learning to truly listen, and how these lessons led to helping others on their own healing journeys. Verma resides on Yelamu, Occupied Ramaytush Ohlone Territory and is the Daughter of Teresa Soria Abillano, Granddaughter of Luisa Conui Cacal, and Great Granddaughter of Transfiguracion Capuyan Enriquez and Josefa Silaw. Her Visayan roots span the islands of Leyte and Bohol.
Please note that this episode contains a few instances of profanity.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community, Episode 1
"Decolonizing Parenting"
In this episode, we are joined by three other core members of the Center for Babaylan Studies: Aimee Gomez, Jennifer Maramba, and Vanessa Ramalho. Our topic is decolonizing parenting, and our discussion includes how our individual upbringings, family structures, and decolonizing paths are informing and inspiring how we raise our children in community.
Jennifer Maramba and Aimee Gomez both reside on the ancestral lands of the Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. They both continue to learn and embody the teachings and sacred contracts of the One Dish with One Spoon Treaty and the two row wampum treaty.
Jennifer honours her ancestral lineage of Pangasinan and Panay Island, from the islands commonly known through the colonial name of the Philippines. You can contact her by emailing jmaramba@babaylan.net.
Aimee's maternal ancestral origins are from MacArthur, Leyte, and her paternal ancestral origins are from Tagbilaran, Bohol. You can contact her by emailing aimee@babaylan.net.
Vanessa Ramalho currently resides on the land of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape, also known as South New Jersey. Her ancestral lineage on her mother's side is from Samar, Bisayas, in the Philippines, and her father's side is from Sao Nicolau, Cabo Verde. You can contact her by emailing vanessa@babaylan.net.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community Episode 0
"Looking Back and Looking Forward"
This is our last transition episode into the next series of our podcast, Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community. Jana Lynne and Olivia reflect on their conversations with Auntie Leny through the first series of Kultivating Kapwa, check in on how decolonization work has been manifesting in their lives in this current moment, and reflect and brainstorm future sessions.
If you have suggestions for finding funding, themes for future episodes, or guests you would like to have us interview, please email us at kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or DM us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast!
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: 30 for 30 Poetry Part 2
For the National Poetry Month Challenge in April, the Center for Babaylan Studies and Verma Zapanta of Hilot with Verma hosted 30 for 30, Decolonization through Poetry. Participants were invited to write on 30 prompts that invited them to re-member, heal, and vision radical change for 30 days.
This episode contains our 30 for 30 Decolonization through Poetry Release and Expression, Open Mic, and Kapwa Jam.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: 30 for 30 Poetry Part 1
For the National Poetry Month Challenge in April, the Center for Babaylan Studies and Verma Zapanta of Hilot with Verma hosted 30 for 30, Decolonization through Poetry. Participants were invited to write on 30 prompts that invited them to re-member, heal, and vision radical change for 30 days.
This episode contains submissions of a few participants performing their work. In a future episode, we will be featuring our 30 for 30 Decolonization through Poetry Release and Expression, Open Mic, and Kapwa Jam.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: CfBS Elder Circle
This is another special edition episode, and a transition into our next series Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community.
Throughout the whole the month of May, the Center for Babaylan Studies offered online webinars through our initiative Ginhawa: Elements of Care in a Decolonizing World. From Lyra Verzosa: The word “Ginhawa” is both a noun and a verb in Bisaya (Cebuano). It can refer to breath or the act of breathing. “Ginhawa” is a more powerful concept than “well-being” or “wellness” with its integration of the physical, social, emotional and spiritual. Disasters and catastrophes affect our ginhawa by reducing our hininga. Thus, our distress is described by words like “paghahabol-hininga” (literally a chasing after the breath), naghihingalo (panting for breath), buntong-hininga (sighing), kapos sa hininga (running out of breath), all possibly ending with huling hininga (last breath). Ginhawa can be defined as a breath of life, and can be used to remind people that there is life, even after the worst of disasters.”
Every week focused on a different element of care. Week 1 was Earth, where the webinars focused on Physical Health. Week 2 was Air, for Mental Health; Week 3 was Water, for Mental Health. Week 4 was Fire, for Relational Health. Our Culminating Event for Ginhawa: Elements of Care in a Decolonizing World was a session titled Intergenerational Liberation in the Time of Decolonization: A Diasporic Elders Circle. During this session, the current core members of the Center for Babaylan Studies: Aimee Gomez, Jana Lynne Umipig, Jen Maramba, Jo LaTorre, Orion Camero, Vanessa Ramalho, and myself honored several of our elders within the Center for Babaylan Studies: Leny Strobel, Omehra Siganhe, Leteicia Layson, S. Lily Mendoza, Lizae Reyes, Mila Anguluan, and Lane Wilcken.
After an introductory period of sharings and reflections, our elders offered their reflections on the following questions: -What brings you joy about the ways you see your work reflected in the movement? -What do you hope the younger generations will continue and expand upon to further your legacy?
This episode contains their reflections and teachings, with some additional offerings from the current Center for Babaylan Studies Core.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 10
"Final Thoughts and Reflections for Now"
In our tenth episode, Auntie Leny turns the podcast around and asks Jana Lynne and me some questions, while also offering her own reflections.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 9
"Poetry and Storytelling at the Feet of our Elder"
In our ninth episode, Auntie Leny reads from her new memoir, Glimpses: Through the MDR Generator. This work was inspired by Eileen Tabios's Murder Death Resurrection: A Poetry Generator. As an experiment, Jana Lynne and Olivia reflect on Auntie Leny's writings.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Special Edition Episode
"A Black and Pilipin@/x Solidarity Conversation Led by Black and Pilipin@/x Voices"
This is a special edition episode, and as it turns out, a preview of our next series, Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Community.
Historically, the Center for Babaylan Studies has prioritized indigenous voices, but in transparency has not created specific platforms for our Black/African American/Indigenous African/Diasporic African/Pan-African community. We are reflecting on this with an understanding that this is something we as an organization and community are working to be accountable for.
We acknowledge that there is a complexity of conversation around Anti-Blackness in even our Motherland amongst our Indigenous relatives (particularly with the Aeta, Ati, Agta peoples) and we are learning how this must be uplifted in our conversations and strengthened in relations to our decolonization work.
This conversation will be rooted in relation to the complexities of Black Identity in our diasporic communities and how our Black and Pilipin@/x Relatives are navigating this time, as our history long movements of liberations continue, ignited by seeking justice for the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Joao Pedro, and Ahmaud Arbery, that echo the countless Black lives lost before them.
Our special guests for this episode are Janet Stickmon, Carmen LoBue, and Sade Adona.
Janet Stickmon is the daughter of Lucrecia Mendoza, from the barangay of Labangon in Cebu, Philippines and Fermon Stickmon from Caddo Parish in Shreveport, Louisiana. She is a professor of Ethnic Studies and faculty director of the Cultural Center at Napa Valley College. She is the author of Crushing Soft Rubies—A Memoir, Midnight Peaches, Two O’Clock Patience: A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Short Stories on Womanhood and the Spirit, Male Strippers as Healers and their Emcee as Griotte: Why Magic Mike XXL is Deeper Than You Think, and her latest book To Black Parents Visiting Earth: Raising Black Children in the 21st Century. Stickmon’s essays have appeared in The Huffington Post, Mutha Magazine, and Read to Write Stories Stickmon is known for her essay “Blackapina” published in Positively Filipino and Red and Yellow, Black and Brown: Decentering Whiteness in Mixed Race Studies (Rutgers University Press, 2017). For over 20 years, Stickmon’s work as an educator, writer, and workshop facilitator has influenced thousands across the country.
Carmen LoBue is the daughter of Monica, who is the daughter of Carmen. Her people are from the Philippines, Nigeria, Cameroon & Southern Bantu Peoples. She now lives on Lenape land. Carmen is an Afro Fil Am filmmaker. They have been featured in Paper Magazine’s PAPER Predictions: 100 People Taking Over 2019 and are a 2018 New Legacy Maker Honoree (in collaboration with the Disruptor Foundation) for their commitment to dismantling societal injustice, while inspiring community participation through creative platforms. LoBue was most recently named one of “Inc.’s next generation leaders in 2020.”
Carmen is on the Global Leadership board of Time’s Up and their justice work includes producing and advocacy for One Fair Wage, Words on White, and the Generator Collective, among others. They have also produced intersectional community building spaces with orgs Everytown for Gun Safety, Heal Me Too Festival, and 5050by2020.
Sade Ifasade Ifaloba Oyaniiyun Olatutu Qweenkobra Monique Adona was born on Ohlone territory and is presently living on Lenape territory.
Sade is the daughter of Felisha Adona who is of African decent and was born on Iroquois territory. She is the child of engineers, pastors, seamstresses, and share croppers. Her father, Marcelino Borja Adona who was born in Nueva Ecija and raised in Pamapanga, Phillipines. Her father, the son of Roman Adona, was a soldier, and grew up on a vegetable and mango farm.
Sade, an Iyanifa and Iyalorisa Oloya, Is a practitioner of African diaspora spirituality and culture. Sade is a polymath performance artist utilizing the mediums of dance and music to bring full sensory healing experience of “the urban indigenous intersection”. Her passions are telling the stories of the ancestors and the living, through the lens of ancient and contemporary culture.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 8
"Retirement and Eldership"
In this episode, Auntie Leny speaks about retirement and eldership. We explore the concept of time, how no longer working does not mean that the work stops, lessons from her garden, how deepening awareness leads to deepening gratitude and joy, no longer fearing death, and more.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 7
"Decolonizing Relationships"
In this episode we discuss decolonizing relationships. We talk about how healing shows up in relationships of all kinds, letting go of the fruits of our labor, places for being ungraceful, the need for and trials of self examination and self discovery, and more.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 6
"Divisiveness in Decolonization Community and Movements"
In this episode we examine assumptions of the need to be united, challenge the notion of dichotomies in a movement, examine romancing the indigenous, releasing projections, spiritual capitalism, and more.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 5
"Intergenerational Decolonization Movements" with Special Guest Joanna La Torre
Our fifth episode of Kultivating Kapwa is longer than most. Join us as we talk with Auntie Leny about how she views her role as elder and mentor, the biggest challenges she has seen and experienced working within an intergenerational framework, what she feels can be the next step for those who sense an absence of elders, and more.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 4
"Co-creating a Movement to Remember the Babaylan: 10 years of the Center for Babaylan Studies"
In our fourth episode, Auntie Leny tells the Center for Babaylan Studies origin story, the importance of invitations to dialogue, and what she sees as the future for doing decolonization and reindigenization work, especially for the younger generations.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Bonus Live Recorded Episode
"Why Is Decolonization Work Important in the Time of COVID-19?" with special guests Penny Baldado, Sockie Laya Smith, Riya Ortiz, and Kalaya'an Mendoza
In a special episode of Kultivating Kapwa, we will share the space with a community circle of activists and community organizers, who have been and continue in this time of Pandemic to serve our diasporic communities and the Motherland. They all will engage in the question “Why is Decolonization Work Important in the Time of Covid-19?" and we will interrogate mindset, practice, and way of being through the Radical work of Decolonization. Please join us for this impactful conversation.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 3
"Teaching and Learning through Ethnoautobiography"
In our third episode, we discuss Ethnoautobiography, why when Auntie Leny taught Ethnoautobiography it was known as “the weird class,” the importance of doing ethnoautobiography work for decolonization, and the importance of telling our own stories.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 2
"Reflections of a Colonized Childhood on Motherland and a Decolonial Adulthood on Homeland"
In our second episode, we discuss Auntie Leny’s experiences growing up in a Methodist household in the Philippines, relationships with her homeland, family, and nature, how she learned how to dwell in a place, and more.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 1
"Spiritual Academics - Decolonization Experiences in Academic Institutions"
In our first episode, we discuss Auntie Leny's decolonization work, her influences, her life in academia, and advice for beginning and continuing our own decolonization work.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik
Kultivating Kapwa: Conversations with Leny Strobel, Episode 0
"An Introduction to Decolonization and Leny Strobel"
In this special episode, we give an introduction to Decolonization and Leny Strobel. This is a great starting point for gaining background knowledge of the topics we will be covering in the podcast.
You can listen to this podcast on the Center for Babaylan Studies website, Spotify, PodBean, or Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast! If you want to contact us, email kultivatingkapwa@gmail.com, or add us on Instagram at @kultivatingkapwa and send us a DM.
Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig// Produced by Olivia Sawi// Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi// Music by AstraLogik