Kultivating Kapwa

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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.

Episodes

Sunday Mar 20, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.17

Sunday Mar 20, 2022

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

Sunday Mar 13, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.16

Sunday Mar 13, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Mar 06, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.15

Sunday Mar 06, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Feb 27, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.14

Sunday Feb 27, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Feb 20, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.13

Sunday Feb 20, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Feb 13, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.12

Sunday Feb 13, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Feb 06, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.11

Sunday Feb 06, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Jan 30, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.10

Sunday Jan 30, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Jan 16, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Epsiode 3.09

Sunday Jan 16, 2022

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..."**

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik

Sunday Jan 09, 2022

Kultivating Kapwa: Episode 3.08

Sunday Jan 09, 2022

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.*

Hosted by Jana Lynne Umipig//
Produced by Olivia Sawi//
Co-Produced by Annie Aarons-Sawi//
Music by AstraLogik