Black lines on white background with words 'Rimay Raiz'

A collage of a woman in summer clothes beside one in winter clothes; three authoritative-looking women; a girl against a night sky; a woman with her eyes closed; a colorful pattern of sacred geometry; a Chinese water color of birds; a sleeping woman; a woman wearing a poncho; a woman holding a gun.

Dark audio waveforms against a white background

An altar to Pachamama comprised of a striped blanket with geometric patterns and several items ion top of it, including 5 small plants, other textiles, an Andean alcoholic beverage in a jug (chicha), a basket, other textiles, and a bag of seeds.

A mandala that is half half Asian American, half Andean

Wow! It’s been a whirlwind few years. I can hardly believe this is happening, yet here we are, debuting AltSalt publicly for the first time. If you're new here, I suggest checking out the <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/about">About</a> page first to get oriented.
With that said, in this post, I thought I'd give more context around the history of AltSalt and this sneak peek launch!
 
The Beginnings of AltSalt
Back in March 2019, I remember sitting in a second-floor Starbucks overlooking Union Square here in New York, chatting with <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sandycha" target="_self">Sandy Enriquez</a>, when the initial idea for AltSalt dawned on me.
At the time, I’d been researching my Peruvian background, trying to figure out who the heck I am (as one does, y’know?), and I was finding it incredibly difficult.
Andean myths and legends? Disparate and hard to find good sources. Any Andean representation at all? Also possible to find, but way harder than it should've been, especially in the age of the internet.
In fact, I was researching full time for several months, diving into archives at the New York Public Library, taking classes with the <a href="https://ayni.institute" target="_blank">Ayni Institute</a> and the <a href="https://www.quechuacollective.org" target="_blank">Quechua Collective</a>, and only after much effort did I begin to get an inkling of what my Andean cultural inheritance meant to me. (And of course, this is still an ongoing journey!)
 
The Spark
But when Sandy mentioned that she’d been running into similar challenges finding Quechua zines… something clicked. I realized, Oh my god, how many people are researching, trying to find content that speaks to them? And how many people, like me, are finding this way too difficult when the entire lore of Game of Thrones is literally a simple Google search away? What if there were a website that helped make this discovery easier?
I filed the idea away until March 2020, when I finally had the time to research it. And behold! Not only were folks searching for this content, creators were finding challenges connecting with audiences too.
So being a web developer, I set to work! And voila, ! built the site! (As one does). It only took a bajillion hours.
 
Feeling Gratitude
In all seriousness though, I’m so grateful that I’ve had the time, resources, and skills to invest in the first iteration of this idea.
In particular, I’m grateful to all the folks who have provided their feedback — including <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sandycha" target="_self">Sandy Enriquez</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/luisaulhoa" target="_self">Luisa Ulhoa</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/shirley" target="_self">Shirley Coenen</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/muditaheart" target="_self">Charles Huang</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/jamie_sa" target="_self">Jamie San Andres</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/jonmorales22" target="_self">Jonathan Morales</a>, and many others who are not on AltSalt (yet!) — and especially to my family who have endured me talking endlessly about this site for the past 10 months.
I’m also grateful to <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/rimayraiz" target="_self">Rimay Raiz</a> for entrusting AltSalt with showcasing the fantastic work they’ve been doing to create representation of the Andean diaspora. I’m stoked to have their zines here as a part of this sneak peek release!
Through its memory keeping, the <a href="https://ayni.institute" target="_blank">Ayni Institute</a> has also given me the self-knowledge that has rooted AltSalt in Andean notions of reciprocity.
And with so many possibilities ahead, I’m excited to be here at this beginning as we open this platform to creators, and eventually everyone, so we can start new dialogues around our stories and experiences.
 
What’s in Store
With this sneak peek, we hope to start getting feedback on what’s working and not with this site. This is in preparation for a full launch later this month, January 2021!
In anticipation of that official launch, if you’re a creator, I encourage you to <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/submit" target="_self">submit</a>. We’re currently brainstorming ways to build this resource, in particular thinking through how we might collaborate with folks to showcase their work. If this sounds interesting to you, we look forward to seeing your creations!
Feel free also to share this sneak peek URL — <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com" target="_self">https://frontend.altsalt.com</a> — with anyone who may be interested in seeing Rimay Raiz’s content or submitting their own.
Ideas for future site features include collections, commenting, community creative challenges, and more! There are so many possibilities.
Lastly, if you have suggestions on how to promote this resource or build this community, I’m grateful for feedback. You can reach me at artemio [at] altsalt.com
 
Conclusion
And with that, thank you so much for tuning in. Enjoy checking out <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/rimayraiz">Rimay Raiz’s</a> work! I look forward to hearing your ideas, seeing your submissions, and developing further as we work towards an official release!
In reciprocity,
Alternative voices, alternative formats. This is AltSalt.

A new resource for discovering alternative voices is here.

Welcome to the AltSalt sneak peek!

Letter to Art #3 - Young People, Unmoored Asian Americans, and Doing Good

“Envision a future in which your culture, history, and values have guided the world to an alternative reality — and harnessing that energy, create a piece to resonate with our times.”

Reality is born of our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. To create an alternative world, we must first then take an imaginative leap — place ourselves first into a future of possibilities, and only then work backwards and guide ourselves to that point from our present moment.

That was the reasoning behind this prompt for Alternative Worlds, to feel an alternative reality in our present mind, to first dream and then to manifest.

Each person has their own knowledge, stories, and vision — and it’s in bringing those voices together and harnessing our collective wisdom that we can also begin to glimpse an alternative reality greater than the sum of its parts — a collective dream that we all share.

In keeping with these ideas, here we have space for contributors to express what this project means to us, what we hope folks take away from it, and what we’re grateful for:

For me, this project was born out of a desire to create a resource for the Andean community. When I started the journey to learn about my Andean heritage, I had a ridiculously hard time knowing where to start or how to find resources and representation. So part of my motivation is to make it easier for anyone else in the future to start this process of self discovery, and to know they’re not alone.

This project is also a way to honor the idea of ayni or reciprocity in Andean culture. I’ve recently been dialed into this idea of Global Reciprocity, a proposal to create new paradigms in our cultures, practices, and institutions centering reciprocal relationships at the core, all of which I learned about alongside Shirley via a class with the Ayni Institute, a social change organization with Peruvian leadership based out of Boston.

With that in mind, creating both the Andean and Asian American collections in solidarity with one another, both as a way to celebrate our diversity as well as build new relationships and recognize our shared humanity, is a contribution to this idea of moving towards Global Reciprocity. How do we get there? By going together. And concretely, I had so much fun collaborating with Sandy and Shirley to make a zine, and with Charles on creating our essay correspondence!

In all, I hope by bringing together all of the fantastic work folks are already doing in their respective circles, we can make it easy for folks to both connect and start a process of self discovery to give us a better understanding of who we are, cultural heritage included, allowing us to nourish our own lives as well as know all that we have to offer as we share our whole selves with one another and the world.

I must say that I am grateful for this project put forth by Alternative Worlds because it allows the English-speaking world to experience Andean culture (the collection I’ve participated in). As a musician and artist I believe the Arts are the most accessible entry point into culture and cultural preservation. 

In my case from this project I hope more people who have seen themselves as “just” mestizos will find the courage to learn about their indigeneity, that musicians or musically inclined people of any background will perform my short piece in their recitals knowing its context and will give credit to me and Andean roots for its creation and hopefully a wider audience see that we live and colonization did not eliminate my indigenous Native American (South American people) Tawantinsuyu (Four Suyus or the Andean world). 

I feel blessed to be included in a collection of such gifted creators and artists and open for collaboration with I also hope will be possible in the future. Thank you, Gracias, Payllaa (Ancash/Central Quechua), Añay/Sulpayki (Southern Quechua), Pay Suma (Aymara)

Participating in this project, just going through the exercise of imagining a future based on different values, helped to shift my frame of thinking about what changes are possible. What I wish for people to take away from this project is encouragement to at least momentarily set aside what we think of as common sense and logic. If it can be imagined, it can be done. Believing isn’t a sufficient step but it is a necessary one. And I think art, fiction, these are all ways of giving structure the more fundamental exercise of stretching our imaginations. 

I’m really grateful to have my music and art included in this collection, and love that we got to stop and consider Andean conceptions of the future and its cyclical nature. Jallalla to the organisers who worked so hard to make it possible!

In considering the future, especially after the recent IPCC report, it is difficult to imagine one without burning horizons and absolute destruction and loss, an apocalyptic future that mainstream media and peak oil preppers alike anticipate in dreams and nightmares. But certainly it is important to look into the past, to look at how we once broke free from previously established orders, recovered and adapted some of their tools and created new ones, and somehow reforged ourselves into new versions. Knowledge of our biome within us, of all the microorganisms that we cohabit with and that transcend western concepts of finite life, means our Andean three spirits — our Jach’a, Jisk’a and Sullka Ajayus — can flourish. We are not limited in time because we are linked to everything that happened before and can happen in future, but we are here now and although this Pachakuti is a great clash, a time of great destruction, it is also the beginning of a new cycle. 

As this collection launches I will be in Glasgow, a city I was exiled to as a baby, like a mitma community sent by our invaders to a new inhospitable environment, but I was able to become a part of that place and discover and be there to help and work with the Minga Indigena, the gathering of indigenous delegates who are already arriving to Glasgow for COP26 as I write, each one from a different tribe across Abya Yala, to help  raise awareness and share the knowledge, art and stories so that we can mold the future. 

Minga is an ancient word, and like Ayni it is about shared work, this time between tribes, across cultures, where Ayni is that exchange with the elements, life and those directly around us, a Minga is that shared work we all have to do in a wider sense. In the same way the Chakana is not just a cross, but a sign in the stars that indicates the seasons, the work to do across those seasons, across our cultures, beyond our differences, for the good of mother nature, and for the society that we can build by coordinating together and figuring it all out again. 

I’m grateful for memory and tradition that has granted me inspiration to write. Often we recognize that our bodies, hearts, and mind hang onto the trauma and pain. But, our bodies, hearts, and minds also hang onto our ancestral memories. I remember once in college a professor told a classmate that nationalism was a lie, and my classmate panicked fearing that their entire identity was built on a lie. While nationalism may be a colonial lie, I knew that the connection to the land and the ancestral traditions practiced on our land were and will always be real. The fire in my heart as it comes alive when I hear our traditional music is memory. The affinity to experience others never had had to face is memory. The joy of dancing and wearing our traditional clothes is memory. No one can take any of it away. I honor my ancestors' knowledge and their collective memory living in me through my writing for the project. I am grateful for the opportunity and grateful for the ability to remember. 

I'm grateful for the chance to share my little story with the world, alongside so many brilliant artists who share my hyphenated identity. My webzine started out as a personal endeavor to make some sense of my hard drive full of travel photos and videos, and to put my fleeting memories into words before I forgot — I hadn't imagined that more than a handful of people might look at it. And now, seeing my story in this collection has given me greater perspective and reminded me of the power that my stories may hold, especially in chorus with other voices in the community. I hope this project can inspire someone to start creating and sharing, as even tiny and mundane stories are worth telling.

I’m grateful for this space and the opportunity to share my story and process. I find it very easy to talk with other members in this group and receive meaningful feedback, as well as learn how my experience resonates with their own. My work deals with my own narrative as I exist in the world, so I never thought about the “what if”s of an alternative reality that this project celebrates (I am now, though! :)). My project started from my art thesis in college and is gradually growing outwards as I view the other projects included here. I think it’s wonderful to see so many people like myself that are navigating through their identities in their own way and to see what media they transform that journey into.

This project means a few different things to me. It feels like a validation of the power of relationships and friendships even over long distances, and (especially so) through global pandemic Apocalypse. It also feels like one step towards a future that centers collaboration, creativity, community, joy, and reciprocity! 

I hope they take away a sense of awe at how dope our community is!! And a sense of love and inspiration from all of the different mediums of art and truth that was shared. And maybe some motivation to keep engaging and being involved with AltSalt as we continue to grow and evolve. 

I'm grateful for the core team, Art and Sandy! You both are such amazing people that I’m honored to know and work with. And for our entire community who submitted artwork and contributed their time and energy to this collection. And grateful for the Ayni institute for bringing  us together and rekindling the fire of our ancestors and for sharing the wisdom and teachings of the long view.

I’m so grateful for the connections this project has helped me cultivate, nurture, and grow. Because of Alternative Worlds, I’ve been able to learn about and connect with amazing artists; not to mention see, read, and experience incredible creative works! My horizons have been expanded in the best ways possible. Especially in this day and age where we are so inundated with the internet and technology (to the point where it can be hard to put your phone down and just be present), I find that having a resource like this one is more important than ever. I try to avoid mindless scrolling through social media, but sometimes social media is the only way to find and stumble upon awesome creators that inspire me. Projects like these, however, provide another way to connect with and learn from creators that is more intentional and community-centered, which I think we can all benefit from.

It’s been a beautiful journey getting to see this project come to fruition, and for sure one of the best parts was getting to work with Art and Shirley to develop a collaborative zine! I love the energy we have as a group and I have learned so much from both of you, as well as the greater AltSalt community as a whole. I can’t wait to continue the journey and see where our projects, collaborations, and community leads us next :)

This project was devised by Sandy Enriquez, Shirley Man-Kin Leung, and Artemio Morales in May 2021 as a means of making resources for our communities.

We first reached out to existing AltSalt members to create a promotional collage for our Call for Submissions.

After that, we published the open call on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter on June 15th, with a deadline of August 15th.

From July 17-18th, we held a workshop weekend of programming, including online workshops and discussion groups.

As we received final submissions around August 15th, Artemio began to design and program support for the different content types that would need to exist on the site to support the submissions.

Principal programming was completed in mid September, after which Artemio, Shirley, and Sandy began devising how to frame and present the collections.

In early October, contributors were invited to craft statements to accompany the collections and offer feedback on copy throughout the project. Preparations began for a launch event.

The collections were officially launched in November 2021.

A joint statement from contributors to the Andean and Asian American collections, speaking on what Alternative Worlds means to us.

Envisioning the Future

i am a temple forged from sun
an army of iron shimmers from its
golden rays off a white cross
lodged into the beating heart of an empire

displacement.

Jessica Kahn is a musician and educator of Jewish, Scottish, and Andean descent, and contributor to the Alternative Worlds Andean collection.

On "Different Folks" and Andean musical fusion

I’ve started and stopped this letter about 10 times now. It’s like, how do you capture a crystallized moment of what you’re thinking and feeling? Then you look back and recognize that the person you were before is just an echo, and you’re slightly changed despite being the same.

Moreso than before, I’m coming to appreciate how everything and everyone is in a constant state of renewal and transformation.

We might take someone’s outward appearance for granted, just beneath the surface though everything is always flowing. It takes listening to one another’s stories to feel just how malleable life is; and there’s so much beauty in that.

In terms of where I am lately, I’ve been trying to do a better job of expressing gratitude. Before meals, for example — and I don’t always remember to do this — I’ll touch my necklace of an Andean cross under my shirt to be thankful for the meal, and to recognize all of the processes required for that food to arrive in front of me. In this way, I’m trying to make more aspects of my life sacred, in a world where so many things are made to feel cheap and disposable.

In your last letter, you wrote about how technology has accelerated the rate of change between generations, and how some Gen Zers look to millennials rather than elders for guidance on navigating life’s challenges. I feel that. We’re all improvising, learning from one another, taking things a step at a time.

This also leads me to think about our institutions and cultural practices. My gut feeling is that many of our institutions are inadequate, on an existential level, to address the challenges of our times, including these generational gaps that you mention. For sure this challenge isn’t unique to our moment — still, it’s wild to think how we’re facing a climate crisis, mental health crisis, pandemic, and more all at once.

In face of all this, I feel like social media and technology is a way of putting a bandaid on something that’s broken and needs tending to. It’s easier to caught up doomscrolling, to get a dopamine rush, than to address how we can create a fundamentally healthier culture overall. Maybe though that does begin on a person to person level, like this, you and me, talking about stuff as we see it, maybe thinking about what could be.

You spoke briefly about how our approach to creating technology contributes to the divide between generations and is fundamental in the issues we face. Of course, someone — in this case, millennials, Gen X, and Boomers — were the ones who created and financed all of these systems. So a big question for me is, what are the cultural values in place that allow such institutions to flourish? If we had a different system of values, would we as a culture gravitate towards different kinds of experiences?

It’s a tall question. Myself, I’m thinking of what it takes to make a shift in culture, even in my own life. I’ve been trying, as mentioned, to think more deeply about my connection to the earth and the processes around me. The small acts of gratitude I’ve been doing are, I think, contributing to a sense of consciousness and connection that has started to make me feel, rather than fragmented and anxious, whole.

It’s still an ongoing process, and I’m not sure where this ends up for me. I do know that, rather than taking a plane to see my family in Florida for a wedding this October, I instead booked a train despite it being more expensive and taking more time. It’s a sacrifice for sure, and it was painful to do it. At the same time, I feel at least that I’m living a truth that goes beyond the individualistic, frenetic emphasis on everything being fast, and cheap, instead thinking more holistically about how my actions impact the planet, trying to cultivate different ways of being within myself.

I’ll leave you with this last thought: I recently got myself a plant. It’s a bromeliad, an offset from one owned by my mom. It’s such a seemingly insignificant thing; for someone so mired in technology and disconnected from nature here in NYC though — always thinking about being more productive, more of this, more of that — it felt like a step towards something. Who knows how these little changes will add up. It’s a journey for sure, and honestly I’m just being led by faith and intuition, a sincere belief that everything will lead to a better future and, in a traditional Andean view of reality, that the mind and body are one.

Anyway, I’ve been so glad to be able to write this to you. Apologies for the delay, and I’m looking forward to reading your next letter (which has already been published for a while now!)

We might take someone’s outward appearance for granted, just beneath the surface though everything is always flowing. It takes listening to one another’s stories to feel just how malleable life is...

(Dear Charles #2) Cultivating Cultural Change

Here follows an interview with Alejandro Fernandez, an Aymara descendant and creator of improvised and progressive psychedelic folk music.

Heritage, music, and creative freedom

Letter to Art #4 - Ukraine, Trans Rights, and Doomscrolling (March 2022)

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx1 diaspora community of the United States. Launched in 2018 in New York City and New Jersey, our collective now has members in California and Illinois. We are: <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/jamie_sa">Jamie San Andres</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/claudia.urd">Claudia Urdanivia</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sandycha">Sandy Enriquez</a>, Ben Kruse-Calla, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/layqakuna">Layqa Nuna Yawar</a>, and <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sbarretolastra">Stephanie Barreto-Lastra</a>, among others that come and go.

Rimay Raiz was created given the erasure and racist portrayals of Andean and Andean-descendant communities among both Latinx and white communities in the United States. Thus, our collective seeks to confront this discrimination and sense of dual exclusion by uplifting and sharing the stories and experiencies of our communities on our own terms, as a way of exposing and resisting the insidious ways that colonialism and imperialism continue to impose their binary and Western epistemologies on our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities, across time and across borders. This resistance is also represented in our name, which connects two sides of our cultural heritage by using the Quechua/Kichwa word ‘rimay’ (to speak) and the Spanish word ‘raíz’ (roots). We are speaking from our roots. Quechua/Kichwa is an ancestral Indigenous language of the Andes and remains one of the most widely spoken Native American languages in the Americas today.

Our goal is to (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, from youth, adults, and elders, and include community leaders that have been carving spaces for our community for decades, be that cultural or political (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss our stories through multimedia, via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and Raymikuna or virtual parties in this pandemic era, and (4) organize gatherings to celebrate and unite Andean cultural advocacy efforts. Through these initiatives, we aim to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about our communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of our elders, and create a sense of solidarity across borders within the Andean diaspora.

Porque las historias nos llaman, las historias nos limpian y sanan, como el agua y neblina bendita de la montaña.

The last three years we have recorded 14 oral histories and published two zines, some of which are featured here.

 

Issue #1: Choclo y Chicha, self titled

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/10/cover-10/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_5.25.08_PM-original-489444.png"/>

In March 2020, Rimay Raiz launched <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-1/10">Choclo y Chicha</a>, a zine that shares the contributions of the Andinx diaspora through poetry, art, and storytelling. Both choclo and chicha are Quechua words for our ancestral foods of fresh corn and maize drinks, we chose them to reflect our cultural connections and create a space for a uniquely Andean zine. Chicha is also a type of music, Peruvian cumbia, that musicologists and sociologists claim emerged in the Amazon of Peru out of a sentiment of exclusion and otherness by dominant white, criollo elites.

We chose to include zines as part of our core mission because they would allow us to showcase creative, multimedia works from our communities on our own terms, without the need to compromise our vision through mainstream publishing. We also want to acknowledge the diverse ways that our communities express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, some orally, while others visually or through text. We hope to distribute the zines widely and inspire others in our community to value and share their own stories and experiences through this, and other mediums.

Our first zine featured profound stories such as “Camino hacia la Boca del Lobo-Simiatug” by Jimena Vega, powerful poems such as “Mama Negra, Mama Tierra” by Mónica Carrillo Zegarra, and art by colectivo member Layqa Nuna Yawar, Lenny Correa.

Initially, our zine launch was scheduled to be an intimate event with members of the collective and fellow contributors for the zine, with music, food, and dance. Once the pandemic swept the globe, we made the decision to transition to a virtual event that could replicate this celebration while holding space for our community during this immensely difficult time. You can watch our first two Raymikuna, virtual parties on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RimayRaiz" target="_blank">RR page</a> on Facebook.

 

Issue #2: Family Portraits

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/9/cover-9/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_4.33.36_PM-original-483649.png"/>

Our <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-2/9">second zine</a> focuses on the intersection of stories and memory through family photos. In this section we feature excerpts from the incredible oral history of Analisa Freitas and the beautiful poem by Marisol Silva, “when I make chicha morada and play your huaynos full blast, and I carry a backpack on the 7 train from Queens to Brooklyn brimming with jars of aji panca, aji amarillos, rocotos, I hold onto Ayni when I can’t remember words in any language, I hold onto Ayni, when I remember that who we are as a people is much too strong to ever be forgotten,” she writes.
 
Additionally, inspired by our colectivo member Jamie San Andres’ call to action, we are excited to also introduce a new section to our zine entitled Andean Political Reflections, that speaks to the issues and uprisings the Andean region has experienced in the last two years. It is impossible to do cultural work without addressing the political.

We invite you to join our Choclo y Chicha Zine Vol. 2 Raymikuna, virtual zine parties, this Sunday, January 10th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Family Portraits section, and Sunday February, 28th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Andean Political Reflection section.

 

Conclusion

To learn more about our work and stay in touch, please follow us @RimayRaiz on <a href="https://instagram.com/rimayraiz/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://facebook.com/rimayraiz">Facebook</a>. We will also be launching our website in Summer 2021 which will feature our oral history archive, zines, and other projects. If you would like to get in touch about potential collaborations or have questions, reach out to us at <a href="mailto:rimayraiz@gmail.com">rimayraiz@gmail.com</a>. We would love to hear from you.

Until then, tupananchiskama!

 

<hr/>

 

1&nbsp;The Andean diasporic community includes people with South American heritage from Andean countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Hence, Rimay Raiz utilizes the term Andean to refer to this region of South America, as opposed to folks that are strictly from the highlands. 
We remain inclusive of the many nationalities in the Andean region, and recognize that people that may identify with diverse backgrounds, such as that of the coast and the Amazon, Black Indigenous, and mestizo. We welcome all people who identify with our mission and background, whether they are recent immigrants, second generation, or have not connected to their ancestral countries for generations.

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx diaspora community of the United States.

Choclo y Chicha: a zine for (and from) the Andean Diaspora

Ana Somnia is a meditation on what it’s like to dream. It’s also a piece that uses a single interactive element to draw us into an animated world, a clever decision that is minimalism at its best.

Turn out the lights and explore a dream world in Ana Somnia

This is a special kind of comment section that allows everyone to share appreciation with the creators of a publication.

New feature now available: Resonating

Echoes of our ancestors,
Heard across time and space,
We find the key to our future
As we look into the past.

Calling all Andean and Asian American folks! AltSalt is creating two multidisciplinary collections of work — and we want you to be a part of it.

Who: Zinesters, writers, artists, designers, game developers, videographers, musicians, and more who identify as Andean or Asian American.

What: Team up or work solo to submit a publication based on the following prompt: “Envision a future in which your culture, history, and values have guided the world to an alternative reality — and harnessing that energy, create a piece to resonate with our times.”

When: Work can begin as soon as you read this message. We’ll hold a workshop weekend July 17-18th (schedule available here) to spend time together and share progress (the workshop weekend is over!), with a final submission deadline of Sunday, August 15th. The date will come fast — let’s get started!

If you’d like to get involved, please…

Join our Discord server (optional, highly encouraged).

We also welcome folks doing cross-community collaborations. Want to team up and combine Andean and Asian cultural influences? Do it! We’ll have special sections for cross-community projects in both collections.

Brainstorm ideas, form teams if applicable, begin work



Saturday, July 17th — Sunday, July 18th

Workshop weekend to connect and share progress (full schedule available here)

 

Sunday, July 18th — Sunday, August 15th

Continue working on and submit final projects



Our Broader Vision — Our purpose is to envision and create an alternative world through our collective creativity. To grow in community, we must become curious on how we can not only grow as one, but with the multitudes we intersect with. We hope that this can be the first of many initiatives to create solidarity across communities and share knowledge. Let’s transcend artificial boundaries; let’s connect.

Why these two communities? They’re the ones us, the organizers, are most familiar with and the ones that we belong to. We hope to offer a similar space for other communities on AltSalt in the future!

Open To All Creatives — No matter where you are in the creative process, whether your work is free or commercial, you can get involved:

Have you already created work and want to list it in the collections?



Have you started working on creative projects but haven’t had the capacity to finish them?



New to zine-making or creative publications? 

You are welcome to participate! Just fill out the participation form, then join our community of creatives on Discord for inspiration, collaborators, or guidance, and get involved with our upcoming events.

The Andean collection aims to highlight creative and artistic works in diverse mediums/publication styles from self-identified Andean creators. We utilize the term ‘Andean’ to embrace and honor our shared history before colonization, although we recognize that today many of us are accustomed to identifying by nationality (such as Peruvian or Peruvian-American). We appreciate the rich complexity of identities represented in our community and welcome anyone who has ancestral or social ties to the Andes (whether Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, etc), and its diasporas, to participate. Andean identity is also intersectional and extends beyond an Indigenous, Spanish, mestizaje, or Latinx/Latine dichotomy; therefore, we wish to be inclusive of diverse diasporas such as Peruvian Nikkei and Afro-descendiente communities.

This collection is by and for us, our ancestors, and our future generations. Our goal is that it feel both intimately familiar and, at the same time, entirely new because it encompasses diverse perspectives within our shared cultural repertoire, which is so rarely represented in the dominant narrative.

This is an experimental place to explore your individual identity, your creativity, and be a part of our community. We invite you to visit, contribute, and collaborate with us in whatever ways are most inspiring to you.

A S I A N   A M E R I C A N   C O L L E C T I O N

The Asian American collection seeks to explore the many facets of Asian American’s experiences and varied cultural heritages through creative mediums and publications. This collection is for and by Asian Americans, including those whose backgrounds encompass East, Southeast, and South Asian, Pacific Islander, multi-ethnic and diasporic Asian identities.

In defining a collection, the distinctions of who is included in ‘we’ and ‘us’ remains slippery. Within our communities, there are often inequalities of power between groups. Differences within ‘Asian American’ across class, color, gender, sexuality, religion, immigration status, history, and national origin produce asymmetrical and uneven histories, and encounters with state violence. Additionally, calls for community might strategically offer unity yet conflate the differentiated effects of racialization and colonization under one umbrella term. Rather than demand inclusion, our collection offers a space for sharing narratives that speak to different intersections of histories and experiences, within those who identify as Asian American.

This collection seeks to provide a space for identity exploration, community building and a creative well, to come to nourish ourselves, refill our cup and continue to explore without boundaries, to stretch the limits of our imaginations — using our creative practice to puzzle through the times we’re in together towards a future of collective liberation.

To envision an alternative world.
Because representation matters.
Sharing knowledge and consciousness,
Let’s create the future.




From left by row: Artwork by Jessica Tin, Jamie San Andres of Rimay Raiz, Layqa Nuna Yawar, Lia Coleman, Felix Kar-wah Fok courtesy of Shirley Man-Kin Leung, Sandy Enriquez, Adina Farinango, and Angela DelosReyes. Background pattern by Artemio Morales with gratitude  to the teachings of Zadir Milla Euribe. Music by Jonathan Morales. 

Alternative Worlds: The Andes and Asian America

¡Se hace un llamado a toda nuestra gente andina y asioamericana! AltSalt está creando dos colecciones multidisciplinarias de trabajo. Queremos que seas parte de este proyecto.

Mundos Alternatives: Los Andes y América Asiatica

This is the first in a series of posts to highlight members of the AltSalt community. First up we have Shirley Man-Kin Leung, organizer behind the Asian American collection for Alternative Worlds.

"To Dream and Be Intentional" — Interview with Shirley Man-Kin Leung

Bibliography of Asian American Resources

The workshop weekend schedule for Alternative Worlds: The Andes and Asian America.

Alternative Worlds Workshop Weekend Schedule

Poetry, in the popular imagination, is usually seen as a solo act. The lone poet bares their soul to the world, writes beautiful tortured lines, etc.

When it comes to electric literature, though, what happens a computer algorithm is thrown into the creative process? Does the computer get copyright? And, most importantly, does it get royalties?

Joking aside, some poets these days are embracing the digital and don’t necessarily write poems the old-fashioned way. Here are some innovative poems that turn the idea of poetry – and the solo poet – on its head.

 

1.) Taroko Gorge, by Nick Montfort, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/taroko1-edited.png" width="723" height="571"/>

Taroko Gorge uses a computer algorithm to generate lines of poetry. The sidebar shows versions by writers who have hacked the code to make spinoffs.

 

At Taroko Gorge in Taiwan, Nick Montfort wrote a poem to celebrate the national park’s awesome beauty. Or, rather, in 21st century style, he wrote a computer program to make such poems for him.

The resulting work, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/" target="_blank">Taroko Gorge</a>, randomly chooses words from a list and endlessly assembles them into stanzas.


But Taroko Gorge is more than a single poem: it’s a platform that digital authors use to experiment, collaborate, and build new works. The code can be easily hacked to write any kind of poem imaginable. For example, in writer Flourish Klink's spinoff, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/fred_and_george/" target="_blank">Fred &amp; George</a>, Taroko Gorge transforms into a Harry Potter fanfic about an encounter between the twins and their… um, “wands.”

The poem’s sidebar lists many authors who have taken up the challenge of hacking Montfort’s original JavaScript code. (My own version, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/54_61_72_6f_6b_6f/" target="_blank">54_61_72_6F_6B_6F</a>, can be found on the page as well.)

 

2.) Pentametron, by Ranjit Bhatnagar, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/pentametron1.png" width="750" height="746"/>

Move aside, Shakespeare! Make room for... a Twitter bot!

 

"I’m just a squirrel looking for a nut 
You are a wizard harry i’m a what 
Glad to believe in #Jesus, He’s the best… 
From Fresno to Pomona fuck the rest" 
-A couple of random retweets, by Pentametron

Though these couplets have the right rhythm and the rhyme, no, they aren't authentic Elizabethan prose – they were actually strung together by a computer program.

Along with thousands more, these couplets  are the product of <a href="https://twitter.com/pentametron?lang=en" target="_blank">Pentametron</a>, a Twitter bot by <a href="http://moonmilk.com/" target="_blank">Ranjit Bhatnagar</a> that automatically retweets rhyming lines that users have written, consciously or otherwise, in iambic pentameter.

This raises the question, who “wrote” this endless epic poem?

Was it the Twitter users whose fragments were appropriated and put in a different context? Was the “author” the program itself? Or is Ranjit Bhatnagar the author of the work, even though he wrote none of the prose by himself?


 

3.) The Last Performance, by Judd Morrissey, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/last-performance-1.png" width="1226" height="970"/>

The Last Performance is a poem whose structure is based on a cathedral. Here, we see a zoomed-out view of the "dome" and just a few of the "lenses" that constitute it.

 

<a href="http://thelastperformance.org/cupola_triads.php" target="_blank">The Last Performance</a>, by <a href="http://www.judisdaid.org/" target="_blank">Judd Morrissey</a>, is a digital poem based on architecture. (Note: If using a mobile device inside the piece, tap each link twice to proceed.)

Specifically, The Last Performance is about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia" target="_blank">Hagia Sophia</a>, a Byzantine cathedral that was converted to a mosque and eventually to a museum. In Morrissey’s textual cathedral, though, words don’t only provide meaning – they also define space.

In the mainstay of the piece, the reader encounters the “dome” of the poem, which consists of thousands of “lenses,” or texts, that were contributed by readers, writers, and collaborators.

Each word in a lens is a hyperlink that leads to another lens. The result is a labyrinthine structure that can be traversed in any number of ways, allowing the visitor to encounter any number of poems written by any number of authors.


 

4.) Bicycle Built for 2000, by Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/cover-5/bicycle-888413.png" width="1041" height="720"/>

Bicycle Built for 2000, a performative digital piece, was created by more than 2000 anonymous workers from around the world.

 


	<a href="http://www.bicyclebuiltfortwothousand.com/" target="_blank">Bicycle Built for 2000</a> is the product of 2000 people around the globe working together, albeit without knowing it. (Note: It requires Flash.)


Through Amazon’s <a href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" target="_blank">Mechanical Turk service</a>, hired workers were given a short audio clip and tasked with recreating it with his or her own voice. Put together, these thousands of samples recreate Daisy Bell, a popular song from late 1800s.

Interestingly, Daisy Bell was previously used in 1962 to demonstrate the invention of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_synthesis" target="_blank">computer speech synthesis</a>. Part of the project of Bicycle Built for 2000, then, is to reverse that formula, using countless human voices to create something digital.


 

So there you have it!

Four digital poems that play with the idea of poetry, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Bookmark us or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thisisaltsalt/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/thisisaltsalt?lang=en" target="_blank">Twitter</a> to learn more about exciting developments happening in digital literature!

When it comes to electric literature, though, what happens a computer algorithm is thrown into the creative process? Does the computer get copyright? And, most importantly, does it get royalties?

4 Digital Poems That Will Make You Rethink What Poetry Is

This is because life itself is dynamic, a spiral — and you can see this play out even in history. Everything is always changing yet circling back on itself, evolving with similarities but transformed.

Andean Sacred Geometry

Offering resonance is an intentional practice used to cultivate deep listening and connection; we've adapted it for AltSalt.

What is Resonance?

Every year since my friend Bill committed suicide, his mother and I had exchanged Christmas cards. And I am one of those people who do holiday letters...

The Coming Out Ring

I do know that when I saw Bruno, my world froze as I saw his Irish Setter chocolate eyes, wiry frame, and red-orange fur. I knelt down to pet him, he jumped on me in excitement and my mind and body...

Reverberating with the past

This is the first in a series of ongoing letters between me and my friend, Charles Huang, exchanged via public posting. You can find his blog here. 

I’ve had a lot swirling around my mind the past few days; so much is happening all at once and I often feel like I’m being swept up in a big current. Then there are moments like right now, as I revise this letter, having just meditated standing barefoot on the ground (literally grounding), and I feel at ease.

As you know, I just turned 31 this past week, and I’m considering more and more what I value, what we as a culture value, how I find myself within that and how to live a good life.

Over the weekend, I went to an offering to Pachamama; it was a beautiful day on Governor’s Island where I was surrounded by inspiring community members, and while I can’t speak to everyone’s specific personal beliefs, being together to honor ancestral traditions helped me to feel increasingly connected and supported in mine.

My spirituality is something I’d been wrestling with for a while; having been raised Catholic, I’ve faced a lot of doubts regarding what our relationship as individuals is to the cosmos, even as I move toward practices that feel more authentic and healthier to me than what I was raised with. It wasn’t the first ceremony I’d been to, though this weekend did feel like an inflection point in my understanding of those relationships.

This Peruvian heritage bed was stewarded by Claudia Urdanivia and Carlos Jimenez Cahua of the the Andean community in NYC; the offering to Pachamama was part of an event to honor Andean farming traditions.

There’s so much power wrapped up in our beliefs; the stories we tell of who we are, and where we come from, shapes our destiny.

To that end, there’s an Andean prophecy stating that humanity, in our current historical moment, has the opportunity to usher in a new stage of consciousness, to become more enlightened and compassionate as a people. It’s a big if; nothing about this is preordained in the Andean worldview from what I understand. And we’re currently up against the largest existential threat we’ve ever faced.

We have a global climate crisis at our doorstep; communities are already being displaced; myself I’m uncertain whether I’d like to raise a family because our collective future is so uncertain. And yet as I began writing this letter last week, I was embarking on an hour-long car ride to visit my family in upstate New York, followed by another 2.5 hour-long car ride to visit family in Pennsylvania. Later this year I’ll likely take a flight to see my family in Florida. Billionaires recently launched themselves into space.

Is it ethical to be doing all this consumption? Shouldn’t we all live locally within walking distance of our families and friends in small neighborhoods to limit our carbon footprint? Shouldn’t we be drastically reshaping our culture and institutions to preserve the planet for future generations?

This huacatay, a crop native to the Andes, was harvested from the Peruvian heritage bed.

Recently while meditating, in an effort to address these anxieties, I’ve been asking my ancestors and the universe for guidance. Doing this regularly, I eventually had the insight to try connecting with the value of ayni, or reciprocity in Quechua; and taking inspiration from the mudras of Buddhism, I’ve been holding my hands in positions found in the sculptures and artwork of the Andes that represent this idea of ayni — one hand on my heart, the other on my side; or one hand held out in offering, the other held out to receive.

Having set that intention, one day a visualization of the invisible tendrils and geometry that interconnects our reality came to mind; patterns interweaving, layered upon each other, our spirits as nodes in a vast web of those relationships, my entire being just a mirror reflecting the people, places, and circumstances of my life.

Increasingly this is how I’m beginning to see the world regularly, and it offers so much agency — everything we do, everything we are, matters — and the energy we receive, transform, and project into the universe has far-ranging effects we can’t begin to understand.

I don’t know where all of this leads yet. I feel hope, though. To see my life not as the span of my individual experiences, but the echoes and reverberations of all that has come before, all that is touched in the present, and all that ripples into the future, is both comforting and a challenge.

To know, to believe, that the world will not end, that it will simply be transformed, is so inspiring. As to what form that future world takes, that’s up to us, and one of the most radical actions we can take is believing that we’re going to make it out of this — sincerely recognizing our role in the interdependence of our surroundings — and gently cultivating the inner strength, agency, and intention that will allow us to transform the energy within and around us so that someday, we emerge as the humanity we aspire to be.

Someday, our descendents might look back and see, when faced with the greatest crisis we’ve ever known, we collectively reimagined and reshaped our culture, that we answered the call and rose to the challenge.

Here I'm holding the huacatay, which is used in several dishes including ocopa, a potato-based recipe of Peru.

I’m still working through how this all manifests in my life; I feel like this is a start, though. To move forward, I think we need to remember who we are, and maybe that’s as simple as touching our hands to the ground, offering a prayer, and gathering in community to catch a glimpse of how things might be.

So here I suppose I’m sending you some of the thoughts, anxieties, and hopes that have been on my mind recently. I’m looking forward to reading your letter! And maybe reading some of the things you’ve been thinking up.

(Dear Charles) The Shape of Our Future

Untitled

A short story about legacy, revolution, and obliquely, terraforming Mars. Also contains a dumpling recipe.

Within the Fold

In his first letter to Art, Charles writes on human nature, technology, and the 90s Disney film "Honey I Blew Up the Baby"

First Letter to Art - Human Nature, Technology, and Blown Up Babies

Called forth from the dreamers, healers, witches, womxn of our bloodline, we are the beginning of a new story,..

Becoming Our Own Prayer

AVDLR is an artist that creates works based on her exploration through her Filipino American identity. Acceptance is the first piece she created post graduation where she continues that exploration.

Acceptance

One day recently, I was browsing social media. And I realized, I couldn't stand watching it anymore. I couldn't stand seeing more and more suffering and future suffering in the world...

Letter to Art #2 - Egos, Deadlines, The Twisties, and Sandwiches

I appreciated every second of reading this and the observations throughout. I really felt The Last Maven's piece about reading the room, and the situational awareness they have in so many situations and how every moment requires so many decisions to be "free." I resonated with the observations from everyone in the interview excerpts, in particular Buddhika Bellana talking about the constraints you're given in life, working within those limitations, and recombining things in interesting ways to learn from them.There were so many moments throughout that I connected with and I really appreciate everyone putting this publication together. Thanks for sharing it!

<a href="/artemiosans" target="_self">@Artemio Morales</a> Thanks very much, Art! Many, though not all, of the contributions were developed in other contexts as part of the broader Life is a Freestyle project. The Last Maven's piece started as a blog post. Buddhika Bellana's insights were shared in an interview that was done on IG Live. So not only is the zine a collaboration, it's also a gathering from these and other contexts.And, as you may have guessed, the contributors are not mainly zine writers. It's the first experience for most to contribute to a zine. What unites Full Circle is being rappers.

Envisioning an alternative world

Jessica Tin

@jsctn

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Envisioning the Future