Black lines on white background with words 'Rimay Raiz'

A collage of a woman sitting cross-legged with her hands on her knees, alongside an image of her lying facedown on a yoga mat with her hands upturned and stretched towards the camera.

Envisioning the Future

On "Different Folks" and Andean musical fusion

Heritage, music, and creative freedom

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

Alternative Worlds: The Andes and Asian America

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, a community organizer and yoga teacher based on traditional homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute nations (Northern Colorado), as well as organizer behind the Asian American collection for Alternative Worlds.

In this series, we hope to showcase and celebrate the diverse perspectives and creative work of our communities, to learn, find inspiration, and share resonance with one another.

Tell us about yourself! How did you get involved with AltSalt?

I am a sister, a daughter, an auntie, an immigrant, a lover, a gardener, an artist and lover of life.

I got involved with AltSalt through my friendship with Artemio, although we haven’t (yet!) met IRL, we participated in this amazing 6-month long virtual course called Global Reciprocity at the Ayni Institute a few years ago, and have stayed connected ever since then. In that course, one of the things we did was work together to map our entire lineage and legacy of life as humans, to understand where we are, who we are, from 5 billion years ago to today… it transformed my life and that is where the seeds of a lot of my work today was born, and where AltSalt also was born!

What does Alternative Worlds mean to you, and why did you decide to organize an Asian American collection?

Alternative Worlds is about giving us the opportunity for "otra forma de ver" — other ways of seeing. We’re in this liminal space, between the ways things had been and an unknown future. I think it's our role, as artists, to be stewards of this in-between space, to be able to hold and see multiple worldviews and swirl them together and breathe into a reality another way of being. The only way to be with all of the contradictions and transitions we’re in right now, is through art and activism. I think that this is how we will be guided through a transformation process towards a collective awakening, moving us towards global reciprocity.

I wanted to organize the Asian American collection because, as a mixed race, Chinese, Filipino immigrant, who was adopted and raised by white American parents, my own healing journey has been about finding community to heal my own wounds and connect with my ancestors lessons for these times we find ourselves in.

Having a collection is about building community for artists, where we can look to each other in our different but common struggles for liberation, and say I see you, I know myself through your struggle, we are done appealing to the dominant white culture, instead we are prioritizing each other, first and foremost.

The silos we find ourselves in are designed by the empire, and it's exhausting constantly appealing to dominant culture or resisting the world coming at us hard, seemingly alone in our struggle, finding ourselves asking for crumbs... the alternative is, you create a community where you can look around and see our power and creativity and strength is immense, we can learn from each other, we can create a vision together, we can show up and show our strength in ways that are impossible to do alone, it's immensely hopeful!

The racist, colonial regimes are very clear about the world they want, they want the status quo. We’re less ready (in part by design I think) to declare the world we want, our imaginations are atrophied in part because of always being in a reactive / traumatic state of resistance. We must collectively put forth the world we want, that we deserve, that is our inheritance from these freedom fighters, our ancestors, we have everything we need to not only articulate that world but to build it, the constant affirmation that we are enough, we have what we need to be in relationship with one another in deep and meaningful ways to build that world.

What’s your own creative practice like?

My creative practice is hard to define because it takes so many different forms. Poetry has definitely been a guide for me though, and there is this quote by Nayira Wahid speaking to my own feelings and intentions around my creative practice right now:

“You do not have to be a fire for every mountain blocking you, you can be a water and soft river your way to freedom too”

I exercise my creative muscle as a daily practice, as a way of taking time to slow down and be intentional with where I’m putting my energy. I also consider my creative practices to be part of a larger whole of resilience practices, which our ancestors and communities have been cultivating to survive and thrive. I really do believe that we need to be just as rigorous in our play, pleasure and our joy, as other forms of work. When we are in a reactive state, we aren’t able to respond creatively, and that's by design.

Lastly, my creative practice is both playful and oftentimes silly, but it also serves a larger purpose and has been critical for me in my own healing journey. For example, I recently shared a piece of poetry I wrote about my mother’s mental illness and what it’s taught me about honoring joy and healing intergenerational trauma. Speaking about things directly is such a big shift from how I articulate through poetry, and it’s powerful to see different gifts each form has.

What do you think the role of art is in our culture?

I spend a lot of my energy and time thinking about cultural change. Changing our hearts, minds, body and spirits. Policy and social change can move really slow. What can make change happen is the people, and there are many instances of this happening in history (take the Mexican Revolution for one example). I believe that art plays a critical role in this aspect. I also think art has a role in spreading and sharing wisdom and knowledge. Sharing knowledge is about building power, not increasing paranoia. We need to understand what is the system we are up against, but the same way we want to study what we don’t want, we need to study, imagine, and create what we do want to see!

Artists are the stewards of our collective imagination. We need both imagination and memories. Artists can remember, reclaim and reframe; to find things that were lost and hidden on purpose and own and reclaim them through our creative practices.

When it comes to re-building, creating alternative worlds, I think the role of artists is to take the time to slow down to dream and be intentional around the world we want to see. How do we start to put those dreams and strategies into play and then practice? It’s not enough to just think about if we aren’t doing them, practicing! And remember that creating and sharing art is collective! The role of artists is about bringing people along with you, we can't do it alone, where are your homies at?

What do you hope participants get out of being a part of this?

A sense of community, some budding friendships, fresh ideas, support for your own creative practices, and just to have fun and be challenged in some new and exciting ways!

You can find out about Shirley's yoga practice here, and find the Call for Submissions for the Asian American and Andean Collections here. We also invite you to join us for our workshop weekend from July 17-18 th, 2021!

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

Alternative Worlds Workshop Weekend Schedule

(Interview)

Created for the Asian American collection of Alternative Worlds.  

Called forth from the dreamers, healers,
witches, womxn of our bloodline
we are the beginning of a new story,
no longer forced to migrate
between truths too small,
stuck in someone else's stomach.
We are not only her aching body
we are dawn
we are light breaking free.
Our ancestors are at our back,
in the rustling of trees and leaves.
They've always been alive.
And when we pray,
we pray whole body into the earth.
We become our own prayer

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

Becoming Our Own Prayer

Everyone

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China

Bolivia

Colombia

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A few minutes

Babycastles Residency Presentation

Connected From Afar: Web Art Jam Presentation

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Anthology Website Link

Red, green, and yellow art with choclo and geometric iconography.

The background is the Colombian Flag with the Words "Colo-Mitolo-Gital" spanning each stripe. In the foreground is a floating back and a pair of red heels. In the top right, there is two buttons

The title "Cultural Correspondence" along with the illustration of a hands holding uprooted plants and dirt

Title 'Dear Charles' over a man holding his heart in a meditative stance

Portrait of a young child against a pink background; plants emerge from the child's face.

Group of friends peering through a wire fence

Collage of antique and modern pictures of women.

It is a dialogue box describing the story "El Dedo En El Baño" overlaid onto the background. The background is the Colombian Flag with the Words "Colo-Mitolo-Gital" spanning each stripe. In the foreground is a floating back and a pair of red heels.

A black background with a bag in the center and the words "there is a finger inside the bag"

A woman with a white shirt and yellow skirt standing against a city background

A sketched portrait of a woman who is smiling broadly

A sketched landscape of a person looking out over a lake. There are trees in the background and the sun is overhead.

An outstretched hand coupled with the words, 'Reach for the Sublime'

Andes

**SHORTLISTED for the New Media Writing Prize 2017** **SHORTLISTED for the Opening Up Digital Fiction People's Choice Award 2017** **FEATURED in the upcoming Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4 by ELO** **FEATURED in the Babycastles Art Gallery Wordhack Anthology**◇ ◇ ◇"Above the mirror, small and low, hung a fluorescent bulb whose light shone through my skin..."People we love often fade away. As time goes on, how do we remember our relationships, and what insights does that distance afford us?Featuring an original soundtrack, 22 photo illustrations, and a few innovative surprises, A MODERN GHOST explores a young man's memories of a love that was never realized.A prototype story, it is the first release by Artmayu Studios.

A Modern Ghost

Huancavilca

Aymara

Kichwa

Indigenous

First Generation

Andinx

In May 2020, Rimay Raiz launched Choclo y Chicha, a zine that shares the contributions of the Andean/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 media 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 features 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.

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 1

Colo-Mitolo-Gítal is an anthology that reinterprets different family stories while layering in Colombian history and culture as a way to understand my own heritage through the lens of computation, the web, and play. Each object represents a chapter within the anthology with the first two stories being: "El Dedo En El Baño": For generations, there was a cloth bag in my great-great grandmother’s bathroom said to contain the finger bone of a family member who had passed away. When visiting the grave became impossible after my family was dislocated by the civil war, the bone was taken to maintain a spiritual link. "La Señora Con Tacones": A well-liked woman on my father’s street mysteriously went missing after a night out. She was never found, but the sound of her heels clacking could still be heard coming down the street every night as if she’s trying to make it back home.Colo-Mitolo-Gítal was researched, Designed and Developed By <a href="http://kevincadena.com/" target="_self">Kevin Cadena</a>. It was playtested by Andres Chang, Artemio Morales, Arnon Karnkaeng, Tracy Leung, and Hyacinth Ramsay. Special Thanks to Chantal Feitosa, Claudia Rincon, Nidia Rincon and Jose Mauricio Cadena.This project was produced during the 2020 Fall Residency Program at <a href="https://www.babycastles.com/" target="_self">Babycastles.</a>

Colo-Mítolo-Gítal

A creative game of telephone, this was created for the <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/community/project/alternative-worlds/1">Alternative Worlds</a> shared collection and contains poetry, artwork, and reflections on our creative processes as they relate to our Andean and Asian cultural heritages.

Located across the United States, each person passed the project to the next, who then responded to the previous piece, building up the collaboration via long distance in a way befitting of our times — digital, cultural correspondence :D

Cultural Correspondence

Riveted in the Word

This is an experimental multimedia essay, written to my friend Charles, reflecting on the act of making art. It includes writing, illustrations (doodles), and music.It's also a test of my internal studio tools for creating new media literature experiences for web in Cocos Creator.This is the third in a series of letters we've been exchanging: <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/playlist/dear-art-dear-charles/2" target="_blank">Dear Art, Dear Charles</a>.

(Dear Charles #3) Thinking, Feeling, Creating

Test Publication

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 2

Free

Paid

Resonate

Creative-Coding

Yoga by Shirley website

I'm a software developer, director of Artmayu Studios, and founder of AltSalt.I love the digital and literary worlds, especially exploring new kinds of digital literature, from experimental multimedia books to narrative adventure games.Currently, I'm in the process of learning more about my Andean background, and thinking through how to bridge that heritage with the world of technology.

The Andean diaspora* community in the United States is confronted with discrimination and a sense of dual exclusion from both Latinx and white US heritages due to histories of colonialism and imperialism that continue to impose Western epistemologies across time and borders. Rima(y) Raíz, an Andean diaspora collective based in NYC, NJ, IL and CA, confronts these issues by documenting and sharing inter-generational oral hxstories of the Andean diaspora in efforts to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about their communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of their elders for the next generation, and create a sense of solidarity. &nbsp;We are inspired by Andean notions of time, space, and community such as pachakutik and the ayllu and we choose oral hxstory as a medium due to its inter-disciplinary, borderless nature. Oral hxstory also acts as a way to decolonize the production of knowledge. The main components of the project are (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, including community leaders (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss the stories via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and virtual Raymi or parties, and (4) organize gatherings of Andean organizations and leaders to celebrate and unite cultural advocacy efforts.Coloniality may have traversed time and space, but so has our resistance.*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, mestizo, and 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.

I am gardener and composter passionate about equity in the food system. Quinoa scholar and oral history and community archive enthusiast. Runasimita yachapakuq. Member of the Rimay Raiz colectivo.&nbsp;

Ecuadorian-American sociologist, of Huancavilca and Kichwa descent. Bi-coastal, born in Queens, NY and raised in both NY and CA. Musician, community activist, project coordinator at an immigrant and workers rights org, and co-founder of Rimay Raiz.&nbsp;

I am a triple fire sign, Catholic and a feminista. My family is Peruana, my parents immigrated to the U.S. and I was raised in Central Florida. I write poetry on Mami_soy_emo on Instagram about growing up in the between of Peruvian and American culture, therapy , sisterhood, empath struggles, and my ongoing haphazarduous love life. I am inspired by my Mamá, sunsets, pollo a la brasa con papas, and humanity's ability to heal. I am also an immigration attorney who works with survivors of gender-based violence, a plant mom to 17 plants, and a mediocre ukelele player. I am currently working on a zine about my therapy journey.&nbsp;

I am an Indigenous Adoptee from Peru. I've grown up in Brooklyn, NY and I've gone back to Peru several times to reconnect with my biological family.&nbsp;

Bridging the worlds of the West and Andes through storytelling...Artmayu is a digital book production studio, and the studio behind AltSalt!Our name comes from Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, and Mayu, the celestial river from Andean cosmology.In addition to maintaining the AltSalt website, we make animated ebooks, games, and other creative digital projects.

Editorial content by the AltSalt team.

Shirley identifies as a queer, asian-american woman of color. She works as a community organizer in Northern Colorado and as a yoga teacher. When not being self-referential in a bio, you can find her painting watercolors, biking around town, dancing, or reading a book.

Imanalla! I'm Sandy, a zinester librarian in sunny southern California. I started making zines as a way to practice and maintain Quechua, my ancestral language and one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages of the Americas. I now feel like I have too many zine ideas and too little time, but I try to make it work!&nbsp;I participate in several Andinx community projects like the annual May Sumak Quichwa Film Showcase and oral history collective Rimay Raíz. I love creating spaces for our community to share our cultures, languages, and experiences in the diaspora.&nbsp;In my spare time, I enjoy reading/watching things in the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, or horror. I also like to weave and garden (especially with, you guessed it, Andean potatoes!).&nbsp;

Writing, scriptwriting, andean ethnofuturism, nueva trova, improvised music, folk music, non white centric SciFi, decolonization and decolonising art

I'm a writer and cartographer. I mostly write scif/fantasy and have worked on some table top rpg projects such as the in*die zine and unbreakable rpg. I manage the integral states project, where I draw US states and territories as fantasy maps and pair them with pre-colonial histories.&nbsp;

Envisioning an alternative world

(Dear Charles #3) Thinking, Feeling, Creating

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