Ecuador

Kichwa

Indigenous

I wonder if in the future the Kichwa Otavalo community will still be known for being “Mindalaes” traveling merchants, will we travel across galaxies or planets?

ñawpa

A woman walking across a starlit path towards a city on the horizon

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.

Campfire beside a boulder at night in front of a starry sky

Film poster for 90s Disney Film "Honey I Blew Up the Kid". Depicts actor Rick Moranis standing in the middle of a white background with a giant red and white toddler's sneaker ominously hanging over him about to stomp on him. Poor man!

A photo of a woman wearing Philippine cultural attire with illustrations and typography overlaid.

Envisioning the Future

Heritage, music, and creative freedom

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

Offering resonance is an intentional practice used to cultivate deep listening and connection.

Typically done in person, participants take turns sharing and listening to one another's stories, practicing both telling stories earnestly and listening deeply (or in our case, reading).

After the speaker has finished, listeners share the specific moments in which they felt emotionally connected to the story, for example saying, "I resonated with you when you said [insert moment]." Storytellers can then in turn express their gratitude by saying, "Thank you for listening."

Every story we receive is a gift. Offering resonance is a way to reciprocate with the receiving of that gift, to let each other know that we've been heard.

We believe that receiving and offering resonance is a human right. Our aim is to cultivate more sharing, more resonance, more connection, both here and beyond.

Example prompts when resonating:
- I resonated with you when...
- I was right there with you when...
- I really felt when...
- I really appreciated...

Resonating is not:
- Telling your own story
- Offering advice
- Reviewing a piece's quality

If you'd like, we'd love for you to try cultivating this reciprocity muscle and offer resonance to storytellers as a way of practicing deep listening. And in turn, we hope you'll consider sharing your story as well!

You can find more information about resonance in this PDF. 

Our deepest gratitude to the Marshall Ganz of Harvard University; Mark Fairfield, Cedar Landsman, and Lucien Demaris via the Relational Center; and Relational Uprising for devising this framework, and to the Ayni Institute  for sharing it with us, which we have adapted.

in this PDF.

Relational Center

Relational Uprising

Ayni Institute

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

What is Resonance?

Dear Art,

I'm happy to be writing to you in this new format, in these times. I think it feels like taking a coat of fresh paint to refresh my perspective on things and what better way to do it than in a new platform like Zonelets? [Note: This is now on AltSalt, which is a fine platform as well, ha]

This platform invokes a lot of technology, but as I approach my 31st birthday this Friday, I'm feeling many layers of emotions that are hard to parse through (Charlie Brown style).

Here's a list of things that have got me down on my birthday:

It definitely feels hard to be celebrating anything during these times! But ultimately even when I think of all these things I still try to find hope, and I would like to articulate some of those things that I look to that give me that hope.

Somehow, I think a lot of things really come down to the things that I'm learning as I'm being around my family. I've been back with them for the past several months to recover after grad school, but ultimately they bring forth a lot of deep memories and feelings within me. Pains, for all the mistakes they've made, but also hope at the same time, since ultimately many people are just like them, all trying their best to make the best lives for their families and children, but getting mixed up in the world.

Despite what platforms like social media might have us believe, I truly believe that only a very small percentage of the population does not have any empathy for other people. We, as any New Yorker knows, tend to go into our own worlds and walk as if we don't even see each other, but as soon as we see someone fall down in the street, you'll see people flock over to help, as if we're broken from our spell. And then, we all just move on. People are like that on a macro level too I think. Most of us would never truly wish harm on other people especially if we see that affect right in front of us, it's only when we are confused or angry or frustrated or misled that we end up losing empathy for others... Ultimately, the majority of people wish each other peace and goodwill, and it's only when our lines of communication break that we feel we can become cruel to each other...

That's my hope anyway!

I've talked a little about technology with you, so I won't dwell on that too much, and socioeconomic upheaval is way too big a conversation for me to talk about. But something that I think connects these things has been something I haven't brought up, neither in our past conversations nor in this writing so far, and it's that I've been taking an interest in the principles of child development, parenting, and psychology. Maybe the easiest entry point I can think of for all this is the idea that children need to live as children first. This might sound funny, but have you seen "Honey I Blew up the Kid?"

"Honey I Blew Up the Kid" if you don't know, is a sequel to the hit 80s live action Disney film "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." In "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" a goofy scientist father Wayne Szalinski, played by Rick Moranis, accidentally leaves his experimental shrink ray on and his children end up getting shrunk to ant size and must find their way home from their backyard. It's a technical marvel and became the basis for a Disney theme parks attraction. "Honey I Blew Up the Kid" is the sequel to this movie with a reversal, where a toddler is blown up to 50 feet high and begins to walk towards downtown Las Vegas, filled with product placement for the Hard Rock Cafe amongst other things. I actually consider it the better movie, but that's besides the point.

My point that I want to get to is that I love how this movie uses this sci-fi analogy for what happens when a child grows up too fast. The baby is still psychologically a toddler, so he thinks a truck is a toy truck, and he thinks a giant guitar sign at the Hard Rock Cafe is a guitar. But ultimately, he's still a child, so when he gets inevitably gets injured, he cries, and the audience feels sorry for him, because even though he's really big, he's not capable of being responsible. At that point, they realize the solution to stopping the baby is to send in mama, because that's the only thing the baby will respond to.

My point is a little on the nose here, but I think that lots of things in society are in this constant balancing act to rush children to become mature and responsible adults who can fend for themselves. This dysfunction is not only present in something like a sci fi contraption like a shrink ray, but also in how we push kids to think about college or careers from a young age, or how we punish them for being creative because we want them to have a stable career, or how we punish boys for being sensitive because men don't show their emotions ("man up" and all that).

I think this kind of problem in society has been a tricky balancing act in different eras, the problem of wanting our children to have a childhood, but also want them to be ready for adulthood. I do think with our current era, however, technology takes things to a whole new dimension, where parents are unable to keep up with the young crowd, with rapid change within a single generation. If a younger cousin or a niece or nephew were having struggles with something like cyberbullying or social media, I don't think most parents would even know how to begin to approach dealing with those things, whether from an emotional perspective or a technological perspective, and I think a lot of young people have to look to half a generation above them. I sense that now with many Gen Z friends looking to their Millennial friends for advice.

Anyway, the hope that I get is that young people are able to learn quicker and more capably than their predecessors with faster technology, dialogs, and better toolsets to converse. It's really remarkable, like you said last week in our chat about the students nowadays. It's also a bit terrifying as a slightly older person! But I think we, as any older generation, can only hope to shepherd the younger generation as best we can and have faith they'll make the right decisions. We can guide them, but ultimately our responsibility is to leave the future in the hands of young people (whose hands it was always in the whole time). We just have to be ready to show up like their mama or papa when the babies are in danger of getting themselves hurt.

I also think that this kind of balancing problem of allowing things to mature before they become adults is also prevalent in how we approach creating technology, and I think there's a thesis to be made that a lot of our problems in technology are as fundamental as the issues that a child faces psychologically... but I think that's a whole point to discuss for another piece entirely. I wanted to keep this first piece of writing short.

I also sense your perspective on going back to basics and getting away from the bloat of modern living, beyond just technology, is also going to be insightful in our conversations. I've already sensed that in our talks about growing gardens and such.

Anyway, like I said, I don't want to keep too long, so I'll eagerly await your response.

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

Initially, I wanted to start this project under the idea of being a “perpetual foreigner,” or the concept that regardless of me being an American citizen and having the tokens of what makes up an American (whatever that means… since the U.S. is a mix of cultures after all), I will always be perceived as “the other''.

As I was working on the project, I was led to a different and more general idea of the modernization of culture; sometimes it feels like culture is conflated with history (in that it is old and static) and we view it as a separate entity all together. I feel like knowledge of culture is often treated as a novelty or a parlor trick, like knowing how to dance tinikling or speak Tagalog, or even something as simple as eating a Filipino dish.

For some Filipino Americans, and for many other second generation immigrants, they aren’t given a choice of being able to celebrate their culture or not. And for many first generation immigrants, they leave behind a culture that continues to change even while they are away: there’s new slang, new pop culture trends, and maybe even a different political climate.

The debate between mainlanders versus the diaspora has been prevalent on social media but has been the worst on TikTok, I’ve found. The word “toxic” is commonly thrown around nowadays but that’s the best way to describe the lack of critical thinking, the apathy, and the refusal to take responsibility for and acknowledge mistakes. It’s difficult for me who sits on the fence of these two identities to be invalidated and for discussions to be halted because the desire to be correct outweighs the desire to learn… well that and the fact that I’ve seen arguments turn into ad hominem attacks. Thankfully I haven’t personally experienced any of this yet, but this is something I keep in the back of my mind that sometimes keeps me from putting my work out there (I’m slowly getting over it though).

To the main point of this work: culture is now. Thanks to the internet (as corny as it sounds), I can be 8,757 miles away from my hometown in the Philippines and still be caught up on the news, pop culture, and memes. But that can’t replace me physically being there and experiencing everything myself. Of course, I acknowledge that this comes from a place of privilege because I have the financial means to live comfortably. However, in a way, I feel lost. After taking a year off of my art and taking a step back, it would seem as though I was looking through my culture through that historical lens I mentioned earlier.

This work is a baby step for me. I think I’m moving in the direction I want my work to go in, both in terms of media and focus. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to create work. Is it because I lack guidance? Or creativity? Materials? I know that I am an impulsive artist that creates work when the spark happens, but I wonder if there is a way for me to nurture that better…

Anyway, let’s talk about the process and ideas that come into this work. This is a continuation of my photo collaboration project that I did for my senior thesis. I decided to get rid of the square dimensions and go for an 8x10 inches size.

I knew I wanted to wear the barong, so that was an easy choice.

I decided to tuck my hair to mimic choking or the feeling of being overwhelmed or drowning (I think I’ll make another project for this).

I love my hair. It used to be down to butt. But I would use it as a femininity marker to compare myself to other women. I knew I did this and I knew it was wrong. I cut it to my chin when I was a sophomore in college. I can’t tell you enough how disgusted I am with myself that I was like that. And doing that did help.

The typography stickers are slang that’s commonly used today (and some even I use). I had to ask my boyfriend any other terms he knew since I felt like the ones I knew were pretty outdated.

If you’re familiar with Japan’s purikura, or photo sticker booth, I’m sure you can see the inspiration. Culture was formed hundreds of years ago, but we insert ourselves into it and shape it today.

I honestly didn’t know how to tastefully illustrate on top of this, not that it needed to be aesthetically pleasing, I just didn’t know how to combine the background and the foreground to make it look like a complete piece. I didn’t want to edit the original photo too much but I also didn’t want it to look like it was just a photo.

I’m satisfied with how this piece turned out. I will keep this written piece as raw as possible for genuity purposes (and it would be nice to see where my head was when I look back later). 

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

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.

Everyone

Mature (17+)

United States

Canada

Bolivia

Colombia

Philippines

Mobile Android Browser

Desktop Safari

Desktop Chrome

Desktop Firefox

Print

Kindle

Mobile Safari

Mobile Chrome

Mobile Firefox

Digital Comic

Tabletop Roleplaying Game

Interactive Fiction

Zine

Game

Poetry

New Media Literature

Politics

Millennial

Visual Art

Essay

Guide

News

Experimental

Letter

Sci-Fi

Slice of Life

Serious Game

Introspective

Andinx

Aymara

African American

Hip Hop Culture

Second Generation Immigrant

Welsh

Latinx

Andes

Asian American

English

Spanish

Quechua

A few minutes

Babycastles Residency Presentation

Connected From Afar: Web Art Jam Presentation

Landing Page on Author's Website

Itch.io

DriveThruRPG

GoogleDoc Format

Article Format

Author's Website

Ebook

Anthology Website Link

itch.io [DIGITAL]

bigcartel [PHYSICAL]

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

A group of people surrounding a frustrated girl trying to draw, they all seem to be looking at what she's doing.

The cover uses a retrofuturistic artist's rendering of a space colony from NASA's Ames Research Center.

A shovel and axe in the shape of an X, along with the publications title, the author's name Alda Yuan, and info including the publication year of 2021 and version 1.0

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

Title page "Andean Sky" with subtitle "The story of an immigrant his search for home"

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

Two people in a book store, Jackson and Felix. Felix says, "I'm kinda pissed", Jackson responds and asks, "Why?".

Quotes related to social change by Zora Neale Hurston, Archimedes, Toni Morrison, and Angela Davis

The publication's table of contents: Preface, Form and Functions of Institutions, Six Steps Towards Institutional Change, Checklist for Self-Reflection, and Conclusion

Preface page with title "Institutional Change and the Fight for Justice"

Surviving and Diving is a short book of poetry based on Brian Walker's experiences as an African American professional and creative. The book includes commentary about the 2020 Election, BLM, 2020 Pandemic and Racism. Walker started to write the book on his 32nd Birthday in October and wrote a poem each day for 32 days. Surviving and Diving is a reflective piece that describes hope, struggle, and sociopolitical unrest in America.&nbsp;

Surviving and Diving

With work by eleven rappers who are part of Full Circle, the art, poetry, and essays in this zine explore the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A FREESTYLE.

The Life is a Freestyle Quaranzine

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

The first Cat Scratch Fever comic! 3 short comics in zine format, a total of 12 pages. About a big group of friends and their relationships.The zine is 8.5 by 5.5 inches. The comics were inked traditionally and scanned, then edited in photoshop.!!!!! CAT SCRATCH FEVER IS 18+ !!!! for nudity and adult themes.

Cat Scratch Fever vol. 1

South Korea

First Generation

You are passengers aboard the interstellar ark Nabi. With 90 years remaining until your destination, New Earth, you must maintain the ship and its onboard sustainable farms by drawing inspiration from the agricultural customs of communal labor—PUMASI.PUMASI is a hack of John Harper’s Lasers & Feelings.

Pumasi: A Lasers & Feelings Hack

China

This guide is meant for folks working to shift the institutions they are already part of toward greater inclusivity, anti-racism, and racial equity. As racial injustice and anti-Blackness are systemic, that means all institutions, big and small, are affected. At every institution I have been a part of, it has been the discomfort, sorrow, disappointment, frustration, and mutual solidarity of Black folx and other marginalized people that have pushed it toward progress.  Yet this critical work is extremely emotionally taxing. Not only is it painful to discuss deeply personal issues, those who speak up are also worried about being seen as unprofessional, as not team players. This means that those in places of relative privilege and safety need to speak up and do more. But I know organizing for change within institutions is not easy because I've personally caused a lot of trouble for institutions unwilling to confront racial inequity. In the process, I've learned some lessons and want to pass them on.  To that end, I've written a DIY Guide, first to help explain why everyone can and should be trying to address racial equity at the institutions they are already a part of, and then to provide six concrete steps to advance racial equity at your institutions.​This guide is license under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>.&nbsp;

With a Lever: The DIY Guide to Institutional Change for Racial Equity

Peru

Cantonese

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

Andean Sky is an interactive web-comic about an immigrant who returns to his home-country Ecuador, in South America, to reconnect with his own culture. This project is available for free and it can be displayed on PC, iOS and Android.

Andean Sky

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 2

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.

Huancavilca

An animated collage created to kick off the <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/community/project/alternative-worlds/1">Alternative Worlds</a> project, this contains art and music by AltSalt contributors from both the Andean and Asian American communities.
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.

AltWorlds Intro

Free

Paid

Resonate

Creative-Coding

Lgbt

Music

Bots

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;

Editorial content by the AltSalt team.

Envisioning an alternative world

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