Daughter of Peruvian migrants to the United States in the late 60s, Favianna Rodriguez, born in 1978, is an artist, activist, and a force to be reckoned with. Raised in East Oakland, California, after graduating from Hunters Lane High School in 1996, she received numerous scholarships and studied at the Berkeley University of California. Favianna’s earliest mentors were artists and movement leaders in the Chicano and Black Arts Movement. She uses her perspective as a child of migrant workers growing up in a high-crime area to forge her identity as a feminist and activist. While growing, not having witnessed positive images of women of colour in the media, later inspired her to work around issues of equality, race, interdependence, youth activism, and sexuality. When Rodrigues is not making art, she directs CultureStrike, a national arts organisation that engages artists, writers and performers in migrant rights. In 2009, she co-founded Presente.org, a national online organizing network dedicated to the political empowerment of Latino communities. In 2012, she was featured in a documentary series by Pharrell Williams Migration is Beautiful, which addressed how artists responded to failed immigrant policy in the United States. She currently lives and works from Oakland, California. Favianna Rodriguez shares her journey with us.
My family migrated from Perú and I am first generation here. At a young age, I was a translator for my parents and encountered a lot of racism directed towards them. It made me feel we were outsiders. I had curly hair, I was different, I never felt I belonged.
It was in high school that I started organising talks around Latino issues. Racism was discussed and how young Latinos were viewed as gangsters. The narrative about my fellow peers was always very negative. Then I started learning about the Mayas, the Aztecs, and the contributions of so many Latinos to the United States. That led to organising a Latino Students Day and I founded the first Latino club in my high school. This was also at the time of Proposition 187, the first time that a state had introduced an anti-migrant piece of legislation. It was horrible. I began to understand systemic racism, and it changed my whole worldview.
This story is from the Volume 19 No.1, 2016, MIGRATION edition of International Gallerie.
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This story is from the Volume 19 No.1, 2016, MIGRATION edition of International Gallerie.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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Perils Of Nuclear Energy
Addressing negative consequences of nuclear tests for the environment and human health in the areas around these sites, pointing the finger at the Soviet and current governments, “This is Silence” highlights one of the main points that the artist seeks to stress: the absence of public discussion about critical issues.
Greta Thunberg. It Is Time To Rebel!
Student, activist and initiater of ”The Greta Effect”
THEATRE UNDER PRESSURE.
The facts [some of it] about Climate Change are out there. With a few articles and videos, anyone can know that Climate Change is serious and needs immediate attention. Yet, we continue living our lives at the cost of the planet. With so much awareness, why are we not moving towards climate action and justice? How can our collective consciousness be pricked? Can we use the theatre to tell the story of the tree that I was looking at? Can we understand climate change from the aerial view of the parrot? Can we reflect on how much plastic waste we generate every day? With these questions, we set out to explore how theatre can talk about climate change.
WHERE TIGERS ARE HAPPY!
Initiated by the Sanctuary Nature Foundation, ‘Kids for Tigers’ is an inspiring project that educates schoolchildren about the welfare of wild animals. Spearheading this program, is Govardhan Meena, a sensitive village boy who grew up to be a saviour of tigers, of forest land and their inhabitants. Born in 1980 to a Meena tribal family living on the outskirts of Ranthambhore, Rajasthan, the unassuming young man is a virtual Pied Piper for children learning about the environment. He works 24x7 with a single-mindedness, building bridges between people and parks. No wonder, the awards and certificates in his prized possession, are more than deserving for a man whose life is dedicated to helping village children seed bonds with nature’s wilderness.
DANCE LIKE A MAN!
Dancer, choreographer and actor, Revanta Sarabhai, the third generation of a famed family of classical Indian dance, believes the arts have a way of reaching out to people in an entirely different way than scientific data or information does; that performance tends to have a greater emotional and empathetic impact on people’s senses rather than only their rational brain. Believing that the arts have a tremendous role to play in championing the cause of climate change [or any major challenge human beings face globally], he urges artists to harness the power of the arts to create change. With this conviction, Sarabhai shares with us his conceptual performance questioning climate change.
DANCE OF THE ACTION BRIGADE
When a dancer is concerned about climate change issues there is a strong potential to nudge the emotions of viewers in a way that can impact an audience sometimes more quickly than an entire thesis on the subject.
CELEBRATING THE WILDERNESS
“Humanity can no longer stand by in silence while our wildlife and nature are being used, abused, and exploited.
THEATRE SALUTES THE ENVIRONMENT
Theatres evolve to reconnect us to each other and the environment
FROM TRASH TO TREASURE
Veena Sahajwalla is a whirlwind of ideas and energy, determined to tackle the mountain of waste, especially -waste generated by Australians every year. Recycling waste into ‘green steel’ and ‘green ceramics’ is the result of years of experimentation at UNSW [University Of New South Wales, Sydney]. Director of the UNSW Sydney SMaRT Centre and a Eureka Prize winner [considered the pinnacle of scientific achievement in ustralia], Professor Sahajwalla was also awarded the PLuS Alliance prize for innovation in 2017.
BITTU SAHGALSEEKING SANCTUARY
In kinship with wildlife, with nature, with the air we breathe Bittu Sahgal shares his lifetime’s camaraderie with the environment
