The Nasiona Podcast

We continue with the second part of my conversation with Natalie Obando, the current national president of the Women's National Book Associatio and first Latina to take the helm. They continue to discuss the Authentic Voices Fellowship Program, her experiences and thoughts about the White Gaze in publishing and storytelling industries, how she uses her influence to transition us out of it so we can become more authentic and reflect a more realistic representation, and much more. They also dissect the harmful urge to center the comfort of others by anglicizing our names, thereby decentering ourselves at the outset of relationships, and the kind of impact this form of code-switching has on us and our communities. If you have not already, we encourage you to go back and listen to the first part so you can better situate yourself in today's episode. This 2-part conversation is the first of our new The Nasiona Podcast series showcasing the authentic voices of Women of Color writers. The Nasiona teamed up with the Women's National Book Association's Authentic Voices Fellowship Program and the Women of Color Writers organization to publish their inaugural first anthology, entitled The Roots That Help Us Grow: An Authentic Voices Anthology, Volume 1. Check our website at thenasiona.com for more information on the anthology. For our podcast series, I interviewed everyone we published in the anthology to present you with an in-depth exploration of their individual literary journeys, their relationships to authenticity, experiences where they learned that language and their stories have power, obstacles they have experienced as Women of Color writers, the stories we included in the anthology, and much more.  With the Authentic Voices Fellowship program, the anthology, and this podcast series, we seek to bring BIPOC women to a deeper level of inclusion in the publishing industry and the literary world at large. Through the words of these inaugural fellows, the reader and listener may understand how telling these stories – despite the tragedy, trauma, injustice, political movements, language barriers, and grief involved  – allows one to root more deeply into a heritage that helps us grow. President Obando and I spoke on November 27th, 2021. This is the second of our two-part conversation. Thank you for listening. *** The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

Today's 2-part conversation is the first of The Nasiona's new series showcasing the authentic voices of Women of Color writers. The Nasiona teamed up with the Women's National Book Association's Authentic Voices Fellowship Program and the Women of Color Writers organization to publish their inaugural first anthology, entitled The Roots That Help Us Grow: An Authentic Voices Anthology, Volume 1. Check our website at thenasiona.com for more information on the anthology. For our podcast series, I interviewed everyone we published in the anthology to present you with an in-depth exploration of their individual literary journeys, their relationships to authenticity, experiences where they learned that language and their stories have power, obstacles they have experienced as Women of Color writers, the stories we included in the anthology, and much more.  With the Authentic Voices Fellowship program, the anthology, and this podcast series, we seek to bring BIPOC women to a deeper level of inclusion in the publishing industry and the literary world at large. Through the words of these inaugural fellows, the reader and listener may understand how telling these stories – despite the tragedy, trauma, injustice, political movements, language barriers, and grief involved – allows one to root more deeply into a heritage that helps us grow. Today's episode is special episode with the visionary behind the Authentic Voices program: a bad-ass chingona who goes by many variations of her first name – Nat, Natí, Nato, Natalie, or Natalia – but who I like to refer to as President Obando as a sign of respect. Natalia Obando has worked in the world of book publicity since 2008, is the founder of Do Good Public Relations and the grassroots organization Women of Color Writers Podcast and Programming. She is the current national president of the Women's National Book Association, overseeing all chapters nationwide. As the first Latina president of the Women's National Book Association, her goal has been promoting diversity in publishing via grassroots efforts through both organizations. She has since been a panelist and speaker at some of the most well-regarded literary conferences in the industry, including the San Francisco Writer's Conference, The West Coast Writer's Conference, the Central Coast Writer's Conference, as well as conferences that focus on diversity in publishing, such as Centering on the Margins. When she's not championing for others in the book world, she is writing novels and screenplays rooted in Latinx folklore and magick. You can find her on LinkedIn as Natalie Obando and on Instagram as @dogooderbookgal President Obando and I spoke on November 27th, 2021. This is the first of our two-part conversation, where we discuss her own experience in the literary world as a Latina, along with the origin story and breakdown of the Authentic Voices Fellowship Program. We then transition into a discussion on the White Gaze in publishing and how she's using her influence to transition us out of it so we can become more authentic and reflect a more realistic representation. We end Part One of the conversation dissecting the pros and cons of code-switching and how through us coming together in solidarity we can gain more power and lift each other up. So let's get to it. I'll drop you in where President Obando is discussing some of the stories in the anthology. Thank you for listening. *** The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

What is the relationship between psychological trauma and physical Illness? Co-producer Nicole Zelniker joins Julián Esteban Torres López on the podcast to interview Molly “Marco” Marcotte to answer this question.  Molly “Marco” Marcotte (they/them) is program designer, evaluator, and consultant in their eighth year of work in the anti-violence field. They have co-implemented and evaluated over 30 county-level sexual violence primary prevention initiatives, co-authored multiple state-level and organizational change models and corresponding evaluation plans, designed culturally relevant programming and evaluation for colleges across the Southeast, and have helped construct 50 research and evaluation instruments. Existing as a multilingual, neurodivergent, queer, non-binary femme informs every aspect of their approach, particularly in building authentic rapport and community-centered definitions of programmatic success. With this episode we usher in our new series for 2022 on disability, mental health, and chronic conditions. *** The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

“I don't want to make sense anymore,” Robin Gow wrote in Blue Blood, “I just want to exist.”  "These days we only seem to talk about trans people in the news when we talk about bathroom laws. Our bodies are made political. Somedays I just want to exist. I want to crawl into the corn fields before harvest and just be alone with my skin," wrote Robin Gow. On today's episode, I speak with Robin Gow and showcase some of the pieces found in their new essays and poetry collection Blue Blood, published by The Nasiona. Robin Gow is a queer and trans poet, essayist, and Young Adult author. They grew up in rural Pennsylvania and live in Allentown with their partner, best friend, and two pugs, Eddie and Gertie. Gow is also the author of the chapbook Honeysuckle (Finishing Line Press 2019), the collection Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy (Tolsun Books 2020), and a YA verse-novel, A Million Quiet Revolutions (FSG 2022), He is a managing editor at The Nasiona, Assistant Editor at Large at Doubleback Books, and a reader for the Young Adult magazine Voyage. When I was first introduced to Robin's work back in 2018, I immediately wanted to publish it. After reading some of their other pieces published in different magazines, I reached out to Robin to ask if they had enough for a collection. It was at that point that we decided to create what has become one of my favorite books of the year: Blue Blood. We all begin in water and are called back to water. Blue Blood challenges the rhetoric that trans people are “unnatural” through captivating verses about metamorphosis and meditations on the concept of home. Robin Gow invites readers to celebrate identity; to question what their own body means to them. Essayist and editor Wren Awry, for example, had the following to say about Blue Blood: “In a world where trans people must define ourselves over and over again in order to be seen, Robin Gow's refusal to offer neat conclusions is refreshing. Instead, these essays and poems—on everything from horse shoe crabs and bearded women to St. Francis and Georgia O'Keefe—lean into the complexities of gender, family, ecology, and mental health. If Gow's book has a thesis, it's that who we are and how we see the world are so fluid and shaped by so much that it's impossible to unravel it all on paper. The best we can do is lean into the mess and pull out what we can and my, what beauty lies there!” With this episode we continue to pull back the layers to reveal the themes and topics and approaches and angles of Blue Blood. We conducted the interview via email correspondence in November of 2020. Thank you for listening. Thank you to Robin Gow for being our guest today. Thank you to Amanda Lopez for helping me produce this episode and for being the lead The Nasiona editor for Blue Blood.  Interested in getting a copy of Robin's newest collection of essays and poems? Go here or to thenasiona.com and search for Blue Blood by Robin Gow. *** The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

In this episode, we share the second part of a virtual public event Julián Esteban Torres López gave on November 10th, hosted by the Department of Language, Literature, and Arts at Texas A&M University, San Antonio. Be sure to check out Part 1, where Julián gives a talk on what it means to decolonize and indigenize storytelling. For this final part today, Dr. Alexandra Rodriguez Sabogal, interviews Julián, followed by a Q&A with the audience moderated by Dr. Katherine Gillen, the Chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Arts. We discuss: the relationship between language and identity,  how the concept of time can be a tool to challenge hegemonic epistemologies, the importance of centering and circulating thinking and art from the Global South, how we can stand up for our own concerns in a colonized landscape, the challenges of being multilingual in a society that encourages monolingualism, And much more. We jump into the moment of the event when Dr. Alexandra Rodriguez Sabogal asks Julián about his own experiences. Given that Julián was born in Colombia, and raised in both Colombia and the United States, and having also lived in Canada, Chile, and Japan, she asked him how his global experience influenced or informed how he defines himself as an artist and storyteller. We start the episode with Julián answering this question. Thank you for listening. *** We'd like to thank the Dr. Alexandra Rodriguez Sabogal and Dr. Katherine Gillen (chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Arts at Texas A&M, San Antonio) for all of the hours of preparation they put into making this event happen. Also thank you to Myrna Garza (chair of Native American Heritage Month Committee) and Tamara Hinojosa and the President's Commission on Equity for their work and support of this event. We'd also like to thank the university's Spanish, Bilingual Education, Mexican-American and Latinx Studies, Communication, English, and First Year Experience programs for making this event possible. And gracias to the entire Texas A&M, San Antonio, cohort and everyone who attended the event virtually from around the world.  *** The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

What does it mean to show up as you beyond the you you were told to be? Christine Cariño joins Julián Esteban Torres López to discuss the philosophy of authenticity, how getting over trauma often means finding your way back to that person you were before the trauma, and the transformative process of rerooting and replanting yourself and reclaiming deferred dreams. This episode is about healing, empowerment, and giving ourselves permission to say yes to ourselves, to allow ourselves to feel, and to create the conditions we need to fully become ourselves. Christine Cariño is a transformation catalyst, a queer nonbinary immigrant of Filipino heritage who's passionate about creating an inclusive and equitable global society. She is also the Founder & Managing Partner of Conscious Thrive LLC. a consulting firm that helps businesses embody the work of diversity, equity and inclusion. Christine designs and facilitates transformation workshops in-person and virtually, with notable international experience. She is a proponent of authenticity and radical self-love as resistance. Her coaching practice is centered in empowering global majority leaders reach their next level of success through healing and authenticity so they can create impact on their own terms. Prior to her work, she has spent over eight years in corporate America as a Recruitment and Staffing strategist where she has coached professionals throughout the hiring process and advised business leaders in different industries on staffing and retention strategies best fit within their organizational needs. She holds a Bachelor's in International Studies; a Diploma in Coaching from NYU and a DEI in the workplace certificate from University of South Florida. She believes that for us to create a thriving, loving and inclusive world, we must start the work within. To heal, love and include all parts of who we are creates the ripple of change we want to see in our family, relationships, communities and society. consciousthrive.com IG: @consciousthrive   LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ccarino Christine Cariño and Julián Esteban Torres López spoke on the 17th of November 2021. This is that conversation. Thank you for listening. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

Colonization has not ended. We are not in a post-colonial age in a similar way that we are not in a post-racial age. Colonization has simply become normalized, perpetuated by dominant culture narratives, and accepted by the majority as part of life. On this episode, we share a virtual public talk Julián Esteban Torres López gave entitled "Decolonizing and Indigenizing Storytelling," hosted by the Department of Language, Literature, and Arts at Texas A&M, San Antonio. Julián centers the talk around several questions: What does it mean to decolonize and Indigenize storytelling? How do institutionalized Euro-centric storytelling frameworks limit creativity, understanding of stories and histories, and how we relate to others, our selves, our environment, and our art creations? What does it mean to center Indigenous ways of thinking, knowing, and creating in storytelling? How can we reimagine and redesign and free ourselves from the shackles and limitations of colonial storytelling? He shares his story; discusses his storytelling work across various media platforms; and addresses the importance of decolonizing storytelling, affirming Indigenous traditions, and creating safe and encouraging spaces for BIPOC stories. We'd like to thank Rigorous (a journal edited and written by people of color) for publishing Julián's poem “The Wind” in its Volume 5, Issue 2. We'd also like to thank the Dr. Alexandra Rodriguez Sabogal and Dr. Katherine Gillen (chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Arts at Texas A&M, San Antonio) for all of the hours of preparation they put into making this event happen. Also thank you to Myrna Garza (chair of Native American Heritage Month Committee) and Tamara Hinojosa and the President's Commission on Equity for their work and support of this event. We'd also like to thank the university's Spanish, Bilingual Education, Mexican-American and Latinx Studies, Communication, English, and First Year Experience programs for making this event possible. And gracias to the entire Texas A&M, San Antonio, cohort and everyone who attended the event virtually from around the world.  The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

On today's episode, we center, elevate, and amplify our stories from our own mouths. We take you on a tour of what it means to be Latina/e/o/x through the voices of previous The Nasiona Podcast guests. Our stories are complex, nuanced, and deserve to be heard. In the show notes, you can find links to the previous guests' episodes, if you want to listen to the entire conversations and learn more about all guests. Also, we have a magazine series at TheNasiona.com that specifically focuses on personal essays, memoirs, and poetry about what it means to be Latina/e/o/x. Be sure to check those out. Guests: Sylvia Salazar, Colette Ghunim, Alondra Adame, Eva Gonzalez, Diana Castellanos, Mireya S. Vela, Liza Ann Acosta, Alexandra Meda, Christina Igaraividez, J.L. Torres, Irma Herrera, Beezy Montaña, Ra Avis, Patrick A. Howell, Carlos Carrasco, and Deborah Taffa. [00:02 - 00:14] Sylvia Salazar: Episode 24: Tono Latino [02:18 - 03:00] Colette Ghunim: Episode 23: Traces of Home [03:02 - 03:54] Alondra Adame: Episode 27: To the Border Crossers [03:56 - 04:54] Eva Gonzalez: Episode 27: To the Border Crossers [04:56 - 06:05] Diana Castellanos: Episode 27: To the Border Crossers [06:06 - 07:14] Mireya S. Vela: Episode 2: Mireya S. Vela's Vestiges of Courage [07:21 - 07:40; 10:16 - 11:12] Liza Ann Acosta: Episode 36: The Sisterhood of Teatro Luna, Part 1 [07:41 - 09:16] Alexandra Meda: Episode 36: The Sisterhood of Teatro Luna, Part 1 [09:18 - 10:14] Christina Igaraividez: Episode 36: The Sisterhood of Teatro Luna, Part 1 [11:13 - 12:46] J.L. Torres: Episode 59 – The Nuyorican Hallway: Belonging & Living Between Worlds [12:50 - 15:26] Irma Herrera: Episode 22: Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? [15:28 - 16:37] Beezy Montaña: Episode 48 – BIPOC Musical Artists Showcase [16:39 - 18:30] Ra Avis: Episode 34: Incarceration and Prison Abolition, Part 1 [18:32 - 19:23] Patrick A. Howell: Episode 31: Global International African Arts Movement, Part 2 [19:26 - 20:53] Carlos Carrasco: Episode 50 – Inside the Afro-Latino Actors Studio, Part 1 [20:54 - 24:02] Deborah Taffa: Episode 39 – Kwatsáan: Ancestral Land, Myths, & Reparations   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López @je_torres_lopez. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

What's it like growing up Black and brown in a predominantly white town? Joe Sparkman and Julián Esteban Torres López share their experiences of growing up together in the 1990s as teenagers in Nashua, New Hampshire. If you are a fan of the show The Office, you may know that Nashua is the location of one of Dunder Mifflin's branches—the very branch where Holly Flax was working out of before she got transferred to the Scranton branch.  Others may be familiar with Nashua as having been the place where JFK launched his presidential campaign at the steps of City Hall.Or, maybe you heard that Nashua was ranked both in 1987 and 1997 by Money magazine as the best place to live in the United States. Some of you may even know the obscure fact that Nashua was one of the only places in the country (if not the only place, period) where you could find triangular manhole covers covering most of the city's sewer connections. Others may remember the Good Will Hunting scene where Will tells Sean during his therapy session that he wants “to move up to Nashua, get a nice little spread, get some sheep and tend to them.” I remember being in Nashua watching this movie when it came out and everyone in the movie theatre just looked at each other and started laughing with pride, even though the movie was actually making fun of our city. For me, however, my favorite historical fact was that the Nashua Dodgers—a farm club of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s—is believed to be the first professional baseball team based in the United States in the twentieth century to play with a racially integrated roster. The team was based at Holman Stadium in Nashua, New Hampshire, the very stadium that hosted my high school graduation ceremony in 1999. The very same stadium where Joe Sparkman and I used to play football together. Yet, despite Nashua having the history of hosting the first racially integrated U.S. team in modern baseball, the racism in Nashua in the 1990s was still very much alive when Joe Sparkman and I moved to the city to attend Jr. High School and Sr. High School together. So what it was it really like growing up as Black and brown in New Hampshire in the 1990s in a predominantly white state and a city that saw itself as racially progressive? That's what this episode unpacks. And to dig in, I invited one of my oldest and closest friends, Joe Sparkman, to join me for the conversation. Joe Sparkman is an inspiration to others and has been one of the reasons why The Nasiona flourished in the first place. Back in the mid-1990s, when Joe and I were classmates in 8th grade together, Joe gave me my first social justice awakening. In this episode, along with forthcoming episodes, I want to humanize The Nasiona by introducing you to the behind the scenes conversations we have with each other here, and to the people who have made The Nasiona possible.  Joe Sparkman joined the team last year to become our podcast's music producer, and this year he is helping us to officially make our transition into becoming a non-profit organization. In light of this, I wanted to re-introduce you to one of The Nasiona's visionaries. Joe Sparkman decided to follow his dreams in music after he got his multiple sclerosis diagnosis. He started working with Ne-Yo and went on to produce several prominent artists, such as Rihanna, Mary J. Blige, Joe, Snoop, Christina Milian, Heather Headley, Emeli Sande, Nicole Scherzinger, Missy Elliot, Prince Royce, among others. He won several awards: Grammy, ASCAP Award, multiple Platinum and Gold plaques, and an African Music Award. After his music career, he continued to dream big and co-founded a million-dollar medical and pharmaceutical company (Medsav). He's currently an advisor to the board at Roche and The Adira Foundation,, a district activist leader for the National MS Society, a member of the Government Relations Advisory Committee, and during the 2020 elections the Georgia Democrats delegated Joe as a precinct chairman. As The Nasiona Podcast‘s music producer, Joe returned to his musical roots, and now he's taking on a bigger leadership role as we take The Nasiona into the next phase so we can more effectively center, elevate, and amplify the personal stories of those Othered by dominant cultures and systems of oppression. Given that Joe and I have a friendship nearing three decades, I thought it'd be worthwhile to give you a glimpse into the kinds of situations that give rise to activists and social justice warriors like myself and Joe. Joe Sparkman and I spoke in July of 2020. This is the 1st part or our 3-part conversation.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

My guest today is J.L. Torres (no relation), the author of Migrations, the inaugural winner of the Tomás Rivera Book Prize. His previous publications include another short story collection, The Family Terrorist and Other Stories; the poetry collection, Boricua Passport; and the novel, The Accidental Native. He has also published stories and poems in many journals and magazines. A Fulbright recipient, he recently retired as a scholar and professor of American literature, Latinx literatures, and creative writing. Born in Puerto Rico, raised in the South Bronx, he now lives in upstate New York. His work focuses on the diasporican experience—living in the inbetweeness that forms and informs the Puerto Rican experience. He aims to go beyond issues of identity, although these are central to that experience.  Through his writing, J.L Torres says he explores "what it means to live a life yearning for ‘belongingness' at a time when you're told nation and home are empty concepts, and you have no historical memory of what they ever meant.” He wants to explore what this means in a world becoming smaller and where geography cannot ground anything. I'm very excited to share my conversation with J.L Torres. We dissect the central themes of his new book, Migrations, which is a collection of stories deeply rooted in the history of Puerto Rico, where he elevates the experiences of Othered individuals. This is a far-ranging conversation that spans colonialism, Nuyorican identity, Latine colorism, Critical Race Theory, trauma, healing, and much more. We spoke on July the 2nd, of 2021. You can learn more about J.L. Torres at: jltorreswriter.com and follow him on Twitter: @rican_writer   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

Angela Rideau and Julián Esteban Torres López explore taboos, their relationship to trauma, and how our taboo resistance is both a revolutionary act and a step toward healing. Angela Rideau is a London-based British-Indian Spoken Word Poet. She is the host of Poems From My Heart, a spoken word podcast sharing stories and poetry that explores taboos and difficult topics such as colonialism, body image, living within the diaspora, and feminism through poetry.  Her debut autobiographical poetry collection, honeybee, is an exploration of trauma, identity, growing up within the South-Asian diaspora, healing, motherhood, and femininity. With both Poems From My Heart Podcast and her poetry collection honeybee, Angela Rideau introduces us to the roots of her heritage, and the soil that has cultivated her grief and frustrations, her joys and her hopes. She brings footnotes to the forefront, decolonizing her heart and thoughts from those coercive frameworks that have for generations passed as common sense. With these raw and honest poems, Angela Rideau dissects the dominant hierarchies, cultures, and caste systems that have othered and devalued her, and she reimagines a world anew that includes, encourages, and elevates her, and you, us ... the collective beehive. And in the process, she sheds the skin of misogyny and proudly arms herself with her battle scars to become one with herself, her body, and her hive .. to better embrace the harmony of her new collective colony — where we learn how to live with multiple tongues in our mouths, weaving songs that heal, that soothe, and that empower the soul. 100% of the royalties from the book will be donated to Tommy's Charity (UK) who help to support families through and research the cause of baby loss. I had the pleasure of speaking with Angela Rideau on June 17th of 2021. Today's musical guest: Mallika Vie, performing her track, “Since My Baby Said Goodbye,” which you can find in The Nasiona‘s compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor at thenasiona.com   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the BIPOC Music Series component of the episode, and to Mallika Vie for being our musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

During the last episode, my good friend Kanchan Gautam and I discussed our experiences as Third Culture Kids and cultural appropriation. Today, we explore the deep roots of colorism in our South Asian and Latin American communities, along with dating and making friends while brown in predominantly white spaces. Kanchan Gautam is a novice birdwatcher, myco-enthusiast, and amateur naturalist. She is proud of her Nepali heritage and she spends time exploring identity and cultural narrative in Oakland, occupied Ohlone territory.  I had the pleasure of speaking with Kanchan Gautam on July 12th of 2020. This is the second part of our two-part conversation.  Today's musical guest is Stephanie Henry, performing her track “Snowflakes at Midnight,” which you can find in The Nasiona's compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor at thenasiona.com   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the BIPOC Music Series component of the episode, and to Stephanie Henry for being our musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

Before the pandemic lockdown, my good friend Kanchan Gautam and I would meet at different San Francisco cafes and parks to discuss our experiences as brown immigrants in the United States. She's one of my favorite people to speak with, and today Kanchan and I allow you to listen in on a couple of our conversations. We first discuss our experiences as Third Culture Kids, which then evolves into a conversation about cultural appropriation. Next week we'll discuss the deep roots of colorism in our South Asian and Latin American communities, along with dating while brown in predominantly white spaces. Kanchan Gautam is a novice birdwatcher, myco-enthusiast, and amateur naturalist. She is proud of her Nepali heritage and she spends time exploring identity and cultural narrative in Oakland, occupied Ohlone territory.  I had the pleasure of speaking with Kanchan Gautam on July 12th  of 2020. This is the first part of our two-part conversation. Join us next time when we'll discuss colorism in our South Asian and Latin American communities. Today's musical guest is Annah Sidigu, performing her track “The Lynchpin,” which you can find in The Nasiona‘s compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor at thenasiona.com. Annah Sidigu is a songwriter and poet currently residing in the San Francisco Bay area. Her poetry has appeared in The New England Review and is forthcoming in Penumbra. She is the recipient of a Bread Loaf Environmental Writers scholarship and has written reviews of poetry and prose books for Zyzzyva. You can listen to her music on Spotify, Bandcamp, or Soundcloud, and follow her on Facebook or Instagram at Annah Sidigu. Thank you for listening.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the BIPOC Music Series component of the episode, and to Annah Sidigu for being our musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

According to the Blended Future Project, even though multiracial and multiethnic identity can absolutely be a fluid and difficult road to understand, Blended Future Project would like to create a platform to initiate that understanding. To start this process, the Blended Future Project is creating a new cultural identity where multiracial and multiethnic people are understood and free to develop and collaborate their own unique culture(s). They believe this would not only benefit the growing population of multiracial and multiethnic peoples, but also adopted individuals who may not even know their racial or ethnic backgrounds, or third culture kids who have grown up in a country with a different societal culture from their parents. With this, Blended Future Project is actively uniting multiracial and multiethnic people and integrating them fluidly into the cultural communities of all other racial and ethnic groups. I had the honor of speaking with the leaders of the Blended Future Project, Maris Lidaka and Beth Chin, on June 2nd, 2021, to further discuss the hurdles of creating such a blended future and what that future may look like, as well as hearing about their own mixed-identity journeys. Beth Chin was born and raised in the Chicagoland area and was seventeen when she co-founded her first non-profit organization with her friends in high school, earning them the President's Volunteer Service Award from Barack Obama. Being  of Chinese, German, and Polish descent, her work focuses on multi-racial identity. She is the founder of the All Related Art collective in Hamburg, Germany, as well as the author of Being Mixed: A Visual Guide on Mixed  Identity. Chin is the creator of Blended Future Project, Re-Mixed – A Multicultural Festival, and is working to create more events and bring greater community in the years ahead. Maris Lidaka is the founder of The Blended Future Project. Born in Oak Park, IL, he is of African-American and Latvian heritage, and has spent the past 20 years working in the entertainment industry in a variety of capacities for large companies such as Disney, Warner Bros, AT&T and Verizon. He created The Blended Future Project to empower the experience of being multiracial and multicultural. With the ultimate goal to create a larger space for empathy and understanding.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

How can we reimagine school systems to fit the concerns of students in the 21st century? On our last episode, I spoke with Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick to identify the pain points of our education system, and to explore how we can deconstruct and rebuild it anew. They are the co-authors of the book YOU are the Revolution! Education that Empowers your Black Child and Strengthens your Family, and also are at the center of the innovative The Pearl Remote Democratic High School. Today we continue the conversation by going behind the scenes of The Pearl and learn about democratic education.  The Pearl is a personally relevant and student-centered educational experience. Students benefit from being part of a dynamic international learning community while being supported by mentors, educators, and professionals. The Pearl's students are prepared for whatever life they choose. I had the honor of speaking with both Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick on the 9th of August, 2020. This is the second part of our two-part conversation. But before we jump into the conversation with Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I would like to introduce you to The Nasiona BIPOC Music Series. We will begin most podcast episodes this year by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com. Today's musical guest is San Palo, and she performs his track "Rainy Day,” which you can find in The Nasiona‘s compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor. Want to be considered for our BIPOC Music Series? Go here to learn more.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the BIPOC Music Series component of the episode, and to San Palo for being our musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

On today's episode, I speak with Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick to identify the pain points of our education system, and to explore how we can deconstruct and rebuild it anew. They are the co-authors of the book YOU are the Revolution! Education that Empowers your Black Child and Strengthens your Family, and also are at the center of the innovative The Pearl Remote Democratic High School. I had the honor of speaking with both Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick on the 9th of August, 2020. This is the first part of our two-part conversation. But before we jump into the conversation with Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I would like to introduce you to The Nasiona BIPOC Music Series. We will begin most podcast episodes this year by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com. Today's musical guest is Jinnat, and she performs their track "Enlight,” which you can find in The Nasiona‘s compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor. Want to be considered for our BIPOC Music Series? Go here to learn more.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the BIPOC Music Series component of the episode, and to Jinnat for being our musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

On today's episode, we re-enter the Afro-Latino Actors Studio with Carlos Carrasco: actor, filmmaker, and director of the Panamanian International Film Festival. Last week, in part 1 of our conversation, Mr. Carrasco took the lead on stage, then gave us the VIP tour backstage, behind the curtains, where we glimpsed into what it is like to be an immigrant Afro-Latino in acting in the United States, and how this experience impacted his identity and drove him to also dedicate his time to social impact causes for Latin actors, theatre, and film. In today's conversation, we examine the heart of art, how the sounds of things carry the emotions of things, we deconstruct language into its most fundamental pieces, and explore how art is a process of selection. Born in Panamá City, Panamá, Carlos Carrasco has appeared as an actor on Broadway and Off Broadway in New York City, as well as appearing at many of the country's regional theaters. He appeared on Broadway in the Circle-In-The-Square's production of "The National Health” and has appeared at The Hartford Stage Co., Shakespeare & Co., Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, The Arizona Theatre Co., The Folger Theatre and The American Shakespeare Theatre. Off- Broadway he appeared with The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, INTAR, Theatre for a New Audience and The New York Shakespeare Festival. Mr. Carrasco has co-starred in such feature films as "Speed," "Blood In...Blood Out," “Turnover,” “Parker,” ”One Man's Hero," "The Burning Season" and "The Fisher King." On television he has been a guest on many prime time series, including “Insecure,” “CSI,” "Star Trek: Deep Space 9," " ER,” "Seaquest," "Hunter," "The Equalizer" and the made for television movies "As Good As Dead" and "Have You Seen My Son?”. Mr. Carrasco has been active in the non-profit sector, serving for six years as Executive Director of the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, serving for three years on the Theatre panel for the New York State Council on the Arts and currently producing a Latin American film festival, The Panamanian International Film Festival, now entering its seventh season. As filmmaker, Mr. Carrasco has produced and directed five short films, from the documentary “Art Galleries and Back Alleys,” celebrating the East Los Angeles Artists Collaborative Self-Help Graphics to the more recent “One” and “Disarm” tackling the difficult issues of police and school shootings. I had the honor of speaking with Carlos Carrasco on the 29th of August, 2020. This is the second part of our two-part conversation.  But before we jump into the conversation with Mr. Carrasco, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I would like to introduce you to The Nasiona BIPOC Music Series. We will begin most podcast episodes this year by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com. Today's musical guest is Chromic, and they perform their track “Lightless,” which you can find in The Nasiona‘s compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor. Want to be considered for our BIPOC Music Series? Go here to learn more.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the BIPOC Music Series component of the episode, and to Chromic for being our musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

Last week, I published an episode entitled “Colombia's Historical Lack of Hegemony and Institutionalized Violence,” where I provided a thorough historical recap so you can better grasp the current Great Colombian Uprising and the predictable violent government response to it. (Listen to the episode here.) Though I covered two centuries of history, I stopped in the early 1990s because I lost my voice. Today, I want to fill some important gaps. Go on social media and type the hashtag #AntiUribista and you will find photos of cities in Colombia (and around the world) declaring themselves Anti-Uribistas as they resist and protest current state violence. Today, I cover the eight years Álvaro Uribe was president of Colombia, from 2002 to 2010, and why he is such a polarizing figure: praised by imperialist and colonial powers and multinational corporations, and scorned by anyone with a heart. I provide a thorough overview into the many reasons behind the current Anti-Uribismo movement, and also give you a glimpse into the United States's love affair with Uribe, along with its role and responsibility in Colombia's militarized state since the turn of the century. Like last week, I read excerpts from my book, Reporting on Colombia: Essays on Colombia's History, Culture, Peoples, and Armed Conflict.  Today, Colombia and the Colombian people are in crisis. The Colombian government is killing, torturing, disappearing, and sexually assaulting Colombian people on the streets throughout the country. Our hearts are heavy and in pain. We need your help. Please don't look away. To help Colombia and Colombians: Go here for #SOSColombia Mutual Aid Go here to call your US representatives to condemn the violent response to demonstrators Go here to help stop human rights violations in Colombian and demand the application of the Leahy Law   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Today we take you inside the Afro-Latino Actors Studio with Carlos Carrasco: actor, filmmaker, and director of the Panamanian International Film Festival in Los Angeles. Mr. Carrasco will take the lead on stage, then give us the VIP tour backstage, behind the curtains, where we glimpse into what it is like to be an immigrant Afro-Latino in acting in the United States, and how this experience has impacted his identity and drove him to also dedicate his time to social impact causes for Latin actors, theatre, and film. Born in Panamá City, Panamá, Carlos Carrasco has appeared as an actor on Broadway and Off Broadway in New York City, as well as appearing at many of the country's regional theaters. He appeared on Broadway in the Circle-In-The-Square's production of "The National Health” and has appeared at The Hartford Stage Co., Shakespeare & Co., Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, The Arizona Theatre Co., The Folger Theatre and The American Shakespeare Theatre. Off- Broadway he appeared with The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, INTAR, Theatre for a New Audience and The New York Shakespeare Festival. Mr. Carrasco has co-starred in such feature films as "Speed," "Blood In...Blood Out," “Turnover,” “Parker,” ”One Man's Hero," "The Burning Season" and "The Fisher King." On television he has been a guest on many prime time series, including “Insecure,” “CSI,” "Star Trek: Deep Space 9," " ER,” "Seaquest," "Hunter," "The Equalizer" and the made for television movies "As Good As Dead" and "Have You Seen My Son?”. Mr. Carrasco has been active in the non-profit sector, serving for six years as Executive Director of the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, serving for three years on the Theatre panel for the New York State Council on the Arts and currently producing a Latin American film festival, The Panamanian International Film Festival, now entering its seventh season. As filmmaker, Mr. Carrasco has produced and directed five short films, from the documentary “Art Galleries and Back Alleys,” celebrating the East Los Angeles Artists Collaborative Self-Help Graphics to the more recent “One” and “Disarm” tackling the difficult issues of police and school shootings. I had the honor of speaking with Carlos Carrasco on the 16th of August, 2020. This is the first part of our two-part conversation. But before we jump into the conversation with Mr. Carrasco, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I would like to introduce you to The Nasiona BIPOC Music Series. We will begin most podcast episodes this year by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com.  On April 26th, we had the honor of featuring the world premiere of Tre. Charles's debut single and music video for “Stressin.” which you can listen to and watch on our website. Today, we'll showcase “Stressin.” for you, in case you missed it. Want to be considered for our BIPOC Music Series? Go here to learn more.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. We focus on stories that explore the spectrum of human experiences—stories based on facts, truth-seeking, human concerns, real events, and real people, with a personal touch. From liminal lives to the marginalized, and everything in between, we believe that the subjective can offer its own reality and reveal truths some facts can't discover. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López.  Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the BIPOC Music Series component of the episode, and to Tre. Charles for being our musical guests. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from readers and listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening and reading, and thank you for your support.

Colombia's history is marked with many of its people treated merely as a mean to an end. Laura Yusem and Herbert Braun, respectively, were right in recognizing that “In Latin America, we learn early that our lives are worth little” and that “[i]n the struggle for land, human life in Colombia has been devalued.” Human rights activist Manuel Rozental was correct to paint Colombia's history with the following pattern: people are massacred or enslaved, displaced, the land is freed, and the élite, foreign powers, and multi-national corporations come in to exploit the land and the labor force. What is going on today, during the Great Colombian Uprising of 2021, is an extension of this history. On today's episode, I read an essay from my book, Reporting on Colombia: Essays on Colombia's History, Culture, Peoples, and Armed Conflict, which dissects Colombia's historical lack of hegemony and institutionalized violence to give you 200 years of context (through the early 1990s) of what systemic, structural, institutional, policy, and cultural conditions, along with what actors and situations, have led to the current Great Colombian Uprising, which goes beyond this year's proposed tax reform. Today, Colombia and the Colombian people are in crisis. The Colombian government is killing, torturing, disappearing, and sexually assaulting Colombian people on the streets throughout the country. Our hearts are heavy and in pain. We need your help. Please don't look away. To help Colombia and Colombians: Go here for #SOSColombia Mutual Aid Go here to call your US representatives to condemn the violent response to demonstrators Go here to help stop human rights violations in Colombian and demand the application of the Leahy Law   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Today we play for you the entirety of our first musical compilation album, entitled Volume 1: Petrichor, from our BIPOC Music Series. The collection encapsulates all the glorious highs and the searing lows of navigating the world as an empathetic, curious individual. The works contained in this volume — from mournful piano compositions, dazzling spoken word, spellbinding vocal layered-songs, to beautiful instrumentals — express the intricacies of being an artist of color in a too-often indifferent world; and like the scent that lingers long after the downpour, these masterpieces ask you to sit awhile, to close your eyes, to pay attention. Album musical artists: San Palo, Whitney & The Saying Goes, Stephanie Henry, Tony Tennyson, whenthecitysleeps, Chromic, Beezy Montana, Mallika Vie, Annah Sidigu, Eki Shola, Samantha Pearl, and Jinnat.  Music has always told stories that are as powerful, as moving as personal essays, and we at The Nasiona want to honor that tradition. For this new music series, we seek submissions of songs that align with our vision of centering, elevating, and amplifying Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and shedding light on neglected experiences. Whether you record your music professionally, or whether you have gone the DIY way throughout; whether you are an emerging indie artist, or have never released a song; or whether you have simply felt overlooked by the mainstream musical landscape: we believe in your voice, and we want your work. Tell us about growing up as a third culture kid, about living through trauma, about being misgendered, about slice-of-life instances of resolution. Tell us about your elations, your sorrows, your moments of quiet tenacity, your rallying cries of rage. Send us a song (or two, or three!) that tells a story, whether in words or through instrumentals. If it matters to you, it deserves a platform. All genres and languages are welcome. If you identify as BIPOC, we want to showcase your work and profile you. Aicha and I are the co-producers of the series, and we can't wait to listen to your work and consider it for publication in either our online magazine or podcast, or both! And note that we are here to center, elevate, and amplify your work. You keep all the rights to your beautiful music. We are currently open for submissions to the music series and are working on our second musical compilation album, so head on over to TheNasiona.com and submit!   Thank you to Aicha Martine Thiam for co-producing the album and BIPOC Music Series with me. We can't wait to show you what else we have in store for volume two. Come back and listen to our next episode on Monday, April 26th, to get a glimpse at our second volume, where we will showcase the world premier of Tre. Charles's debut single, "Stressing," and make sure to also go to the website to read the interview and watch the music video.     The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Julián Esteban Torres López lays out The Nasiona's Earth Day Manifesto: "We are standing on a fault line. We're at what can become a historic crossroad and turning point, or simply a return to the status quo … a status quo that will only continue to degrade our planet and the vast majority of its inhabitants. Our soil is ready for a new harvest. Our seeds need to be watered."   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

During last week's episode, I spoke with Dr. Parisa Mehran, founder of Women of Color in English Language Teaching (also known as WOC in ELT), to explore how white supremacy is at the heart of ELT and how the industry functions as a racist propaganda machine. We finished the first part of our conversation discussing passport privilege and the barriers for international students. Today, we continue where we left off, and also speak about obstacles to legal immigration, why POC international students may not finish university, and we share our own experiences of the impact of being called terrorists. Born and raised in Tehran, Parisa Mehran holds a BA in English Language and Literature, an MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), both from Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran, and a PhD in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) from Osaka University, Japan. She currently teaches part-time at several universities in Japan. Her passion for social justice has led her to engage in different English Language Teaching (ELT) movements for change and is now a racial equity advocate in ELT. Follow her advocacy on Twitter: @WOCinELT. Dr. Parisa Mehran and I spoke on July 18th of 2020. What follows is the second of my two-part conversation with Parisa. But before we jump into the conversation, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I introduce you to The Nasiona Music Series. We begin every episode by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com. Today we have the honor of featuring the world premiere of Aroe Phoenix's and Mallika Vie's cover of “River” by Leon Bridges.    The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the Music Series component of the episode, and to Aroe Phoenix and Mallika Vie for being our musical guests. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Today we discuss the intricate relationship between racism and English Language Teaching (ELT). We explore how white supremacy is at the heart of ELT and how the industry functions as a racist propaganda machine. We discuss how native-speakerism and passport privilege can be forms of racism. We also dissect how native-speakerism damages the profession of ELT, and what steps we can take to tackle, dismantle, and reconstruct. We also shine a light on some of the detrimental consequences of racism in ELT, such as racial abuse and its effects on mental health. The damage and trauma people of color suffer at the hands of the ELT industry is exactly why Dr. Parisa Mehran founded Women of Color in English Language Teaching (also known as WOC in ELT), to provide a healing space and a sisterhood within the Othering community that is ELT. Born and raised in Tehran, Parisa Mehran holds a BA in English Language and Literature, an MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), both from Alzahra University, Tehran Iran, and a PhD in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) from Osaka University, Japan. She currently teaches part-time at several universities in Japan. Her passion for social justice has led her to engage in different English Language Teaching (ELT) movements for change and is now a racial equity advocate in ELT. Follow her advocacy on Twitter: @WOCinELT. Dr. Parisa Mehran and I spoke on July 18th of 2020. What follows is the first of my two-part conversation with Parisa. Make sure to tune in next week for the second part of the interview.   But before we jump into the conversation, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I introduce you to The Nasiona Music Series. We begin every episode by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com. Today's musical guest is Stephanie Henry, and she performs her track "Nocturne in G Minor," which you can find in The Nasiona's compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the Music Series component of the episode, and to Stephanie Henry for being our musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

In our previous episode, I spoke with Vanessa Weathers, Founder and Principal Consultant at Conscious Employee Experiences, to explore design thinking and its relationship to diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Today, she joins me again. This time we talk about how people best positioned for leadership roles may be those who have been marginalized.  We also discuss how leadership is a title you earn, like you earn trust, and where power is truly rooted in organizations; we explore how to redesign local politics to get the best results and to get people in the right roles; Vanessa dissects how to many accustomed to privilege, equality can feel like oppression; we unpack what may be behind the claim “diversity is white genocide” and how such a mindset and behaviors based on such a mindset can be damaging and threaten the livelihoods and lives of those communities marginalized by systems of oppression and dominant cultures; and she offers us a glimpse into how an experience designer like herself raises a child. Vanessa Weathers and I spoke on August 22nd of 2020.  But before we jump into the conversation, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I introduce you to The Nasiona Music Series. We begin every episode by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com. Today's musical guest is Samantha Pearl, and she performs her track "Don't Let Me Go," which you can find in The Nasiona's compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the Music Series component of the episode, and to Samantha Pearl for being our first musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Most environments are not designed to include and value everyone, and as a result such designs fail to center the concerns of those in the bottom rungs of our class and caste systems. So, if we really want to value and include everyone in our teams, in our communities, in our societies, in our politics, then we have to be intentional in the way we design our worlds. We must be intentional in the way we invent environments and opportunities so we may create different relationships with the self, with the other, with our environments, with our work, and with our life activities. This is where design thinking comes in. How do we create new environments that may assist in valuing, centering, elevating, amplifying, and including those whose concerns have traditionally been left out of the ways we have designed our workplaces, our institutions, and our communities. In today's episode, I speak with Vanessa Weathers, Founder & Principal Consultant at Conscious Employee Experiences, to further explore design thinking and its relationship to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Vanessa Weathers is an experience designer who has spent nearly 20 years guiding and coaching leaders on becoming more human centered. She uses ethnographic techniques and journey mapping to bring visibility to the people and the issues often overlooked and ignored by dominant cultures. She is an activist, a futurist, and a pioneer who is passionate about the future of work and fostering inclusive work environments. She has dedicated her life to fighting for justice for the marginalized, which has been fueled by her own personal experiences of being in the minority in many aspects of her identity. Having always felt like an “outsider” in corporate America, she is currently embarking on her own journey of self-exploration and continuing to leverage her background in human centered design and diversity, equity, and inclusion to shift attitudes around equity in the workplace. Vanessa Weathers and I spoke on August 22nd of 2020. What follows is the first of my two-part interview with Vanessa, where we introduce what design thinking is and how we can apply it DEI work. Specifically, we explore the importance of intentionally designing environments to cultivate inclusion, growth, and flourishing for different individuals and communities. We also critique the desire to build teams and societies based on cultural fit, and we dissect the difference between managers and leaders. But before we jump into the conversation, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I introduce you to The Nasiona Music Series. Starting today, we will begin every episode by showcasing a BIPOC musical artist from our series, which you can explore at TheNasiona.com. Today's musical guest is Mallika Vie, and she performs her track "Bluebells Still Grow," which you can find in The Nasiona's compilation BIPOC musical album, Volume 1: Petrichor.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Thank you to Aïcha Martine Thiam for co-producing the Music Series component of the episode, and to Mallika Vie for being our first musical guest. Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Given the centering of Euro and Anglo authors, thinkers, artists, etc., and the deliberate attempt to conceal unpleasant and incriminating facts about history and other content taught K-12 and beyond, our education systems in the United States and Canada are still forms of forced colonial assimilation and propaganda. In the spirit of decolonizing our education, we introduce to Fernando González, who has been regarded at one time or another as the philosopher of authenticity, the philosopher of somewhere else, the philosopher of South America.  Fernando González was a Colombian writer and existentialist philosopher who lived between 1895 and 1964. González is considered one of Colombia's most original and controversial writers of the 20th century. His analyses influenced literary and cultural movements during his time, and have continued to do so well into the 21st century. And yet, he is unknown in the English-speaking world. Today, we speak with Gustavo A. Restrepo Villa, executive director of Corporación Otraparte, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and amplifying Fernando González's work, to learn more about this South American philosopher.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Today, I introduce you to one of my oldest friends, Joe Sparkman, one half of The Nasiona Podcast's music production team, The Heavyweights. We've got Joe and Marcus Allen to thank for our new musical vibe. Later in February, Aïcha Martine Thiam and I are going live with our new The Nasiona music series, where we will center, elevate, and amplify Black, Indigenous, and People of Color musical artists, and shed light on their experiences. Be on the lookout for music by William Broughton, Whitney & The Saying Goes, Stephanie Henry, Tony Tennyson, Isabella Fong, Chromic, Beezy Montana, Mallika Vie, Annah Sidigu, Eki Shola, Samantha Pearl, and Jinnat. On today's episode, you will hear music produced by The Heavyweights, including songs by Jovi Rockwell and Nicole Scherzinger. But the focus of today's episode is Joe Sparkman. As a Black-Filipino United Statesian man with multiple sclerosis, Joe Sparkman talks about the “Scarlet Letter” of his diagnosis, the challenges he has faced getting a job, interactions he has had with doctors, and how his life and mental health have been impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a candid conversation about the realities and the insidious nature of intersecting systems of oppression in the United States. I have known Joe since 1994, when he first moved to New Hampshire and I moved back there from Colombia in the middle of 8th grade, and we have a couple other episodes in store for you dissecting our experiences as people of color living in a predominantly white state. So be on the lookout later this year for those episodes. Today's conversation in particular, however, is a special partnership with the Adira Foundation, whose mission is to invest in better lives for people with neurodegenerative diseases about living with multiple sclerosis; and with StoryCorps, whose mission is to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. Toward the end of the interview, you will also hear Morgan Feigal-Stickles, a StoryCorps facilitator, who also asks Joe a couple of questions. Joe and I spoke on October 14th, 2020, and we are happy to share that StoryCorps has entered this interview into the Library of Congress and has also submitted it into the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Here's my conversation with Joe Sparkman.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

In the United States, we've been radicalized to assume ourselves as great, at the detriment of ourselves, our country, and the world. Our collective arrogance, self-absorption, and superiority complex will be our downfall if we do not course-correct immediately. A turbulent future is here and on the horizon. The intensity of that turbulence will depend on how we prepare and act today.  On today's episode, I share an editorial I wrote following the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol entitled, “The Right Wing May Have Lit the Fire, but the Left Wing May Dig the Grave.”  Thereafter, I play for you a 19-minute experimental audio story that takes you through the different turbulences, nightmares, countermovements, hopes, and warnings of the 20th century with the intent to disrupt us from a false sense of security and the challenge to disengage ourselves from our complicity and neutrality and comfort and privilege during turbulent times because, as Audre Lorde so aptly put it, “Your silence will not protect you.”   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

A citizen of the Quechan (Yuma Indian) Nation, Deborah Taffa's writing can be found at dozens of outlets including PBS, Salon, The Huff Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Brevity, A Public Space, The Boston Review, and the Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her memoir manuscript won the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award in December, 2019. She teaches creative writing at Webster and Washington University in Saint Louis, MO, and lives on the island of O'ahu. Today's episode is broken up into two acts where Deborah Taffa shares with us two of her personal essays: “Moon of the Disappearing Water” originally published in The Spectacle, and “Rock Maze” originally published in YES Magazine. In Act 1, Deborah Taffa centers us in relocation, removal, and disorientation. We've all experienced the ache of nostalgia, homesickness, and separation in our lifetime. “Moon of the Disappearing Water” tells the story of a Native woman who leaves her ancestral land, permanently, in her late twenties. She lands in St. Louis, Missouri, where a disappearing lake and the confusion of a binational marriage force her to examine the relationship between motherhood and community for the first time.  In Act 2, death comes. How we deal with it has everything to do with the values we learn in our childhood. “Rock Maze” tells the story of a mother's cancer, and a daughter's familial connections to the land. As she leaves her mother's hospital bed for Sedona and Havasupai, the daughter reflects on healing and prayer, her tribal myths, and the injustice of tourism in her homeland.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

"When you're mixed-race, someone's always telling you who you're not."   That's the first line from Tamara Jong's personal essay, "In Between," which succinctly captures the essence of what it means to be mixed-race. After experiencing the essay—and I did experience it because I could relate to it with my entire being—I wanted to speak with Tamara about her experience of being in between races, languages, and religions. We spoke in November of 2019 about growing up in these liminal spaces and her journey to find a footing, an identity, and a community.    After our conversation, Tamara messaged me to say that one way she's been finding a sense of belonging is through her own writing and other writers. She's been actively connecting with other Canadian Asian writers and has been purposely reading more books from fellow Canadian Asian writers like Jen Sookfong Lee, Wayson Choy, and she's been getting to know and befriend writers like Carrianne Leung, Yilin Wang, Phoebe Wang, Isabella Wang, and Leanne Dunic. For example, Tamara did an interview with Yilin Wang, who told Tamara that it was nice to be interviewed by a fellow Asian writer. Tamara told me that her heart swelled, because she felt seen and accepted.    There's power in sharing and reading our stories ... so much power to transform our lives that the simple act of reading or hearing about someone else's shared experience can make someone feel like they belong in a world that often Others and devalues them. Tamara Jong is a Canada-born mixed-race writer and cartoonist of Chinese and European ancestry.    What follows is her performance of her personal essay, "In Between," as well as our conversation.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

When speaking about the series of original short stories from Latinas across the states, entitled Talking While Female and Other Dangerous Acts, co-producer of the Audible original book, Alexandra Meda, says: “They are all little jewels, little lessons on how to live bravely, how to get up after a failure, how to love yourself more, and how to spread the love with others.” Her words describe the book perfectly, and also capture the essence of Teatro Luna — the group that put out the book. Teatro Luna is an ensemble of Latina/x femmes and Women of Color. It is a radical experiment and new model in the US American Theatre; an attempt to answer the needs heard in cities all around the USA for liberated, intentional, brave spaces dedicated to artistic and physical exploration. They dreamed of centers for creativity that were free of the fear of failure, and equitably engineered for the organic development of Latinx and Womxn of Color artists, leaders, thinkers, and makers who value social justice and equity as an urgent need. These ensembles work together to create social change at home and around the world. I spoke with three of these radical culture makers and got a glimpse into Teatro Luna's history, evolution, values, and sisterhood. I spoke with Christina Igaraividez, Alexandra Meda, and Liza Ann Acosta on the 18th of June, 2020. Here's our conversation. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

On episode 34, Ra Avis joined me to discuss incarceration and prison abolition. We unpacked how prisons create many social problems, what some of the biggest barriers to prison abolition are, and what people should know about the prison system that most do not. On today's episode, Ra Avis joins me again, this time to discuss how people do not rehabilitate via isolation alone, her experience dealing with grief and trauma while incarcerated, and the shocking aspect of realizing that one of the only women-run societies in the world is a women's prison, which was one aspect of incarceration that she found herself missing after she was out. It was, as Ra put it, "A hierarchy of women and women's needs and preferences prioritized. And the language of women prioritized as the default language. The body language of women prioritized." Ra and I spoke on August 1st of 2020. This is the second part of that interview.   Ra Avis is an award-winning blogger, and the author of Sack Nasty: Prison Poetry (2016), Dinosaur-Hearted (2018), and Flowers and Stars (2018).  She is a once-upon-a-time inmate, a reluctantly-optimistic widow, and a generational storyteller. Ra reads her poetry live at events throughout Southern California, and writes regularly at Rarasaur.com. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Do prisons get rid of social problems, or do they create a lot of them? Should we abolish the prison system? What are the biggest barriers to prison abolition? What should people know about the prison system that most do not know? This is part 1 of a 2-part interview where I speak with Ra Avis to get a glimpse into incarceration and prison abolition for our Deconstructing Dominant Cultures series. Ra Avis is an award-winning blogger, and the author of Sack Nasty: Prison Poetry (2016), Dinosaur-Hearted (2018), and Flowers and Stars (2018).  She is a once-upon-a-time inmate, a reluctantly-optimistic widow, and a generational storyteller. Ra reads her poetry live at events throughout Southern California, and writes regularly at Rarasaur.com. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

In case you didn't know, before there was The Nasiona Podcast there was (and still is) The Nasiona Magazine. On August 29th, we celebrated the magazine's 2-year anniversary. We continued the celebration this week with our previous episode highlighting one of our authors, Carl Boon, and his imaginative biography poetry collection, PLACES & NAMES, published by The Nasiona Publishing House. We continue this celebration on today's podcast by showcasing the work of two essayists — Stephen D. Gutierrez and Morelle Smith. We selected these pieces to share with you today for two reasons. First, because our editorial team originally nominated them, along with four other authors, for the Pushcart Prize back in 2018, during our first few months as a magazine. Second, because of the kind of inner world exploration many of us have been experiencing during the pandemic lockdowns, while simultaneously craving for a time when we can travel freely once again. Today's episode takes you into two kinds of journeys: the inner world of the Self, and the external world of traveling through a foreign land.  Act 1: “I Saw It All,” by Stephen D. Gutierrez. Read by the author. “Beware of the spiritual journey. You may end up in a place that's not so comforting. I discovered this hard truth at a meditation retreat in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Vipassana Meditation, the time-honored method attributed to the Buddha, gave me vision, startling vision, and terror. It unanchored me,” Stephen D. Gutierrez. Act 2: “Passages,” by Morelle Smith. Read by Jo Weston. “Each time I go back to Tirana, I see big changes, but I seek out the old parts of town, the narrow streets, talk to people who live there and people who are visiting, and describe the unchanging and magnificent landscape. ‘Passages' describes several visits made to Albania (after my first stay there, which I wrote about in my travel memoir Tirana Papers),” Morelle Smith.   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

The poems in Carl Boon's debut collection, PLACES & NAMES, coalesce two kinds of history—the factual and the imagined—to produce a kind of intimacy that is greater than either fact or imagination. It is this sense of intimacy that brings the poems to life. We encounter real places sometimes—places we see on maps and highway signs—but also places that exist only in the imagination. We encounter names that are both recognizable and almost—or barely—remembered at all: Jorge Luis Borges next to an unknown boy from Clarita, Oklahoma, who himself would become a poet someday; a man who wishes he were Rocky Marciano hammering the heavy bag in Northeast Ohio, hungry for more than beans or soup. And suddenly it becomes clear how intimately connected in this collection these places and names are as we range from Saigon to northern Iraq; Athens, Ohio, to Libya; Ankara to Pittsburgh; and a strange, sleepy place called Pomegranate Town where someone's infant dozes in the back of a car on a seaside highway. The people who inhabit these places seem, in a sense, to become those places, inseparable from their geographies and histories, often unable to escape, bound by memory, nostalgia, and tradition. In this episode, we speak with Carl Boon and showcase his poems from PLACES & NAMES, which The Nasiona published in 2019. This week marks The Nasiona Magazine's 2nd anniversary, and Carl was included in our first and second issues. During the next week, we'll showcase some of the original work from those first issues from 2 years ago as a way to celebrate our origins. For PLACES & NAMES, we included 30 poems Carl had previously published elsewhere, and then he wrote 30 new ones specifically for this collection. I've never read a Carl Boon poem I didn't like, and I'm happy to share some of those with you today. If you like what you hear in the next hour, you can get a copy of Places and Names as paperback or ebook on Amazon. You won't regret it!   The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

In the second episode of our 2-part conversation, Tori Reid and Patrick A. Howell of storytelling company Victory & Noble continue to unpack what it means to be a prophet in the Global International African Arts Movement, as well as what it means to be an evangelist, a seer, and a manifestor; they open up about their most memorable conversations with cultural icons and how these conversations transformed them; Tori and Patrick reveal their humanity and tells us how they became who they became; they explore how as creatives we are always best when we have the courage to be comfortable with discomfort; they challenge the Hollywood industrial complex and are pushing forward to reclaim our voices and tell our own stories; and they answer the question “How early should we be discussing race and racism with our children, regardless of our backgrounds, race, and ethnicity?” "Here's To Life with Tori Reid" podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and Stitcher. Dispatches from the Vanguard: The Global International African Arts Movement Versus Donald J. Trump, by Patrick A. Howell. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

It was a pleasure to speak with the two complementing spirits behind Victory & Noble, a storytelling company. In this 2-part conversation for our Deconstructing Dominant Cultures Series, Tori Reid and Patrick A. Howell — children of cultural and intellectual icons — reveal their own legacy project, and their energy and determination are sure to inspire, educate, and transform. Both Tori and Patrick — with Victory & Noble, with their podcast and books, and all of their projects under development — move us forward with a critical optimism rooted in both the real struggles of our past and our present, but also a futurism grounded in the belief that we have the power to not only imagine but also harvest a tomorrow that is brighter than today. "Here's To Life with Tori Reid" podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and Stitcher. Dispatches from the Vanguard: The Global International African Arts Movement Versus Donald J. Trump, by Patrick A. Howell. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

In the previous episode, Lisa D. Gray, the founder and curator of Our Voices Our Stories SF, joined me to interrogate the publishing industry's white gaze. In today's episode, we discuss how we can protest the industry, and other institutions, and how we can gain power and find power in our everyday lives to dismantle and rebuild the world anew, even when under the yoke of systems of oppression like racism. We ended the first part of our conversation in the last episode on how poets are the soul of our societies, and that fascist regimes tend to come for the poets first because they are the truth-tellers. Here's the second part of our conversation, where we discuss how our existence is resistance, and how sharing our personal stories in a variety of ways are forms of strike, are forms of individual and collective protest. Consider this our protest against the publishing industry's white gaze. This 2-part conversation is part of our Deconstructing Dominant Cultures Series. In this long-form discussion we aim to disrupt the publishing industry's ‘old white boys' club, and to center, elevate, and amplify Black and other People of Color writers, especially women. As we try to impact equity in publishing and writing, one critical thing we can all do is buy and read books written by Black and other people of color. Read this editorial by Lisa D. Gray for her critique of the publishing industry and her book recommendations. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

Beware of the white gaze. In this episode, Lisa D. Gray, founder of Our Voices Our Stories SF, joins me to stare down this omnipresent white gaze, which is prevalent in every space, in every industry, in every community of this white supremacist country. In particular, we place the publishing industry in the interrogation room and make our list of demands. We discuss how we can hold those wielding power in the industry accountable when they say that publishing does not have a diversity, equity, and inclusion problem. We examine how Black and other women of color writers can be centered and seen and how we can unearth and mine underrepresented voices. We look at the policy, structural, institutional, and systemic barriers. We criticize the usual responses by the industry for why they don't tend to publish books by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. We call out the industry's performative and optical responses when dealing with diversity, equity, and inclusion. We challenge the myths forwarded by the industry about Black and brown communities, and much more. This is part 1 of a 2-part series where we aim to disrupt the publishing industry's ‘old white boys' club, and center, elevate, and amplify Black and other People of Color writers, especially women. As we try to impact equity in publishing and writing, one critical thing we can all do is buy and read books written by Black and other people of color. Read this editorial by Lisa D. Gray for her critique of the publishing industry and her book recommendations. The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/ Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights. Joe Sparkman: Twitter + Instagram. Marcus Allen: Twitter + Instagram. The Nasiona Magazine and Podcast depend on voluntary contributions from listeners like you. We hope the value of our work to our community is worth your patronage. If you like what we do, please show this by liking, rating, and reviewing us; buying or recommending our books; and by financially supporting our work either through The Nasiona's Patreon page or through Julián Esteban Torres López's Ko-Fi donation platform. Every little bit helps. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your support.

On 8 March 2019, The Nasiona‘s co-Founder, Julián Esteban Torres López, was the keynote speaker at “Cruzando Fronteras”—an event on immigration and border crossing, hosted by Central Americans for Empowerment (CAFÉ) at California State University, Chico. Julián's speech tackled the role of storytelling as a tool of empowerment that can disrupt the status quo, confront caricatures, change politics by first changing culture, and help shape new paradigms. "Cruzando Fronteras" was an event that hoped to provide a safe space to talk about the seeking of refuge and the many harsh trials and tribulations that our families have gone through, in order to inform others and each other on why anyone would want to take on the treacherous task of crossing (multiple) borders. CAFÉ wanted to provide these perspectives in an effort to better understand different experiences of struggle. Because more than that, it's about one being able to persevere, about crossing that border, that boundary, in your own limitations and overcoming what has personally kept you back. On this episode, we showcase the following four poets out of dozens who took the stage during the “Cruzando Fronteras” event to share their personal stories: Alondra Adame, Eva Gonzalez, Gustavo Martir, and Diana Castellanos. Then, Julián shares his keynote speech, entitled, "To the Border Crossers: It's Time to Start Biting Their Tongues Instead of Ours." The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Our theme song is “Lat Dior” by Abdoulaye Mboup. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

In this in-depth interview with Yaldaz Sadakova—creator of Foreignish.net and author of The Wrong Passport: Memoir Stories About Immigration—we unpack the dreaded question "Where are you from?", its limitations, how it's a micro-aggression, and a better question to ask; Yaldaz speaks to how she found new emotional and intellectual anchors after leaving her birth country and how she found her creative voice in a foreign land; her feelings of shame and distress about forgetting her mother tongue; becoming estranged from her Turkish Muslim heritage; we interrogate our hesitation to correct people when they mispronounce our names; she elaborates as to why she's convinced borders are a form of injustice; and much more. This episode was edited and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

Nasiona podcast producers and editors Aïcha Martine Thiam, Nicole Zelniker, and Julián Esteban Torres López explore why it's so difficult to discuss race, how race differs in different countries, race in publishing, share personal anecdotes, and give our take on Jordan Peele's "documentary" Get Out. The podcast series is the companion to Zelniker's book, Mixed, published by The Nasiona and available in paperback on Amazon, on Amazon Kindle and on Barnes and Noble's website. In both the book and the podcast series, Zelniker spoke to dozens of mixed-race families and individuals, as well as experts in the field about their own experiences, with the hope to fill a gap in the very important conversation about race in the US today. We shared with you discussions regarding relationships, adoption, education, parenting, disability inclusion, activism, intersectionality, family, passing as white, among other topics. Last October, Aïcha, Nicole, and Julián had a post-production conversation about the podcast series: what hit home for us, what we learned, and what surprised us. Today's episode is that conversation. This episode was edited and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

My guest today is the founder of Tono Latino, Sylvia Salazar. Sylvia is a Colombian immigrant and a computer engineer turned political activist. Her passion is helping other people understand what is going on in the world of politics and to encourage them to become more politically involved and vote. She is determined to change Latino representation in politics and in media. Tono Latino is a progressive platform that informs and educates Latinos about politics in the United States and encourages them to become more involved and vote. In this interview, we explore why Sylvia felt the need to create Tono Latino in the first place, why she thinks it is important that our community gets more politically involved and the potential consequences if we do not, what she would like to see in the media to further include and better represent the Latinx community, and much more. It was a pleasure speaking with Sylvia. We bonded from the moment we first met, and not just because we are both Colombian compatriots. Her passion is palpable, her knowledge is deep, and her do-it-yourself ethic and sense of social responsibility are admirable and inspiring. You can follow Tono Latino on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. This episode was edited and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

Chicago-based filmmaker Colette Ghunim's passion lies at the cross-section of social impact and visual storytelling. Her first documentary, The People's Girls, received worldwide attention for its bold spotlight on Egypt's issue of sexual harassment. With recognition by major international outlets, The People's Girls trailer enticed over 2 million views. Colette is currently working on Traces of Home, her first feature-length film documenting her journey back to Mexico and Palestine to locate her parents' original homes, which they were forced to leave decades ago. She is also the co-founder of Mezcla Media Collective, a nonprofit organization to support women of color in film in Chicago. Colette strives to be a change-maker for communities worldwide, documenting powerful stories of individuals that often go unnoticed. Filmmaker Colette Ghunim on her first feature-length documentary: "Traces of Home tells the story of what happens when we as first-generation Americans go back to our roots to find out how where we come from shapes our identity. Through Traces of Home, I am telling my own personal story. I'm half Mexican and half Palestinian and both my parents were forced to leave their homes as children, and they both never returned since then. So through my film, we're going back to Mexico and Palestine to try to find the original houses and to talk about why people are leaving and immigrating and why refugees are leaving as well, during a time when we need to hear it the most." You can follow the Traces of Home project on Facebook and Instagram. This episode was edited and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

When Irma Herrera gives her name its correct Spanish pronunciation, some people assume she's not a real American. Her play, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name?, is one woman's journey from a small segregated South Texas town to California's multicultural mecca.  In this wide-ranging interview we explored many topics, such as the difficulty to access safe spaces for those of us deemed second-class citizens, her Chicana identity, colorism and racism, linguistic isolation, cultural hybridity, internal refugees in the United States, class migration, how her play is relevant to our current socio-political and cultural climate, and we glimpsed into the many reincarnations of Irma—lawyer, director of a social justice organization, journalist, playwright, and more. For those of you interested in seeing Irma's play live and you happen to be around San Jose, California, on November 15th and 16th, prepare your Sunday's best to attend her critically acclaimed show at MACLA (Movimiento de Cultura y Arte Latino Americana) in downtown San Jose. Click HERE for ticket information. MACLA 510 South 1st Street, San Jose, CA This episode was edited and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

Most people know about Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 landmark case that integrated US schools for the first time. What many people don't realize—especially if they've been brought up in very white communities—is that race is still a contentious topic in education. In fact, we're more segregated today than we were in the late 1960s, according to The Atlantic, PolitiFact, Vox, and others, but most people wouldn't know that from their high school history classes. Race is still something we don't teach in school unless it's firmly placed in the past, like the trans-Atlantic slave trade or the Civil Rights Movement. When race is taught, it's contained, like in an African American literature course or a class on the history of Japanese American internment. Going against the grain, both James Shields from Guilford College and Sean Frederick Forbes (listen to episode 16) from the University of Connecticut teach about race, just in very different ways. Historian James Shields has worked in the Bonner Center for Community Learning, a community service scholarship program, since 2001. Our interviewer, Nicole Zelniker, was a Bonner Scholar at Guilford from 2013 to 2017. During James's tenure as director, the center has been nationally recognized for its innovative community service programs. He's a sought-after speaker on anti-racism, community engagement, and Underground Railroad history. Here he is, discussing his experience teaching race in higher education. This episode was produced by Julián Esteban Torres López, Aïcha Martine Thiam, and Nicole Zelniker. Check out our Being Mixed-Race series, inspired by Nicole Zelniker's book, Mixed. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

Most TV and movies portray adoption as a white parent adopting a child. This is true in such mainstream shows as Friends, Glee, 90210, Modern Family, Sex and The City, Grey's Anatomy, and Parenthood. This representation is often how people think of adoption, something that can get frustrating for Nishta J. Mehra, an Indian woman with a white wife and black adopted child. As a child, Nishta grew up as one of the only Indian children in a predominantly white neighborhood, something she talks about in her book, Brown White Black. Now, she's writing about her own experiences, both as a first-generation Indian-American and as part of a larger multiracial family. Nishta J. Mehra is the proud first-generation daughter of Indian immigrants and the author of two essay collections: The Pomegranate King and Brown White Black. Mehra currently lives with her wife, Jill, and their seven-year-old, Shiv, in Phoenix, Arizona. This episode was produced by Julián Esteban Torres López, Aïcha Martine Thiam, and Nicole Zelniker. Check out our Being Mixed-Race series, inspired by Nicole Zelniker's book, Mixed. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

Minimalism is intentionally living with only the things you really need. Minimalists maintain that there are benefits to minimalist living, like reduced anxiety, lower expenses, increased productivity, and living a more fulfilling life. But not all minimalists go so far as to reduce their possessions to live out of a van ... for years ... intentionally. My guest today is author David Soto Jr. and he is (or maybe was) one of these van life minimalists.  David is a retired U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant who didn't realize until reaching his forties that he was a writer. He has contributed to The Good Men Project, Task & Purpose, and Your Tango. His debut novella, "Los Chocolates de Esperanza Diamanté," has changed the course of his writing career, sparking a series of follow up books based on the characters he created.  In a future episode we will discuss his literary pursuits, but today we focus on David's extraordinary life to get a better glimpse into the world of minimalism. Is it really as great as some claim it to be? How do van life minimalists, for example, deal with boredom and the potential demons that will inevitably haunt you as you spend hours and hours a day in silence with your own thoughts? How does one become a minimalist? And what kind of person becomes one? David and spoke to us back in July, and today we share that conversation. Join us as we explore van life minimalism. This episode was produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

In addition to being multiracial, many mixed-race Americans are also multicultural. For example, in The Nasiona's book Mixed, Nicole Zelniker wrote about Kazu and Lynda Gomi. Kazu is Japanese, from Japan, and Lynda is a white US American. Naomi Raquel Enright is one such person, and she writes about her own experience with race and racism in her book, Strength of Soul. Interwoven with her own story of being born to a Jewish American father and an Ecuadorian mother in La Paz, Bolivia, Naomi also proposes her own strategies for how to fight racism and introduces readers to what it is that exacerbates systemic racism in the US. Naomi Raquel Enright is a native English and Spanish speaker and was raised in New York City. She has published several short essays, has a blog where she writes about race, and published her book, Strength of Soul, in 2019. She resides with her family in Brooklyn, New York. This episode was produced by Julián Esteban Torres López, Aïcha Martine Thiam, and Nicole Zelniker. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/

Publishing has a race problem. Entertainment Weekly reported that only 7.8% of romance authors using a traditional publisher were people of color in 2016. For that same year, NPR found that only 22% of all characters in children's books were characters of color. This, in a country where people of color are expected to make up more than half of the population by 2044 according to The Center for American Progress. For this reason, writers like Anika Fajardo, who is Colombian and white, and F. Douglas Brown, who is African American and Filipino, are more important than ever. Both were contributors to The Beiging of America, mentioned in our last episode. F. Douglas Brown an author and educator who currently teaches English and African American Poetry at Loyola High School of Los Angeles. He is co-founder and curator of un::fade::able - The Requiem for Sandra Bland, a quarterly reading series examining restorative justice through poetry as a means to address racism. Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. She is the author of Magical Realism for Non-Believers, about discovering her Colombian father and Colombian culture. Her first novel, What If a Fish, will tackle very similar themes. This episode was produced by Julián Esteban Torres López, Aïcha Martine Thiam, and Nicole Zelniker. Please follow The Nasiona on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for regular updates: @TheNasiona https://thenasiona.com/